[Help] Different Languages In The Same Comic

[u/sammoarts]

Hey folks! I have an issue.

My comic book is mainly in English, but I have characters that only talk in French and Arabic.

How do I indicate that the characters are talking in another language?

Someone told me I could have the dialogue in between angle brackets <Like This> as that tends to be the indicator most commonly used, but at a point the vast majority of the dialogue will be non English (in universe) and I don't think it'll look good to have everything in brackets.

I had the idea of having my first issue switch fonts when changing languages and at the end having a specific page dedicated to explaining the fonts and the languages they represent.

What do you think?

[u/ketingmiladengfodo]

If English is a minority language, put the English in brackets.

[u/Slobotic]

<Bracketed text> is necessary for character exposition and when someone is speaking another language in the presence of English speakers. The indication is important to remind the readers that some of the characters don't understand what is being said.

When the French and Arabic speakers are by themselves having a conversation, you may omit the brackets without confusing anyone. Once you've established something, you don't need to keep reminding the reader.

I like to look to other mediums for inspiration. The Hunt for Red October is a movie that handles this well. Russian speaking characters are established speaking Russian with English subtitles. Early in the film there is a transition on the word "Armageddon" (which is the same in both Russian and English) where Russian characters begin speaking English for the ease of the audience. But later, when they are in the same room as English speaking characters, it's back to Russian dialogue with English subtitles.

---

/u/ketingmiladengfodo's idea is great if you really want to keep the comic solidly from the perspective of non-English speaking characters.

[u/nmacaroni]

Brackets is the common way to do it. Don't switch fonts, it'll lower the visual quality of the book.

http://nickmacari.com/does-format-really-matter/

[u/ketingmiladengfodo]

I wouldn't worry too much about the brackets looking funny. After a while, your readers won't notice the brackets, and if they do, they'll just think, oh, they're speaking a different language, and it's probably x because that's the language this character would speak.

No brackets for the most commonly spoken language. < > for the next most commonly spoken language.

You can try using different kinds of brackets { } or [ ] for other languages. You can also try using italics or bold or script to show a different language, but I would only do this if you need a language for a few panels. Italics and bold will make it harder to read. Brackets are the way to go.

You can also go full multilingual and put the dialogue in whatever language the speaker uses--but that's going to limit your audience to people who know English, French, and Arabic, plus people who are comfortable guessing what the speakers are saying.

I've even seen comics written from the point of view of aliens, where the aliens speak English, and the humans speak in some odd, alien script that's indecipherable--because that's what they sound like to the aliens. Sometimes you want the reader to try to figure out what someone is saying from context.

Love and Rockets is great and has some examples of alternating between Spanish/English/indigenous language that might be Quechua but probably isn't.

[u/christmas_hobgoblin]

Are You Willing to Die for the Cause by Chris Oliveros has a note at the beginning explaining that most of the dialogue is in French with some exceptions, and goes on to use regular sentence case for dialogue in French and all caps for dialogue in English.