Supporting characters and why they are important

I’ve been ill for two weeks now with the flu. This has meant that progress on our comics has slowed as I try and get back on my feet again (got a couple of pages drawn for the buffer but progress is a snails pace right now). In between all the sleeping I got my hands on a copy of Persona 5, a life stealing video game that has been a great companion whilst I have been trying to dig myself out of this illness.

As you go through the story, you meet many characters and they all play a part in fleshing out the world you live in. Supporting characters are important to stories as they provide guidance, emotional and moral support, information and even comic relief for the protagonist. They are also, at times, the audience insert when the protagonist is larger than life, see every companion for the Doctor in Doctor Who.

They have more freedom to move around the plot than the main protagonist at times providing different perspective and depth to the story. Even an animal can be used as a supporting character, particularly as humans use projection as a way to empathise and understand animal behaviour.

Given that they are present in the story for longer than a comeo, supporting characters can have their own rich backstory and origin which can inform their perspective and actions but, the extent to which that is revealed is often in relation to what is relevant to the protagonist.

At the end of the day, the supporting character is there to support the main character and to provide a richness to the world in which they inhabit. Do you have a supporting cast in your comic? How much of an impact do they have on your main character? Let us know in the comment section below! And join us on Sunday evening for our Quackchat at 5:30PM(EST)!

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