I’ve been thinking about the use of the character page for storytelling. When I say this I mean more then just the usual “this is blank he likes blank and does bland for a living” I’m talking about sharing major expository information so that it becomes more than just a crib sheet for new readers but an integral tool in your narrative.
I first started noticing this in Wapsi Square. Pablo would have such details in his character descriptions as: “Prior to attending college, she (Jacqueline) inherited $47 million from her Great Aunt. She prefers to down-play her wealth and does not rely upon it for attention.” And “after her time in the military, Heather continued her communications degree in college and attended single-action shooting competitions using her great, great grandfather's Army revolver.”
The first time I read this it brought out the cranky skeptic in me and I found myself asking things like, “Why is this relevant?”, “Why don’t you show us this in the strip instead of telling us here? But then Pablo had a strip where Jacqueline is asked why she doesn’t use her wealth (for which she has a very good answer) and another strip where Heather pulls her great, great grandfather’s army revolver on a would be mugger. Neither of these incidents feel like surprises from left field because this information had been available to us the readers all along.
Since I find it is very easy for a cartoonist’s story to completely outgrow a strip a day schedule (I won’t even get into the headache for those of us who do less.) I have come to the conclusion that the character page is a very important tool to show information occurring off stage. But having said this I’m not quite sure how to do this properly (or more accurately how to avoid overdoing it) The most extreme example of what I’m getting at comes from For Better or For Worse where Lynn Johnson has letters from her cast members on line and character biographies published in book form. Now while I don’t think it’s necessary to go that far, any thoughts on this are welcome.
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The Character Page as Narrative
I’ve been thinking about the use of the character page for storytelling. When I say this I mean more then just the usual “this is blank he likes blank and does bland for a living” I’m talking about sharing major expository information so that it becomes more than just a crib sheet for new readers but an integral tool in your narrative.
I first started noticing this in Wapsi Square. Pablo would have such details in his character descriptions as: “Prior to attending college, she (Jacqueline) inherited $47 million from her Great Aunt. She prefers to down-play her wealth and does not rely upon it for attention.” And “after her time in the military, Heather continued her communications degree in college and attended single-action shooting competitions using her great, great grandfather's Army revolver.”
The first time I read this it brought out the cranky skeptic in me and I found myself asking things like, “Why is this relevant?”, “Why don’t you show us this in the strip instead of telling us here? But then Pablo had a strip where Jacqueline is asked why she doesn’t use her wealth (for which she has a very good answer) and another strip where Heather pulls her great, great grandfather’s army revolver on a would be mugger. Neither of these incidents feel like surprises from left field because this information had been available to us the readers all along.
Since I find it is very easy for a cartoonist’s story to completely outgrow a strip a day schedule (I won’t even get into the headache for those of us who do less.) I have come to the conclusion that the character page is a very important tool to show information occurring off stage. But having said this I’m not quite sure how to do this properly (or more accurately how to avoid overdoing it) The most extreme example of what I’m getting at comes from For Better or For Worse where Lynn Johnson has letters from her cast members on line and character biographies published in book form. Now while I don’t think it’s necessary to go that far, any thoughts on this are welcome.
RE: The Character Page as Narrative
I don't like to see character pages as part of the narrative. I'm a firm believer in "showing not telling." I think a comic-er can allow us to learn about the characters through the story. This is just a basic literary rule. I mean, seriously, I can't think of any other medium besides webcomics where stories frequently start out with a character guide. As your story progresses, readers will grow to understand the characters in a much better way then if you try to condense a bunch of character development into a paragraph on the first page of your comic.
Character guides can be useful when your comic gets really long, or has a lot of characters, and can be fun for readers. However, they shouldn't be part of the comic itself.
RE: The Character Page as Narrative
I only just redid my character page this afternoon...I only told a bare minimum so you could recognise them in later comics, and included a link to when they first popped up. Nothing too fancy, but enough to tell them apart.
RE: The Character Page as Narrative
I'm kinda undecided on the character page as a whole... I knew I had to do one for the first chapter, to just set up the score if you will, but each character indtroduced since then has had to show who/what they are all about... and to me that's half the story of the comic anyways.
~Liriel
RE: The Character Page as Narrative
Yeah, I don't like character pages at all, and I usually don't read them.
Surprises aren't bad things. And they could have just as easily been left unexplained or explored further in the comic instead of settling pieces of characters history with a block of text. I'd always prefer someone going the first two routes rather than the last.