audi alteram partem [translation]

Mongo: There are a lot of blind characters in comic books.

Bernice: Blind characters?

Mongo: Yeah. Daredevil, of course. And the guy in PvP.

Bernice: "The guy"?

Mongo: I'm not sure what the character's name is. Anyway, there are a lot of blind characters in comic books.

Bernice: By "a lot" you mean "two"?

Mongo: [glares]

Bernice: Do you have a point?

Mongo: My point is, where are all the deaf characters?

Bernice: You mean like Daredevil's girlfriend?

Mongo: Elektra?

Bernice: No, another one. I think they called her "Echo".

Mongo: "Echo"?

Bernice: Yeah, might as well call Daredevil "Mirage". But Echo's a deaf character.

Mongo: Huh. Didn't know that. [pause] And Splinter! Wasn't Splinter blinded at some point?

Bernice: You're probably thinking of Stick, the guy who trained Daredevil.

Mongo: Yeah, him! But, like I was saying, why the obsession with blindness? Why not deafness?

Bernice: Well, it's a visual art, after all.

Mongo: But that's my point! If it's possible that we read comics to live out our own fantasies, then I would think we'd want to have something in common with the characters. How are blind people going to appreciate a Daredevil run?

Bernice: We're only supposed to read stories about ourselves?

Mongo: Well, not exactly. You're kinda ruining my point.

Bernice: It's not much effort, really.

Mongo: It just seems to me that portraying deaf people in a comic book format has some interesting opportunities. How do you convey their signing? Do you show a highlight of the sign, with moovles suggesting the signing going on?

Bernice: Do speaking characters usually have their mouths frozen in mid-plosive, and wiggle marks drawn around their chin?

Mongo: Right, that's what I'm saying! There's a challenge there, and no one's taken it up. Why is that?

Bernice: For all of the emphasis on sequential art being a visual medium, the script weighs heavily for most mainstream comics. To have a deaf character, you have to have characters who can understand that deaf character, whereas blind characters can still interact vocally with the usual inhabitants of comic worlds.

Mongo: True. It'd probably end up with some strange arrangement of a sidekick providing vocal translations, which would completely undermine all the cool stuff bumping around in my head. Ah well.

Bernice: Does Awesome Andy count?

Mongo: Count...?

Bernice: In Dan Slott's recent She-Hulk comics, Awesome Andy is mute, but communicates with other characters via a chalkboard. We rarely see him writing on it, though.

Mongo: Yeah! Stuff like that. For a signing character, should standard word bubbles be used? Generally the "tag" on a word bubble will point to a character's head or mouth, indicating the words come from there. Should a deaf character have the word bubble pointing at their hands?

Bernice: Ugh.

Mongo: Or should it be something like how translated text is usually bracketed? I'm just saying, there's potential there, and a deaf audience would be able to appreciate such stories, I would think.

Bernice: Ah, because deaf people aren't able to properly appreciate a Daredevil story arc as it stands?

Mongo: You are no fun whatsoever.

Last updated by eric Sun May 14 14:32 2006 | omission | link