Like I said, I never intended to be that guy who spoils everybody's fun by complaining about the questions on the quiz being unfair or unbalanced or whatnot - my post was merely intended as the good-humoured grumbling of those who have an abysmal score and aren't used to that. And then I observed, correctly I think, that comics and cartoons are a domain in which American influence abroad, in the present day, isn't nearly as extensive as it is in movies and (non-cartoon) TV shows (one of several reasons coming to mind is that having deeper pockets/a bigger home market doesn't make much of a difference for cartoons or comics while it absolutely does for movies and TV). By which I didn't mean to suggest that I expected you to make a more "balanced" quiz - just that you were likely to see a more pronounced difference between Americans and non-Americans on this one than on the previous quizzes.

I think I covered the latter part of your paragraph above. I didn't really intend you to write such a serious reply as you did, but when you did, it did indeed irritate me. Belgium is a funny little country and there are few things about the country that Belgians are generally proud of, but as chance would have it, Belgium's world class comic book scene happens to be one of them (beer is another) - and when you live in a small country that doesn't have many claims to fame, you tend to guard the ones you do have jealously. Some part of that mentality is hard to suppress even when you're fully aware of its absurdity, as I am. We don't really expect Americans to know or care about Belgian comic books or indeed Belgian anything, as a rule, but when you actually bother to investigate, or to pretend to investigate, and then reach that conclusion, yes, well. For all that people here like to look down on nationalism or even patriotism, they still have certain reflexes.

As for the "really not as unavoidable as you'd think", that didn't really mean anything other than to convey my displeasure at your reply in general, I guess.

All that said, I want to apologize for having hijacked your thread and brought controversy to what was supposed to be simple fun. I don't know that any of my posts really contained anything I need to apologize for as such, but I'm sorry about the result.