- 1). Create heroes and villains with real problems and personalities. Stan Lee made Spiderman's Peter Parker a shy nerd who worries about paying rent, passing school and his feeble Aunt May. Magneto, filled with anger about the Holocaust, seeks to take over the world to protect his people in "X-Men." He is a villain with whom people empathize.
- 2). Write stories about the man behind the mask. Some of the best stories revolve around the man, Clark Kent or Steve Rogers, instead of the hero, Superman or Captain America. Create a profile for your main character. Include the basics: Where was he born, who are his parents, and what's his favorite food? Also answer harder questions: What is his greatest failure, who is the girl that never noticed him, and why does he risk his life to save others?
- 3). Surround your main character with a supporting cast. Create similar profiles focusing on their relationship with the main character: Do they like him, are they jealous of him, or do they want to be him?
- 4). Draw your character larger than life. Settle your panel's point of view a little bit lower than the main character. Your reader is forced to look up to him. This is called the "worm's eye view" and Marvel comics have used it for decades.
- 5). Slowly age your characters through your stories. They need to graduate from high school and go to college - just at a much slower rate than in the real world. Draw inspiration for stories from current headlines and popular media events. Make your comics relevant to what concerns society. Green Lantern and Green Arrow dealt with teenage drug addiction. Batman deals with mental illness. Superman deals with adoption.
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