History BlindIdiotTranslation / Comicbooks

* Used for comedic effect in the original French version of ''Comicbook/{{Asterix}} in Britain'', where the British characters speak French using literal translations of English phrases, including a character saying another had gone "noix". Mostly this shows up as switching adjectives and nouns around, but also transliterating classic Britishisms like "I say", "Goodness gracious", and "Rather".

** In the Hungarian [[ComicBook/TheTransformers Marvel TF comics]], the mythic power source known as the Underbase had different names in the titles and the actual stories: Alsó Bázis (Lower Base, as if it were a place) and Alapbázis (Base-base), respectively. Characters like Wheeljack, Blaster, Powerglide or Sunstreaker also had at least two names depending on the translator.

!!Halting of Risata of (Comics)

* Remember that the first appearance of {{ComicBook/Wolverine}} was in an issue of ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk? Well, in the Norwegian translation of that comic, Wolverine is called ''Ulvemannen'', literally meaning "The Wolf Man". Clearly, the translator couldn't be bothered to look in a dictionary and check if a "wolverine" really is the animal he thought it was. Later Norwegian translators call Wolverine "Jerv", which is the correct translation of his name.

* There's a German comic called ''Wendy''. While the comic itself is forgettable (with some very [[NotBloodSiblings weird]] [[KissingCousins quirks]]), the Norwegian translation is a mild version of this. It's not gripping, it's wonky, and a bit boring so kids won't find it interesting when first reading it. To make matters worse, there is a part where a female character is acting like a jerk. They could've used words like hurpe or kjærring (hag) to describe her, but instead the word they chose for Wendy to call her out with is ''merr''. Colloquially it means "bitch", but literally it also means "mare" (female horse). What makes this a BlindIdiotTranslation is that Wendy is an [[AllGirlsLikePonies All Girls Love Horses]] comic...

* The Dutch translation of ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' gets particularly horrible somewhere around the Shards War arc: speech bubbles are aimed at the wrong characters, elves are suddenly given new names, and apparently none of the translators had read the original series at all. After five issues or so, the translation suddenly gets much better again, and a thank-you note to a Dutch BigNameFan is included on the last page.

* There's a German comic called ''Wendy''. While the comic itself is forgettable (with some very [[NotBloodSiblings weird]] [[KissingCousins quirks]]), the Norwegian translation is a mild version of this. It's not gripping, it's wonky, and a bit boring so kids won't find it interesting when first reading it. To make matters worse, there is a part where a female character is acting like a jerk. They could've used words like hurpe or kjærring (hag) to describe her, but instead the word they chose for [[TheProtagonist Wendy]] to call her out with is ''merr''. Colloquially it means "bitch", but literally it also means "mare" (female horse). What makes this a BlindIdiotTranslation is that Wendy is an [[AllGirlsLikePonies All Girls Love Horses]] comic...

* ''ComicBook/DarkEmpire'', a ''Film/StarWars'' universe comic book, was the first translated into Polish in 1997... and it painfully shows. Not only did the translator disregard anything resembling established canon in terms of Polish translation of ''Star Wars''-related terms that even existed back then, she even contridicted herself several times, [[InconsistentDub not being able to decide]] whether the word for "Empire" should be "imperium" or "cesarstwo", even though the title of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' was long established as '''''Imperium''' kontratakuje''.[[note]]Although to be clear, in Polish historiography "cesarstwo", in a way an equivalent to the German "Kaiserreich", is usually associated with political entities ruled by a crowned emperor whereas "imperium" could denote any superpower regardless of its system of government.[[/note]] To add insult to injury, the already {{Narm}}ful dialogue was made even more awkward with little to no regard for natural Polish syntax. Thankfully, a much better translation was published years later.

* ''ComicBook/{{Transformers}}'' self-proclaimed "superstar artist" Pat Lee rendered his name on an old personal website in [[GratuitousJapanese katakana]]. The problem? Rather than it being a transliteration of his name, he used a character-replacement font to replace every letter in his name with whichever katakana was under the same key. The result (from "Patrick Lee"): Michiyamenotehi Funana!
* The translation work of the ''ComicBook/{{Transformers}}'' comics from Titan Magazine in Hungary became notorious for its memorable and nonsensical solutions, such as translating "Not on my watch" as "Not upon my wristwatch". The publisher even turned down an offer from the fans when they tried to help out the translators.

* The Italian translation of the comic included with [[WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated Jetfire and Jetstorm's action figures]][[note]]known as "Rise of Safeguard", but retitled "First (and Second) in Flight" in the paperback collecting the whole ''The Arrival'' comic series[[/note]] makes two big errors. First, it translates Sentinel Prime as "Prime the Sentinel", then a line that originally says "Are you demoting me to drill sergeant?" becomes "Do you mean I'm back to teaching sergeants how to do their job?"

* One issue of ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' comics has a French taximan say "Coup moi" to Bart. A caption indicates that "Coup moi" is supposed to be a translation of "Bite me". There are three problems here: 1) "Coup" is not a verb, it actually means "a blow" (as in "a blow to the face"); 2) "Bite me" would be translated literally as "Mords moi" (verb "mordre", second-person singular present imperative tense); 3) "Mords moi" actually does not mean the same thing as "bite me" at all. (Given what it literally translates to, the writer might have been aiming for something more like "blow me", in which case it should have been something like "suce ma bite".) Since the purpose of this particular comic is to mock [[AcceptableTargets French people]], the author could have at least tried to write a correct two-word sentence in their language.

* The title of the graphic novel ''A History of Violence'' (as well as [[Film/AHistoryOfViolence its film adaptation]]) was translated in Spain as ''Una historia de violencia''. In Spanish the word ''historia'' means both "history" as in the study of the past, and ''story'' as in tale, but not ''history'' as in personal record, so the title's meaning becomes the rather generic "A Story of Violence". An accurate Spanish translation to convey the intended original meaning would be "Un historial de violencia".

* ''ComicBook/{{Transformers}}'' self-proclaimed "superstar artist" Pat Lee rendered his name on an old personal website in [[GratuitousJapanese katakana]]. The problem? Rather than it being a transliteration of his name, he used a character-replacement font to replace every letter in his name with whichever katakana was under the same key. The result: Michiyamenotehi Funana!

* Used for comedic effect in the original French version of ''Comicbook/{{Asterix}} in Britain'', where the British characters speak French using literal translations of English phrases, including a character saying another had gone "noix".

* ''ComicBook/{{Arawn}}'': The English translation of the comic is rather crude, especially when it comes to missing articles ("a", "the").

* It's unclear exactly who Marvel goes to for their Arabic, but they're clearly being paid too much. Apocalypse was born in the Ancient Middle East and given an Arabic name that Marvel wanted to mean "The First One". What they used is "En Sabah Nur", which is a mixed up version of "Sabah En-Nur". "Sabah En-Nur" literally means "morning of light" and is the standard response to the phrase "Sabah Al-Khayr", or "good morning". Even worse, the "En" is really a part of the word "Nur", and it's gibberish on its own. The name effectively means nothing.

* ''ComicBook/DarkEmpire'', a ''Film/StarWars'' universe comic book, was the first translated into Polish in 1997... and it painfully shows. Not only did the translator disregard anything resembling established canon in terms of Polish translation of ''Star Wars''-related terms that even existed back then, she even contridicted herself several times, [[InconsistentDub not being able to decide]] whether the word for "Empire" should be "imperium" or "cesarstwo", even though the title of ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' was long established as '''''Imperium''' kontratakuje''.[[note]]Although to be clear, in Polish historiography "cesarstwo", in a way an equivalent to the German "Kaiserreich", is usually associated with political entities ruled by a crowned emperor whereas "imperium" could denote any superpower regardless of its system of government.[[/note]] To add insult to injury, the already {{Narm}}ful dialogue was made even more awkward with little to no regard for natural Polish syntax. Thankfully, a much better translation was published years later.

* ''ComicBook/DarkEmpire'', a ''Film/StarWars'' universe comic book, was the first translated into Polish in 1997... and it painfully shows. Not only did the translator disregard anything resembling established canon in terms of Polish translation of ''Star Wars''-related terms that even existed back then, she even contridicted herself several times, [[InconsistentDub not being able to decide]] whether the word for "Empire" should be "imperium" or "cesarstwo", even though the title of Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack was long established as '''''Imperium''' kontratakuje''.[[note]]Although to be clear, in Polish historiography "cesarstwo", in a way an equivalent to the German "Kaiserreich", is usually associated with political entities ruled by a crowned emperor whereas "imperium" could denote any superpower regardless of its system of government.[[/note]] To add insult to injury, the already {{Narm}}ful cropped dialogue were made even more awkward with little to no regard for natural Polish syntax. Thankfully, a much better translation was published years later.

* ''ComicBook/DarkEmpire'', a ''Film/StarWars'' universe comic book, was the first ever translated into Polish from that particular franchise, more specifically in 1997... and it painfully shows. Not only did the translator disregard anything resembling established canon in terms of Polish translation of ''Star Wars''-related terms that did exist even back then, she even went to some extra effort to actually contradict herself on more than a few occasions, not even being able to decide whether the word for "Empire" should be "Imperium" or "Cesarstwo", even though the title of one of the very movies was long established as '''''Imperium''' kontratakuje''.[[note]]Although to be perfectly accurate, in Polish historiography "cesarstwo", in a way an equivalent of the German "Kaiserreich", is usually associated with political entities ruled by a crowned emperor whereas "imperium" could denote any superpower regardless of its system of government.[[/note]] To add insult to injury, the already {{Narm}} cropped dialogues were made even more awkward with little to no regard for natural Polish syntax. Hopefully, years later another, much improved translation-wise version was published.

* Used for comedic effect in the original French version of ''Comicbook/{{Asterix}} in Britain'', where the British characters speak French using literal translations of English phrases, including a character saying another had gone "noix".

* The English translation of the first volume of ''Dungeon'' translates Main Gauche as "left hand." Although this ''is'' the literal French meaning of Main Gauche, in context, it's quite obviously referring to a knife or dagger wielded in the off hand. It shouldn't really be translated anyway, since it's also the English term for such a blade anyway.

* ''LightNovel/DirtyPair: Run from the Future'' attempts a BilingualBonus, but ends up making several linguistic errors, one of which is [[{{Narm}} hilarious]]. One of the criminals Kei and Yuri have been assigned to arrest is Jeannot Delagauchetière, who speaks (what is apparently intended to be) Québécois French. After putting restraints on him, Kei is about to say what he's under arrest for, when he somehow causes Kei's holo-camouflage to deactivate, and reveals that he has several heavy assault mecha under his control. He introduces these mecha by saying "Dis 'Allô' à mes p'tits amis". This literally means "[[Film/{{Scarface 1983}} Say hello to my little friends]]"; the problem is, it has the idiomatic meaning of "Say hello to my '''boyfriends'''". Oops! (Another problem is that "allô" is usually only used when answering a telephone call, and "bonjour" would have been the correct choice in this context.)

* There's a German comic called ''Wendy''. While the comic itself is SoOkayItsAverage (but with some very [[NotBloodSiblings weird]] [[KissingCousins quirks]]), the Norwegian translation is a mild version of this. It's not gripping, it's wonky, and a bit boring so kids won't find it interesting when first reading it. To make matters worse is there a bitch and while they could've used words as hurpe or kjærring (hag), but they chose the word for [[TheProtagonist Wendy]] to call her out on it is 'merr'' while truly being the Norwegian equalent of 'bitch' does it mean mare, the female horse. What makes this a BlindIdiotTranslation is that Wendy is an [[AllGirlsLikePonies All Girls Love Horses]] comic...

* The Dutch translation of ''ComicBook/ElfQuest'' got particularly horrible somewhere around the Shards War arc: speech bubbles were aimed at the wrong characters, elves were suddenly given new names, and apparently none of the translators had read the original series at all. After five issues or so, the translation suddenly got much better again, and a thank-you note to a Dutch BNF was included on the last page.
* ''LightNovel/DirtyPair: Run from the Future'' attempted a BilingualBonus, but ended up making several linguistic errors, one of which is [[{{Narm}} hilarious]]. One of the criminals Kei and Yuri have been assigned to arrest is "Jeannot Delagauchetière", who speaks (what is apparently intended to be) Québécois French. After putting restraints on him, Kei is about to say what he's under arrest for, when he somehow causes Kei's holo-camouflage to deactivate, and reveals that he has several heavy assault mecha under his control. He introduces these mecha by saying "Dis 'Allô' à mes p'tits amis". This literally means "[[Film/{{Scarface 1983}} Say hello to my little friends]]"; the problem is, it has the idiomatic meaning of "Say hello to my '''boyfriends'''". Oops! (Another problem is that "allô" is usually only used when answering a telephone call, and "bonjour" would have been the correct choice in this context.)
* DC Comics has appearently no one with actual knowledge of the German language on their payroll, since they always rely on some shitty web translator or Write-it-like-you-heard-it when some german pops up. One example is [[http://theragingfanboy.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-universal-translator-justice-league-of-america-44-june-2010/ here]].
** The same can be said for the Italian language, at least regarding the miniseries ''ComicBook/CatwomanWhenInRome'': being set in Italy, they had a few characters speaking the local language, only with various grammar errors and inserting a translated "What the hell?!" (the equivalent curse in Italian doesn't mention hell, but "dick", that can be used as cussing by itself. It's a funny language like that).

* One issue of ''ComicBook/TheSimpsons'' comics has a French taximan say "Coup moi" to Bart. A caption indicates that "Coup moi" is supposed to be a translation of "Bite me". There is 3 problems with that : 1) "Coup" is not a verb, it actually means "a blow" (as in "a blow to the face") ; 2) "Bite me" would be translated literally as "Mords moi" (verb "mordre", 2nd person of the singular of the present imperative) ; 3) "Mords moi" actually does not mean the same thing as "bite me" at all. Given that the purpose of this particular comics was to mock [[AcceptableTargets French people]], the author could have at least tried to write a correct 2-words sentence in their language.
* In the French-Canadian version of Sylvester & Tweety's comic book, "putty tat" became "zoli chat", which means "cute cat". They probably thought putty was derived from pretty instead of pussy. One can wonder why they did not use "Rominet" (from "gros minet", big pussycat), which is his name in the French version of the Looney Tunes.
* ''ComicBook/{{Transformers}}'' [[SmallNameBigEgo self-proclaimed "superstar artist"]] [[JerkAss Pat Lee]] rendered his name on an old personal website in [[GratuitousJapanese katakana]]. The problem? Rather than it being a transliteration of his name, he used a character-replacement font to replace every letter in his name with whichever katakana was under the same key. The result: Michiyamenotehi Funana!
* The translation work of the ''{{Transformers}}'' comics from Titan Magazine in Hungary became something of a RunningJoke with its memorable and nonsensical solutions, such as translating "Not on my watch" as "Not onto my wristwatch". The publisher even turned down an offer from the fans when they tried to help out the translators.
** The Italian translations have similar errors, usually mistaking a random word for a character's name. Examples include Blazemaster becoming "Bonfire" and Stratosphere being suddendly named "Groundhog".
* The Italian translation of the comic included with [[WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated Jetfire and Jetstorm action figures]][[note]]Known as "Rise of Safeguard" but retitled "First (and Second) in Flight" in the paperback collecting the whole ''The Arrival'' comic series[[/note]] makes two big errors. First it translates Sentinel Prime as "Prime the Sentinel", then a line that originally said "Are you demoting me to drill sergeant?" into "Do you mean I'm back to teach sergeants how to do their job?"
* It's unclear exactly who Marvel goes to for their Arabic, but they're clearly being paid too much. For Apocalypse's backstory, the writers had him be born in the Ancient Middle East and gave him an Arabic name that they wanted to mean "The First One". What they used was "En Sabah Nur", which is a mixed up version of "Sabah En-Nur". "Sabah En-Nur" literally means "morning of light" and is the standard response to the phrase "Sabah Al-Khayr", or "good morning". Even worse, the "En" is really a part of the word "Nur", and it's gibberish on its own. The name means nothing.

* Remember that the first appearance of {{ComicBook/Wolverine}} was in an issue of TheIncredibleHulk? Well, in the Norwegian translation of that comic, Wolverine was called ''Ulvemannen'', which literally means "The Wolf Man". Clearly, the translator couldn't even be bothered to look in a dictionary to check if a "wolverine" really is the animal he thought it was. Later Norwegian translators called Wolverine "Jerv", which is the correct translation of his name.
** Speaking of Wolverine, early French translations changed his name to Serval. A small, spotted, ''African'' feline (admittedly, the French word for wolverine is "glouton", [[AtrociousAlias literally glutton]]).
* Use for comedic effect in the original French version of ''Comicbook/{{Asterix}} in Britain'', where brits spoke French using literal translations of English phrases, including a character saying another had gone "noix".

** Speaking of Wolverine, early French translations changed his name to Serval. A small, spotted, ''African'' feline (admittedly, the French word for wolverine is "glouton", [[AtrociousAlias literally glutton]]).

* The Italian translation of the comic included with [[WesternAnimation/Transformers Animated Jetfire and Jetstorm]][[note]]Known as "Rise of Safeguard" in the pack-in version and "First (and Second) in Flight" in the retail version[[/note]] makes two big errors. First it translates Sentinel Prime as "Prime the Sentinel", then a line that originally said "Are you demoting me to drill sergeant?" into "Do you mean I'm back to teach sergeants how to do their job?"

* There's a German comic called ''Wendy''. While the comic itself is SoOkayItsAverage (but with some very [[NotBloodSiblings weird]] [[KissingCousins quirks]]), is the Norwegian translation a mild version this. It's not gripping, it's wonky, and a bit boring so kids won't find it interesting when first reading it. To make matters worse is there a bitch and while they could've used words as hurpe or kjærring (hag), but they chose the word for [[TheProtagonist Wendy]] to call her out on it is 'merr'' while truly being the Norwegian equalent of 'bitch' does it mean mare, the female horse. What makes this a BlindIdiotTranslation is that Wendy is an [[AllGirlsLikePonies All Girls Love Horses]] comic...

* The [[http://www.komiks.gildia.pl/ciekawostki/Lista_bledow_w_polskim_tlumaczeniu_Powrotu_Mrocznego_Rycerza Polish translation]] of ''TheDarkKnightReturns'' is ridiculously terrible: for example, some sentences (including plot-critical ones!) are translated into ''their exact opposites'' ("That doesn't make sense" into "That makes sense"); there are also many cases where the translator clearly misread the original (flesh/fresh, sweat/sweet).

* There's a German comic called ''Wendy''. While the comic itself is SoOkayItsAverage (but with some very [[NotBloodSiblings weird]] [[KissingCousins quirks]]), is the Norwegian translation a mild version this. It's not gripping, it's wonky, and a bit boring so kids won't find it interesting when first reading it. To make matters worse is there a bitch and while they could've used words as hurpe or kjærring (hag), but they chose the word for [[TheProtagonist Wendy]] to call her out on it is 'merr'' while truly being the Norwegian equalent of 'bitch' does it mean mare, the female horse. What makes this a BlindIdiotTranslation is that Wendy is a [[AllGirlsLikePonies All Girls Love Horses]] comic...

* There's a German comic called ''Wendy''. While the comic itself is SoOkayItsAverage (but with some very [[NotBloodSiblings weird]] [[KissingCousins quirks]]), is the Norwegian translation a mild version this. It's not gripping, it's wonky, and a bit boring so kids won't find it interesting when first reading it. To make matters worse is there a bitch and while they could've used words as hurpe or kjærring (hag), but they chose the the word [[TheProtagonist Wendy]] calls her out on it with is 'merr'' while truly being the Norwegian equalent of 'bitch' does it mean mare, the female horse. What makes this a BlindIdiotTranslation is that Wendy is a [[AllGirlsLikePonies All Girls Love Horses]] comic...