The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Dupuis Editeurs has launched a new website especially aimed at hearing impaired children. On the website, selected titles from their children’s comics imprint Punaise & Puceron are made available in sign language format. Sign language is the first effective language that many deaf or hearing impaired people learn, it seems. Sometimes they never get around to learning another one and quite often they never learn to read or write once they’ve grown up, so it is hoped these comics will also reach out to them.

(a page with sign language insert from Dupuis’s version of Les Enfants d’Ailleurs for deaf and hearing-impaired readers)

The books are presented in a page by page format and the text balloons are replaced by a video of a woman signing the contents of the balloon, either in “concept” or “alphabet” sign language (in a nice touch the window for the sign language translator moves from speech bubble to speech bubble to make it clear which character is talking, very clever – Joe). For this translation, Dupuis worked together with the Belgian equal opportunity organisation Equipe Populaire. The first book to be presented in this way, is the first episode of “Les Enfants d’Ailleurs” by Nikko & Bannister, which won the award for best children’s comic at this year Lyon festival. Other books, such as Oscar by Christian Durieux and Denis Lapière have already been announced.

(cover to the first volume of Les Enfants d’Ailleurs by Nikko and Bannister, published Dupuis)

Have a look at this initiative on the website; just follow the blue link at the bottom left. It’s in French, but navigation is very easy, and you’ll get around pretty quickly. I was wondering, though, if hearing impaired people who don’t speak French would also be able to follow the story in this manner; different countries employ different sign language systems but I wonder if this more visual (as opposed to aural) form of communication could be more readily understood by those unfamiliar with it than, say, someone who doesn’t know much French trying to read French text in traditional word balloons? We already know that comics can be a useful way for encouraging reading, especially for those who may not have the best word skills and be intimidated by large blocks of text, but it is also nice to see comics and technology coming together in this manner to reach out to sections of the community who may otherwise never experience them.