Do you need a character profile section?

[mariusthered]

while chatting on Comic talk (twitter) I asked about the possibly of having a category in the forum for Character bios. I was told to post a question and if enough people think it's a good idea we could have the wish granted (please Santa Iv'e been good!) (crosses fingers behind back)
my idea is if the thread were to happen people who need to show character profiles could create a thread for their comic and place all the information on their creations that wont quite fit in the comic. (such as laws)

ok I did as requested so what do you people think of the idea?

[fighterxaos]

I like the idea. I know I definitely need one, for the characters in Mixtape. A lot of the jokes are based on knowing who they are and most people... won't. XD As for my other one I have character profiles on my deviantart. But if people want a section here I'll do it.

[VermillionWorks]

I'm cool with the idea, though I already have a real Character page. XP
If not a forum thread, what about an actual little character bio page for everyone's Tapastic sites? Would that be at all possible?

[mariusthered]

i did ask spooktastic about that and its not possible at this time so i suggested this category idea

[VermillionWorks]

Oh, well a forum thread is fine then! XP

[scythe]

I really like character pages, and will definitely be setting one up one of these days. The only thing I'm not sure about is how much detail to include without giving away spoilers. Even names for some of my characters would constitute that.

[DeadAccount]

We've got our character bios up on our website which I think are quite fun and I'd love to have a place for them my Tapastic comic section, however, i'm not sure if there's much use in having them in the forums beside self-promotion?..

[jacintawibowo]

I like character pages. Especially for comics with lots of characters or names that are hard to remember =P
I'm still waiting on the possibility of Tapastic allowing a character page. A thread with all that information I find difficult to look through.

[TopJimComics]

I'd love to have a character's page, but even more useful to me would just to have an "extras" page that you could customize to be whatever you want. Just a single page of non-comic content would be pretty slick.

[Kura]

Yeah I would actually really appreciate a separate section like that for characters, extra art/sketches as both a reader and a creator.

From my point of view as a reader, when I'm a fan I'm really into character profiles and extra sketches and sneak peaks on the side. To be able to easily get that on tapastic (separate from the comic to avoid interrupting my reading experience, or attempting to scroll that dreaded mess of backlog that can collect on the wall) would be absolutely great, as to get those extra tidbits for webcomics as it is now I need to follow the artist outside of tapastic on their artist social networks, which more often than not, gives me a whole bunch of shit I don't want instead of the stuff I do want. The most prominent examples being reblogs of memes, funny pictures or other none art related things, or when artists I watch join in on some friggen twitter chat. I just want to see the extras and and sneak peek sketches, I don't want all this other shit! I just want the stuff related to your project or your artwork. (Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with artists doing whatever they want on their social media pages, I mean it's yours, it's just frustrating when I want those specific things and there are no other options for me to get them.)

From the point of view of webcomic artist, yes, I would love to include this optional side stuff, (concept art/sketches/sneak peeks, character profiles, FANART) but don't really want to (or have to be careful when) throwing it into the comic because it could both break the flow of the story (even at the end of a chapter depending on how much stuff you put in there) Right now the best option is to make another comic series dedicated to extras of your current series, and I a just HATE those, because there's really no way to organize all your extras, and making separate comics for all your different kinds of extras is pretty damn excessive and well... messy.

[Kayke]

I agree with what a few others have said, that it would be good as an extra page on the tapastic main site, but not super useful in the forums as it's more creators here than readers.

I do have a character page on my own website, as well as an extras page for fanart and stuff.

I don't know if adding options to have pages like that on Tapastic would make the site too clunky though...

[winglesscomic]

I don't feel like a forum category for characters is really necessary... if it was actually ON the tap comic, sure. but it doesn't have much sense to have it int he forums - like cyroclaire said it's just another self promotion thread, no different than the several ones here that people drop their shit there and then never look at the threads again.

As for the discussion of what's in it, my character page gives some pretty basic info and a link to the character's debut. I don't like character infos that give away everything about the character - that's why you read the comic, to know more about the characters.

Unimportant shit like height or weight that would be useful to fan art or cosplayers would be good to put on there though.

[shinepaw]

I'd really love to see a tab for Extra content, and not exclusively for character profiles... Like an extra page which you can fill up with any info you'd like to add to your comic. I can imagine it'd be something on the comic's page, like under the description and above the episode list, just a little extra button

[dracoplato]

Having a way to display more character information on the site outside of the comics sounds great, but if it's in the forums my thought is that it'd become too hard to find anything and may just end up really cluttered. Something more comic specific that makes it easier for fans to jump to it would probably be better. Simplicity and ease of accessibility are really important for something like this.

[mariusthered]

I agree with both sides of what has been said so far, but it's not for me to say one way or another. please keep posting your views and we will see what way things turn out when the bosses read this thread .

[AnnaLandin]

Yeah, having a character profile/cast page is nice - I have one on Grassblades' main site - and when you've got a comic with a big cast, it's neat for readers to be able to refer to it.

But like a lot of others in this thread, I don't think the forum is the right place to do it in - that would leave us all scrolling endlessly through a forum thread, past all the comics we are NOT reading, to find the info we're looking for. Not ideal. IF it was possible to add a tab to the main comic page that readers could click on, to find the cast page, that would be a neat feature. But if it ISN'T possible, I can live without it.

[VermillionWorks]

I was thinking about suggesting a Character Profiles category for the forums so each person could make a topic for their own comic, but I'm worried that might get obnoxious to see new topics of all the time? Agree? Disagree? Maybe we should just wait and hope for a possible Character/About page for Tapastic comics later....

[realSean_Murphy]

How would you set up a character page? Like just draw your character in profile and just add details about that character? Could you also show different depictions or even different angles of that character, like front facing or seen from the back or side?

[AnnaLandin]

The only thing I'm not sure about is how much detail to include without giving away spoilers. Even names for some of my characters would constitute that.

You could always go back and edit stuff in once it's revealed in the comic. Akane was known as "????" for a while on my cast page, before she was given a name in the comic.

[jmhenry]

I'm for it! It'd definitely be nicer if we had a customizable character page for our series though.