I have zero problem with it. Or people who smoke, in fact I dislike the stigma placed on them here in the US. (But that's neither here nor there)

I've got characters who smoke. I say feel free to show it, as it's a part of life, people smoke IRL and art should imitate life.

It's fine if you include smoking, it's just a thing people do. As long as you don't really romanticise it then it's fine in my opinion. But if you want to you can add in some realism by having other characters point out that it's bad for them, them trying to quit, hands shaking/not being able to concentrate because they haven't had one in a while, etc.

If you want to draw your character smoking, then just do it.
Nobody is or should stop you from doing it.
Besides I remember those anti-smoke PDAs from back then and how South Park portrayed them as super cringe, which was true. xD

My two cents, that you didn't ask for, is its overused. It doesnt resonate with modern audiences in the same way it did in the sixties. Like on twilight zone, characters talk about smoking and smoke on camera in every episode. Now if you have a guy that smokes the gesture is no longer neutral. People in large cities don't smoke as much because smoking is banned in public places. A neutral gesture is now a statement. Smokes has connotations. Just something to consider.

Just have them smoke, just don't put much focus on it.

Just made me realize that cigar and cigarette are two different things, thought that one was the shorter word for the other (my mother tongue is spanish)

I think it's okay if you want to have a character smoke, as long as it isn't shown glorified.

Maybe that's cause I am not from the US or Europe, I don't see much stigmatizing of smoking. Maybe it's not as widespread as 30 years ago and most young people are vaping now, but still I'd say many people will consider it to be a norm. So I will agree, just don't make it a focus (unless it's exactly what you want to do, but it doesn't seem like it).

for me, it'll involve a character who uses them to hurt other people (aka burning people with them) plus, the smell of the smoke kinda becomes a thing that the characters notice, and realize that he's there.

I'd say as the others has: If you want your character to smoke, then inlcude it?
If you want to say smoking is bad, you can have your oc's telling the smoker something negative about.

And I'll agree, I'm a non-smoker myself, but gosh darnit, does it look good on film and photographs??
There's something about it that's kind of... Not exotic, but thrilling, something sensual about it?
Just the way you described the scene is just... chef's kiss It's suspense in a different way. It's so much more than what words can describe!

Definitely not really stigmatised in my country - no matter how I wish it was, I despise inhaling this sh*t when someone's walking along the same space smoking in public, and I also have other personal reasons.

That being said, just you do you. It's your character, your story, your decisions. Depending on context, or the way you frame it, or if you decide to address it in story (or in outside commentary), you can get the readers to understand your viewpoint in case you'd like to avoid misinterpretation.

As much as I hate smoking IRL, one of my main characters is an old lady smoking a pipe - there are, however, in-story reasons for it, though spoiler alert, they are mainly superstitions and snake oil sort of remedy.

I don't smoke, and am not fond of people who smoke. The smell makes my head hurt. BUT, I'm all for fictional characters who smoke or have random objects in their mouth. Makes them minimum 100% cooler/more attractive.

If your story is time placed on the '60s, go ahead. If is not, you may have to explain your character trait, maybe. As an example, John Constantine smoke a lot, and his magic tend to use the ciggies as proxies, but most of the time all other characters around make comments about that nowdays. Batman threw him out of the batmobile even.
Also, if the enviroment where the character unfolds isn't an issue, there won't be a problem. Everything depends on how you play the trait card to make it beleivable on the scene.

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I am a millennial and I do not smoke. But I have met people around my age who do and I don't mind being around them (but I also can't really breath through my nose, so...). I honestly do not care if a character smokes as long as they are an adult, kids smoking can be a bit weird for me. I know that 80s/90s PSA sort of pushed that smokers are evil people, which as an adult come to realize is a really shitty way of framing the issue.

When it comes to media, the US has strict rules about showing smoking in children's media. For Zoomers, most of them tend to be disinterested in cigarettes but are more willing to try vaping or weed. I know some millennials like the novelty of hookahs. And sometimes these things are just generational, I don't see many people my age with corn cob pipes.

I wish I didn't like the aesthetic and the act of smoking as much as I do but ...I really enjoy it.
Also I have observed it's kinda common in lgbt circles at least here which is why I got into the habit. A sort of signifier and also something that kinda marks you out as the kind of girl men don't wanna hit on ( at least that's what I infer). I dress gender neutral and smoke as a way to not attract attention I guess, then again I live in India so.
It has translated into my art as well, all three of my main characters smoke, then again they are based on me somehow. I just pretend it's marijuana and not as harmful.

I live in a place where smoking is very normal, and cigarette advertising is everywhere. Women, men, young people below the legal age (it's shameful, but have you heard a smoking toddler?), old people —they smoke. I had a relative who had one of his lungs deteriorated when 15 from smoking, but continued to smoke to his 70s. I personally cannot stand it in real life and it felt sick like I am getting a flu when I inhale the smoke, some people are asshole too when smoking in public.

I have character who smokes, but they aren't human and/or having toxin neutralisation and regeneration ability or cannot get addicted. One portrayed in my series so far is a highschool boy vaping, he has regeneration power and just wants to try new things. In a culture, it is a way to show you are a potent healer because you can afford having your body damaged like nothing. Plus as the story is set in another world, you cannot be certain what is inside and what is the effect.

I have no real issue with smoking characters and have in fact drawn several! I agree with you that there is a visual panache that comes with the stuff that can't be gleaned from anything else.
Personally I have no problem with it as a character design choice, but I guess I'd prefer if it wasn't like, glamorized or anything. It's kind of hard to define what I mean by that, sorry.
Really miss when Pete smoked in Mickey Mouse. He doesn't feel the same without his cigar.

I draw smokers sometimes, and I don't have a moral dilemma about it because those characters aren't real. They aren't me. They're not going to encourage other people to smoke as well. I think sometimes we hold ourselves as artists to this moral standard where we don't draw or write real people out of fear that someone may read our content and then immediately follow suit when like...yo they're not. They know when fiction is fiction and lofty smoke from a cigarette (which always looks waay more glamorous in comics than irl where it's like...not) that is just fiction.

I tried to make my protagonist a non-smoker. I really tried. But ultimately, he just... is. I couldn't avoid it. He has canonically justifiable reasons for being a smoker. He's lonely. Whisky and cigarettes take the edge off.

It's also going to be a fun marker of character development. While he'd never outright give up, the idea of him trying to cut back around a certain other character, or buying a box of lollipops or something in order to replace his smokes, is just way too precious.

I don't smoke tobacco myself, and I find cigarettes smelly, distasteful things. Not to mention, poisonous. But I'm dealing in a sci-fi universe where the health effects of smoking could be easily nullified. And there's so much opportunity to use cigarettes as a running joke, such as the smoke jamming the air filters on ships, or being eaten by doggos... there's a lot of gold in those mountains.

Hhaahahhahah is that a personal attack intensifies

I hate smoking in real life, but as a dramatic device or a prop it can be really awesome in fiction. It creates something for the character to gesture with in ways that can show all sorts of emotions; nerves, confidence, sensuality, and fills the scene with atmospheric smoke.
...But nobody smokes in my comic, because I'm in the UK and here we have very strict guidelines about depictions of smoking. Since Errant contains mostly content suitable for 13 year olds, and to do that I had to discard my love of using casual cuss words (I'm a Homestuck, this shouldn't be a surprise. In early script drafts, Rekki was dropping F-bombs all over the place while fighting demons), I wouldn't throw that away to show characters smoking.
....Even though I mean... look at Subo... that is a man who would roll a joint at ANY opportunity. Just pretend he's doing that off-screen between adventures.

I have a smoker in my "The Last BL Comic" but it is not just because she smokes, but because it is a part of a side plot and an excuse for her to interact with the main cast.

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The plot is not about smoking is bad, but about someone might die soon in the story. And the smoker never get to lit her cigarette....

I use it as a signal the character is a mess xD. It shouldn't be a problem if you don't take it as something 'cool' like they used to do (probably for advertising purpouses) on old series and movies.

I feel it also depends on the setting a little bit. In a story set in modern times close to ours, smoking could be seen as a self-destructive thing. But if you write a story that takes place in a much earlier part of history, a different setting alltogether or both, smoking could be normal.
Heck, I write a non-modern fantasy where one of my side characters smokes a pipe. Characters there do crazier stuff, I don't think anyone really bats an eye about one character smoking.

I live in an apartment with plenty of smoking neighbours. I am sick of all the smoke and I hate that they throw the cigarette buds everywhere (including on my balcony). That's why I no longer draw characters who smoke. I used to not have problems with it, but not anymore. So you may see some smoking characters in my old work, but that won't happen again in the future.

For client work I probably still would draw it though, gotta make some income right xD

I think it's kind of neat to see a smoking character because I feel like they're far and few between. At least in media I consume. I hardly ever seen people in real life smoke, too.

And I'm a sucker for smoking being associated with a character that is fed up and tired. I don't ever make my characters smoke tho. I never smoked or was around someone who did, so I don't have a mind for it. If I made a character smoke I'd forget they did later. So, they'd end up smoking one cigarette one time for some reason.

Oh! I can talk about this since I have a smoking character. For me, I just create it if it makes sense for their character. The long and short of it is don't hold back. My rule is to never hold back in creating. A smoking character trait isn't bad at all, go for it!

So I'll talk about my creation process in regards to a smoking character I made.

The character in question is Raymond Reyes of SUMMON! The Nameless Relic. I had based this character off of mentors and coworkers I've interacted with over a few years. Specifically a cook when I worked in a restaurant and a former Air Force soldier. I wanted a strong, no nonsense character that embodied the theme of "Beast-Warrior". I kept the strongest qualities of both of my inspirations: mentally and physically strong, hard-working family-man who, due to circumstances, has to fight to get his family back. The restaurant cook (and honestly half the staff) would take breaks to smoke, so I carried that trait and, design wise it worked very well. The character is super stressed and is carrying a lot on their shoulders, so they smoke to help relax. I don't intend to show it as good or bad, just a thing they do. Plus that same idea of a puff of smoke and jaded sigh was a natural fit (plus I think it's cool, health be damned).

And as for Millennial/Gen Z Anti-Smoking PSA concerns. I'm 25 myself (born 95) and I don't think twice about it. If it makes sense for the character, or you think it'll look cool, go for it!

Hopefully this helped in some way!

I used to smoke but I stopped 17 years ago from one day to the other.
I sometimes smoked a cigarette here and there when I was drunk and at some point
I just stopped completely. No problem stopping, stopping to drink coffee is harder (for me)
Smoking looks cool. I hate when I have to sleep in a room where someone smoked and
I don´t like driving in cars with smokers or sit in a small room with people smoking

The characters in my comic noir stories smoke because it´s a cool effect in a black and white comic
and adds a lot to the design. The characters in the cartoony all ages comics don´t smoke.

I don't do tobacco.

But I made a very clear decision to make one of my main characters a stoner

In some ways the fact that the dangers of smoking are such common knowledge these days can make it a powerful tool for character design, because it signified so many good things in the past, but signifies so many bad things now, so the symbolic attachments to it are very complex. What I'm getting at is that smoking for a character can mean any number of things, contrasting things simaultaniously even.

For example, say you have a character that's a real macho tough guy, and a lot of kids really look up to, and you want to signal to the audience that he's a bad role model, just have him smoke. It's something that looks cool, especially to kids, but it's something they'll want to emulate and something that he shouldn't be doing around them.

I have actually written quite a few characters who smoke in various story ideas, and I've used it to mean a few different things. For example, my character Agony from my novel smokes A LOT, and at first it's just explained as something she does to rebel against her sterile background. But the more is revealed about how that background damaged her, the more apparent it is that smoking is an anxious habit for her (which it often is in real life!) and that it, along with other traits like over frequent swearing, are compulsive habits she built up to ward off the effects of that trauma.

So yeah, smoking can communicate a lot of things about a character, such as:
self loathing
self destruction
poor rolemodel
anxiety
decline
old-fashionedness
bigotry
hypocrisy
toxicity
over-seriousness
hedonism
and many many more!

As far as for replacements for smoking, have you ever thought of toothpicks? they don't sound that cool but the character Grandma Dowdel from the book "A Year Down Yonder" was that she always kept a toothpick in her mouth that she could flip it forward with her tongue to pick her teeth. When I read that as a kid I thought it was really badass and it's something about the character that has stuck with me for years. Toothpicks can be an interesting visual that can carry their own symbolism, but that symbolism is something you can invent as a writer because there isn't a cultural stigma.

(sorry for the essay but this is a really interesting topic to me)

I have no problems with fictional characters smoking, despite the fact that I myself do not smoke and, in fact, strongly dislike the smell of cigarette smoke.
If your work is not aimed at children, you should be fine.
As for in-universe smoking habits - depends on the setting, I guess. Pretty much everyone and their dog used to smoke during WWII, for example, including a lot of kids, at least in our country. Helps relieve stress, or so I'm told.

When I write my characters I don't care if they could be doing old fashioned stuff lol. There's still people that do stuff like that in the real world, so might as well just represent them. After all, they could be picking stuff like smoking from their parents or their grandparents.

I like giving smoking habits to unlikely characters.

My character Snow smokes as an attempt to keep himself from freezing to death. Yes, it's odd. No, I do not encourage smoking in real life. No, I will not give any context right now.

None of my MCs smoke. I don’t want to accidentally portray it as cool or villainise it, so I’m just not touching it.

That, and as it’s set in the Middle Ages, it wouldn’t be tobacco they’d be smoking.

I like the idea. This adds a little charisma to your character. Have you thought of making your character vape? Imagine your character with a Nexus Smoke vape in his hand. That should look cool.