Based on the conception of translation as social practice, this contribution analyses the conditions underlying the translation of comics in German speaking countries. Bourdieu's concepts of field and capital are applied as the methodological framework for this analysis. The introduction of comics to the German literary field is traced on the basis of the trivial viewed as a social construct. The assignment of comics to the area of mass literature as well as the lack of cultural and symbolic capital led to specific translational forms of practice, which are discussed on behalf of the German publishing house, Kauka Verlag.