Nemi (comic strip)
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Nemi is a Norwegian comic strip, written and drawn by Lise Myhre. It made its first appearance in 1997 under the title Den svarte siden ("The black side" or "The black page"). At that time it was a very dark cartoon about the Black metal and goth subcultures, but Myhre has turned it brighter with the years, although she still frequently publishes strips about serious issues, especially in the larger Saturday panels.
The strip is now named Nemi, after the protagonist, and is the second most popular cartoon in Norway, behind Pondus. In the UK and Ireland, the strip is reprinted daily, or every second day in the Metro newspaper, after translation in to English. Originally Nemi was published in monthly extreme music magazine Terrorizer (magazine) before it lost the UK rights due to the syndication deal with Metro.
Myhre has also illustrated poems by Edgar Allan Poe and André Bjerke.
The strip has its own monthly magazine in Norway and Sweden. The magazine has introduced several upcoming Norwegian comic artists, and also run foreign comics including Lenore by Roman Dirge, Liberty Meadows by Frank Cho, WayLay by Carol Lay, EC Comics classics and, formerly, Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida.
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[edit] Main characters
[edit] Nemi Montoya
A woman about 25 years old, Nemi almost always wears black clothes, has very pale skin, and very little in common with most of the rest of the world. She was named after Lake Nemi and Inigo Montoya, a character in Lise Myhre's favourite film, The Princess Bride. It underlines Nemi's "outsider" status within Norwegian society and suggests that she may not be a natural brunette. This is confirmed in one cartoon where a childhood friend fails to recognise her without her "blond curls" - implying her hair is not only dyed but also straightened.
[edit] Character
Nemi is a "tough girl" with an attitude, is not afraid to speak her mind and more often than not in confrontational ways: violent rejections of would-be one-night stands at the pub are not uncommon. At the same time, she can be very sensitive: she is apparently incapable of killing anything, including spiders, of which she is very fond. She can also feel very alone at times. She is afraid of growing up, and loathes blonde bimbos (viz cartoon in which she insinuates that Tim is nothing more than a replaceable penis for his new blonde-bimbo girlfriend). Her fear of growing up is reflected in her appeal to readers through her child-like qualities and innocence, as well as her sense of fun.
[edit] Lifestyle
She listens to heavy metal and goth music, and has a number of friends in those subcultures who dress likewise. She is often unemployed or employed in temporary jobs, where she often gets fired for her temper (such as beating a customer who asked for a CD of Christina Aguilera for her daughter, instead of the Alice Cooper CD Nemi had suggested).
She is fond of vacationing in warmer countries, but when at the beach she uses top-grade sunblock cream to avoid tanning, which would severely damage her carefully-cultivated surface image. Nemi suffers from strong allergic reactions and has advocated exterminating birch trees, on the grounds that "we kill off thousands of species every day anyway".
She likes to visit the pub, often with her friend Cyan, where she often gets drunk. Alcoholism is however not a main theme of the comic, as getting drunk at the pub is fairly common in Scandinavia and is socially accepted. However, as a consequence Nemi has a lot of casual sex, and often wakes up beside complete strangers.
Nemi's apartment is almost always a mess, and she has an uncontrollable passion for chocolate.
[edit] Politics
Nemi does not state a clear political preference, but is opposed to George W. Bush, Norwegian whale hunting and hunting in general, fur, smoking restrictions and in general the "establishment". The animal rights content is mostly passive resistance (in one cartoon Nemi disrupts a duck hunt by singing loudly to scare the ducks away), but other cartoons appear to rather simplistically condone violence against scientists conducting research on animals, eg. one in which Nemi tries to teach a laboratory mouse how to swing a baseball bat. In another cartoon Nemi berates a boyfriend for disagreeing with her on this issue, the punchline being that he is apparently not fit to be regarded as a human for doing so. Nemi is also a vegetarian.
[edit] Culture
Nemi's heroes are Edgar Allan Poe, André Bjerke, J. R. R. Tolkien, Alice Cooper, W.A.S.P., The Phantom Blot and Batman. She also has a passion for dragons, and hates reality shows such as Big Brother, and ironically regards "modern art" as simply a manifestation of insecurity by would-be intellectuals, who secretly know they have nothing original to say (viz. cartoon in which Nemi visits a modern art exhibition with Cyan and Tim). Nemi hates certain kinds of music, once asking a bartender if she could borrow a CD by The Corrs so she could burn it. The bartender assumes that she wants to make a copy of the CD and thus lends it to her. Nemi is then seen setting it on fire. The music that she does like includes The Cure, Tori Amos, The Sisters of Mercy, Red Harvest, Nicole Blackman, Lamented Souls, Use Me, Warrior Soul, Metallica, and Alice Cooper (as mentioned above). She once met the "Showman" Alice Cooper character from Last Temptation.
[edit] Other characters
Cyan is Nemi's best friend. She has cyan hair and a lot of worries (apparently being especially afraid of spiders and death; viz. the recurring nightmare cartoon). She usually functions as Nemi's conscience and reality anchor, or the other way around: the two basically take turns playing the "straight man" or comic foil for each other.
Tim used to be Cyan's boyfriend. He plays in a band, and has no job. Tim and Cyan had a pretty bad relationship, and eventually he dumped her for a blonde. Subsequently, his presence in the strip was sharply reduced.
The cartoon also features a large number of friends, family, short-term boyfriends and goths.
