Welcome to another installment of Lit Starter! This is a regular look at some of my favorite projects discovered through two popular crowd funding websites: Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The featured projects will be related to literature and comics, but not limited to publishing or writing projects.
This week, we're featuring The Leaning Girl Translated Graphic Novel Project by Steve Smith of Alaxis Press. There is a French graphic novel series entitled The Obscure Cities that began in the late 1980s and continues today. Only five books in the series have been translated into English, but the translations stopped after 2002. As a fan of the series Steve Smith wanted to see all of the graphic novels translated into English and published.
Smith is asking for $30,000 in order to cover the production costs of the first book, The Leaning Girl. Smith has been involved in the publishing industry for over 30 years and has done his homework. The same company that produces the European editions has been hired to produce the English editions for this project. Smith has purchased the rights, paid publishing advances, and received blessings from the creators -- the artist, François Schuiten, and writer, Benoît Peeters. Smith has already completed the translation himself.
What drew me to the project wasn't just Smith's passion for making The Obscure Cities available to English-speaking audiences, or the promise of beautiful artwork and an intriguing story, but the involvement from the original creators. They're featured in the Kickstarter video and create a more dynamic view of what the project is and what it aims to do. It's clear that the relationship between Smith, Schuiten, and Peeters is a close one and an integral part of why this Kickstarter will be a success.
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| From left to right, François Schuiten, Steve Smith, and Benoît Peeters, posing for a picture in La Grande-Place de Bruxelles. |
Photo credit: Steve Smith.
1 comment:
Nice! I went to a comic museum in Brussels, but all the comics were in French of course >_< but there are some that I would like to see translated! :)
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