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The Obscure Cities

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The Alaxis Press Editorial Team

Meet the creatives behind the English translations of The obscure Cities.
Stephen D. Smith
publisher and editorial director
Steve is a writer and editor with 37 years of experience in the publishing and entertainment industries. Steve got his first taste of European comics in the pages of HEAVY METAL magazine in 1977. In the mid-1980s, he and college friend Tom Schild, founded Avalon Editions to publish limited edition comic-related art by their college professor, Mark A. Nelson. A meeting with Jean "Moebius" Giraud in 1987 changed the course for the pair as they began importing and publishing limited editions by Moebius, Herge, and François Schuiten. A bookstore signing in Brussels with longtime friend, Dave Dorman, led to Steve purchasing a copy of L'ENFANT PENCHEE by Peeters and Schuiten. Steve would spend the next five years teaching himself to read French so that he could translate the book, which he later published in 2013 as THE LEANING GIRL after founding Alaxis Press. Since then he has translated THE BEAUTY for Casterman, and several other Obscure Cities titles.

By day, Steve is the president of Oasis Family Media, one of the largest independent audio/video publishing companies in the US, and publisher of their Oasis Audio and Paperback Classics imprints.
Email: stevesmithbooks@gmail.com
Website: http://theobscurecities.com
Ivanka Hahnenberger
translator
Ivanka Hahnenberger has translated over 60 comics and graphic novels. Several highly acclaimed titles such as "Climate Changed" and "Blue is the Warmest Color." 

Born in Berkeley, California, she spent part of her childhood in Geneva, Switzerland and lived in a multilingual, multicultural household. She has lived in Europe since 1983 primarily in France and Germany but with several short stays in other European nations. She presently splits her time between Normandy and Paris. 

She has translated and transposed film and TV pitches, business plans and power points for decades starting when she worked as a TV and film producer and consultant. As a big fan of French BD, she started a company to sell French rights into North America and through this began translating works to help buyers acquire. This grew into contractual translation work. She has translated biographies, scientific graphic novels, science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, sagas, creative fiction, adaptations, history, classics and much more.

She has also translated non-fiction guides on art and architecture, white papers on marketing concepts such as Nudge Theory, and children’s chapter books. She translates from both French and German into American English.
Material ©2020 Alaxis Press. All rights reserved.
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Alta-Plana
The Alta-Plana website is made to archive the world of Les Cites Obscures on the Internet. It hosts the most comprehensive dictionary of all topics related to these Obscure Cities and it authors Francois Schuiten and Benoit Peeters. The original dictionary was made late 90s by Sylvain St.Pierre. It was turned into the current dictionary in 2011 by Joseph le Perdriel.
The Obscure Cities © 2016 Editions Casterman. English translations © 2016 Stephen D. Smith for Alaxis Press. All rights reserved.