Elijah and Azuu

Author notes

#1228 Spreading: The Problem With Catfights

Inkmonkey

on March 29, 2007

Part of the challenge and the power of a comic is conveying aspects of characters through art in conjunction with text. Now, just as an easy example, having a character say "that's brilliant!" with a big grin shows excitement and wonder, but using the exact same text and having the character roll his eyes instantly changes it to a sarcastic, almost accusatory statement. In a book you can say "John shouted, 'that's brilliant' sarcastically" or "John rolled his eyes and said, 'that's brilliant'", but to me, it has a very different effect. It relies on the reader to interpret what "sarcastic" means in a given situation, and how a character reacts to it. In the hands of a skilled artist (whether his medium be ink or words) both methods are equally effective, though for different reasons.

Anyway, I bring this up because I wanted to discuss how, through use of body language, I attempted to convey something of Fraja's and Amy's personalities through their reaction to having their clothes torn off. Fraja seems to think of the lack of clothes itself as a minor annoyance, and if anything is just upset that Amy has audacity to do it to her. She's basically flaunting her body and just inspecting the actual level of the damage. Amy, on the other hand, is embarassed and angry about the whole thing, and she's trying to cover herself up. Exactly what happened to her clothes isn't her concern; getting the most of what scraps of fabric she has left is. The third panel is another subtle one; Amy's face seems to be in a sort of desperate howl, while Fraja has a fierce growl on her face. They're both angry, of course, but by having them convey their anger in slightly different ways it should, ideally, help to give some idea of their character.

If there's one thing I want to get at by the end of this, a "lesson" for my fellow artists, if you will, is that it's important to make your characters different. Not just in what they say or how they look, but how they say it. Everyone has different mannerisms, different ways of smiling or laughing or screaming or crying. If you're ever called upon to have a panel where two characters are doing the same thing, make sure that they're doing it in ways that are uniquely their own. It's a hard lesson, and certainly one that I myself haven't mastered, but it certainly helps to have it in the back of your mind.