I was wondering how many characters should there be in a comic strip? I'm guessing I should have between 3-5 main character plus a couple of minor characters but I wasn't sure.
With the exception of minor/background characters or characters that will appear in one strip, I so far have 7 characters for my webcomic strip. I wanted to add more but I didn't know how many is too many.
Oct '17
Oct '17
It's all subjective.
You need to have a good understanding of how much you're readers can take. It depends on the genre and the pacing of your story.
I try to use only as many as I need, and no more. I also try to find multiple uses for the same character. I ask myself, "If this were adapted into a movie, would all of the characters carry over or would some of them be merged?"
I have multiple main characters for my comic. You see, the trick is to have one main MAIN character. For example, DBZ has a lot of main characters, but Goku is the protagonist.
So add more but don’t forget the character that really “Owns” the comic.
It depends on what you're trying to do. The fact that you say "strip" makes me think you're doing like a 4 panel thing... in which case sometimes you only really need 2 or 3 characters for the whole strip. Think of how many comic strips just have two characters talking to each other with an occasional third character there if the joke calls for it.
For a narrative comic, you'd need more characters for the world to feel convincing... unless there was a plot reason for there not to be many characters. Like if the location was somewhere isolated or there was a population depleting disaster or something.
It's like sitcoms vs other shows. A sitcom usually has limited sets (like an apartment, a restaurant, an office) and limited characters, like one group of friends or coworkers. A show like this can focus on just a few characters but run for 100s of episodes because there doesn't need a plot that keeps progressing and heightening. That's something that can easily be done with a comic strip. An action/drama show (the Flash, Buffy, Riverdale, etc) might start out with a core cast of three or so... but as the plot moves forward and progresses it'll need to add more characters for the world to feel realistic and engaging. Characters that start out as minor characters might work their way into the main cast. Like the Flash started out with 4 main characters working together and now there are like 9 or 10 people on the team at any given time fluctuating as some characters become more important or less important. In my experience that's been what long form webcomics are like.
Anyway, I'd say don't try to develop too many characters at the beginning. Start with 3 mains and see how it goes, introducing new characters as the comic goes on and the plot calls for it.
In my strip, I got my main character, about... 2-3 important side characters, and about 3 more minor characters that are only used occasionally. The more important a character is, the more often they should show up. They should also probably be easy to remember, and have something that makes it easy to remember them.
They should also do something/fill a niche that other characters can't also fill. That's always helpful.
Agree with Kayke! And it's not only gonna depend on your particular genre, but also on how they're handled. If you try to introduce 7 characters in the first arc, that's gonna be too many to really absorb, and we'll get lost. But if you introduce 2 main characters at first, and then a few others are in the background, and the next arc focuses on one of those main characters and introduces somebody else in the story that they're close to, and then a few arcs later you focus on a couple of those background characters that have been popping up from time to time and giving them some time to shine, etc. ....then you could eventually have a cast of seven or more.
Like, even for a comic strip-style story that could get by with 3 characters total, there's also something like Archie comics, which easily has 6 or 7 major characters, with even more background folks, and anyone out of 4 or 5 of those characters could be the actual star of a strip at any given time. But because you don't need to know who all 7 of them are for every story, it works out okay.
It honestly just depends on if your story has space for that many characters.
i have one in mind with 12 main characters...........and spire has a pretty big cast but i deal with that through certain characters mainly being grouped with certain others and a shifting narrative
Generally when starting out a main cast of about maybe 3 characters is a good start as it allows you ways to even out their 'screen time' as it were and develop them as characters. If over time you start to feel more confident, then add more characters, but know that you will then have to integrate them into the story as well.
My comic started with two main characters and two side characters back in 2014. It now has what I consider three mains, 6 side characters, and a host of minor characters (to fill in background and what not)
Basically like with a lot of things, start small and work your way up.
Like Luffy and Naruto, I guess.
I'm not even going to include Bleach, cause they had waaaaaay too many back storiies for everybody.
One Piece is spread out instead of condensed.
My two cents, try to think about how many characters you want in a particular story arc. If you're focused on keeping five characters in the story at all time it can really limit your options. You'll notice that the heavily populated stories like One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, etc are constantly separating the group and reducing the number of people on screen / page to allow the story to flow.
As a counter example, when they tried to squeeze every side character into the Defenders story it felt cramped and most of them felt kind of pointless since they didn't have enough time or lines to really contribute tot he story.
If you are talking about a strip, it really depends.
Peanuts has a lot of characters. There are characters that appear more and one's who appear less.
However, Ziggy has one main character. There are non-verbal pets and other random people, but it is mostly just Ziggy.
Then you have something like The Far Side where there are no main characters, where most of the strips stand alone.
I think in some ways you should set up a premise first. Because that would help determine how many characters you would need.
As multiple people has said it depends on the situation. I think its most commonly an odd number like 3, 5 or 7.
In Subject SB-24 I have the main protagonist Seb (who is a girl just to confuse you ha ha.) and then 4 other main characters at the beginning. There is one Character who turned (well technically everyone else turned good and he stayed bad but whatever) bad and one character who is missing. So in total there are 7 test subjects. I then have about three scientists but they aren't in it too often.
In my other comic which is yet to be actually made, I have the Main protagonists yes protagonists most things have lots of main characters but only one main protagonists well this comic has two. A princess and a theif. Then I have the main bad guy, and also the princesses maid who is barley in it but has a name at least and thats the only people in it except for crowds of unnamed people with no lines.
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