Nemi is a Norwegian comic strip, written and drawn by Lise Myhre. It made its first appearance in 1997, and was originally called Den svarte siden (The black side or the black page). At that time it was a very dark cartoon about the goth-society, but Myhre has turned it brighter with the years, although she still frequently publishes strips about serious issues, especially in the larger Sunday panels.

The cartoon is now named Nemi, after the protagonist. It is now the second most popular cartoon in Norway, behind Pondus. In the UK and Ireland, the strip is reprinted daily in the Metro newspaper.

Myhre has also illustrated poems by Edgar Allan Poe and André Bjerke.

Nemi has its own magazine in Norway, notable for giving the Norwegian audience comics like Sinfest and Lenore.

Main characters

Nemi Montoya

A woman about 25 years old, living in Oslo, Nemi always wears black clothes, has very pale skin, and very little in common with most of the rest of the world. The apparently Spanish surname is interesting. It underlines Nemi's "outsider" status with Norwegian society and suggests that she may actually be a natural brunette (hardly rare in Scandinavia but definitely outside the stereotypical norm). Myhre has stated that Nemi's surname actually comes from a lake called Montoya in Italy.

Character

Nemi is a "tough girl" with an attitude, is not afraid to speak her mind and more often than not in a conflictual way so: violent rejections of would-be one-night standers at the pub are not uncommon. At the same time, she can be very sensitive: she is apparently incapable of killing anything, including spiders which she is very fond of. 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 that a replaceable penis for his new blonde-bimbo girlfriend.)

Lifestyle

She listens to heavy metal and goth music, and has a number of friends in that environment 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 Alice Cooper that 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 cramp her style. 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 (although rather less so in Sweden). 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 incontrollable passion for chocolate.

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 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 (perhaps that one lost something in translation).

Culture

Nemi's heroes are Edgar Allan Poe, André Bjerke, JRR 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 regards "modern art" as simply a manifestation of insecurity by would-be intellectuals, who secretly know they have little original to say (viz. cartoon in which Nemi visits a modern art exhibition with Cyan and Tim).

Other characters

Cyan is Nemi's best friend. She has cyan hair and a lot of worries (apparently being especially afraid of death; viz. the recurring nightmare cartoon). She usually functions as Nemi's conscience, and a sort of connection with the real world.

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 magazine was sharply reduced.

The cartoon also features a large number of friends, family, short-term boyfriends and goths.