Hälge, by Lars Mortimer (1946-2014). A dump of random daily strips translated by me.
Rural Sweden compares very well in terms of size and population to Montana. The idea for the comic came to Lars in 1990 when he sat in the back seat of a Volvo 245 driving through the woods. He had a vision of an elk, a dog and a hunter.
Some linguistic nuances are lost as swedes love to speak indirectly about themselves or anything. Certain grammatical particles are also lost, having no english equivalents I know of or could be bothered to research. I decided to de-shout the dialog, cutting off most exclamation marks, this brings it closer to how swedes actually talk. Typesetting is minimal as I am lazy. Font: Comic Neue.
I mostly slept through english class.
Nicholas Bennett
This is the cast. I tweaked some names to go a little better in english but I am certain someone gets his toes stepped on.
The name Hälge is the combination of the name Helge (hailed, holy, blessed; masculine variant of Helga), and 'älg' (elk, moose). As the comic's titular character, he retains his name intact.
'Blixten' or [the lightning bolt] got his name shortened for convenience.
'Uffe', is the nickname (everyone went by a nickname in the generation before mine) form of 'Ulf', an archaic spelling of Wolf. It somehow fits his personality.
'Gullan' is about as nicknameish as a generic descriptor of a female object of desire, yet just about passable as a bona fide name. Its root meaning is gold and has come to mean precious in sense of your cute wife or kids. As a verb 'gulla' may mean to cuddle or coddle and may be used as affectionally as derogatory. 'Goldie' felt like something englishspeakers would be able to pronounce. This explanation is needlessly long.
Daniel Perry
I went with 'elk' over 'moose', not only is it shorter which makes for easier typesetting, it's also more accurate. The comic isn't set in America anyway.
Jackson White
I could try writing something funny with each post, but it'll just be translation notes from now on.
Matthew Butler
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Connor Lee
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Sebastian Parker
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Aaron Campbell
Oh right, moose hunting serious business.
Levi Taylor
In this case Edwin talks about a hunter's blind or just his favorite spot to sit in the middle of nowhere, waiting for an elk to show up. The word used is a bit ambiguous.
Nicholas Fisher
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Evan Morgan
>by Lars Mortimer (1946-2014) Wait, what? He's been dead for a while already? Huh, I didn't know that.
I've read this comic every once in a while. I think it's pretty decent. I like how it seems to keep a balance; both the elk and the hunter are pretty sympathetic characters, and the comic can be enjoyable regardless of one's opinion on hunting.
Jack Wright
The sign on the door does translate to 'sale', suggesting it's a shop. Though it is suggested against using the wording as it means and literally translates to 'extra price'.
Carter Lopez
He didn't want to let it go, but did get around training a couple of successors. His wife sold it to the publisher who had tried to buy it off of him as she couldn't draw and was too old to bother setting up a studio and all. Yet she wanted the comic to live on.
Elijah Murphy
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Bentley Jackson
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Thomas Carter
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Hudson Lewis
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Grayson Perry
This strip and the next one were overloaded with indirect speaking which just becomes surreal in english.
Justin Powell
Yet being perfectly natural in swedish. Here Edwin spoke about himself in third person, while Ellen also did it.
Hunter Turner
Technically 'beef stew', kalops. But felt too long for a kid to fling about.
Benjamin Bailey
Spruce plantations, an endless source of conflict between man and beast.
Grayson Miller
They live in a fictious area called Avliden, this homonym may mean a certain mountain side or deceased. I have no idea how to deal with this pun.
Landon Phillips
The synonym for man Edwin uses probably means wereman more than plain man. It's also just a name, Karl.
Asher Carter
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Andrew Hughes
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Jeremiah Ward
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Asher Adams
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Eli Turner
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Thomas Richardson
The wording in this strip is a little stale, but I'll come back to it some other year.
Christopher Johnson
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Jeremiah Hall
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Ryder Bailey
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Landon Lopez
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Ethan Thomas
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Ryder Russell
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Camden Morgan
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Jacob Nelson
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Henry Flores
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Carter Roberts
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Michael Harris
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Austin Ross
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Brayden White
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Carter Anderson
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Sebastian Gonzalez
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Asher Anderson
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Ian Morales
I didn't know Mortimer died.
Jackson Scott
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Lincoln Harris
I suppose this thread will make more people know he ever existed in the first place.
Henry Perez
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Colton Sanders
Than people who learn he's no longer with us.
Anthony Walker
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Angel Rodriguez
This strip involves the age-old joke about bones and legs having the same word in swedish.
Colton Evans
An even worse joke is that bone/leg and the name for the letter B in plural have the same pronounciation which culminates in the question of how many bones/legs/Bs the Perch(Abborre) has.
Dylan Wright
You are a bad person if you ask this to a sober individual aged 10 or more.
Ethan Russell
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Jack Williams
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Justin Parker
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Adrian Myers
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David Foster
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Christopher Smith
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Xavier Peterson
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Kevin Gonzalez
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Lucas Green
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Juan Ramirez
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Julian Ward
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Evan Sanchez
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Jackson Scott
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Levi Cox
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Grayson Miller
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David Wright
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Jose Evans
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Thomas Hall
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Jonathan Watson
The bag says the equivalent of 'mart'.
This has been the comic of my people. There are 450 more strips to translate of those posted on the website. Time will tell if I dump another bunch some day.
