Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Time For a Name Change

I just took a look at my Blogger stats and apparently one of my "Battle for the Wastelands"-related posts was viewed because someone did a search for "Karl Steuben."

I did this search myself and apparently Karl Steuben is an artist with lots of work to his credit. Given how the character of Karl "Mangle" Steuben from the Wastelands novels is a wicked man who experiments on himself and others to create an army of mutants, I don't think Steuben-the-artist deserves to be associated with him.

So I'll change the name, although I'm not quite sure what I'll change it to. I think I'll keep the surname, since Frederick Von Steuben was a German (Prussian specifically, I think) officer who helped the Americans during the Revolution and my goal with the story is to be evocative of an earlier time historically.

Given how "Mangle" is a "non-ethnic white" (as opposed to some of Grendel's other supporters, who are essentially Norse or Arabic), I guess I'll boot up that "Old West Baby Name" site I'd found and see if I find anything good.

2 comments:

  1. Just call hm Mangle Von Stueben. It works.

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  2. "Mangle" is a nickname, not something he would have been born with.

    (Meanwhile, "Grendel" is a name over villain adopted for himself, as a nomme de guerre.)

    Sorry for the delay. I've been having problems commenting.

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