How You Say...?

In a couple of months my buddy Jerry and I are planning to begin a comic book podcast. Am I worried about my knowledge of comic books? Nah. Concerned about offending hardcore X-Men or Superman fans? Not really. My biggest fear?

Pronunciation.

I mean, how do you say Tigra? Is it Tie-gruh or Tee-gruh? Or worse, is it Ti-gor-uh? When I was a kid, I pronounced Magneto, Mag-net-Oh. I did this until the X-Men animated series finally came out in the early 90’s. Were guys in the comic shops secretly mocking me all of those years?

Worse are the creator names: Michael Avon Oeming, Duane Swierczynski, Matt Silady, or Rantz Hoseley to name a few. I’m going to butcher names more frequently than I discuss comic books. I heard Sal Buscema’s name out loud for the first time earlier this evening: Byu-seh-muh. I’ve been saying Boo-she-muh for almost 30 years. Suddenly I am transported to my call center years where I was corrected 90 percent of the time by callers who didn’t like my new spin on their last names.

So it’s time to hunker down and work on my pronunciation. Either that or review the limited works of Kevin Smith.