Comics and the graphic novel

The eighth entry is l’onomatopée, and it is the one item on this list that cannot be translated at all — it has to be replaced. Both languages like to think their noise words simply copy the noise, and neither behaves that way. A door in an English comic goes « bang », a blow lands as « wham » or « thud », somebody hurt says « ouch », a knock at the door is « knock knock », and the dog says « woof ». French has settled on a different set, and it is just as fixed: a blow is paf or vlan, an explosion boum, something breaking crac, pain aïe, a knock toc toc, and the dog says ouah ouah. Each set obeys the sound rules of the language that made it, which is exactly why aïe could not be English and « ouch » could not be French. For anybody reading a translated page the consequence is practical and expensive: the noise is drawn rather than typed, so replacing it means redrawing it, and an English noise left standing in a French panel reads as a foreign object rather than as a sound.