Comic Genesis Forums

My comic, Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan has a large cast: after more than two years of putting the comic online, there are some 40 named characters, and they spring up at the strangest moments. I have a cast page up at http://www.rocr.net/cast.html, but that's a simple table with a picture of each listed character and a short description. If I put 40 characters in there, it'll get a bit unwieldy, but I do need to do something because it's getting harder to keep track of who is who. In addition, I'd like to have more picture space for the really important characters so I can accommodate their changing appearance over time (not just caused by the evolution of my style, but also by the frequent use of flashbacks, sometimes going back as far as 50 years). So I'll have to split it up into several pages. But I don't know what would be a good way to do this...

How would you like to see the cast organised? Do you use the cast page at all? Could you find it easily? Do you refer to cast pages for other comics? Do you know any comics that have outstanding cast pages that I can shamelessly rip off? If you're a cartoonist, how do you keep track of your cast?

If I were you I would probably keep the system you have and add the remaining characters to it. But for easier navigation have an image map (with link targets) at the top that lists all the characters by importance, in a piramid format.



A sloppy example, but you get the idea anyway...

Another option might be to organize them in order of race/group. Gnomes/faeries/Corby's etc. Then have link targets at the top of the page to jump to the character group you want to read about; makes for easy navigation.

Well, look at mine. It's (I guess):
http://mcduffies.keenspace.com/cast.html
It's pretty different from ordinary but I don't think it would help you. And it doesn't help about getting hits from search strings either.

I once had an idea to make a banner-like image for every character (say, 40X100) and put a few lines of text beside every one. It doesn't take a lot of place, but you'd have to figure out how to presetn characters with such a small images.
Then again, I don't like writing long texts on cast page, I like to let reader jugde character all by himself.

I tried to do a little scheme of how page was supposed to sook, and I'm lazy to draw...


_________
|__pic___|. a few lines of text about picture left
.......................................................__________
a few lines of text about picture right .|___pic___|
_________........................................................
|__pic___|. a few lines of text about picture left
.......................................................__________
a few lines of text about picture right .|___pic___|
_________.........................................................
|__pic___|. a few lines of text about picture left
.......................................................__________
a few lines of text about picture right .|___pic___|

etc

That's how mine was set up, but I only got around to putting about 4 of the characters on the page. I think the cast page of It's Walky! does a pretty good job of describing a large number of characters, of course each character gets their own page, so that might be too much work.

Making a cast page for so many characters is hard. Because I'm too lazy to do it and because I'm too lazy to invent so many characters in the first place, I'll be sticking to a cast of 4 for now...

Odd1 wrote:I'll be sticking to a cast of 4 for now...

In what? In what?

I was functioning under the assumption that you still had yet to post your comic. How do we know that you are not leading us astray with your posh-not-comic-posting ways?

Okay I guess I had that one coming.

I was referring to the Weirdism comics I've written so far. I do have the first 40-something strips written out and roughly sketched out. ^^ I'm just not satisfied with the way they look yet, expression/proportion-wise. I'll give it time, if you will!

I like the Pyramid Scam idea.

Yeah, the pyramid idea's a good one. That, or perhaps a glossary of names, each with a link to that character's page? You could have images at the top of each one illustrating the changes they've gone through, and below that a description. It'd be a lot of work, though.

Thanks guys! I now have a good idea of what I'll be doing. That It's Walky Cast section is fantastic, and it's what I'll model my own after, with a few changes. It'll be a lot of work to set up, but once you've got it, it'll be easy to extend and maintain.

Odd1 wrote:Okay I guess I had that one coming.

I was referring to the Weirdism comics I've written so far. I do have the first 40-something strips written out and roughly sketched out. ^^ I'm just not satisfied with the way they look yet, expression/proportion-wise. I'll give it time, if you will!

Ohhhh! Sketchy lady cleavage boo-bism! Business-suited chimmy-chammy breastleages! *Honk*

Get to work freeloader!

My answer for the cast page issue is this: Kill them. Kill as many as you have to. Kill, kill, killbilly! And Bobby, and Danny, and Millie.. I say, the perfect comic has two characters: A boy that thinks he's a congested dragon and a talking turd. That's all you need.

You crazy cartoonists with your cast pages

Mine hasn't even materialized yet. I think I should remove the cast page thing soon

Liz's comic cries out sexy! And a talking turd?

My cast page has sort of an odd format . . . might help.

http://netrek.keenspace.com/info.htm

--Sij

Netrek,

You might want to check the link to Twisted Mania, Inc. on your site. it directs to: http://netrek.keenspace.com/twistedmani ... nspace.com

I think you just want http://twistedmaniainc.keenspace.com

Yah.

I rewrote that part of the site; if only I had the time and a school ZIP drive to upload . . .

*Sighs mightily while shackled to desk*

--Sij

Well, if anybody wants, you can check out my cast page I actually made it out of a comic.

i found that having 3 pages for cast worked well, one for good, evil and neutral... AND THAT SYSTEM WILL WORK FOR EVERY COMIC NO MATTER WHAT! unless you start subdividing into the lawfuls and chaotics, then you need more pages and a crapload of characters

No way. Absolutely not. I don't agree with McDuffies that you shouldn't add too much descriptive detail to a cast page (especially in the case of ROCR, where most of the actual story material is behind a subscription wall - why not tell readers a little about the characters to whet their appetite?) but one thing I'm very much opposed to is characterisation by labels. All of my characters are neutral in the sense that they just try to look out for themselves, their survival, the pursuit of their desires - and lately, the survival of their babies. Some of them may have some strange desires and odd ways of bringing them about, but I'll let the reader judge whether that makes them evil.

NikeYoung wrote:Well, if anybody wants, you can check out my cast page I actually made it out of a comic.

Hee. Those descriptions are pretty funny!