Some of you will have come across Nemi before, the goth girl with a predilection for black clothes and dark humour, whose tough attitude hides a softer side. But did you know that she was Norwegian? The brainchild of Lise Myhre (born 1975), one of only a handful female cartoon creators to have made an impact internationally, Nemi began to appear as a guest cartoon in the Norwegian daily Dagbladet in 1999, before getting her regular slot on the newspaper’s pages a year later.

Cynical and romantic at the same time, Nemi finds it difficult to relate to boys. She hates blonde bimbos, but loves spiders, heavy metal, beer and chocolate. She is not averse to a practical joke either. While the cartoon is read by both sexes, it is no secret that Myhre has helped attract a new female readership to the genre. Nemi has a monthly magazine with a circulation of 70,000 in Norway. It is the second most popular cartoons in the country – only Pondus has more readers. Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Germany also have their own Nemi magazines and books, and Nemi also appears in dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites in Scandinavia and the UK. These include Metro in the UK, Dagens Nyheter in Sweden and Dagbladet in Norway.