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Where Did You Get Your (Nick)Name?

Posted by Areala, 26 September 2009 · 1,609 views

nickname handle Areala

I've gotten a few PMs since I joined up at Retromags from other members asking me what my name means, or where it came from, so I figured it would be a good idea to answer that question out in the open, once and for all.

First of all, Areala is not a misspelling (intentional or otherwise) of "areola". One is my user name, the other is a part of the body. Just figured I should get that out of the way.

Those of you who were reading small-press comics in the mid-90s may have guessed where my nick came from; those of you who think comics begin and end with Marvel and DC, I can only shake my head in pity

. In December of 1994, Ben Dunn (creator of Ninja High School and head of Antarctic Press) wrote the story and drew the art for a comic entitled "Warrior Nun Areala". Areala, in this case, is really a nun by the name of Shannon Masters who (in an alternate version of our reality) serves the Catholic Church in its ever-present struggle against the forces of Hell. The Warrior Nun caste is a group of holy women who have been trained in combat so they can repel a demonic invasion of Earth should such a thing come to pass. And in 1994, it very nearly happened as a man known as Julius Salvius strove to make the sacrifices necessary to release Lucifer upon the planet. Shannon Masters fell in combat against a creature known as Demon Foster, but was denied entrance to Heaven by the original Warrior Nun Areala, who informed Shannon that she was going to be the avatar of Areala on Earth and work against the forces of Hell in her name. And thus, Areala returned to Earth in all her butt-kicking glory to have many more adventures over the next several years.

Sure, it sounds cheesy, but it was fun to see a kick-butt female given a prominant role in a comic book, and like me, Areala had red hair. I decided to use her name in my online interactions on the first MUD I played on, and as such it has carried over into more than a decade's usage on a variety of online games, discussion forums, UseNet, and other websites. I am not the only Areala out there, but I feel confident that I was the first since I started using it in 1995.

Warrior Nun Areala is no longer being run as a comic series, but Ben Dunn and a number of other AP-affiliated artists still will draw her on commission. Dunn himself has a DeviantArt account under the name DogSupreme, and you can see some nifty illustrations of her there too.

So that, ladies and gents, is where your Mod Raider gets her username from. For more information on Areala, you can read her character bio at the Comic Book Database, or check out the Warrior Nun Areala page at Wikipedia!

Phillyman

Sep 27 2009 12:02 AM

Very awesome! I never knew this....Now I am going to have to go find that comic to read

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atik

Sep 27 2009 09:53 AM

I've never heard of this comic before but I'll have to check it out, she sound's pretty cool. When I was growing up as a kid I used to read 2000ad and I remember there being quite a few cool female character's in it who could hold their own with anyone.
My name come's from a little girl who I used to know who could never pronounce my name properly. The closest she could come to it was atik and so the name kind of stuck.

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Mister Zero

Oct 10 2009 12:53 AM

It's funny, I remember reading the comic(I used to live next to a comic store, lucky me!) and in the book I read it had someone calling her "Areola."

I always thought it was a neat comic. I never checked out NHS though.

Thanks for his DA account, I'm gonna start watching him.

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Areala

Oct 10 2009 02:47 AM

Mister Zero:

I believe the comic you might have read was the "Warrior Nun Areala/Glory" crossover. At one point, the boy she keeps watch over goes to a comic book convention and is purchasing a copy of a book that is titled (clearly tongue-in-cheek) "Battle Nun Areola".

Originally, she wants to forbid him from buying it, but after a moment's consideration she decides that it's just a comic book, and as long as the good guys win, it really doesn't matter how the main character is dressed.

Got a good chuckle out of me when I read that, I must say.

Also on a related note, I found it quite ironic that Barry Lyga, whom I always felt wrote the best Warrior Nun Areala stories, was considered the least-popular writer for the series for taking it in a more serious and less tongue-in-cheek direction. His "Hammer & the Holocaust" storyline is one of the single best comic book storylines dealing with the shades of grey inherent in every conflict that I have EVER read, he created the villain "Holy Man" who was, in my opinion, one of Areala's best and most interesting foes, and while the final third of the story was never printed, he wrote a three-part series dealing with Father Crowe's past that is heart-wrenching. His personal feelings on them posted to his website nonwithstanding, he was in my opinion the best thing to happen to Warrior Nun Areala, and I was sad to see him leave after his short run. Look him up - at Barry Lyga dot Com - and read that final chapter of "Magic Priest" that he posted on his comic book page...even if you haven't read the previous 2 issues, it's still very powerful to me, and I kick myself knowing that I'll never write anything that is nearly as good as his work on Areala.

*huggles*
Areala