Weekly Update - 55 (Patreon)

We finally have a date for moving!  It's a tentative date, but that's still way better than a shrug and an IDK.

So we should be getting ready to do this whole crazy move thing approaching the end of April, which is only a couple of months later than I hoped, and one full month later than we thought.

So yay!  Exciting stuff.  We'll be moving just in time for my birthday.

Comic this Week?  Should be doable, I think...

Poster Progress!

Kiera - Shading and highlights, almost done!

Max - Still waiting for lines, (I think I'm scared of this one)

Riley - Shading and highlights, almost done!

Drawing:  Page 98

Playing:  AI Dungeon (STILL, wtf even is this game)

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I've talked exhaustively about villains already, and how I think it's better when they are sympathetic, at least in some regard, but I did mention that I wanted to talk separately about villains that are evil due to the grips of some form of psychosis.

It's pretty typical to portray such villains as the purest form of evil, but it probably doesn't come as any surprise that I disagree with that portrayal.  The Joker just wants to watch the world burn?  Perhaps, but maybe also he feels the world is broken and that he has to do something to change it.  Even the worst psychopaths in history likely had motivation beyond just "doing evil for fun" though it might look that way from an outside perspective and many of them might be unable to explain it any other way.

In WRITING this sort of villain, I would still look for that inside perspective, figuring out WHY my psychopath is acting the way he does.  I don't think anyone one wants to feel like they are a monster... with the exception of someone who has always been treated as such and chooses to embrace it, thus seeking satisfaction from fulfilling a role.  Even so, no one wants to be the villain of their own story, no matter how twisted that story is.  They are still getting something out of it.  If I was going to write a character that skinned their victims and devoured their flesh, I would want to know WHY they do these things.

Perhaps they live in an altered reality, and are surrounded by monsters they feel they need to destroy.  Perhaps they are delusional, believing they are gaining some kind of magic power from consuming that flesh that will ultimately enable them to save the world.  The fact is, they are still the hero of their own twisted story, and in acting out their heroism, they are a monster in the eyes of everyone else.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even psychopaths can be made into very rich, detailed and deep villain characters.  Their motivations are pure, carnal, sometimes even feral, but they have motivations, and fears, and wants and goals all the same.

I dunno, this has been yet more rambling!  You'd think that for as much as I like to talk about villains, I'd be able to spell that damn word by now.