These panels are meant to
demonstrate four common (male) character types in folk tales, myths, and
legends.
Panel 1: The Hero
Here we see a buff young man in a
skin-tight T-shirt and red pants. He is white; he has black hair and blue eyes.
He is brandishing a sword and grimacing in manly fashion.
Little notes arranged around the hero:
- lives on the inside
- connections to both inside and outside (darkness
inside)
- moves from inside to outside in quest to contain
monstrosity
- magic sword?
- magic muscles!
- must eventually be contained via assimilation or
expulsion
Alt-Text: I instinctively find this person intensely annoying.
Panel 2: The
Monster
This one’s a
picture of a stereotypical devil (bright red skin, yellow cat eyes, horns,
pointed ears, a pencil moustache and goatee) wearing a green jacket and smoking
a cigarette.
Little notes
arranged around the monster: - lives
on the outside
- connections
to outside only (darkness outside)
- not
necessarily “evil”; if he stays on the outside, he has the potential to help as
well as harm
- (but
he does not stay on the outside)
- moves
from outside to inside: i.e., invade
- magic
cigarette?
- note
the green jacket
- must
be contained (expelled or destroyed)
Alt-Text:
The green jacket is a reference to various folk tales in which the
devil wears a green coat. It also references West of Bathurst and the
green coat Casey keeps lending out to people
Panel 3: The
Traitor
Here we have
another man (yes, they’re all men, and aside from the devil, they’re probably
all white. What can I say? I made this in, like, 2012. Someone probably needed
to shake me.) He has black hair and glasses, and he’s holding a knife behind
his back. Little notes
arranged around the traitor:
- lives
on the inside
- connections
to inside only, though may help outsiders, deliberately or inadvertently
- often
remains entirely on inside
- not
a magic knife
- may
act selfishly; may believe he’s doing the right thing
- contains
or attempts to contain the hero
- is
blamed (by insiders) for hero’s death; often dies horribly
- scapegoat
- (remorse
is optional)
Alt-Text:
This is a character of mine who's turned up in a number of stories, all
unpublished. Treachery is essentially his day job, and he's very good
at it.
Panel 4: The
Villain
Have we
discerned the pattern yet? This is another black-haired white man. He looks
like an evil stage magician. He has the devil’s pencil moustache and goatee but
is cackling rather than casually smoking.
Little notes
arranged around the villain:
- lives
on the inside (but the outside is irrelevant)
- like
the traitor, is frequently two-faced, pretending to help the hero while engineering
his downfall
-
unlike
the traitor, rarely means well
- can
be motivated by vengeance, but is primarily driven by selfishness
-
like
the monster, doesn’t always follow the rules (though is not directly
supernatural)
- unlike
the monster, always knows the rules exist…and breaks them anyway
- tends
to destroy the hero by nudging him into destroying himself
- his
fate: death…or reform
Alt-Text: Is he a villain, or is he about to pull a rabbit out of a hat? Only time will tell.
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