(no subject)
So I was reading scans_daily and happened upon this post with Dr. Mid-Nite, the JSA's surgeon. As you may know, I have only recently begun my journey into DC comics, but JSA was one of my first purchases. I know Mid-Nite a little bit, but this was the first place I saw Mid-Nite-centric scans.
He's Norwegian.
I actually knew that already, because I made a comment over on kalinara's blog to the effect of "I'm glad there are no characters that offer the comic companies the chance to butcher a Norwegian accent". It was also the first time I expressed how ridiculous "Pieter Cross" is as a name of a Norwegian man. Seriously, no Norwegian word has /ie/ unless it's a noun ending in -i with a morphological suffix starting with -e (such as "lien").
Still, reading these scans, I realised why I like the fact that Dr. Mid-nite is Norwegian so much. He doesn't have ice/snow-based powers (unlike Ice and Icemaiden), and he's not a mythological/mythical person (unlike Thor and Ice). And unlike MOST characters whose first language isn't English, he doesn't butcher his supposed native tongue by inserting (often grammatically/pragmatically incorrect) words and phrases into his English speech, nor does he speak in an embarrassingly rendered "accent".** In fact, if he hadn't told Canary in these scans, there's no way of guessing that he's born in Norway - Trondheim, to be exact.
This made me think. I've been reading a number of blogs and forums when I should've been doing homework (procrastinating is a great talent of mine), and most of them have a theme. When Fangirls Attack and Girl Wonder focus on female readers, creators and characters in comics. One diverse comic book nation has the tagline exploring diversity in comic books. I've been watching the creation of the Ormes Society, a group for black female comic book creators, and it makes me wish I was one, so I could join.
What I am, however, is a nerdy Norwegian reader of comic books. And if I ever were to create a theme-based blog, it would probably be something like:
"How non-american characters are portrayed in US-based comics."
And since I'm sure there are people much better equipped to talk about the some of the downright horrible racism that came up during the Golden and Silver Ages, it means I could focus on non-american WHITE characters.
Which means I could just mutter "mystical ice-people by ASS, and... Queen Olaff!? Bwaaahaaahaaa!", and wonder why Nightcrawler can't speak his own language, and who the hell thought it would be a good idea to have an Australian character named Captain Boomerang.
**This is in fact the only thing I didn't like about X-Men Annual. Northstar uses more French here than he did in the entire first Alpha Flight run (at least it feels like that). So unless it's because he's talking to someone who understands his French (Rogue), and he's slipping into the habit of switching unconsciously between English and French, which I've read occurs among Montrealers, I'll be disappointed.
He's Norwegian.
I actually knew that already, because I made a comment over on kalinara's blog to the effect of "I'm glad there are no characters that offer the comic companies the chance to butcher a Norwegian accent". It was also the first time I expressed how ridiculous "Pieter Cross" is as a name of a Norwegian man. Seriously, no Norwegian word has /ie/ unless it's a noun ending in -i with a morphological suffix starting with -e (such as "lien").
Still, reading these scans, I realised why I like the fact that Dr. Mid-nite is Norwegian so much. He doesn't have ice/snow-based powers (unlike Ice and Icemaiden), and he's not a mythological/mythical person (unlike Thor and Ice). And unlike MOST characters whose first language isn't English, he doesn't butcher his supposed native tongue by inserting (often grammatically/pragmatically incorrect) words and phrases into his English speech, nor does he speak in an embarrassingly rendered "accent".** In fact, if he hadn't told Canary in these scans, there's no way of guessing that he's born in Norway - Trondheim, to be exact.
This made me think. I've been reading a number of blogs and forums when I should've been doing homework (procrastinating is a great talent of mine), and most of them have a theme. When Fangirls Attack and Girl Wonder focus on female readers, creators and characters in comics. One diverse comic book nation has the tagline exploring diversity in comic books. I've been watching the creation of the Ormes Society, a group for black female comic book creators, and it makes me wish I was one, so I could join.
What I am, however, is a nerdy Norwegian reader of comic books. And if I ever were to create a theme-based blog, it would probably be something like:
"How non-american characters are portrayed in US-based comics."
And since I'm sure there are people much better equipped to talk about the some of the downright horrible racism that came up during the Golden and Silver Ages, it means I could focus on non-american WHITE characters.
Which means I could just mutter "mystical ice-people by ASS, and... Queen Olaff!? Bwaaahaaahaaa!", and wonder why Nightcrawler can't speak his own language, and who the hell thought it would be a good idea to have an Australian character named Captain Boomerang.
**This is in fact the only thing I didn't like about X-Men Annual. Northstar uses more French here than he did in the entire first Alpha Flight run (at least it feels like that). So unless it's because he's talking to someone who understands his French (Rogue), and he's slipping into the habit of switching unconsciously between English and French, which I've read occurs among Montrealers, I'll be disappointed.