Il Re del Terrore del Fumetto Italiano: Traduzione e Commento Traduttologico di Diabolik

Abstract

Diabolik, protagonist of the homonym comic created by Angela Giussani in 1962. It’s the first Italian black comic, which immediately set off a "black" trend in Italy. In a short period of time, the circulation of Diabolik has reached a very high number, and it has been published till today. Different from the mainstream protagonists of that moment, Diabolik is not a hero, but a masked and ruthless criminal, who eliminates all obstacles to achieve his goal. The comic has been translated into different languages and published in many of European, American and African countries. This paper is divided into four chapters focusing mainly on the translation of the first issue of the comic from Italian to Chinese. The first chapter is a brief history about Italian comics. The author introduces different phases of the development of comics in chronological order starting from the second half of the nineteenth century, presenting also some important works. In the second chapter, the author makes a three-dimensional analysis of Diabolik, especially about the expression of the attitudes of Angela and her sister Luciana concerning the social problems through the protagonists, to understand the work at a deeper level. The third chapter consists in the Chinese translation of the comic keeping the graphic form of the original work unchanged. A detailed analysis of the problems encountered during the translation process and the translation strategies adopted are the main contents of the fourth chapter. Moreover, it is not possible to overlook that, as an independent art, comics have their own unique forms of expression. Therefore, a brief exposition related to the characteristics of the comics language will be also introduced in the fourth chapter. Finally, there is a bibliography at the end of this paper.