Multimodality, translation and comics

Although several noteworthy studies concerning the translation of comic books have been published to date (notably Kaindl, 1999;Zanettin, 2008), it still remains an under-investigated topic within Translation Studies.The present article adopts a multimodal perspective on the translation of comics, demonstrating how the relationship between the verbal and the visual modes may be exploited in the translation process.It focuses on the ways in which the two modes interact and contribute to the creation of meaning on a multimodal page, and on the transformations their relationship may undergo in translation.The article is illustrated with examples from a classic, Franco-Belgian comic book series, Thorgal, and the Polish translations of it.The multimodal approach to investigating translated comics may be another step towards a more complete understanding of the character of this still largely unexplored sphere of translation.