Mafalda

[pne]

Went shopping with Stella today, and also dropped by the public library to drop off a book.

I had a look at the flea market there -- books they were selling off at prices from €0.20 to €1.00. I got an "encyclopædia of Asterix, L-Z" for €0.50 and book 2 of Mafalda for another €0.50.

I'd heard about Mafalda from Mark Rosenfelder and Bob's Comics Reviews (for example, the series is described as "the Latin American Peanuts"), and so it was double interesting to pick it up.

After flicking through a couple of pages, it seemed interesting, and rather deep at times. Take this joke, for example:

"I know a good joke!" -- "Go ahead, tell!" -- "A submarine dived and it sank so low, so incredibly low, that the fishes asked themselves: 'Is that a submarine or the exchange rate?' Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" -- (silence) -- "Well, it's very deep."

Comments

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

I love Mafalda. We have a cartoon hanging in the office of the globe lying in bed with a thermometer in its mouth, and Mafalda patting it on the head and saying "Sana, sana, colita de rana; si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana" [which is a popular kids' rhyme, err, tough to translate ... Get better, get better, frog's tail; if you don't get better today, you'll get better tomorrow].

Mafalda and the sick world

[pne.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes; that cartoon is in my book as well. (Marked "354" in the first box; presumably some kind of serial number?)

1: "Ich will die Nachrichten hören, um zu erfahren, wie es dem Kranken geht." (I want to listen to the news to see how the sick person is doing.)

2: [Mafalda listens to the radio in another room]

3: [looking glum] "Dem Kranken geht's weiter schlecht." (The sick person is still doing badly.)

4: "Heile, heile, Gänschen. Es wird bald wieder gut..." (Heal, heal, little goose. It'll soon be better again...)

A clever translation. I wasn't familiar with it (though I knew a similar German rhyme starting "Heile, heile, Segen" ("Heal, heal, blessing"), but Stella knew "Heile, heile, Gänschen" and with the help of another stanza she told me I found quite a few hits in the Internet (in lots of minor variations, as is probably common with such orally transmitted rhymes).

So it's probably a fairly-well-known, at least in some families, rhyme used to console a child who's hurt himself. And as such, probably a good rendition of the Spanish.

Re: Mafalda and the sick world

[pne.livejournal.com]

(There's no thermometer in the globe in the cartoon in my book, but I'm pretty sure it's the one you described; the rhyme fits too well.)