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Murder Most Graphic

14 Jan 09 11:37AM

Agatha Christie has always been very popular in France. I worry sometimes that maybe the French must think that the English all live in sleepy villages secretly plotting to kill one other and then relying on faintly absurd foreigners to do our detective work for us. But the Gallic passion for Agatha Christie has over the years translated itself – if you forgive the pun – into an array of imaginative ways of publishing and re-publishing Agatha’s books, from omnibuses and editions for younger readers to potentially one of the most controversial – the bande dessinée, or what Wikipedia describes as the ‘Franco-Belgian comic book’.

Indeed, when first proposed to Agatha Christie’s estate by the original publisher Claude LeFrancq back in 1994, the agent was fearing a swift and predictably painful response regarding the pile of sample artworks that had been assembled for Rosalind Hicks, given that such a radical new initiative would have to be approved by Agatha’s elderly daughter. Surely she was not someone who would understand the appeal of the graphic novel? But it was to his surprise, and Rosalind’s credit, that she said she rather liked them and looked forward to seeing the comic books in print.

Though in France and Belgium the bande dessinée had already become so established that most bookshops had a section proudly displaying these books, sadly very few of them apart from Tintin and Asterix have ever survived the dangerous journey across the sea to Britain – so even with Rosalind’s blessing, it was to be some years before anyone in the UK would look at publishing them here.

A decade later, and although the traditional European comic book was still very poorly represented, by 2006 the growth of Japanese Manga and the ‘trade paperback’ version of American comic books had resulted in many major British bookshops now stocking comic books, and with a new venture in India also interested in selling them, we agreed that it was finally time to start publishing the comics in English.

Have you ever played that game of putting a piece of English through a translator and then translating it back again? Suffice to say, the first attempts to turn the bandes dessinées into English were a disaster! Though some passages turned out fine, most of Agatha’s usually very accomplished dialogue had become unnaturally stilted and certainly nothing like the books. And so we realised that the only way to do this effectively was to dig into the novels to reinstate the original passages that the double translation process had all but destroyed. In restoring Agatha’s turns of phrase to the books rather than approaching them as slavish translations, they began to feel like authentic adaptations. How much dialogue each character can have is always dependent on the size of the original speech bubble, and a ten-word sentence in French can become five or fifteen words in English, so we often have to edit creatively and also be led by the pictures – if the artist has drawn a brick being thrown through a window, you can’t call it a rock, whatever Agatha first called it. And the comic books have so far been very successful – even though many bookshops don’t really know whereabouts to display them: Crime? Children’s? SF and Fantasy? (Of course – with the other graphic novels!) With eight published in 2007 and another six in 2008, we have now caught up with the French publisher and are looking ahead to releasing books in 2009 and 2010 almost simultaneously with the French publisher, Emmanuel Proust, who has now commissioned a number of well-known artists, some new to the range, to continue the programme.

But before the new ones arrive (starting in the summer with Cards on the Table and Dumb Witness – you heard it here first!), we are at last publishing one of the first titles the French publisher released, Dix Petits Nègres or, as we now know it, And Then Then Were None. Now that the official English version of the novel contains the rhyme ‘Ten Little Soldier Boys’, while the French artwork from 1996 depicts little negro caricatures, we feared we might end up fighting a rearguard action against the tabloid press in the way the publishers Egmont were forced to over last year’s Tintin in the Congo racism ‘scandal’.

Thanks to the co-operation of Emmanuel Proust, the artist Frank Leclercq has skilfully redrawn for us 27 separate panels of artwork with little Grenadier guardsmen, and the new edition in May 2009 will finally make available Agatha Christie’s most successful book as a comic strip. Younger readers probably won’t even recognise that Judge Wargrave has been modelled rather brilliantly on Vincent Price (who?) – they’ll be too busy enjoying the copious amounts of red ink that have been used in the making of this particular edition!

David Brawn

Publishing Director, HarperFiction

7 comments

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7 comments

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BeatriceTaylor 12 May 09 at 12:16a.m.

I absolutely love Agatha Christie. We are reading and then there were none in my Lit. class, and I decided to read ahead because I was so engrossed in the story. I was very excited to see who the murderer was, until I got to the last page. It ended just as the detectives were asking themselves Who did it? I thought that I must have missed something because I had no idea either, until I noticed that the last eight pages were ripped out. Apparently, my teacher ripped the endings out of all of the books,and got all copies off of the school and public library shelves. If she really thinks that this will deter kids from finding out the ending, than she has thoroughly underestimated our generation. The internet has a range of Christie sites happy to provide us with the ending due to us.

dey_prasun 21 Feb 09 at 5:39a.m.

Hi to all.I am a die hard Agatha Christie fan.It is very pleasing to hear that,ITV network will make 8 films on Christie's book.My suggestion is that please make a film on Curtain:Poirot's Last case.

detectivepauljohn 06 Feb 09 at 9:31a.m.

My favorite author is Agatha Christie. I love Agatha
Christie's works. My favorite book by Agatha Christie is Evil Under the Sun because the ending was very shocking and surprising! People who loves Agatha Christie shall really read this book and I recommend this book to everyone. I have also other 5 Hercule Poirot books, 1 Jane Marple and one And Then There Were None and all are really amazing!

And I'm starting to collect her books.

rpm10696 01 Feb 09 at 1:22p.m.

Agatha Christie is a rwally great author! I could not put the book down. Because it was better then anything I have ever read and i have read tons of books for being only thirteen. I have only read one book A Murder is Announced. It was the best thing I have ever read. If any of you have never read that book thn I would go read it today. It is full of suspense which kills me.

Very good Book all in all!

RebeccaM 19 Jan 09 at 9:43a.m.

On the subject of France and Mrs Christie, I was recently sent an English translation of a book by Pierre Bayard: "Who killed Roger Ackroyd" (orginally: "Qui a tue Roger Ackroyd", Editions de Minuit, 1998). It's a psychological analysis of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", which concludes that the murderer was not who Poirot thought (outrage!) and that Mrs Christie got it wrong (further outrage!). Nevertheless his analysis of the techniques she brilliantly employs to delude readers (in general, not just in 'Ackroyd') is v interesting - though I don't think he's the first to look at that.

Madeleinn 16 Jan 09 at 7:27p.m.

hello. I'm also a fan of AC and I would also like to know if a site in Spanish, is that I'm from Argentina ... but if it is not so famous here ... but people who read it, know it is great and does not compare.
Greetings

saruska 16 Jan 09 at 3:57p.m.

Hello! I really love this website because I'm a great fan of her. Actually I can't avoid to comment, reading this article, that she is very famous also in Spain. I'm spanish and I'd like to know if there is one spanish official Agatha Christie's site. If not, why not to go further and make it? =)
Thank you very much!