Lancaster the Ghost Detective

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Episode 7 - Page 69

poinko

on July 7, 2007

Sorry about the delay in updating, but something really important came up. Don't worry, I'm not tired anymore ;)

A lot of people see 'killing off characters' as a way for a comic or story to become 'dark and gritty', so in an effort to make a comic as dark as possible, they kill of scads of characters. That's fine if you have a decent reason to do it, but otherwise it's a pointless writing exercise.

When I decided on continuing the story of Lancaster, I knew death was going to be an inevitable part of the story. Fortunately, I don't have to handle the subject as carefully as I would in other stories, because if a character dies, I can bring them back without it looking too cheesy. Even still, it has to be handled carefully. You notice that in the comic, there's only been one actual death, that being Gort's. Death (as a result of no longer living) is hardly ever mentioned, because despite there being ghosts all over the place, it's not important to the story to point out.

If you don't play it carefully and kill off every other character you introduce, you're not writing a story; you're writing a slasher pic. Slasher pics are fun, but if you've seen as many as I have then you realize how cheesy something like that is.