Sunday, October 28, 2012

Using Creatures from Myths

We have all wanted to take a creature from mythology and warp it to our own needs. There have been good ideas and bad born from this, and so I suppose I should mention some of the considerations of making this work.

The first is finding the creature. You need something that fits your comic, and adds to it. You need to find something that requires little adaptation but will still work as a character; the ideal is to find something that is at least humanoid or has a humanoid form often enough to work with the other characters.The usual temptation is find something really unique and go from there, but that usually doesn't work as well as you would think as you either have to tame it to the point that it doesn't resemble the origin creature or it has some sort of problem that makes it difficult to adapt.

On the other hand, using a variant of an established creature will also usually fail if you try to make it too unique; you want to cash in it on its “brand”, but want something unique. Just remember to keep enough of the base creature to give readers something familiar and you should do fine; you do not want to mutate too much or it's a new creature. The worst example here is the Twilight vampire: The shiny vampires make sense in that world but there are too many differences between expectation and example for it to really work.

You then want to research the creature. You want as much information as possible on it, both to make sure that pre-existing fans of the creature will not be too mad at you and for the sake of the illustrator. You want something that the illustrator can sink his teeth into while at the same time making sure that you are doing right by the creature. Although I can understand that iconoclasts would prefer to just wing it, you'll find that nine times out of ten your research will give you some additional inspiration, usually some minor bit of trivia that is incredibly interesting, making it easier to get your mind around the creature, and making it really come to life. You also need to avoid the “the myths were wrong” concept; the idea is to at least resemble the expected creature, or you may as well as start fresh.

You also need to get the iconography of the creature right. Mythological creatures fit a niche and by staying in their niche they can add a lot to your story. This applies from something as simple as werewolves and people's fear of change and predatory animals to school ghosts and kids' fears of the unknown. Obviously they can come out of that niche once in a while, but using a monster in a non-traditional way needs to create confusion, and should be avoided if it is just for the sake of being cutesy. If you need to, do not be afraid to come up with something new just to feel a niche in your story if the creature you are adapting looks like a bad fit.

Lastly, just have fun with the critter. If it isn't something you can have fun with, then either create something new or go with something else. If you are having problems breathing life into something, then the problem is either that it doesn't fit with your plans, or it just isn't something you like. Keep in mind that it does not need to have a unique personality; sometimes a monster just doing what it does is more than enough. Sometimes you do not need a new character so much as you need a plot device, and that works as well. Make sure your monster fits the comic, and you should do fine. Don't just pull a creature from the encyclopedia, but breathe life into it and give it its own fire if you want it to work.

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