Comics Process: Characters

Okay, now we get to the actual fun stuff. For me, stories are a lot of work, but characters are really easy. Please note that this is not a "how-to" at all, I'm just explaining my own process and offering some insights as I go. When doing a comic for yourself, as a relatively experienced creator, you can skip a lot of little steps as needed - turnarounds, for example. If you're writing/designing for somebody else, especially another artist, character turnarounds are essential.

So how do you begin designing a character? I usually have a character in mind before I start my story (i.e., the Hardboiled Detective Type), and sometimes I write a story to, in effect, "play" with my characters like action figures; but in this case the story came first, and it determines the characters to a large extent. Firstly you have the Noir tropes, which require characters that are sort of worn-out or beaten-down - even the beautiful dames have a little wear-and-tear. So let's start with our Protagonist, Agent 26.
The moniker, "Agent 26" is a little too scifi-dystopia for me; let's change his name to...I don't know...Hal Dunlin. Depending on your authorial preference, names can reflect deep meaning in the story, or they can be as random as they are in real life. Being lazy, I prefer the second approach. Names should roll off the tongue in a memorable fashion without being too ridiculous; calling a vampire "Dirk St. LeCroix", or something like that, is simply shameful. I think Hal Dunlin is pretty good, "Hal" being Noir-snappy, "Dunlin" vaguely German/Irish but not too ethnic. Try it in various permutations: "This is Special Agent Dunlin." "Heyya, Hal." "Hal Dunlin, Extermination and Containment Force." How would different characters and voices say it? Make it not just memorable to your readers, but memorable to you.

Okay, we have a name. Now a body. We know he's a field agent for the government, so he's physically fit, relatively young, has a short haircut and is clean-shaven. He wears a suit and tie. He probably has a bulletproof vest, and carries a service pistol alongside his special worm-destroying gun (I figure he'll want two separate weapons - he doesn't want to waste expensive Worm-Destroying Bullets on regular perps). We also know he's at least superficially dedicated to his job, and at one point may have believed in the work he does.

Now, of course, we have to factor in the Noir element. Being ground down by an uncaring world is going to have its effect, even on a younger guy. His posture is slowly getting worse. He hides his hands in his pockets. He tends to look down. He has a hangdog look - frown-lines around the mouth. His eyes are steely, as befitting a man with a purpose, but tired at the same time. His eyebrows are lowered with irritability. Maybe he's careless in shaving. Does he get drunk every night, or is he just a regular drinker? That's going to show in his face, too. I imagine he's working on a pot belly - stress indicator - although his hairline isn't receding. All in all, an exhausted character with a lot of pent-up anger and frustration at the world. I'll give his face some idiosyncracies - how about a shoehorn nose, worried eyes, a tendency to twist his mouth sideways when he talks. I imagine actor Jonathan Freeman, channeling Humphrey Bogart.

When I design my characters, I usually do it as I sketch. I start with the faces. For Hal Dunlin, let's take his face from the side, start out with that nose, make it "iconic". You should be able to immediately recognize your characters if they're, say, silhouetted in a door frame on a rainy night. I'm going to give in to the impulse to give Hal a trench coat and slouch hat, and have him hunched under a streetlight, smoking a cigarette. No matter what the setting - retro, modern, or future - Noir simply demands certain things. Cliche? Yes. But I like it.

So now we need to draw Our Man in various poses. What does he look like standing? Sitting down? Laying down? Asleep? Walking, running, shooting, jumping...try to cram in as many poses as possible on the page. I like to juxtapose motion with static images: here's Hal lurking in a deserted alley, just watching as the weather comes down on the street; there's Hal looking over his shoulder as he guides the Governor's daughter to a waiting car. Putting your character through the paces helps them feel alive, you start to hear their voice, see their various tics and gestures. Hal is coming off with a lot of nervous energy, despite his depression. You get a sense that he could really slug a guy if provoked enough.

Okay, so Hal's in the bag. Now we need to establish a name and look for the Governor's daughter. What kinda dame is she? I'm not seeing the Lauren Bacall smoldering tough-girl here; I'm seeing innocent eyes and soft curves. She's from money, so she's going to be fashionable, and has a veneer of sophistication even if she's completely clueless. She cares about her brother; how does she feel about the rest of her family? Does she know her darling Daddy's a crook? I think her mother died, and her father never remarried - being a widower might have some pull at the polls.

I'm going to jump right in and make her Millenial Money-Trash: big hair, leggings, baggy knit sweater, some kind of headgear. Phone constantly in hand. Louche, but neurotic; she's a babe in the woods, and she's scared as hell - the infestation has finally touched her sheltered uptown corner of the world. She's coming off as pretty unlikeable so far; the trick is to make her just sexy enough that Hal will be lured in, just sincere enough to hook him, and just damaged enough to make him want to save her. Through her, Hal goes from his illusion of tough cynicism into a delusion of being a White Knight, and hopefully comes out the other side with a new balance.

Abigail? Abigail Anderson. Daughter of William Michael Anderson III, Governor of...meh, leave the state and city unnamed. Sister of Dennis Anderson. I'm not going to dwell too much on her look; leave it to the pencil to decide - Noir dames are usually not that idiosyncratic; they stand for something, some hope that the main character has. Not especially progressive, but I'm just building a workaday story here.

Onward! Dennis Anderson: biologist, nerdy type. Give 'im some glasses. And a beard. I imagine him as a tall, active type of nerd, someone his little sister can look up to and worship. Lately the pressure and danger of his work has been making him gaunt and fever-eyed, hunted. He starts out looking trim and handsome in photos and flashbacks, the kind of guy you'd trust with the fate of the human race, but by the time we actually see him - when the worms get him - he looks positively nightmarish.

Stock characters: the Governor is middle-aged, a used-car salesman with a smatter of respectability. The government spooks down at the Agency are genial but dead-eyed, and laugh openly about the gruesomeness and absurdity of their job. Lost souls. The Chief is overweight and bilious. Don't be afraid to use stock characters when needed, so long as they're characters, i.e. they're quirky enough to register. In real life, a lot of the people we greet on the way to work could be called "stock", because we don't know about their interior complexity - all we see is the surface. Use the people you see on the street to populate your stories and comics; they help make the world come alive.

Okay, here's a couple of non-stock characters: The Snitch and Nicky the Ghoul. There's no real reason to name The Snitch; maybe he revels in the moniker. I see him as middling height, gaunt, dresses like a punk Beetlejuice, spikes his dyed black hair. Maybe some facial piercings and decorative contacts. Shaky, nasal voice. He's what Stephen King in Hearts in Atlantis calls a "low man" - friendly only insofar as he can use you. Hal's wariness and disgust at this man, standing in a storeroom full of twitching Changeling body parts, is palpable; The Snitch senses this and plays on it for his own amusement. We might catch a glimpse of the Snitch's workers, shifty-eyed and grimy, also "low".

Nicky the Ghoul is the exact opposite, even if his business is the same. He's huge, and looks like a toad. No reason not to exaggerate how malformed he is. I'm going to put him in a pinstripe suit with a fedora, just for kicks and giggles; his henchmen are obviously gangsters, a lot of big Russians in turtlenecks with tattoos crawling up their faces. Nicky's brisk and businesslike, doesn't go in for flash, likes a square deal. He prefers bribing the cops over trying to sneak around them. In some ways he's almost a decent guy when compared with The Snitch. He deals in Changeling parts strictly for the money, not out of the perversity of his character. His final act of giving Hal vital information is a form of redemption.

That's really about it for the characters. Whew! Not always as easy as you think. They should have enough variety to keep things interesting; with a plot-driven story, of course, you want to keep them from being too complex, or they bog things down.

Up next: Setting.

Rick Out.