Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

Characters who have "Personality transplants"...

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Omega Entity:
That, and the music references have become few and far between. The early strips were downright rife with them.

Penquin47:

--- Quote from: Omega Entity on 17 Mar 2015, 16:50 ---That, and the music references have become few and far between. The early strips were downright rife with them.

--- End quote ---

Which, as I recall, is as much about "do I reference out-of-comic time music or 2006 music as if it were new?" as about an actual change in Marten's personality.

Aziraphale:
Well, that's the thing about comic time. You can do both, technically.

Jab:
What's funny is that I miss all the up-to-the-minute music references, but had absolutely NO IDEA about any of the bands they were referencing, nor did I enjoy the music when I actually looked it up. It just seemed fun to get into the heads of characters so passionate about it, because you could tell Jeph was passionate about it.

But yes, the lack of musical references/scenes is a big shift, which has made everyone seem a bit different. Initially, music was like THE THING all the characters had in common. Faye & Marten bonded over it at first, if I recall correctly- and characters even called her "a hot Indie Girl".

BenRG:
Bit of a thread necro here but it is relevant to the subject of character development and probably fits here better than in the WCDT.

I think that the Hannelore's Skin Complaint arc (strips 2961-present) demonstrates that Jeph is planning to do some new stuff with Faye.

Previously, Faye was basically used in three types of strip:

* Her romantic relationship with Angus;
* Her 'sisters in all but blood' relationship with Dora;
* Her smiliar relationship with Marten.The problem is that all three of these threads have been, in one way or another, cut off. The Fayegus ship has sunk. After the events surrounding Faye being fired from CoD it is going to be a long time, if ever, before Faye and Dora feel comfortable enough in each other's company to spend too much time with each other and Marten now has a girlfriend with whom I think he is spending far more time with than he does with Faye and who will certainly be his primary double-act foil when it isn't Pintsize.

So, what to do with the character? Jeph missed the opportunity to put her 'on the bus' when Angus left town, so I think that he still wants to have her in the comic. Nonetheless, he's got to find her something useful to do in the strip. There is her own unique arc about dealing with alcohol addiction, of course. However, you don't really want a major character to be a one-trick pony. I think that Jeph is manoeuvring her to become Hannelore's best friend and primary care-giver.

I also think that, having completed the Claireten arc, Hannelore has returned to the centre of Jeph's attention and he's planning to do a bit more with her. The thing is that she has a fairly small circle of friends: Marigold is a pal and someone with some common interests, but recent strips have shown that she is a bit too self-centred and unaware of others' needs to function as Hannelore's main foil. Marten is there and I can't see him ever turning Hannelore away if she needs him but his primary focus seem to be Claire, settling his life down and, to a certain extent, surviving his mother living in Northampton. Hannelore needs a character to be her main foil - her primary interaction focus with whom she can do things that matter to her (and help them with things that matter to them too). I think that this character is going to be Faye and we're going to see them spending more time together and sharing each other's character arcs. A more odd couple you probably couldn't hope to see but I think that they will offer each other the support, encouragement and, when needed, firm slap-downs that the other needs when their respective neuroses lead them down stupid paths.

Whilst posting, I have a feeling that we are going to see Dora angle away from the main character group now. She's going to be Tai's girlfriend, Marten's ex (with some interesting triangular consequences between the three of them) and Dale's boss. Even before that, her main post-Marten role had been as Tai and Faye's straight woman, feeding the hook lines for the joke-of-the-day. I don't really feel that Jeph has any appetite to bring her back into the spotlight. It is difficult to predict a likely next storyline to include her in any way and most would have her mostly in a support role until (and I'm sure this will happen eventually) she and Tai marry.

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