Like I said a couple of days back, I'll be hosting a panel for translators at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. This is a recurring panel at the con that I've been setting up for (at least) six of the past seven years. 2003 was a hell year as far as work load was concerned, so I couldn't make it to the con and couldn't find someone else to run the panel for me. But for the four years before and the years since, I've been able to find translators who are both going to the con and want to be on a panel.

David Welsh of Precocious Curmudgeon found my post about the panel on The Engine, a forum set up by the very successful comics writer Warren Ellis that is frequented by quite a few comics industry professionals. In response he said this:

I can't find it on the con's official schedule, but Bill Flanagan mentions a "Lost in Translation" panel over at The Engine that will feature Flanagan (who works on XxxHOLic for Del Rey), Jonathan Tarbox, and Jake Forbes, among others. (No women though, which strikes me as odd. Based on a quick scan of the titles on my shelves, at least half of the translators working in manga are women. Maybe they all devoted their travel budget to Anime Expo? Tarbox and Forbes should guarantee a lively hour, though.)

Since I've heard several other people aside from David wonder at how I determine panelists, let's dispense with a few mistaken impressions about the panel. The panelists aren't chosen by some judge who looks upon all translators and chooses the ones considered most worthy to have a seat on the panel. (I wish!!) The panelists are found by me looking through my list of contacts, sending out the e-mail, and trying to wrangle up three or four people who know, in April, that they will have enough time and money to go to the convention, have an open enough schedule to promise to be at the panel whenever they schedule us, and are willing to speak in public. (Translators spend most of their time alone in front of computers. Public speaking is not a job requirement.)

There is an order in which I contact people, though. I give panel veterans the chance to join the panel before I send an e-mail to someone new. But aside from a year when the entire panel consisted of European comics translator Dwight Decker and myself, I've always managed to get at least one new person on the panel every year. This year will be Jake Forbes' first time.

(On a side note: I love David's blog and am a fan of his balanced coverage of comics and manga. I stop by Pre-Cur pretty much every day.)

To answer one of David's comments, I never even thought of male-to-female ratios this or any year. I was trying my best to get diversity of specialties and diversity of client companies for the panel makeup. I managed to get diversity of companies, but unfortunately most of the translators this year are in the manga field. Charles McCarter will be our anime expert. (Last year I was able to get in anime, games, and European comics into the mix.) As for gender, Julie Davis is something of a panel regular and Trish Ledoux has been on at least one panel in the past, but this year, none of the ladies I was able to contact were coming to the convention.

Besides, as far as I know, gender really isn't an issue in this profession. When I was editing at Viz, which translator did which series was entirely based on availability, and when more than one person was available, what translator's talent would be best suited to the manga. For example, when we were able to license Revolutionary Girl Utena, I knew that the first person to offer it to was Lillian Olsen for the literal translation. I knew that she'd put in the time reading through the series carefully to spot the symbolism. The adaptation went to Fred Burke because he was the best that Viz had in weird or occult-oriented manga. We never really saw the freelancers so it was easy to judge by skill (and on-time performance, of course) rather than any other factor.

Of course, if any translator feels that gender, race, orientation, or other distinguishing feature is a factor in the way translation companies choose talent, please use Contact Sensei and let me hear your thoughts on it. I'd be fascinated to hear other points of view.

Also, if you're a translator in the industry, and you'd like to be on the panel, write to me at Contact Sensei, and I'll add you to my list of contacts. (I can't guarantee you a spot, but I promise that you'll be in the running.) Let me know how long you've been in the industry and the names of some of the books you're proud of.

Still, David is right, Tarbox and Forbes does guarantee a lively hour and a half.