From: Britta Madeleine Woitschig
Sent: Tue 2/24/09 10:18 AM
To: me

Dear Pam,

when I awoke this morning, I had an idea.

There are some historical comic book series in Europe, especially France - i don't know, if you have heard about them. The most famous is "Asterix", written firstly by René Goscinny, and drawn by Albert Uderzo, who is responsible for the series after Goscinnys death in the late 1970s. There are more than 30 volumes in this series now.
The other one was created by Jacques Martin from Strasbourg. His first creation had been "Alix" in 1948. He built up a program of boy hero series before a historical setting: "Alix" is about Rome in the times of Julius Caesar, "Keos" is about Egyptians and Jews in the era of the Pharaos and Mose, "Xan" (later "Jhen" is about the late Middle Ages, "Lois" is about a painter at the court of the Roi du Soleil, Louis XVI ... and "Orion" is about a Greek boy at the era of Socrate - so the concept of "Orion" is close of your "House of the Muses: The Latter Days of Sappho of Lesbos".....

...
Both series are escorted by a broad list of documentational books that popularize the background. "Alix" and "Asterix" are also both available in Latin.

The national comicdoms in Europe are very confined to themselves, therefore you need something special to attract people who don't read comics anyway - and you got it: the historical background of your series.

My first suggestion: Make a version of "The Seven Muses of the Boat-Making District" with the original text in Ancient Greek, please, und publish it on your page. By this strategy you will get attention from people, who are primarily interested in Ancient History, Philosophy and Literature - and then you should publish an version of "The House of the Muses" in Ancient Greek. This way you will nourish media like "The Village Voice" outside the seqential art circus. If you will be published and discussed with the Ancient Greek version of "The Seven Muses ..." in professional journals of scholars, then you will break free.

I will look out for Ancient Greek translators in Europe as well as somebody who will translate "House of the Muses" into German ...

More at Wednesday or Thursday.
Best for you, herzliche Grüße

Britta Madeleine


Britta,

I needed a couple of hours to think over this last email from you. I'd be willing to consider translating House of the Muses into Modern Greek, but I'm not sure about translating my series into Ancient Greek, and I'll tell you why.
The very thing that has made my series so popular is that I took a scholarly topic and gave it back to the people in a format they could understand, and even better, get excited about.
Yes, I am very familiar with the Asterix series, in fact I have several issues of it...in German. My partner and her mother are German, so I'm familiar with a lot of those books, and I'm not too worried about finding a German translator on my end.
What I remember most about reading those Asterix comics, even though I wasn't very good at reading German at the time, was that the series took a period out of history, and made it exciting and fun. I have managed to do that with this series of mine...and at times I have upset my readers, because I have created characters that they care very much about, and I never want to lose sight of that.
I will consider doing a version of "The Seven Muses of the Boat-Making District" in ancient Greek, just for fun. It may well get much excitement from the literary world. But it will be entirely lost on my readers, some of whom have rediscovered the joy of reading history for the first time in years.

--
-- * Pam Harrison *
http://houseofthemuses.com/ *************
"When Destiny fails you, make your own path."
http://user.drunkduck.com/houseofmuses/


Those of you who drop in to read, let me know if you think my answer was right, or wrong, and why.

asterix is like the europian version of micky mouse. even i remeber the series.

So, yeah, ghostrunner...they're comparing me to some heavy hitters, some very popular artists.
Do I need to target this series to a literary audience? Would they buy it?

Great page!love the Lighting
10+++

Paul!

Let's try this again in the afternoon when everybody's awake.....> Although I've pretty much got my mind made up....

Dear HOM,
Hello Pam, I am glad you are getting even more intrest from other sources. To answer your question; I feel mostly like you do. To publish in Achient Greek would knock out those of us who don't read Achient Greek from your audience here in the U.S.A.
Tommym//Tammy

Hey cool comic. I heard you on the Villian's Corner. It sounds like you really put alot into your work. I love today's page. Nice and gorey, LOL. Hey check out my comic WarriorBorn. Let me know what you think. BTW, how did you get that twitter thing on your site. I want that, LOL. I just joined twitter, and have no idea what to do with it, LOL.

CyberDog

I'll put up a Twitter tutorial on DD this weekend.

heh, sorry its taken me a while to get back. i would say do it. its better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all

Britta and I have discussed it, and she agrees with me that it's much better to keep the series mainstream.

Just droppin' by to say I seen today's page.

Thanks, CyberDog!

Getting back to the topic of translations...if there's any Greek version of House of the Muses to be done, I asked our own Tantz Aerine to keep her options open.
She hasn't accepted, but it's out there. XD

Dear Pam,
Well I guess this is it. I will be with you as best I can. Witch means I will Be with You and Sappho Period! for as long as we are still around
Tammy