I just completed a storyline in The Perfect Villain where there was a contest to determine TPV’s second-in-command and various lackeys. I had over 20 contestants. I feel as if I pulled it off okay, but it was still a nightmare having so many characters.

Many comics are like TV shows. They are built around characters. So, I had to try going through character development for 20 different characters. Imagine a TV show where they dump 20 new characters. Not an easy task. Many of them, in TPV, didn’t get much character development, and I used some cheap gimmicks like odd speech. (See Carnage.)

It’s a mistake I made early on, but it affected me for a long time. I started it with comic #33, and I finally finish with #97. Even though there’s Captain Nova comics in between, that’s still a lot of comics.

Having too many characters makes it hard for the readers to get to know them. They’ll be shuttled back and forth too much to remember, or not enough, and they’ll start to forget about the earlier characters. During the obstacle/course maze, I had the problem of going between characters too much. I had to write it down, otherwise I would forget who had died, who had got stuck, and who was with who. During the game shows, I had the problem of going between characters too little. I had to look through my archives to remember everything.

Over twenty characters is also a lot of information to remember, as well as to create. With fingers and toes put together, that’s only 20 digits. Oh sure, teachers can remember students in classes, but they’re seeing them on a constant basis and for longer amounts of time than in a comic strip. Completely different dynamics.

There are two ways to deal with having a large number of characters at the same time: 1) Make some main characters, but the rest minor characters. 2) Split them up into groups. Excellent examples of #2 can be seen in many Star Wars: New Jedi Order novels. I did that to an extent, but it wasn’t eloquently done. #1 is done often in novels where there’s war, so characters die more frequently. I didn’t want to do that because then it wouldn’t really be a contest, and I didn’t want to give away who would win. Yet, I was still a little guilty, giving my favorite characters (the ones who make it) more development. So, you could probably tell Senor Scribbles had a fair chance of winning from the beginning.

Well, now I know never to attempt such a thing again.