Question concerning character inspiration.

[Oerdin]

I’d like to ask Jeph what his inspiration for the characters in QC was.  Are the characters based upon real people you know, were they completely pulled out of your imagination, or are they an amalgamation of various people you know?  Also, I was recently reading your live journal and I noticed a passing resemblance between your brunette, glasses wearing, lady friend and Faye.  Coincidence?

[yermo]

Latter question, I assume is coincidence, since QC pre-dates his lady-friend.

[tedzsee]

Jeph's been asked this before... on his "About" page, there's an interview.  Among the questions:

Are your characters based on real people or events?

No, they spring entirely from my own imagination. Sometimes they will espouse opinions that agree with my own, but there the similarity to real-life pretty much ends.

Mind you, that doesn't preclude him from adding another answer below (in fact, I'd be interested in hearing more about his character-creation process), but I thought that I'd be helpful and throw that on the board.

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One thing I was wondering regarding characters is this:

How many characters is too many?  Personally, I don't find QC hard-to-follow or anything, but there are TONNES of characters if one thinks about it:

(sorry that I'm not hardcore enough to remember some of the minor character's names)

FAYE
DORA
THAT BLONDE COFFEE-SERVER
THAT TRUCK-DRIVER TURNED NOVELIST IN THE BAR
STEVE
ELLEN
NATASHA, ellen's roomie
VICKY
PINTSIZE
PINTSIZE'S FEMALE COMPANION
etc etc

and Marten of course

And that's not even all of them.

Of those, at least THREE new characters have been introduced in the past few weeks.  

1) I'm just wondering if Jeph ever feels any pressure to avoid creating a new character to avoid confusing people.

2) If he ever has any feels any pressure to make sure the strip revolves around Marten or include him in some way even if Marten is sometimes not really the "main" character in a plotline.

I ask because I also run a comic (not as well-read as his perhaps) that has a cast of 9, and I regularly run into these dilemmnas myself.  It would be interesting to get another perspective.

[jeph]

The characters do indeed spring entirely from my mind's eye. Sometimes it's useful to work from an archetype (metal chick wearing a black hoodies, for instance) but usually that's only good for the roughest of ideas, not an actual *character*.

I don't worry too much about introducing too many characters, because the current story will always revolve fairly closely around the core three (Marten, Faye, Dora). The other characters are in there for flavor, to keep things interesting for both me and the reader, and to keep me from getting bored drawing the same three people over and over.

The real trick is to make them actual PEOPLE, not just stereotypes or cardboard cutout versions of people. I have a definite personality in mind for each character in my strip, and so my job becomes trying to get that personality across to the reader as clearly and efficiently as possible. THAT'S the real challenge of the writing side of this strip, and it's a heck of a lot of fun to work on.

[Oerdin]

OK, thanks for taking the time to answer my question.