Monday 18 February 2002

Pic of the day: Chic in chain mail. Screen shot from Dark Age of Camelot.

Fictional mistresses

I’m waiting as patiently as a child waiting for Christmas. What’s the big deal? Al Schroeder of Nova Notes is making a comic! A comic book for the web, not just a strip. And it’s a superheroine story with a twist. This is bound to be good. Schroeder is a decent illustrator with a unique style, very distinct from the typical comic book style. He is a lively and creative storyteller. But above all, he excels in world building. I would hesitate to put him on the pedestal with Tolkien and Larry Niven, but I’d say he is certainly on a par with such well-known writers as Heinlein and Mike Resnick. Expect even trivial details to have some significance.

So, what’s the name of the comic? The name of the superheroine based on a goddess from Greek mythology? Uh, according to the leakage so far, "Mindmistress". Eep. Yes, that could well be the cheesiest name since ... since ... Superman? Green Lantern? The Toad? Mary Marvel? OK, but it could well be one of the cheesiest names ever for a superhero. "Mindmaster" would be pretty cheesy already, and that’s without the triple meaning of "mistress": Slave-owner, dominatrix and concubine. I’m confident in Schroeder’s ability to deliver, but perhaps not on ALL the counts. The reading public can have some pretty weird expectations at times...

***

I met this myself the last year before Internet made its transforming impact in Norway. I was writing a serial fiction for the Norwegian BBS network YouthNet (not related to anything of that name today). My story was set in a universe based very loosely on the strategy game Master of Magic, but expanded in many ways. It spanned 7 different worlds with increasing levels of magic. The outer world is Earth, or "World of the Dead God" as the elves call it. Its magic nearly gone, Earth is almost inaccessible to mages from the other worlds. Almost - but not quite...

The one thing that most caught my readers’ imagination however was a throwaway reference to whip ladies. The story was in New Norwegian, and I made a horrible pun on "lettkledde piskedamer" (scantily clothed whip ladies) and "nettkledde fiskedamer" (net-clothed mermaids) but for some reason people wanted leather-clothed whip ladies. I never got along to introduce that, but it became a kind of running joke. And then the Internet came and YouthNet died. So they never got their whip ladies.

The story was actually pretty saturated with a kind of low-key simmering puberty erotics, so I guess the request for whip ladies seemed rational enough. Evidently this is a big turn on to lots of people. Don’t ask me why, that’s one thing I have never understood. I am not unfamiliar with sado-masochism in theory (practice is another matter, thankfully) but the whole whipping thing has me completely baffled. This is not what I personally associate with a strong female character.

My "chicks in chain mail" however were pretty strong female characters, despite the stereotyping. Confident in their own and each other’s abilities, they were deadly fighters relying on a combo of magic, quickness and dexterity. Among the elves, gender roles were not like ours. Women would pursue men in the same way as men pursue women, and love was a thing of personal consent rather than social accept. My male human character had some real hang-ups with the Sisters of the Burning Hand, and reconciling their ruthlessness in battle with their femininity in private.

Perhaps I should rewrite that story. It was in New Norwegian, and I fear I may have lost the files. But the world building remains intact; I can still remember the worlds, the races, the different types of magic, the artifacts, the cultures ... yes, I love world building, which may be why I appreciate it so much when someone surpasses me in it.

***

But right now, I intend to play Dark Age of Camelot and wait for Schroeder to finish his first installation of Mindmistress. I do not expect any whip ladies, but I do expect a strong female character or two.