Robin Lang & Helge Dascher Win Sophie Castille Comic Translation Award

Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Sophie Castille Award, the lakes

Robin Lang and Helge Dascher won the Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation – English, for their translation of The Jellyfish

Robin Lang and Helge Dascher have been announced as the 2025 winners of the Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation – English, for their translation of The Jellyfish created by Boum, published by Montreal-based publisher Pow Pow Press. The graphic novel was originally published in French as La méduse by Pow Pow last year. The runners up were Return to Eden by Paco Roca, translated by Andrea Rosenberg, and The Incredible Story of Cooking by Stephane Douay and Benoist Simmat, translated by Montana Kane.

Robin Lang has been co-translating graphic novels for Pow Pow Press alongside Helge Dascher since 2017. In addition to being lead translator on The Jellyfish, her credits also include The Adventures of Sgoobidoo, by Cathon, and Lonely Boys by Sophie Bédard, winner of the 2021 Doug Wright award for best book. Robin runs a cut-flower farm in the Eastern Townships during the growing season and translates from French to English in the winter. The translator of more than eighty graphic novels, Helge Dascher often works in collaboration with fellow Pow Pow contributors Robin Lang and Rob Aspinall. A Montrealer, she translates from French and German to English.

The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation are for the best translation of comics into local languages. Once again, English language publishers submitted a wide variety of works that had been translated into English. This year’s Sophie Castille Award – English prize was announced at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival in Bowness-on-Windermere, with VIP Brands Ltd., in partnership with Comica. Michele Hutchison was the winner of the inaugural Award, for her translation from Dutch of “The Philosopher, The Dog and the Wedding” by Barbara Stok, published in English by SelfMadeHero. Last year, the winner was Alexa Frank, for her translation of “沖合の雷” (“Offshore Lightning”) by Saito Nazuna, translated from Japanese, published by Drawn & Quarterly.

Sophie Castille, the namesake of the awards, was the international rights director and VP of licensing for Mediatoon and cofounder and director of Europe Comics. She died unexpectedly in 2022. In her memory, The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation honour the vital role of translators in sharing graphic novels across nations and cultures and bringing the world’s comics together. Similar awards for the translation of comics into other languages are also taking place in Spain, Poland, Greece, Slovenia and Italy. The ultimate goal is to have these awards in as many countries in the world as possible.

“The Sophie Castille Awards are global awards to recognise the work of translators in the medium,” notes Ivanka Hahnenberger, General Manager of VIP Brands and founder of the Sophie Castille Awards, “as well as to highlight the importance of the work of translation in the world of comics, recognising the skill and dedication of those who contribute significantly to the dissemination and understanding of comics around the world which was very important to Sophie Castille.”

“We were delighted to again have hosted the awards ceremony for the Sophie Castille Award – English prize,” says Festival Director Julie Tait. “Being part of this project is another aspect of our work as the UK Development Agency for Comics, alongside our International Rights Market at the Festival, a project also supported by VIP Brands.” The other nominees for this year’s Award in English were:

• Martha Kuhlman and Tereza Čechová for Bald, by Tereza Čechová and Štěpánka Jislová. English edition by Graphic Mundi. Originally published in Czech as Bez vlasů by Nakladatelství Paseka in 2020
• Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander for Blacksad: They All Fall Down, Part Two, by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido. English edition by Dark Horse Comics. Originally published in French by Dargaud in 2021
• Margaret Morrison for Capital & Ideology, by Claire Alet, Benjamin. English edition by Abrams Comic Arts. Originally published in French by Sueil in 2021
• Jerome Saincantin & Erica Olson Jeffrey for Harry Dickson – Mysterion, by Jean Ray, Onofrio Catacchio, Doug Headline and Luana Vergari. English edition by Cinebook. Originally published in French as Harry Dickson – Mystera by Dupuis in 2023
• Victor Martins for Not Today: Undoing Home Repairs by Ana Margarida Matos. English Edition by Fieldmouse Press. Originally published in Portuguese as Hoje Não by Chili Com Carne
• Ryan Holmberg for Oba Electroplating Factory by Yoshiharu Tsuge. English edition by Drawn & Quarterly. Originally published in Japanese as 大場電気鍍金工業所 in 1973 by Futabasha

Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation – in English: The Judges:

• Alex Fitch is the presenter of the UK’s only monthly broadcast radio show on comics – Panel Borders – on the Arts Council Radio Station in London. He has been widely published on the topics of film and graphic novels, lectures on the History of Animation at the University of Brighton, and is an award-winning postgraduate comics scholar.
• Dr Harriet E. H. Earle is a senior lecturer of English at Sheffield Hallam University and a research fellow at the Centre for War, Atrocity, and Genocide at Nipissing University in Canada. She is the author of Silence in the Quagmire: The Vietnam War in US Comics and Comics: An Introduction.
• Gabi Putnoki is the driving force behind the Graphic Novel Reading Room, a comic community initiative spreading the love of graphic novel reading and bringing new readers to the form.

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