Black Panther Appreciation 2020

[Doombot]

Accents are difficult to do in text without sounding like a parody, anyway. Anyone who has read the Claremont X-MEN knows that, sugah.

This is very true. I'd rather not risk the silly text you get with characters like Rogue and Gambit.

[MindofShadow]

This is very true. I'd rather not risk the silly text you get with characters like Rogue and Gambit.

Fantomax checks in

Yeah, it just comes off as "****, through a random foreign word in!"

[butterflykyss]

Wakanda isn't even in North-East Africa. Wakanda is bordered to the east by Lake Victoria, meaning it's located in roughly the area of Uganda and Rwanda, which are in East-Central Africa. Even then it doesn't even make sense for Wakandans to sound like them if we go with the idea that they've had little to no contact with people outside the kingdom. Wakandan would sound completely unlike anything on Earth and might as well be alien. It's one thing for them to have vague spiritual and architectural similarities to the rest of the continent but it's another for them to have similar diction and grammar.

And like you said, writers don't get paid enough to do that much research nor is it necessary. But I think stuff like Damisa-Sarki and the Djalia is cool as long as their not overused. If Thor can have a bunch of Nordic names and concepts I see no reason a BP writer shouldn't add some unique words or phrases. The main issue with the Coates run is that he arguably has the best prose of any Black Panther writer but there's too much flowery language that makes it a chore to read.

I actually love how coates writing reads. I've enjoyed this a lot more than hudlin runs for that very reason.

[Chesterfield]

I understand where you're coming from with this, and I don't think it would necessarily be too much work, but you have to be very specific and it might not be necessary.

From my experience Nigerian people (where my family is from) speak completely differently from other people of other African countries I've interacted with. Therefore it might not be right to associate how Wakandans speak with one country in the continent. The best you could hope to manage is take different bits of inspiration from the countries that exist in the region Wakanda is located. And even at that, it's still a challenge because Wakanda isn't real and refused to assimilate with the immediate world around it, which theoretically should mean they shouldn't be borrowing from any other cultures. Of course the comics and other adaptations have broken those rules because inventing a whole new and completely unique culture is difficult.

Secondly, Nigeria for instance has many different tribes (371 is the exact number reported) and even within one tribe there are many different dialects of the common language they speak. Why is that so? Well, blame colonialists who decided whatever plot of land they carved out was a country in which they owned, so you have a great number of people who probably shouldn't be in the same country (but that's a very political thing I don't want to get into). I haven't done my research into other African countries but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same case for quite a number of them. So even how you define a country's dialect is difficult because it's incredibly diverse. Wakanda is the same, isn't it? There are more than one tribe in Wakanda, and I think one thing the film did so well was show that kind of diversity within the country. I think it would be best if the comics reflected this as well.

So how do you select how you want Wakandans to speak based on all of that? The research is complicated, and the implementation will be a challenge. All for what, really? At the end of the day, the best thing to do would be to consider that while Wakandans have their own traditions, they are a modern people. After all, they do speak English despite not being a former colonial power because they have to communicate with the outside world now. It's an advanced country, so they should sound educated, and not the weird Shakespearean and overly poetic and formal thing Coates was trying to do.

Meanwhile the black panther mythos is full of Nigerian elements. Yoruba and Hausa are official Wakandan languages. Names like Ayo, Okoye and tge alias T'Challa uses (Mr Okonkwo) are Nigerian names and that's just for starters.

[DrNewGod]

Meanwhile the black panther mythos is full of Nigerian elements. Yoruba and Hausa are official Wakandan languages. Names like Ayo, Okoye and tge alias T'Challa uses (Mr Okonkwo) are Nigerian names and that's just for starters.

Full of Nigerian elements? Yes, and it should be. But Nigeria cannot be allowed to be Wakanda's alias.

For better or worse, The Black Panther is an American comicbook IP. As such, Wakanda (from a Euro-American POV) is a lens upon all of Africa, and people of Non-Arabic-African Origin. If the character has a moral imperative, it's that he must represent ALL Africa to the world, in much the same way that Wonder Woman is burdened with representing ALL Women (regardless of cultural origin), and Captain America is burdened with representing The American Ideal (even tho that encompasses both The Declaration of Independence and The Wounded Knee Massacre). So:

Draw from various African Cultural Roots, including Nigerian? Yes: The Black Panther absolutely should.

Anchor in Any Specific African Culture? No: The Black Panther absolutely should not.

[Tofali]

How is that not realistic? It was realistic for Hudlin and Preist to accomplish. Why not for Caotes? Caotes is an American journalist. he could have done the research.
.

Realistic? If Marvel wanted realistic they would care and stress the correct pronunciation of Thor or T'Challa's name. Realistic isn't really the goal. The goal is to have writers accomplish something close to what Americans feel how Africans or ppl outside the U.S. sound like because at the end of the day the content is mainly produced and consumed by Americans.

[chief12d]

I actually love how coates writing reads. I've enjoyed this a lot more than hudlin runs for that very reason.

I can't lie, on a technical level Coates is probably the strongest writer of the BP scribes save maybe McGregor. The issue is that like McGregor his writing is too poetic and unnatural sounding. It has the effect of making all his characters sound the same and sucking the fun out of any dialogue they have lol. T'Challa and his elite friends should sound sophisticated, but not like philosophers.

[DigiCom]

Regarding the latest (and apparently last) issue of Black Panther & The Agents of Wakanda:

spoilers:

T'challa isn't in it. It's basically a random Fin Fang Foom & Broo story. And they used the last page to advertise an Empyre tie-in that was canceled.

end of spoilers

So one more Black Panther tie-in ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

[Chesterfield]

Full of Nigerian elements? Yes, and it should be. But Nigeria cannot be allowed to be Wakanda's alias.

For better or worse, The Black Panther is an American comicbook IP. As such, Wakanda (from a Euro-American POV) is a lens upon all of Africa, and people of Non-Arabic-African Origin. If the character has a moral imperative, it's that he must represent ALL Africa to the world, in much the same way that Wonder Woman is burdened with representing ALL Women (regardless of cultural origin), and Captain America is burdened with representing The American Ideal (even tho that encompasses both The Declaration of Independence and The Wounded Knee Massacre). So:

Draw from various African Cultural Roots, including Nigerian? Yes: The Black Panther absolutely should.

Anchor in Any Specific African Culture? No: The Black Panther absolutely should not.

Perhaps but with the Naija elements I mentioned and on top of that the Orishas which are Nigerian gods/religion/spirituality, there's a lot of Nigerian culture that makeup Wakanda. I also find it interesting that Black Panther's cinematic debut features Nigeria, a country where things go south being the reason why Wakanda emerges from its covert isolation; and Nigeria once again happens to not only feature in Black Panther's debut solo movie where, imo he displays the best of his abilities in the whole film but Winston Duke tailored his accent to that of a Nigerian. Obviously, anyone following the mythology and knows about Africa can see ghat Wakanda isn't exclusively using Nigerian elements but as a Nigerian myself (Yoruba) it's satisfying to see so many Naija elements as part of the Wakandan fabric.

[MindofShadow]

Meanwhile the black panther mythos is full of Nigerian elements. Yoruba and Hausa are official Wakandan languages. Names like Ayo, Okoye and tge alias T'Challa uses (Mr Okonkwo) are Nigerian names and that's just for starters.

Nigeria is one of the few sub Sahara African countries American's could probably name. So you are going to get elements taken from it more frequently.

To Americans, Africa is simply Arabic area, South Africa, and then probably Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and maybe like Congo. The rest of National Geographic, Warlords, AIDS, Tribes, and Poachers.

Americans don't really learn much on Black History, let alone any real African geography/history outside of north african WW2 campaign for 1 paragraph, some ivory coast slave stuff, and maybe maybe nelson mendela.

Regarding the latest (and apparently last) issue of Black Panther & The Agents of Wakanda:

spoilers:

T'challa isn't in it. It's basically a random Fin Fang Foom & Broo story. And they used the last page to advertise an Empyre tie-in that was canceled.

end of spoilers

So one more Black Panther tie-in ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

It is sad that my initial reaction to this was, "hey at least he didn't get chumped in his own side book!"

The bar is really really really low lol

[Chesterfield]

Nigeria is one of the few sub Sahara African countries American's could probably name. So you are going to get elements taken from it more frequently.

To Americans, Africa is simply Arabic area, South Africa, and then probably Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and maybe like Congo. The rest of National Geographic, Warlords, AIDS, Tribes, and Poachers.

Americans don't really learn much on Black History, let alone any real African geography/history outside of north african WW2 campaign for 1 paragraph, some ivory coast slave stuff, and maybe maybe nelson mendela.

That's incredibly sad. I feel like black people across the diaspora should take it upon themselves to know where they came from and have a better understanding of their heritage and the influence it's had across the world and on other cultures. This is why its so easy for people to write/rewrite African history and frame it in negativity because African descendants for the most part dont know any better and in some cases don't really care. Honestly, the amount of non Africans I know who initially had no interest in setting foot on the continent travel there now more than I do because they've seen and experienced beyond the media narrative of disease, poverty and Coates-type ignorance. Africa has some of the most beautiful and LUXURIOUS places on this planet and the sad thing is, more non Africans (European descendants) are aware of this and often take advantage of this fact for their own leisure.

[MindofShadow]

That's incredibly sad. I feel like black people across the diaspora should take it upon themselves to know where they came from and have a better understanding of their heritage and the influence it's had across the world and on other cultures. This is why its so easy for people to write/rewrite African history and frame it in negativity because African descendants for the most part dont know any better and in some cases don't really care. Honestly, the amount of non Africans I know who initially had no interest in setting foot on the continent travel there now more than I do because they've seen and experienced beyond the media narrative of disease, poverty and Coates-type ignorance. Africa has some of the most beautiful and LUXURIOUS places on this planet and the sad thing is, more non Africans (European descendants) are aware of this and often take advantage of this fact for their own leisure.

Personally, I have no interest in going to Africa for culture reasons (aka bc im black). I don't have any connection to the continent. If I ever go, it is because Africa seems like it has some cool places travel wise and nothing more.

black people aren't even taught their own American Black History to even bother trying to get into knowing more about Africa. Get taught a sanitized view of slavery, emancipation, one sentence on jim crow, might mention Emmit Till if you are lucky, then you got some Malcolm/MLK, and then everything is sunshine and rainbows. Oh, and the dude that invented Peanut Butter of course.

But of course, I had a class in high school on every single petty squabble in Europe at one point.

This is relaly off topic though so um....

When tchalla got snapped in IW, Okoye is quoted as saying "Hezvo?" What is the translation for that? Google isn't bieng useful

[Digifiend]

Regarding the latest (and apparently last) issue of Black Panther & The Agents of Wakanda:

spoilers:

T'challa isn't in it. It's basically a random Fin Fang Foom & Broo story. And they used the last page to advertise an Empyre tie-in that was canceled.

end of spoilers

So one more Black Panther tie-in ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

Yeah, they should've removed the "to be continued" message and replaced the last page with a message from the creative team.

[XPac]

Regarding the latest (and apparently last) issue of Black Panther & The Agents of Wakanda:

spoilers:

T'challa isn't in it. It's basically a random Fin Fang Foom & Broo story. And they used the last page to advertise an Empyre tie-in that was canceled.

end of spoilers

So one more Black Panther tie-in ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

Some of the Empyre tie ins that were cancelled are sort of surprising. I can understand Squadron Supreme or Strike Force, since the books aren't exactly focusing on big name characters. But you'd think a Black Panther or a Spider-Man book potentially would do okay.

[Chesterfield]

Personally, I have no interest in going to Africa for culture reasons (aka bc im black). I don't have any connection to the continent. If I ever go, it is because Africa seems like it has some cool places travel wise and nothing more.

black people aren't even taught their own American Black History to even bother trying to get into knowing more about Africa. Get taught a sanitized view of slavery, emancipation, one sentence on jim crow, might mention Emmit Till if you are lucky, then you got some Malcolm/MLK, and then everything is sunshine and rainbows. Oh, and the dude that invented Peanut Butter of course.

But of course, I had a class in high school on every single petty squabble in Europe at one point.

This is relaly off topic though so um....

When tchalla got snapped in IW, Okoye is quoted as saying "Hezvo?" What is the translation for that? Google isn't bieng useful

Many people like you don't have a connection to Africa for a variety of reasons. Obviously it's your choice to do or not do anything about it but relying on the systems of Western education in place to teach you anything is folly. If one gives a damn, they're gokngbto have to do their own research. Like I said, relying on other people to write/rewrite your history is a sad way to live. Education is key and its so easy to study up and learn about Africa and all its infinite beauty.

In other news Janelle Monae wants to be Storm in BP2 and to do her justice.



https://thedirect.com/article/janell...mpression=true