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Hero, Monster, Traitor, Villain:
Four Anatomies
by Kari Maaren

Hero

Monster

Traitor

Villain

Hero, Monster, Traitor, Villain: Four Anatomies

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Alt-Text: This is a character of mine who's turned up in a number of stories, all unpublished.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.


Comics copyright Kari Maaren 2006-2014