Tips for Comic Book Writers: Constructing an Antihero

When writing a character it's more interesting writing up a protagonist that serves to be some sort of antihero instead of just a regular hero. Normally antiheroes are the complete opposite of the strengths and traits associated with heroes. In a sense, an antihero serves as an antithesis or an anti-existence of a person.

An antihero will have traits opposite of your run of the mill hero. For example your hero will do all these good deeds because it's basically the right thing to do. But in most cases, the antihero will do the deeds for a price. And the price can be a pretty hefty price such as offering sex, drugs, and so forth.

An antihero can be somewhat semi-heroic to downright evil and vile. One example on how an antihero can be downright evil is this popular first person shooter called "Blood" that was followed by its sequel "Blood 2: The Chosen". The main character is this high-ranking official in this cult named Caleb who is out to destroy this god named Tchernoborg.

Caleb isn't out to destroy the Cabal because it's the "right" thing to do. He's out to destroy the Cabal for his own selfish and self-centered reasons. In short, he basically wants to rise to power. In the story of Blood and Blood 2, Caleb is going to take power from the Cabal.

Asides from shooting the enemies, you can even kill the innocent bystanders around and eat their hearts to regain your health. Caleb is an undead with a zombie like appearance and glowing red demonic looking eyes. He's out to claim power from the Cabal and not caring about whom or how many people he kills in the process.

That's one example of a personality trait of an antihero. Antiheroes usually have no remorse in the killing of innocents. They're not going to shed a single tear for the victims; especially, if they seemed to have "deserved" it. In a sense, the ends justify the means. They basically want the end result while not caring about the process.