Have you read the comics in the newspaper? You have? Good. I hope so. In case you didn’t know, I, London Greenwood, am the cartoonist of these comics. And they take months to create. Except for the first one about the phone call. Knocked that one out in a few hours. But that’s not the point. The point is that these comics mean a lot to me. A whole lot. Why? Because the characters in my story aren’t just little scenarios. They’re actual characters with backstories, lore, and even trauma. So I’m going to talk about who my characters are, how I made them, and how you can make your own.
It all started back when I was a wee little sophomore. I was in Mr. Hogan’s classroom in the back (Tell him hi). He took my chromebook away and I was bored. Math sucked to me, so I decided to doodle on a half sheet of paper. It helps me focus. I ended up drawing my first comic right there. It was a simple one. Three stick men (Tall, medium, and short) needed to get across the desert quickly using only a boat (I don’t know how they got into this situation). The medium sized stickman decided to get in the boat and use the ores as legs like those walkers in Star Wars but like a hundred times dumber. It was a small comic, but I enjoyed it. As the class went on I drew more small features to these stickmen to make them more recognizable. I gave the tall one glasses, the medium one a baseball cap, and the small one a ponytail. And very quickly I started getting attached. I made little character bios and drew more comics about what I learned. And now, I get to go on about who these characters are and what they mean to me.
Let’s start with the tall one in glasses. He’s the one who got angry at the bird and overshared on the phone with a fast food worker. I decided to make his name Uno, since I’m the worst at real names. So Uno is the oldest brother at 22 years old. I’ve also decided to make him abnormally tall. He’s 6’10”. His role is sort of the caretaker brother whose brothers look up to him while he seems pathetic to everyone else. I try to make him the voice of reason but I personally feel like I’ve done a bad job at that. The comics have been showing more of his depressed side, which I feel like makes him come across as a little babyish. Oh well. Live and learn. Other attributes for Uno include a gag where he can’t get a date for his life, his job at a fast food restaurant, and how he acts as a father figure to the other two characters.
And now we have the second character. This is the one who destroyed the car engine. His name is Dos (I’m the most creative person on the planet). I admit that if I ever saw him in real life I’d be TERRIFIED. He’s actually only 4’4”. (He was diagnosed with dwarfism) and has dreadlock ponytails. As well as pale skin and heavy eyebags. How did he get this funky appearance? Entirely by accident. When I first drew that comic in Mr. Hogan’s Classroom, I wanted Dos to be a girl. But I made his head tilted in a funny way the first time I drew him. This made the eyelashes appear as heavy eyebags. And I ended up really, really liking this. And thus, Dos is a really funky lookin’ dude. His role is supposed to be the angry, cynical one. But in the comics shown, he comes across as the responsible one. So yeah, I guess he stole Uno’s personality. Whoops. Other gags that come with him are his job as a mechanic (see the only comic he appears in thus far), his girlfriend who should be in prison, and many, many short jokes.
If I did my job right, then the next comic should debut our third and final character on the paper itself: Jimmy. Just kidding. It’s Tres. He hasn’t shown up yet in the paper nor the website, but you’ll know when you see him. He’s got a red baseball cap. He’s the stupid one. You know the type; always happy, yet very naive. The comic relief of the comic. He’s also average height and the youngest at 15 years old. He goes to high school and has a girlfriend. Here’s a bit of lore: he would have been very popular if he hadn’t had a social outcast for a girlfriend. But he refuses to leave her because Tres is a decent kid and won’t leave a girl to save his reputation (Take notes, guys). There is so much lore that I didn’t include that I would love to talk about. Such as the characters Cuatro, Cinca, Seis, Siete, Ocho, Nueve, and Diez. Heck, even the bird the brothers own is named Cero. Not to mention the plot points, trauma, and even the joke character I refuse to explain named Eighdreighynnalynnathynn.
If you haven’t noticed by now, the characters I DO show easily bounce off of each other. For example, if Tres sets the house on fire, he can count on Uno to fix it. If Dos is in a bad mood, Tres can be there as emotional support. And if Uno gets into a social situation, Dos can handle it. Everyone has a few strengths that can correlate to others weaknesses and vice versa. This is important in character development. If you make everyone the same, there’s no way the characters can have a solvable conflict. A way to do this is by BASING your characters off of something. For example, you can use emotions to make a generally happy character, a sad character, and an angry character. That’s just one example. There are so many ways to improve your character. Try Youtube, try AI (Iffy. Don’t use it to MAKE characters, but it can HELP DEVELOP. Don’t exploit it. No no no), try google. All of those have great ideas to help you develop characters.