One of my hobbies is translating foreign-language comic books like Herge's Tintin series into English. (Sure, I could just read the existing English translations, but that's so EASY!) I recently wrote out a translation of TINTIN IN TIBET, and I've started translating the two books where he went to the moon, which books I'd picked up in London in their original French. Comics are easier to translate than non-visual "literature": they tend to use pretty basic language.
Another series I've been translating is F. Ibanez' Spanish-language MORTADELO Y FILEMON. I don't know Spanish as well as I do French, but I find it's a fairly easy language. (Ask my sister how difficult German can be!) I own an excellent Spanish-English dictionary published by Collins.
The series itself is fairly slapstick in a way that appeals to little boys. (I first encountered it in a French translation when I was fourteen.) It's a James Bond parody with Mortadelo and Filemon as two goofy secret agents who bumble through various adventures, helped by Mortadelo's wide range of disguises. My favorite supporting character is the zaftig secretary Ofelia, whom they're constantly driving up the wall. The latest one I'm translating is PESADILLA! (nightmare), a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET spoof "guest-starring" a Freddy caricature.
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