A Word or Two on Accents.

I recently got the above (extremely rewarding, don't you think?) feedback on "Coffee, Tea, or Me?" over at Literotica, where I post my completed stories. Now normally I laugh off comments of this tone, but linguistics is actually kind of my thing and chuckles here is coming into my house, so I'm going to address how I use accent and dialect in my comic just a little.

There are two primary characters who's "accent" anonymous could be referring to: Manoa, and Mr Schlong. Manoa's dialect reflects her background, both as a born and raised inhabitant of a fictionalized Honolulu (one of the most diverse cities in the United States) and her family background. Manoa's mother is Mexican by birth, and her father is native Hawaiian. As a result, Manoa grew up speaking a mix of English, Spanish and Hawaiian in their home. It's important to me that the characters I write reflect their heritage and are proud of who they are. When Manoa drops a Hawaiian or Spanish word into her dialogue, it's because that's part of who she is.

Mr. Schlong is, of course, a comic relief character, and I'm certainly not too proud to use some classic schticks in presenting him. So certainly, there is the trope that he has an outrageously thick accent (German...ish, at least). But I think the important distinction is that I don't believe he's actually depicted as a lesser character because of this. He is a first-generation immigrant who started, owns, and successfully manages his own business. He's depicted as passionate about what he does and genuinely invested in the people who work for him. His character is funny, but his defining characteristic is passion; passion enough to move boldly in a second language in an adopted country.

So I admit this is a lot of thought behind a sporadically written webcomic with tentacle monsters, butt-expanding super heroines and nurses with split personalities, but hell... if anything's worth doing, it's worth having some thought behind it.