r/comicbooks • u/novostranger • 7h ago
Question Why is the distribution of translated comics so incredibly poor in Latin America?
I'm from a LATAM country and while I was inside a known bookshop from my country, I saw how many comics aren't translated to Spanish and are fully in English. Comparing that to manga, which are almost always sold fully translated in Spanish, it's awful.
I know that there are speciality comic stores, but they're often in richer areas and there aren't many. And even those have the same issue.
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u/gerardolsd Spider-Man Expert 7h ago
I don't know where you are from, but in Mexico, a pretty large imprint has the rights to both Marvel and DC books and they have the full translated catalogue of the last 10 years of comics, they put out TPBs constantly too, no single issues though, that would be kind of crazy.
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u/novostranger 7h ago
Peru. It's worse there.
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u/gerardolsd Spider-Man Expert 6h ago
no hermano, lo siento mucho lol ntp las traducciones en mexico estan super caras de todos modos
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u/alessandrawhocodes 2h ago
Oh. This is really interesting. I tend to prefer to read comics in their original language and my experience in Lima has been the opposite, finding maybe less than a dozen volumes, and almost from random stuff.
Do you remember which bookstore it was? Would love to visit it.
Curiously, I do collect manga in both Spanish and English and in many cases, the Spanish translation comes sooner than the English one (like with Witch Hat Atelier or Frieren)
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u/SmallFatHands 6h ago
Panini rigth? is a good company to buy from even if prices have skyrocketed lately. Last year at the mexican book fair i got myself a good amount of manga and comics from them then entered a booth with manga and comics from around the world.... the quality of Viz media manga and others had me looking at my panini mangas with more appreciaton.
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u/Dialvical 5h ago
I'm from Chile and I don't even bother buying comics in spanish anymore. Shit takes forever to actually come to stores, is more expensive and some of the translations are so heavily transformed into a specific dialect (spanish or argentinian), that I just import them in english.
Weird thing that buying an omnibus from the US is cheaper than going to a store, but that's how things are.
Manga, for some reason, comes earlier and has a similar price to the original thing compared to comics.
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u/VichoPardo 3h ago
Hola! De donde importas en Chile? Cómo anda el aduanazo?
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u/Dialvical 3h ago edited 3h ago
Por lo general con Buscalibre, por que asi compro y me olvido de la wea hasta que llega. Sin exajerar, he comprado cientos de libros y comics de todo tipo ahí, desde hardcovers y omnibuses, precisamente porque ellos se encargan de todo el tema con aduanas y jamás me han detenido un paquete. También, las cosas llegan al tiempo indicado y te devuelven la plata sin problemas en caso de que digan que hay algo disponible y resulta que no lo estaba después del pago (esto me pasó solo una vez con un envío de unos tomos de berserk deluxe, pero después de un tiempo volvieron y pude conseguirlos).
En terminos de precios, tienes que estar atento a cuando rebajen los precios de las cosas o te unes a su club, donde a veces te dan envios gratis o cupones con rebajas de unas lucas o porcentajes de 5 o 10%. Lo que si te puedo decir es que es más barato que ir al shazam, el crazy all comics y varias de esas tiendas locales de comics.
Es mas o menos lo mismo o un poco más barato que pedir de Amazon, pero con Amazon no puedo confirmar el tema de las aduanas. También he comprado una o dos cosas por mercadolibre, pero ahi es bien poca mi experiencia y no puedo confirmar que tan expedito sea el proceso.
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u/reindeercurt 6h ago
From South Africa. International distribution for American comics is absolutely pitiful, and they don't even translate stuff to local languages. Even English editions of everything not Marvel or DC is thin on the ground. I guess these publishers just don't think the world outside of the USA, UK and Canada are viable markets.
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u/thekusaja 6h ago edited 2h ago
Comics tend to be distributed by different companies in each country, so you can hardly generalize.
That said...in many small or medium size countries, they are sold as imported luxury items. Not as locally translated and printed books. Which doesn't help build an audience.
Conversely, a few LATAM countries (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, I believe) did have large local publishers and those presumably perform a lot better.
For the record, I do remember that as a kid it was quite easy to find translated Disney comics in local supermarkets. I assume those distribution and printing networks worked differently back in the day.
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u/ElMatasiete7 5h ago
Where is that? I'm also in a Latam country, and everything around me is translated. Hell, I WISH I could find versions in the original language.
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u/JulixgMC The Amazing Screw-On Head 5h ago
Yo igual, tengo que importar todo o leer digital porque las traducciones me parecen super inconsistentes y francamente, pésimas a veces
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u/FaultScary7712 6h ago
I feel lucky to be in italy. We have one of the strongest market for comics, especially marvel but recently for DC too.
And they sell single issues, tpbs, hardcovers, omnibus etc
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u/JulixgMC The Amazing Screw-On Head 5h ago
I'm from LATAM and I wish more comics were in English on bookstores (no comic book shop in my city), all I see are translated ones and I prefer reading in the original language
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u/germinalnovez 1h ago
Buy in Amazon or Kennys, you can find free or cheap shipping, and there's no taxes.
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u/elbarbol 5h ago
comprar las licencias es una de ellas, pero también entender que títulos son los que venden, panini solo saca títulos que puedan venderse de los superhéroes más conocidos de dc y marvel, rara vez sacan títulos indies que son buenos , Kamite por su lado ha sacado buenos títulos indies
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u/Ace_Atreides 3h ago edited 3h ago
Damn, sorry to hear that brother :( I'm from Brazil, but usually when I buy comics I get those hardcover editions that come with the full volume of stories. Sometimes i get them in english because it seems like there's more content, but sometimes the translated version is better. I did get my hands on a superman:birthright volume that seems to be part of a "dc compact" line, and i think those aren't being translated. My point being, maybe lately the market for American comics has decided to simply stay at north America and not adapt to other regions, at least not in these kind of editions.
Idk, that's pure speculation of my part, but I wouldn't be surprised. The American comic book publishers have done a lot of stupid marketing decisions throughout history.
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u/macacolouco 3h ago edited 3h ago
In my experience Portuguese translations are usually okay. You can find errors if you look for them but nothing that invalidates the experience.
Addressing your other comments, I feel like a vast amount of comics are published in Brazil. But certainly much less than US and Europe.
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u/thigerlel 7h ago
Our economies tend to be worse and so luxury items like glossy, hardcover comic books are too expensive. Every publisher that takes the risk ends up going broke from a lack of sales.