Discarded/Unused characters?

[Amalockh1]

Have you ever planned to include a character in your comic or novel that never ends up appearing?
Back then in 2015, when I started my comic version of Jack and the Beanstalk in ComicFury I wanted to give the main character a fairy-godmother, but I never had the chance to include her in the story to this day:

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

There's a writing prompt! The Land of the Unused Characters.

[abigaillmartin]

I have a few

First we have Olive Greenfield who was going to act as a narrator for the entire series. She was a reporter character who would create stories about Elsie’s deeds.

I also had notes on different kinds of silly villains. Like a doctor who would do open surgeries in the streets (which would have been a common occurrence) a train villain, and a villain based on PT Barnum.

Then we have Queen Victoria. The first historical figure I was sure I wanted in the series. I had a whole episode written where The Elsie Gang visits Buckingham Palace but I didn’t see it going anywhere so I scrapped it.

And then HG Wells who was going to be in a cameo while Jane was using Ernest’s tripods to cause a rampage.
Ernest’s tripods were inspired by war of the worlds. Funnily enough, in universe, Ernest creates his transportation tripods before HG Wells even publishes War of the Worlds. So we get how HG Wells became inspired to write the story in this universe. But of course this cameo never came into fruition.

[allenT]

I had a toad witch-doctor I had to cut out in the middle of designing. I figured that the 'shamanic & spirits/ghost stuff' is not aligned with my worldbuilding. Now if my villagers get sick, there's 'rest huts' with background helpers with tonic & nursing skills.

[Leyelle]

yeah, it's happened before, in one of my stories my ML had an aunt who was supposed to be important in one scene, but she didn't make it into the later versions

[kyupol]

Happened a couple times. They just went AWOL

Nathan... was supposed to be the comic relief. But MAG-ISA got too serious as it progressed didn't have much room for comic relief.

Then we have Ian... another comic relief character. Never to be seen again after mommy dragged him away...

I might use them in a future arc of AngHell Dela Blackpill... I dunno...

[Oriflamme]

I currently have no characters that are unused/discarded, since I still plan to use them later, but I removed a flashback where Alex’s father appeared in the chapter I published this month. It was supposed to hint at an understandable reason for Alex’s behavior, but it shifted the attention away from Corrine so I had to cut the scene. The character will still appear later since he plays a major role in Alex, and to some extent Nives’ backstory.

The closest thing to a discarded character would be whenever I draw crowds, I like to imagine a simple backstory for everyone. But due to the structure of the story we probably will never see them again.

For example in this panel from left to right:

There is Duke Vulpae (My Idea was to have another typical romance-fantasy male lead to make Alex look bad in comparison). Another of Corrrine’s cousin her mother’s side, her best friend, Nives, the old couple couple are the good acquaintance of Corrine’s dad (they live in the same region), A minor noble/aura knight who was in the same school year a Alphonse, and another minor noble, who only came to the wedding to network with other influential peoples.

[NickRowler]

There were many characters that were unused but the most notable one (because their is posted art of him) is Jet Blueberry. He was cut from Frostpeak West. He was Zombra Blueberry's adopted son, he was about 5. He was removed because I switched parents/children around and Bertie ended up being Zombra's son. I was worried having both Bertie and Jet would have conflicting personalities and end up stealing moments away from Bertie.

Jet does appear in Brother Butterfly which was sort of Frostpeak West before I figured out what I wanted to do. Tho it is not canon.

Read Brother Butterfly :: 009 | Tapas Community

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Another is Shella (and her dad). She was Zombra's girlfriend. I don't really want to go into more info than that. She might be recycled for another project.

[moefay]

So, back in 2023, I created a webcomic that I discontinued because I felt like there were too many main characters and too many stories to tell in one comic. So I "discarded" some characters.

I do have plans for these characters in a different webcomic or webnovel because I feel like I can better tell their stories if they have their own thing.

I am currently writing the story for the characters that were not discarded.

Here are the characters I discarded/am saving for later,

Arnulf- A knight who was going to be the next-door neighbor/childhood friend of Felix. I considered creating a romantic relationship between him and Felix or between him and Sven. I decided to remove him because I felt his story revolved too much around Felix, and he did not contribute much to the plot.

Sven- He was introduced to the main characters at the base. He was also supposed to be the younger brother of Eneil and have a romantic subplot with Arnulf. I removed him because, again, he had little to no relevance to the main plot.

Angela/Johann- She was going to be a princess who ran away and disguised herself as a man to become a knight. I removed her because I felt like her arc took too much attention away from the main plot.

Tobias - was supposed to be Arnulf's stepbrother or half-brother, but he again did not have much relevance to the plot, so I removed him.

Benno/Bartholomew- He only appears in the "Pilot" and was removed after because he was only supposed to be in the comic for a few episodes and was supposed to be killed off after that.

The last five characters will appear as main characters in the second series, but the next ones may not.

Monika- She was supposed to be Arnulf's older sister, and I was thinking of having her engaged to William. I scrapped her character when I scrapped both Arnulf's and Tobia's characters. She was only really going to be a background character, and she only makes one appearance in the og series.

Thalia- she was supposed to be a member of the Red Dragon and would have a rivalry with Angela/Johann.

Some characters were scrapped in production, such as Felix's younger brother and Bruno and August's brother, who was supposed to be a monk.

[ThunderChicken]

Every one of these characters except for one has been discontinued. This was drawn in 1993.

In the tractor trailer: G.I. Jim and Beaverbank Bertha
Next to the Nissan monster truck (far left): Sgt Burke and Private Squires
In the Mustang GT500: Jack
In the Rancharger (far right): Lt. Commander Monday and Sgt Moe
Lion: Ace
Deer: Bob the Buck
Small creature behind deer: Bucky Pinetridge (1/3 deer, 1/3 porcipine, 1/3 partridge)
Hunter (dude with rifle strapped to his back): Walter
Small bear: Goliath
Leopard (sans spots): Murphy
Elephant: Willy
dog with viking cap on: Ingvol
Cat on elephant's back: Cassie
Girl on hot-rodded wheelchair: Tanya Carroll (and the wheelchair is called the Wheelchair of Doom)
Fish (left to right): Roboshark, Mrs Fishbreath (school teacher), Shadow (evil shark), Tom (shark), Eugene (spotted fish), Spencer (striped bass), Winston (perch), Al (eel), Charley (water snake), Sam (shark), Daisy (shark), Dale (whale)

These characters were all feature din comics I used to draw for the high school paper. Series included G.I. Jim and the Beaverbank Brigade, 4X4Play, Bob the Buck and Walter, Murphy's Law, Tanya Carroll and her Wheelchair of Doom, and Sam the Shark.

Out of all of these characters the only one I still use is Sam. He features in my logo, and Sam Studios is named after him:

[IndigoShirtProd]

I don't think I've ever created a singular character that's gone unused, more like I have stories with characters that I'll likely never make. I usually work with small casts anyway, so I'm never really in a position to get rid of characters.

[ArtGremlin]

I had this one character who had a story, but I didn’t really know where to make it go, so he and the one other character for that world were “unused” I suppose. But just the other day while I was washing dishes a brain wave hit me and I decided to pretty much scrap the original plot just for the sake of turning the guy into a magical boy (like magical girl but male) Idk what possessed me, but it’s like a weird romcom or something and I’ve developed the plot a lot.
Tldr: I can’t let unused characters stay like that for long.