participatory culture and the translated comics polisystem in brazil: fans, crises

and expanding repertoire

Daniel Soares Duarte

Abstract
(1) My goal here is to reflect on the recent expansion of translated comics in Brazil. (2) It is here regarded
as a cultural system; thus, some tenets of Even-Zohar’s Polysystem Theory are called to describe the very
interactive elements into play. (3) This description is important for one to better understand and
acknowledge how and why more comics are being sold, and new publishing houses are being established,
in a country whose population reads poorly and receives no actual incentives for reading—despite
apparent official efforts: national book printings are small by default, most locals do not collect books or
magazines, and surveys have found that in average, Brazilian people read about one book a year. (4) In
spite of that, of the covid-19 pandemic, and of an unprecedented financial and political crisis, sales have
grown consistently, and have kept the system in motion, despite the fear of market bubble. (5) This may
be due in part to local forms of what Jenkins (2006) calls “media convergence”, “participatory culture”,
and “collective intelligence”. (6) This active form of participation transforms fans, readers, and
consumers, into what Translation Studies calls “agents of translation” (Sager 1994), whose influence can
be more and more felt in a cultural niche where parties develop a sense of community in social media,
fostering cultural development and expanding Brazil’s cultural repertoire, while dealing with community
crises on quality, repertoire gaps and costumer service.

Introduction
In this text, I shall reflect on the expansion of the comics 1 reading public in
Brazil in recent years. A growing reading market is an interesting topic, given the
historically low reading rates the Brazilian population has, the sometimes-dysfunctional
education system for most of the population, and the unfair competition from TV and
other audiovisual media. I start from some statistics and historical reflections on reading
in the country, then use Even-Zohar’s factors of cultural dependency (1997) to consider
how participatory culture and convergence culture (Jenkins 2006) have been helping
change and expand local comics repertoire, amidst many crises and system
shortcomings, some of which are discussed here.

1 Reading in a strange land

Brazil is a country that “does not read”. This is a sad idea, but I can attest it
based on my experience as a teacher (for the last 24 years), and on research, both
quantitative and qualitative. As for the first type, we have Lajolo and Zilbermann’s
(2011) claim that the historical making of the Brazilian reader is gradual, slow and
difficult, since the number of readers grow depending on a certain number of factors,

1
The term “comics” here refers to any form of panel narrative, regardless its country of origin. So, bande
dessinée, manga, tebeos, fumetti, historietas, gibi, and comics are all interchangeable terms.
such as technologies of the printing press, the strengthening of cultural institutions such
as universities and libraries and writing schools, as well as of the development of an
anthropocentric worldview and bourgeois individualism (2011:13). They claim that all
such factors are still not fully developed in Brazil, in terms of being accessible to the
whole population. Thus, being a reader means belonging to an intellectual minority
(when one thinks of poor people who read), and to a social elite (when readers belong to
upper social strata). In both cases, numbers are not impressive.
Also, Jessé Souza’s research (2017) on the Brazilian lowest social stratum also
points out institutional and practical problems both familial and school systems undergo
to help develop education. Sousa purposefully calls this stratum “ralé” [rabble], not to
degrade people, but to call academic attention to an average 30% of the population who
has been historically left out of social welfare and whose lives can be compared to a
modern type of slavery. “[M]ost Brazilian public schools face serious problems that
drastically affect their functioning, seriously compromising their function of promoting
citizenship through education”2 (2017:281). This is due, most of all, to two factors:
disorganized families and institutional bad faith. According to Souza, they

determine lives that are marked first by school and then professional failing,
where the collective failure of an entire class is obscured as such and appears
to everyone, especially to those who suffer it, as individual failure and
personal responsibility.3 (Souza 2017:281-282)

Such qualitative conclusions are backed up by statistics: INAF, Portuguese

acronym for Functional Literacy Indicator, displays a historical series that maps reading
and literacy in the country, and shows that only about 20% of people in Brazil have
become proficient in reading operations, the other 80% percent going from fully
illiterate to intermediary levels of proficiency (INAF 2018); schools in the country still
produce functionally illiterate people (INAF 2020). Given the present state of neofascist
discourse and practices carried out by the local government (2019-2022), which have
been aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, data has not been updated. One can
hardly think numbers have improved in the meantime. Another survey, this time

2
My translation of “todos nós sabemos que a maior parte das escolas públicas brasileiras enfrenta graves
problemas que afetam drasticamente o seu funcionamento, comprometendo seriamente sua função de
promover a cidadania por meio da educação.”
3
My translation of “determinam trajetórias de vida marcadas pelo fracasso escolar e posteriormente
profissional, em que o fracasso coletivo de toda uma classe se obscurece enquanto tal e aparece a todos,
principalmente àqueles que o sofrem, como fracasso individual, responsabilidade pessoal de cada
indivíduo.”
focused on reading rates, says that Brazilians read about 4.95 books per person a year.
However, only 1.05 books are read from start to finish (Failla 2021:188).
When one also considers that the country seems to be losing readers (Abe 2020),
how is it that one cultural system, namely comics, could improve sales and expand
repertoire even during such hard times, of sanitary, political, and financial crises? Some
answers may be due to the very state of lockdown: when at home, people need to be
entertained, and thus may seek light readings, among other activities. However, this
hardly explains why comics sales have kept steady and comics as system has solidified
in recent years, with new players in the publishing industry, a larger range of material
being translated from all over the world, and especially an active community, with a
deep level of participation, to a degree that it ends up actively feeding the system back,
not only in terms of increasing consumption, but also in shaping and consolidating
comics as system. Translation Studies can help clarify this question, since the absolute
majority of material published is of translations: consumers have become a certain type
of “agent of translation” (Sager 1994:321, Milton 2009:1-2). To get to it, I shall first
delve into Even-Zohar’s list (1997) of factors of dependency among cultures. They are
structurally sound and, even though cannot fully account for the current experience in
Brazilian comics system, are useful for contrast, to help navigate and point out the
specific roles consumers have, and how community agency helps changing it.

2 Factors of dependency in cultural systems, or the eternal crisis on finis terrae

Even-Zohar (1997) lists six abstract factors that work among cultures and shape
cultural transmission in the form of translated literary artifacts. Even though they can be
distinguished, one is not supposed to isolate them to try and analyze each one
individually: they should instead be taken systemically, where each part influences and
is reciprocally influenced. Three factors can be taken to be more abstract (institution,
repertoire, market), and three to be more concrete (products, producers, consumers). It
is more important, though, to consider how they relate to each other. And even though
their names seem self-explanatory, it is worth to unfold some of the concepts, especially
for one to develop and connect them to more recent social practices and technological
developments.
Repertoire. Even-Zohar (1997:20-21) defines two types of repertoires. Quoting
Swindler (1986:273), he defines culture itself as an active repertoire “or ‘tool kit’ of
habits, skills, and styles from which people construct ‘strategies of action’”. A passive
repertoire, on the other hand, is “a tool kit of skills from which people construct their
‘conceptual strategies’”: strategies with which people “understand the world.”
Repertoires are structured in two levels: individual elements and models. One telling
example that comes to mind for a passive repertoire model refers to fairy tales in
Western culture. They surely do not belong to it, but permeate many crucial facets of
our culture, by providing narrative templates for moral codes and values that are taught
in everyday life rather than at mandatory institutions of any kind. One example, now
deeply embedded in culture, is that of Snow White, which today popularizes and
informally still teaches people on the themes of beauty, youth personified, and the
double theme of “feminine perfection which makes her the center of violent passions”
(Kawan 2008:325). In the Brazilian polysystem, comics have been expanding their
repertoire by translating a plethora of works, increasing availability of new titles, more
authors and genres. From humor, children, adventure and superhero comics, genres
which still sell and have a devout following, other types of stories and genres have been
released, and those ones well-established now have more titles available. Take
Westerns, for instance. Tex Willer, a ranger created by Italy’s Giovanni Luigi Bonelli
and Aurelio Gallepini in 1948, has been regularly published in Brazil since 1971, with a
steady and enthusiastic fandom. Tex’s adventures go from standard Ranger adventures,
shootouts and duels to morally ambiguous tales that account on complex events on US
history of colonization and massacre, civilization and barbarism. In recent years, not
only more Tex titles, but different publications on the genre, have become available,
both from Italian Bonelli publishing house and other publishers. Some titles, such as the
Italian comics adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s Deadwood Dick, would have never been
thought to be on local bookstores in previous years. So far, three out of the ten Italian
volumes have been translated and published in Brazil by Panini. Also, local producers
have developed on the genre: writer Carlos Stefan and artist Pedro Mauro’s Trilogia
Gatilho [The Trigger Trilogy] is a best-selling title on a revenge story with great art and
writing.
This is to mention a simple example on one single genre. Many more works on
any genre one can think of are now available locally. This points out to confirm Gideon
Toury’s view that

cultures resort to translating precisely as a way of filling in gaps, whenever

and wherever such gaps may manifest themselves: either in themselves, or
(more often) in view of a corresponding non-gap in another culture that the
 target culture in question has reasons to look up to and try to exploit for its
own needs. (Toury 2012:21-22)

Most of all, Toury says, it is about “the observation that there is something
‘missing’ in the target culture which should rather be there and which, luckily, already
exists elsewhere, preferably in a prestigious culture, and can be taken advantage of.”
(Toury 2012:22) In this early twenty-first century, Brazil is still a peripheral and
dominated culture, and local cultural agents still think there are deep gaps to be filled—
this is not a critical claim, but rather a descriptive one. Today’s scenario is different in
the way that cultural repertoire is expanding by translation, and from most various
sources, in contrast to other cultural products such as movies and TV series: during all
the 1960s to the 2000’s, the absolute majority of comics published in Brazil were either
translated from the US or were locally produced. Walt Disney, Marvel and DC Comics
were best-sellers in the country for decades, licensed in the country by Editora Abril:

It may be possible that some publisher reaches numbers like those of

[Editora] Abril in titles and issues, but it is almost impossible to repeat the
huge print-runs of the 1970s and 1980s and, above all, to have the same
cultural impact that these publications had in our country. 4 (Souza and Muniz
2020:9)

It was hard then, if not impossible, to find comics from France, Italy, Japan, or
even from neighbor Argentina (which has a long and strong series of world-famous
titles and artists). It all came from “America”. Situation is now very different. On July
16th 2022, Amazon Brazil displays 214 titles in presale, nearly all of them translated
(with exception of Mauricio de Sousa’s Horácio Completo Vol. 4 and Monica’s Gang,
Bianca Pinheiro’s Alho Poró, and Pedro Cobiaco and Janína de Luna’s Haya e o
Tempo), most of them from Japan, but titles from the US, Canada, Italy, Turkey, France,
Australia are also on display. And that is count is on best-selling titles. Once niche
genres and audiences are targeted, titles abound that have never been available before.
We are now at a stage of expanding comics repertoire, which is a secondary setting
according to Even-Zohar (1997:27): according to him, institutions that dominate,
control and regulate culture “are more inclined to stick to extant repertoire rather than
initiate new options.” On the other hand,

4
My translation of “É até possível que alguma outra editora atinja números parecidos com os de títulos e
de edições da Abril, mas é quase impossível que se repitam as enormes tiragens dos anos 1970 e 1980 e,
principalmente, ocorra o mesmo impacto cultural que essas publicações causaram em nosso país.”
 contenders, i.e., those who struggle for achieving control and domination,
may have to do that by offering a new repertoire. In periods where the
circumstances are favorable to repertoire shifts and competition (such as
times of crisis of whatever cause), such individuals and groups may then
become highly involved with the making, not only perpetuation, of repertoire.
(Even-Zohar 1997:27, italics are mine)

Surprisingly, and apparently, Brazil’s current “time of crisis” is anything but

favorable to repertoire shift. Nonetheless, the making of new repertoires in such a
context seems to walk hand in hand to the perpetuation and expansion of old ones:
superhero and children’s comics still sell well in the country, though the term “best-
seller” should locally refer to smaller print-runs and numbers in sales; in Brazil it rather
means sales continuity, when titles can retain readers for longer periods of time.
Also, one must tell repertoires from products. When it comes to art, literature
and print material, the former roughly refers to content, and the latter to form, to what
Hans Gumbrecht (1999) calls the materialities of communication, and Even-Zohar calls
“the concrete instance of culture.” (1997:27) Specifically in comics, one can see
gourmetization—that is, the processes of transforming products from simple, artisanal,
rustic, into exclusive, luxury and premium products (sensu Figueiredo 2021:136)—
working to drive people into buying and collecting comics, whether they read them or
not: in Brazil, the word “lombadeiro” (derived from “lombada”, book spine) is used in
social networks to make fun of people who buy and collect comics, especially high-
quality volumes and series, but do not read them. In such communities of aficionados,
debates on paper quality are constant and heated, for instance—and later, when market
issues are discussed, paper pricing will be a relevant topic on economic restraints that
hinder comics market development.
Producers. Many authors who have previously never been accessible to local
monolingual readers have now (finally) become available via translation, new and old
masters of the format such as Alberto Breccia, Sergio Toppi, Joe Kubert, Moebius,
Hiroshi Hirata, Chris Ware, Giancarlo Berardi, Philippe Druillet, Junji Ito, Hector G.
Oesterheld, Ed Brubaker, Nicole Claveloux, Aimée de Jongh, Zidrou. Also, authors
who have been previously published now have a larger collection of titles available;
names such as Alan Moore, Hergé, Mike Mignola, Osamu Tesuka, Carlos Trillo etc.
The names themselves show how wide is the choice for source countries and cultures,
which is an ambivalent trait to be explored later in the text.
 Even though United States comics still influence and sell well, both in superhero
and underground comics (Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman have a name in the local
polysystem; other authors, such as Harvey Pekar, Kim Deitch, and Trina Robbins, have
but single works translated and published), authors from all over the world, in and out
of the best-seller range have found publishing houses and audiences. For instance, even
though samurai comics as a genre has been of constant interest in Brazil (with titles
such as Lone Wolf and Cub and Vagabond), gekiga titles by mangaka Hiroshi Hirata
were translated and published in Brazil only in 2019, starting with O preço da desonra:
Kubidai Hikiukenin [ 首代引受人 ] (2019), followed by Satsuma Gishiden [ 薩摩義士伝 ]
(2020) and Mais Forte que a Espada: Kairiki no Haha [ 異 色 列 伝 怪 力 の 母 ] (2022).
Lone Wolf and Cub [子連れ狼] itself was finally publish in its entirety, in 28 volumes by
Panini Comics, by August 2021. Publishing entire series seems to be an obvious move
when planning books and comics, but it was common for series to not be fully published
in Brazil, whether due to lack of editorial purposes, or of funds. Stories used to be cut
and abridged, according to editor’s choice from the material they received. During the
1980s, doing cuts in whole story arcs was common practice at Editora Abril, for
instance. According to Souza and Muniz (2020:129):

The problem is that, often, a character was doing good, while other was
having an unpalatable run. Since space was limited, the solution was to focus
only on the really good stories. “Some bad runs were huge, sometimes with
more than 80 issues. Why polluting our magazines for so long with bad
material? So we cut it all out”, says Helcio (de Carvalho, Abril’s comics
editor at the time).

This practice of “cutting out” would then be extended from panels and runs to
entire titles, thus limiting offer in a country with serious and long-lasting economic
problems and crises. If a title sold well, it might continue to its end. A small reduction in
sales would mean cancelling without much hesitation. Even though Brazil still lacks
large state initiatives such as the one referred by Toury (2012:162) of investing in
translation for advancing and “catching up with the rest of the world”, publishers now
are more focused on publishing entire series and complete works, often considering
their own size and capacity before approving translation projects.
We enter, now more explicitly, into market issues. According to Even-Zohar,
“The ‘market’ is the aggregate of factors involved with the selling and buying of the
repertoire of culture, i.e., with the promotion of types of consumption.” (1997:33). Two
statements by him are useful for us to regard the current comics polysystem in Brazil,
and they follow each other:

The market may manifest itself not only in overt merchandise-exchange

institutions like clubs and schools, but also comprises all factors
participating in the semiotic exchange involving these, and with other linked
activities. While it is the “institution” which may try to direct and dictate the
kinds of consumption, determining the prices (values) of the various items of
production, what determines its success or failure is the kind of interaction
which it is able to establish with the market. (Even-Zohar 1997:33, italics are
mine)

One needs to analyze all institutional factors that take part in shaping a market,
but not just that; the type of interaction is of the same importance. In this case,
interaction via social media among producers and consumers seems to have changed the
latter ones, to a degree, in institutional shaping forces. Before addressing it, nonetheless,
we shall theoretically develop on institutions.

2.1 What slavery has taught a country

It is of the essence to understand the interactions between market and
institutions, rather than seeing these two factors in isolation. To do that, let us first
expand from Even-Zohar’s (1997) concept of institution into more abstract and
nonetheless decisively influential distinctions, such as the ones derived from
sociological studies. Even-Zohar (1997:31) points out that an institution “consists of the
aggregate of factors involved with the control of culture. It is the institution which
governs the norms, sanctioning some and rejecting others.” Features of institutions as
cultural factor, according to Even-Zohar (1997:31-32), are:
– institutions are perpetuators, keepers of culture, but they are not only that;
– they are engaged in the making of repertoires;
– they are not unified: inside each institution there is fight for dominance.
Even-Zohar points out some examples, such as the education system and the
mass media, but his description tends to be abstract. Let us abstract it further, and point
out the institutions of “slavery”, “racism”, and “family”, which are, more than any other
form of institution, the driving forces in the Brazilian polysystem. Jessé Souza’s work
on how Brazilian society is structured and functions will help point out the problem.
According to him, “one cannot separate ‘culture’ from ‘institutions’ and the institutional
and social practices that correspond to them.”5 (Souza 2009:104) On the contrary, he
follows, it is “institutional and social practices that condition all individual behavior,
even those that have to do with changes, and not with the mere reproduction of the
world as it is”. In another text, on the foolishness of the Brazilian Intelligentsia, Souza
(2017) claims that it is slavery, rather than capitalist market and welfare state, the
totalizing institution that marks Brazil’s history and distinctive feature as a nation.

According to Norbert Elias, in his great study on the civilizing process, it is

precisely the chasm with the slave heritage of antiquity that produces the
singularity of all Western culture. It is so because all social relations, from
family life to cultural, religious, political, and economic life, are governed by
very different institutional rules between the first and the second case. Thus,
to say that Brazil is a continuation of Portugal—when here, unlike there,
slavery was the total institution that commanded everyone’s lives, including
those of free men, who were neither masters nor slaves—is scientific
nonsense. The success of such superficial reading to this day is due, on the
one hand, to the everlasting absence of debate that plagues Brazilian
academia and, on the other hand, to the fact that this reading imitates the
logic of common sense.6 (Souza 2017:41)

Two pieces of data can help realize how slavery could become an institution that
then turned into ideology: Brazil had the longest period of slavery in the modern world
(388 years, ranging from 1500 to 1888), and it was the last of the Western nations to
free its slaves. At once abstract and institutionalized, by governing all facets of social
interactions, slavery “taught” Brazilians practices of inequality and humiliation as
exercises of violence and dominance, whether physical or symbolic; and, more precisely
and horrifically, to this day it tends to be absolutely overlooked and forgotten, made
invisible, as a decisive and overarching ideology whose worldview permeates and
encapsulates concepts and practices of government, market, family, trade, school
system, law, politics, economy, and intimacy—to the point that people are not aware
that Brazilian history has produced a whole stratum of disqualified second-class

5
My translation of “não se pode separar a “cultura” das “instituições” e das práticas institucionais e
sociais que lhes correspondem. São, ao inverso, as práticas institucionais e sociais que condicionam todo
comportamento individual, mesmo aquele que tem a ver com mudança, e não apenas com a mera
reprodução do mundo como ele é.”
6
My translation of: Para Norbert Elias, por exemplo, em seu grande estudo sobre o processo civilizatório,
é precisamente o corte com a herança escravocrata da Antiguidade que produz a singularidade de toda a
cultura ocidental. É que todas as relações sociais, da vida familiar à vida cultural, religiosa, política e
econômica, obedecerão a regras institucionais muito distintas em um caso e em outro. Assim, dizer que o
Brasil é uma continuação de Portugal quando aqui, ao contrário de lá, a escravidão era a instituição total
que comandava a vida de todos, inclusive dos homens livres, os quais não eram nem senhores nem
escravos, é um absurdo científico. O sucesso dessa leitura superficial até hoje se deve, por um lado, à
ausência crônica de debates que assola a universidade brasileira e, por outro lado, ao fato desta leitura
imitar a lógica do senso comum.
citizens. For that to happen, hearts and minds need to be educated over generations to
conceive themselves as inferior.

An intellectually enslaved people is born and condemned to think throughout

life as docile servants who, without reflection, swallow their tormentor’s
ideas as if they were their own. Otherwise, without the intellectual and moral
servitude that becomes a kind of automatic and incorporated “second nature”,
the selectivity of theoretical and interpretive choices could not be explained. 7

The best place for one to see such influence is in the institution of “family”,
which is, as Even-Zohar mentions, not a unified whole, but is featured differently
according to class privileges of lack thereof. The Brazilian education system has been
developed in regard of families that belong to middle classes and the economic elites,
strata that recognize the value of embodied knowledge, and that can afford time and
money so that their children can just study and need not worry about working, eating, or
doing house chores. More than that, lower social strata lack parental examples that are
decisive for children to be emotionally attached (or detached) to studying, learning new
languages, reading, or focusing on mental activities. Souza’s core claim is that of
“parental affective socialization”: the access to “impersonal” economic and cultural
capitals that “is the best kept secret in a type of social domination that only sees
individuals and hides the classes that make them” (2009:77). Such cultural capitals tend
to be passed on through affective and intellectual inheritance, in families with social
privileges, such as the access not only of good schools and materials, but mainly of
affective examples from parents and relatives. On the other side of the fence,
disorganized families and institutional bad faith “join forces” to condemn about ten to
twenty percent of Brazilian population (which comprises millions of people) to be
historically deprived of conditions for taking advantage of a system (school) that sounds
equanimous and fair on paper, but that is highly imbalanced in terms of practice. Since
depriviliedged classes and people account for most of the population, statistics follow
suit: a tiny reading public in a country of more than 210 people, print-runs of 1000
copies in average, and a general absence of reading material at home: the author’s
impressionistic inquiry is that of paying attention to people’s shelves and racks, which
boast from liquor to TV sets to sculpture, rather than books.

7
My translation of “Um povo escravizado intelectualmente já nasce e está condenado a pensar a vida
inteira como um servo dócil que engole sem reflexão as ideias de seu algoz como se fossem suas. De
outro modo, sem a servidão intelectual e moral que se torna uma espécie de “segunda natureza”
automática e “tornada corpo”, a seletividade das escolhas teóricas e interpretativas seria inexplicável.”
 However, lost among this no reading land, we have what Stephen King has
called “constant readers”. And they are helping change the landscape for comics.

3 Better sales
Book sales in Brazil have had a positive outcome during and after the pandemic,
with about 30 per cent increase in sales (Capuano 2022). This, however, accounts for
book sales in general. Comic book sales still tend to be undisclosed, both in terms of
print-runs and in sales. Few publishers seem to be at home with transparency. One of
such examples is that of Pipoca e Nanquim (PN), a sort of new player whose main
marketing strategy is being as forthcoming as possible. It originally started as a
Videolog8 channel about comics back in 2009, and went to YouTube in 2011. The three
owners/editors made it into a publishing house in 2017. Since then, the company has
become synonym with high quality books. On their website, its mission statement
includes the main traits it is known for:
 to answer a simple question: how come so many excellent comics, by
incredible creators, are not published in Brazil?
 to follow a varied line of publications that mixes old and new material, from
all parts of the world
 to cherish the best graphic and editorial quality, by offering careful curation
 to promote market growth
Once such statements are fulfilled, no wonder one can become a relevant player
in a more or less amateur and monopolized market. PN’s books do have high quality
standards, and consumers know that not just from the books themselves, but because the
company uses its YouTube channel to share many details that readers in general may
not pay attention to, but that so-called “geek readers”, who are its main target audience,
care for and do inquire about: print-runs size, edition costs, book binding, paper pricing,
translation, moiré patterns, etc. Pipoca e Nanquim is famous in the Brazilian comics
community for communicating the audience every problem or delay that might slow
down book release or printing, be it due to print shop bankruptcy (Pipoca e Nanquim
2019), moiré patterns that would render a comic book differently than what was
intended—even though people would hardly notice that (Pipoca e Nanquim 2022)

8
www.videolog.tv. Video sharing website, 2006-2014.
4 Media convergence, participatory culture, and “collective intelligence”

construção de mercado que aconteceu devagar, mas está dando resultado

5 Jenkins theory and Brazil configuration

6 Some agents and examples

Levels of participation:
– passive
– commenting and discussing (publishing houses keep an eye on social media
and forum discussions)
– reviewing and suggesting works
– taking part in crowdfunding campaigns
– pointing out mistakes, and criticizing
– scanning and translating unofficially, then blogging
– fanfic
– specializing: go from a reader to a creator, learn about editing, translation,
copydesking, reviwing, drawing, writing, publishing, blogging, journalism

Agentes da tradução
Definição de agente de Juan Sager na tradução: uma pessoa que está “em uma
posição intermediária entre um tradutor e o usuário final de uma tradução” (Sager 1994:
321)
O agente “está no início e no final do ato de fala da tradução; o ato de fala
primeiro de escrever o documento e o ato de fala subsequente de um leitor que recebe o
documento são ambos temporal, espacial e casualmente bastante independentes” (Sager
1994: 140)
 Agentes da tradução
Incluir tradutores entre nossos agentes, que também podem ser patronos da
literatura, mecenas, organizadores de salões, políticos ou empresas que ajudam a mudar
as políticas culturais e linguísticas. Podem também ser revistas, jornais ou instituições.
E, como Sager aponta, podem com frequência combinar dois ou mais desses papéis (em
Shuttleworth & Cowie 1997: 7). Muitas vezes são indivíduos que dedicam grandes
quantidades de energia e até mesmo a própria vida à causa de uma literatura estrangeira,
autor ou escola literária, traduzindo, escrevendo artigos, ensinando e divulgando o
conhecimento e a cultura.
Enfatizam seu papel em termos de inovação e mudança cultural: podem nadar
contra a corrente, desafiar lugares-comuns e suposições contemporâneas, colocar em
risco sua vida profissional e pessoal, arriscarem-se com multas, prisão e até mesmo a
morte.

Agentes da tradução
Centralidade da posição do agente de tradução na introdução de novos conceitos
literários e filosóficos através da tradução.
Podemos considerar dois tipos específicos de agentes: aqueles que efetuaram
mudanças nos estilos de tradução, ampliaram o leque de traduções disponíveis, ou que
ajudaram ou tentaram inovar selecionando novas obras a serem traduzidas e
introduzindo novos estilos de tradução para obras que entram em uma
sociedade/cultura.

Patrocínio
Segundo Lefevere, patrocínio indiferenciado existe quando há um sistema
totalitário onde um escritor favorecido está ligado à corte, ao governante ou aos líderes
políticos no estado de partido único. Patrocínio diferenciado existe quando há condições
de livre mercado (Lefevere 1992: 15).
Decidir quais obras serão publicadas
“Patrocínio” também pode se referir aos agentes que se envolvem em atos de
conscientização nacional, como no caso de líderes, artistas ou instituições em ambientes
multilíngues, culturas minoritárias e não alfabetizadas, promovendo a criação de línguas
e literaturas nacionais com o objetivo de alcançar unidade, afirmação de uma identidade
cultural, bem como obtenção de reconhecimento no espaço literário global.

O agente individual está implicado em uma teia de energias sociais coletivas, e

os gestos individuais muitas vezes têm resultados opostos ao que pretendiam: um gesto
de dissidência pode ajudar a legitimar o processo maior, e uma tentativa de estabilização
pode acabar sendo um ato inconsciente de subversão. Acordos e alianças políticas
também podem mudar rapidamente de um momento para o outro: um ato progressista
em um momento pode parecer reacionário logo depois (Greenblatt 1990: 165)

Público interativo
O mundo dos fãs é um desses espaços onde as pessoas estão aprendendo a viver
e colaborar em uma comunidade de conhecimento. Estamos testando padrões de
interação por meio de brincadeiras que em breve permearão todas as outras dimensões
de nossas vidas. Em suma, Lévy nos oferece um modelo de política baseada em fãs.
Decida o que, quando e como você vê a mídia. Ele é um consumidor de mídia,
talvez até um fã de mídia, mas também é produtor de mídia, distribuidor, anunciante e
crítico. É a cara do novo público interativo.
audiências eram ativas, criticamente conscientes e exigentes
A audiência interativa não é autônoma: continua a operar de mãos dadas com as
poderosas indústrias de mídia.
Mais do que falar sobre tecnologias interativas, devemos documentar as
interações que ocorrem entre consumidores de mídia, entre consumidores de mídia e
textos de mídia, e entre consumidores de mídia e produtores de mídia.

Cultura da convergência
Por convergência, refiro-me ao fluxo de conteúdos através de múltiplos suportes
midiáticos, à cooperação entre múltiplos mercados midiáticos e ao comportamento
migratório dos públicos dos meios de comunicação, que vão a quase qualquer parte em
busca das experiências de entretenimento que desejam. Convergência é uma palavra que
consegue definir transformações tecnológicas, mercadológicas, culturais e sociais,
dependendo de quem está falando e do que imaginam estar falando (JENKINS, 2009, p.
29).
 A questão do fã na cultura participativa
“Fanaticus”
Comunidade: para fazer parte de um grupo como esses o indivíduo deve
incorporar as práticas e convenções sociais de tal grupo como por exemplo a “forma
correta” de ler ou ser capaz de interpretar em um contexto de experiência coletiva e não
somente nível individual.
Cultura participativa: A aproximação entre as classes populares e a indústrias
midiáticas deve-se a dois fatores: primeiramente, para as pessoas é uma questão vital,
uma vez que essa indústria passa a produzir e difundir os novos bens culturais,
assumindo a postura de mediadora, e se não o faz por exclusividade, é inegável que o
faz por excelência; em segundo lugar, para a indústria é imprescindível buscar uma
aproximação, o que implica tanto a formação quanto a ampliação de um público
consumidor (DALMONTE, 2002, p. 80).

Tradução e legendagem amadora (JENKINS, 2009, p.380)

As audiências estão fazendo suas presenças serem sentidas ao moldar ativamente

o fluxo de mídia e produtores, gestores de marcas, profissionais de serviços ao
consumidor e corporações de comunicação estão acordando para a necessidade
comercial de ouvi-los e respondê-los ativamente. [...] Estamos saindo de um ponto
inicial em que o fandom é considerado apenas uma forma de subcultura para um modelo
mais abrangente no qual vários grupos estão adquirindo uma maior capacidade
comunicativa [...] e a produção cultural de nicho está influenciando fortemente a forma
e as diretrizes da mídia tradicional.

Interação entre produtores e público

Interação
Tradução
Relações públicas
Gerenciamento de comunidade
Fomentar assinaturas das contas

Redes sociais
 Público interativo
O mundo dos fãs é um desses espaços onde as pessoas estão aprendendo a viver
e colaborar em uma comunidade de conhecimento. Estamos testando padrões de
interação por meio de brincadeiras que em breve permearão todas as outras dimensões
de nossas vidas. Em suma, Lévy nos oferece um modelo de política baseada em fãs.
Decida o que, quando e como você vê a mídia. Consumidor de mídia, talvez até
um fã de mídia, mas também é produtor de mídia, distribuidor, anunciante e crítico. É a
cara do novo público interativo.
audiências eram ativas, criticamente conscientes e exigentes
A audiência interativa não é autônoma: continua a operar de mãos dadas com as
poderosas indústrias de mídia.

Público interativo
Mais do que falar sobre tecnologias interativas, devemos documentar as
interações que ocorrem entre consumidores de mídia, entre consumidores de mídia e
textos de mídia, e entre consumidores de mídia e produtores de mídia.
1. Novas ferramentas e tecnologias permitem que os consumidores arquivem,
comentem, se apropriem e recirculem o conteúdo da mídia;
2. diversas subculturas promovem a produção midiática do “faça você mesmo”,
discurso que condiciona o uso dessas tecnologias pelos consumidores; S
3. As tendências econômicas que favorecem os conglomerados de mídia
horizontalmente integrados incentivam o fluxo de imagens, ideias e narrativas por meio
de múltiplos canais de mídia e exigem tipos mais ativos de espectadores.

Convergência YouTube - Amazon

A MAIOR EXPERIÊNCIA EM QUADRINHOS DA MINHA VIDA:
PRISIONEIRO DOS SONHOS
"eu fiquei louco quando vi isso aqui porque, como eu disse a vocês, eu não sabia
absolutamente nada disso aqui. Encontrei esse quadrinho no sebo, olhei o desenho,
parecia interessante. Beleza. Levei para casa. Quando eu li eu falei assim "puta que o
pariu, eu preciso publicar isso". Na época, eu até coloquei um tweet, fui um sábado, me
lembro bem desse dia, porque foi marcante. Eu coloquei la que "eu tive a maior
experiência em quadrinhos da minha vida, esse gibi explodiu minha cabeça". E é
engraçado que eu deixei isso lá e não sei, eu não falei nada, até porque eu já sabia
naquela hora que eu queria publicar isso, então não mencionei o nome do quadrinho,
mas alguém nos comentários acertou do que eu tava falando, aí eu apaguei o
comentário, se não mostraria pra vocês."
Marcelo Reis: Fui eu quem acertou o quadrinho lá no grupo do Facebook. Dei
uma googlada sobre as melhores séries francesas dos anos 90 e conhecendo a linha da
editora e tua descrição tive certeza na hora. Estou muito pilhado pra ler desde aquele
dia.

Convergência YouTube - Amazon

Como funciona a AMAZON BRASIL e a nossa parceria | Saga da Editora 23
“O setor geek tem importância em 2 verticais. O primeiro, evidente, é em
vendas, volume e novos clientes que a gente traz todo dia.”
“O segundo ponto que um cliente geek é super importante: ele é um cara super
exigente. então o cliente geek falando de livro levantou a barra demais das editoras. Ele
é diferente no sentido de exigência. Ele lê muito. Ele não é um cara de 2, 3 leituras por
ano, ele é muito recorrente. Ele coleciona, tem exigência de qualidade, não só do
produto, mas de entrega, de atendimento.”
grau de exigência do receptor + prateleira infinita das instituições de mercado.

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