American Way #4: regional dialects?

I've been enjoying the Wildstorm miniseries "The American Way" despite occasional lapses in its portrayal of US history and culture. With the latest issue, it became painfully obvious that the writer is not an american.

We get as far as page two before the point is hammered home by Attorney General Robert Kennedy declaring "this is one hell of a cock-up, letting the world know this New American is a negro." (The story takes place during the Civil Rights movement of the early 1960s; "The New American" is a faux-superhero, part of a team created by the government as part of a national morale-building effort during the Cold War.)

I don't know anything at all about John Ridley, the writer of this series, but after reading this issue, I'll bet good money that he's british, based solely on his use (and misuse) of slang. Habitually, he has characters use words and phrases that I have only heard used by people from Great Britain, such as the aforementioned "cock-up".

Other examples:
On page 5, Lucky refers to "our east-coast minders." An american would have called them his "handlers."

On the same page, Southern Cross says "Bad enough you shine us into thinking...." I've searched a few online slang dictionaries, as well as Dictionary.com, but I can't find any definition of "shine" that fits the context in which it's used here. If this is in fact a southern US term, I've never heard it before. I welcome a correction or clarification.

On page 7, Freya says "The path to bettering Pharos doesn't travel through me." In this case, the term "bettering is used to mean "getting the better of." In american usage, "bettering" would mean "to improve." Granted, Freya is allegedly a Norse goddess, but it's clear she learned to speak english in Europe.

Aside from the misuse of slang, there is the matter of sentence structure and rhythm. Every character in the book speaks like a brit, even the ones with allegedly southern accents.

I found the dialect errors in this issue jarring enough to mar my enjoyment of the story. Fortunately there was a really brutal and violent conclusion to the comic which effectively engaged my lowbrow american sensibilities and allowed me to forget about the language thing. Here's hoping the next issue does a better job of making the characters sound like they actually live in the country they are portrayed as being from.

As Henry Higgins said, "why can't the English speak english?"

Now that's more like it!

Young Avengers #10

You know, if I were prone to egotism, I'd be trying to grab credit at this point. Though honestly, I doubt if Jim Cheung even knows this blog exists. But whatever, even if it isn't a result of my relentless whining here, it's nice to see the cover of the latest issue:



Well, well, well. What have we here? Kate's holding the bow correctly, the arrow is on the correct side of the bow, she's keeping her index finger the hell away from the arrow, her quiver is where it should be, and best of all, her bow actually looks like a bow. She's got a nice old-fashioned one-piece recurve there. It looks a bit like a vintage Fred Bear, though it might be one of those aluminum ones that were all the rage back in the early '70s. In any case, it's a real bow. Nice.

And the goodness continues inside. Young Avengers is comics done good. It's comics the way all comics should be; looking forward, not back. Taking elements from the past and building on them rather than rehashing, reinventing, recycling, reinterpreting, redacting, or rewriting them. It's comics that are smart, fun, exciting, compelling, engaging and (wait for it) entertaining. With characters you care about, behaving in character. If you aren't reading Young Avengers, you're missing out on what is quite frankly the best thing Marvel has been publishing in a while.

Okay, enough with the effusive fanboy praise. I like the book, we get it. But this is Suspension of Disbelief, the nitpick blog. So where are the nitpicks?

Okay, I'll give you one. And this one falls on Allan Heinberg, the writer, not the artist.

*ahem*

When the late Dr. Richard Feynman used to teach at Caltech, he occasionally performed the following demonstration, which will serve quite nicely to illustrate the nitpick at hand:

Dr. Feynman would reach into his coat pocket and pull out a rubber ball. He would bounce the ball on the desk. It would bounce a few times, then he would put his hand on it, pressing it to the desktop and arresting its movement. Then he would speak.

"I have damped the ball."

Dr. Feynman would then drop the ball into a glass of water. Then he would fish it out and set it, dripping on the desk.

"Now I have dampened the ball."

"Any questions?"

Comic book writers and editors: Please get this right. It's irritating when you don't. My comics are worth less when they have corrections written in with a red pen. Thank you.