Once again, Brock keeps the twists and surprises coming. I mean, here we have two versions of Swifty in the same place at the same time and not a single “@#$%!” was uttered! Unbelievable!
Okay, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this (is it legal? is it not?), but a commenter linked me to it and I had to share because it’s, basically, very cool.
Check out… SuperFogeys in RUSSIAN!
Near as I can tell, this is an ongoing project with new posts every day. The amount of work and attention to detail going in this is impressive. I can’t read Russian, so I have no idea how accurate and the well done the translations are, but the work being done to make the fonts and new word balloon shapes fit is incredible. You’d swear they were manipulating my source files, but all they have access to are the original jpegs. It’s solid work. Check out this Origins to see what I mean:
I mean, wow. I honestly don’t know how they’re doing it with such accuracy. I’ve looked at every page and I can’t spot any obvious flaws or patching.
The cool thing is that it looks like SF is getting a bit of a following over in Russia. Thanks to my browser translator, I can actually read their comments and it’s fun to see them going on the same journey we all went through years ago. They seem okay with Soviet Sam and recognize what he represents. There’s a great discussion under SF 200 about whether or not the artist changed or I finally learned to draw! I can’t wait for them to hit the end of Chapter 9.
Does anybody out there know anything about this? What IS the legality of this sort of thing? I’m not inclined to try to shut it down or anything, but I am curious.
UPDATE! This morning I heard back from the unauthorized Russian translator of SuperFogeys and here’s what I found out:
• Even though there’s 231 pages/strips posted on the site as of today (they’re halfway through the Society of Heroes Origin and just started Chapter 7 – Visiting Day), the first posting was on July 18 of this year–it’s only been running about a week.
• The man in charge of things, “Spinner,” is actually the SECOND translator, having just taken over from the first one, “Dusker.” Dusker asked Spinner to get in touch with me to get my consent, but I beat him to it. Since this has only been going on a week, I choose to believe him.
• Currently, SuperFogeys in Russian has 150 readers. Pretty decent for a week.
• There actually is a link back to this site on the right hand side of the page, and in a couple of other places as well:
Spinner, who seems like a super nice guy, said he’s open to figuring out a way to display the link more prominently. I gave him my suggestion for how to do that, so we’ll see what happens.
Here’s what I’ve decided to do: It’s clear from everything I’ve learned (mostly from you guys) about this that there’s no real financially viable way for me to put a stop to this. It IS illegal because I didn’t authorize it, but international copyright law is such that actually trying to enforce my copyright is near impossible. This is fine because I don’t want to fight it anyway. They’re not making money form it and I love that this is happening. I support the project and the high quality work Dusker and Spinner are doing. In fact, Shylight, a Russian and English speaking SF fan, told me yesterday that the translation is quite good.
So, I’m going to this project my blessing (essentially making it legal) as it does the thing I’ve always wanted to do with SF anyway: get more eyeballs on it. In fact, I hope to get a link to the Russian site placed on this site soon. Might as well fully embrace it.
Thanks to everyone for the input and counsel yesterday. Should be fun watching our Russian friends work their way through the archives and hit some of those big moments we all know are coming.
At least this life lesson come from another Swifty! <3
Good thing too; he may dismiss it as bunk from anyone else.
I can think of one or two other Fogeys Swifty might listen to, but you’re basically right.
Okay. You know, this is probably the first strip I feel genuinely backs up the theory folks have presented that the “Earth Avalon” fogeys really are a great deal better at heroing than our main line bunch. It is simply so -odd- seeing any version of Swifty that has come to terms with his age and mortality. The maturity carried in this conversation is impressive. Well done.
True story: I had a completely different conversation in mind before I wrote this strip. I thought I knew how these two Swifties would talk to each other and included all of the snark you’d expect… but when I actually went to write it something very different came out. It was actually really weird. I feel less in control of these characters all the time.
Oh don’t worry about it. You were never in control.
Hard truths, Professor. Hard truths.
Oh please. You can call me Isaac.
It’s about time something made Swifty stop talking and start thinking.
Swifty would argue he’s the ONLY one who does any thinking.
Alternate universe Swifty has obviously never experienced the benefits of space pig urine.
In what other comic strip would a comment like that not sound creepy?
None comics. The answer is: none comics.
You’re welcome.
With two Swiftys, the “@#$%!” is implied.
So very true.
On a side note, it’s true. A lot of people who shouldn’t retire often do die suddenly the moment they do.
I’ve seen it happen. Or, if they don’t die, they wither terribly.
This is…Good. True. Real. It’s so, so…dammitall, I’m going for a bike ride.
I did some hiking last week. Good reminder that I’m getting older and don’t do that sort of thing often enough. I pretty much swore off bikes after I used one as my only form of transportation for two solid years, but I may need to get back on.
Only two years? You pansy! I’ll soon be celebrating a full three years of biking.
I love it, personally. It makes me feel so very much ALIVE!
Weightlessness as winds start to blow the bike out from under me.
Flight when I turn too sharply on loose gravel.
Supremacy riding through the rain.
Conquest after managing eight miles of hills, in thirty minutes.
Pain, when a shoulder dislocates in the middle of the night.
These are the sensations that keep me going; I’m an adrenaline junkie, I can admit that.
Y’give me a big bag of candy and I can go full throttle for about 60 hours before dropping from exhaustion. I don’t much like to go for that long without sleep, but oh man what a thrill it was, the one time that I did.
It was the best of speed,
it was the worst of speed,
it was the age of heroes,
it was the age of villains,
it was the epoch of brains,
it was the epoch of imbecility,
it was the season of those who fight for the Light,
it was the season of those who dwell in Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Valhalla, we were all going direct to Avalon — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil…once, twice, thrice, in the superlative degree of comparison only…
There’s a whole comic in that. Perhaps this one, from the beginning to now.
Bravo.
(With apologies to Chas. Dickens.)
Okay, this is cool. I can’t wait for you to see the rest of this chapter. Marc came up with the title of this strip, so I can’t say this passage by Mr. Dickens was ever on my mind, but you’ve adapted it wonderfully.
Well, when the strip is named “A Tale of Two Swifties”, it’s a pretty obvious connection. But yes, it just sort of flowed, and works well.
What Brock said. This be beautiful. I’d like to read more poetry than what I do currently; I think I’ll start reading a piece from me books, each night before bed…help to settle down from the thrill of living life.
Speaking of which…2:23AM here. G’night everybody.