Translatorischer Spielräum und Comic - das Beispiel der Disney-Geschichten

The interaction of image and text is the most typical feature of comics. The translation of such a complex multimodal system implies not only an interlinguistic replacement of verbal signs but primarily an intersemiotic interpretation of the visual code, also considering that words are not only to be read, but first of all to be observed (i.e. onomatopoeia). Furthermore, the translation involves different cultural traditions and conventions in the use of symbols, typographic signs etc. This paper examines some examples of German translations of American Disney Comics (ca. 215 eight-pages stories and ca. 200 one-page comic strips) published between 1951 and the mid-1970s and aims to show how images (and other non-verbal signs) are involved in the translation process as well as the relation between image and text, which may change according to the translation strategies in order to reproduce the original mood or create new visual puns.