Humor in Translated Cartoons and Comics

Cartoons and comics are often closely associated with humour. However, while most cartoons are certainly humorous, humour is not a defining feature of comics at large. The word ‘comics’ can in fact be considered a misnomer (Eisner 2004: 16) since as Heer and Worcester (2009: XIII) argue, ‘[t]he term suggests a humorous intent that is inconsistent with the actual content of many, perhaps most, comic strips, comic books and graphic novels.’ So, while many comics genres exist which are not humorous at all (Zanettin 2008a), humour cuts across formats and genres in comics as in written texts and cinema. In what follows, I will make a distinction between the translation of humour in cartoons and the translation of humour in comic strips and comic books, highlighting differences and similarities