do you ever have a problem with...

Grabmygoblin · Post by **Grabmygoblin** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:13 am

basing a character on yourself?
many of us have a character in our comics that we base after ourselves. does that make you feel awkard sometimes? like, someone points out that all the cool things happen to your character, and you didn't even realize it? or maybe you just draw yourself more attractively. or maybe you realize you are writing about something very personal, and don't want the other people that were involved in that situation to come across those strips and feel uncomfortable.

TheGoobla · Post by **TheGoobla** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:19 am

I dunno, but I usually enjoy writing myself into things. Perhaps because I'm an egocentric attention whore.

Van Douchebag · Post by **Van Douchebag** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:21 am

I don't feel awkwards.
My friend constantly pester me to drop WHite Hydra and do a strip about them.

In fact...

A month before I started White Hydra I was thinking of doing this but dropped it.

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:27 am

Hey, VD! You've got the coolest ranking right now!

You should try and see if they'll let you keep it.

CJBurgandy · Post by **CJBurgandy** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:38 am

Like Goobla, I'm an attention whore. I love basing characters off myself. Plus it helps me write. If I get stuck, I just go from something that's really happened, mix in some fiction and 'volia, I got a comic.

Skylark King · Post by **Skylark King** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 8:50 am

I think an important part of writing is self-discovery. A favorite character of mine, when I first started writing him, was so completely the opposite of who I am it wasn't funny, but as I continued to write the character I could see shadows of myself in him. The question is: did I alter the character to fit myself or were these things always there, subconciously included as a sort of subliminal mirror to my soul?

It is difficult to write a story without being able to relate to at least one of the characters, and it is even more difficult to write a character you can relate to without including pieces of yourself within. I usually prefer to include at least one kidney and several toes.

KittyKatBlack · Post by **KittyKatBlack** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:10 am

I decided to base a character off myself.

....then I realized that nothing interesting ever happens to me, so I had to make it somebody else.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:17 am

You mean you never were sucked into some kind of green ray and then projected against a wall? I'm... disappointed.

"Me" in the comic is a pair of eyeballs. I've never had trouble drawing them, because I drew them one and just cut-and-paste them in. It has my personality because it's me. *shrug* If I could draw, and had a story-like comic, I'd have serious issues putting myself into the comic.

Skylark King · Post by **Skylark King** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:22 am

rkolter wrote:You mean you never were sucked into some kind of green ray and then projected against a wall? I'm... disappointed.

"Me" in the comic is a pair of eyeballs. I've never had trouble drawing them, because I drew them one and just cut-and-paste them in. It has my personality because it's me. *shrug* If I could draw, and had a story-like comic, I'd have serious issues putting myself into the comic.

Dude, you're just a couple of eyeballs? That totally rocks.

Apatheticus · Post by **Apatheticus** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:30 am

Most of my characters are inspired by real people, but they're not literally those people. They're merely similar to them, and I try to maintain that detachment, so I can venture away from reality in the comic. Even the character based off myself isn't really me. It's more of a caricature of myself, with exaggerated personality traits (my flaws, in particular). I do find my alter ego's dialogue to be pretty easy to write, though.

War · Post by **War** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 9:39 am

I'm the greatest comic character ever!

Toxic · Post by **Toxic** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:25 am

I based the main character of ZH on myself (both appearance and personality). Although VERY loosely.

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:35 am

All the characters in my comic are based off me. Or at least how I think of myself in my head.

Kris X · Post by **Kris X** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:37 am

It is quite fun basing characters off of people. In fact, I based mine of a few people close to me. Well...Not all of them. x.x

Jeffy · Post by **Jeffy** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 12:12 pm

I did, and the only way I was able to make myself comfortable with it is to make the character suck at what he did, I know that I have to schedule a reappearance for 'ME' in the future, but it was planned a long time ago that that reappearance would follow shortly with 'MY' head exploding

Xmung · Post by **Xmung** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:20 pm

if i did one based on myself all he'd be doing is drawing comics and browsing the internet... and reading comics...
ain't nothing interesting about that!

i do suspect though that there are fragments of my personality in all my characters.

i once lamented that ian fleming was able to have one central character (ie 'bond. james bond') as his subconscious representation of himself... me, i've gotta have a cast of hundreds!

Pockybot · Post by **Pockybot** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:25 pm

grabmygoblin wrote:basing a character on yourself?
many of us have a character in our comics that we base after ourselves. does that make you feel awkard sometimes? like, someone points out that all the cool things happen to your character, and you didn't even realize it? or maybe you just draw yourself more attractively. or maybe you realize you are writing about something very personal, and don't want the other people that were involved in that situation to come across those strips and feel uncomfortable.

I love starring in my own comic...I mean what webcomic doesnt at least star some attribute of the creator? I do put some people form real life that I know in my comic...but the thing is, they rpetty mcuh really are their character(like Captain Meana the girl pirate or GhostBat the cyberpunk mech warrior) I dont really have too many 'normal guys on a couch' type of friends, heh.

Accept for the over the top spikey hair I think its a pretty fair rendition:
me:

Oddly enuff, I do put in stuff that happens in real life in PockyBot...even though its based in a made up virtual battlefield, I still like to sneak in stuff that actually happens:

like this strip where the lady cut my hair wayyyy too short:
http://www.pockybot.com/home/archive.php?bdid=76

or this one, which was based on PockyBot at Fanime con:
http://www.pockybot.com/home/archive.php?fdid=77

Bekka · Post by **Bekka** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:25 pm

I don't, but my best friend told me yesterday that the n00b (my main character) is the male version of me. Ewww!

DEVO-Bot · Post by **DEVO-Bot** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 2:57 pm

People keep saying I look and act like my character Ralph... I guess my glasses must look too much like bomber goggles. Time to get a new pair!

Sippan · Post by **Sippan** » Mon Jul 12, 2004 3:01 pm

Well, my main character is clearly me. That's not been too much of a problem... I do occasionally worry about it, because I'd rather not have people I know IRL read it, but all they have to do is google me and they'll find it... And this fact sometimes makes me put less personal things into the comic than I want to. My family does a lot of fun things I should joke about, but just look at what happened the one time I tried

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