Am I going crazy?

[Takuun]

I'm still new at making comics. I don't have a long history of creating art, or creating comics. Yet I always loved reading comics. So when I saw webcomics I was thrilled at comics that were free and humor based. After a while I began thinking 'hey I can do this... but I can't draw...' Long story short, I had to learn how to draw. When I first began making the strip I had just general ideas, lots of story arcs, and gag scripts. So after posting my 5th comic I began making character profiles and histories. A kind of bible of everything and everyone in my Webcomic. Each time I finished a history of a character that character changed physicaly. This, I guess, was meant to evolve my characters. That is not what is strange though. After I finished everything each character began speaking to me. They stopped being my creations and became actual people to me. Now as I make each comic I don't think up the dialogue but I look to them and ask what they'd say in such a situation. The weirdest part is that they answer.

I don't remember imaginary friends, but I think I've either just made some, or I've seriously gone nuts. So as a guy just starting out, I ask you veterans, should I worry that I can not only see my characters, but I can have full on conversations with them? Do you guys have similar (crazy) experiences? Should I worry abut this, or should I just use it to help tell the story and gags better?

[Warofwinds]

Short answer: yes
Long answer: no

I saw one of my characters in real life. He was sexy. But I didn't talk to him. My loss

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

I had brunch with one of my characters just this past sunday. It was glorious.

[Parables]

Congratulations. You're a writer.

Either that or you have some form of Dissasosciate Identy Disorder.

We feel qualified to guess it's the former.

[CaptainClaude]

My characters used to be real people until I killed them to ensure they were purely fictional.

[KWill]

I emailed my creator when I realized I was a comic character. Does that count?

[McDuffies]

Well it's normal to get attached to your characters, after all, the aim of storytelling is to tell the story in the most convincing manner, to convince readers that your characters are real people, so if they do seem like real people, that's only a sign of succes in that field. And for many people after a while, characters kind of take a life on their own, in that writer doesn't have to think much about what the character will do next, since the character is fleshed out enough, it comes intuitively.
True I haven't heard that someone was actually talking to his characters or hanging you with them...

[LibertyCabbage]

Doesn't get much crazier than turning to the Comic Genesis Forums for psychological help.

[KWill]

I've got another forum that says you're dead wrong. =D

[LibertyCabbage]

I've got another forum that says you're dead wrong. =D

You mean the one where all the accounts are actually just you posting as different aspects of your personality?

[Eve Z.]

usually shit that happens in my comics will happen to me after.

like I predicted Bobo... who in real life is a very cerebral, calculated guy that I met few months ago, who thinks he could find a logical explanation to everything, never gets sick or depressed, just like a robot. and Bobo in my comic IS a robot.

if I were to choose between these two, I would choose the robot.

[KWill]

You mean the one where all the accounts are actually just you posting as different aspects of your personality?

Nah, it's forum where people congregate for the purpose of disagreeing on all subjects. People asking for psychological advice tend to get some pretty nasty responses.

[TheWhiteWilSmith]

I started out with my own creations, but then reverted to using real people (i.e. David Caruso) when I ran out of ideas.

[Fabio Ciccone]

I've never even dreamt of my characters... am I going normal?

[Cuendolin]

Well, I hope you are not acting like Gollum in the LOTR movie.
I've read that good writer has to voiced its characters, so all of them talk in their personal way so It's not bad.

[KWill]

I started out with my own creations, but then reverted to using real people (i.e. David Caruso) when I ran out of ideas.

Then I'm not the only one? =o

[Wendybird]

A friend of a friend says that the most important part of his writing is character creation, and he isn't ready to start writing until he can imagine sitting down and having lunch with all his characters.

I usually don't talk to my characters, but if I were less shy I probably would. Once I saw one of my characters near Penn's Landing in Philly, but she's not the most amiable of people so I decided not to bother her. Also I wouldn't want her to find out that she dies in my book - she'd be mad.

[Takuun]

Well, I hope you are not acting like Gollum in the LOTR movie.
I've read that good writer has to voiced its characters, so all of them talk in their personal way so It's not bad.

I'm not talking to myself...well maybe I am, but I'm not sitting there arguing with myself. Though I do tend to walk like them to see how they'd move from point to point. Each one has their own movements and posture. I'm still perfecting it as I go, and I'm growing. I was just more worried about the fact that I've made hundreds of short stories and that these were the first characters That I could sit and talk to.

[Alschroeder]

I have a strong sense of what my character will, or won't do. That's one reason, despite six years on Comicgenesis, I've never entered her in the Keenlace competition. Not her thang.

(Others, like Moodswing, would cheerfully appear in a Miss Nude Keenlace competition without any qualms. It depends on the character.)

I'm not sure if that qualifies, but it's a good thing when the characters get "real" enough that they start to take over...

---Al

[Redtech]

I've met my chars on the train, they ignored me.

I tend to feel my chars are doing their own "thang" I'm not much more than a spectator at best. It's why they piss me off sometimes when they do stupid or annoying things.