Hopelessly Lost, But Making Good Time #71

By Pam Bliss
March 1, 2007

Hello, and welcome back to Hopelessly Lost ..., the series about making your own comics for people whose imaginations can take any form, and take flight, and those who enjoy watching them cross the sky.

This is the second installment of our discussion of shapeshifting characters in comics storytelling. Last time we looked at possible relationships between a shapeshifter's primary and alternate forms, and sank our teeth into some theories about werewolves and other natural shapeshifters. But there are other ways to take on other forms ....

Witches and shamans and mad scientists, oh my.

A second way to shift shape is by magic. This is fast and easy, once the technique is mastered, and often the shifter's clothes change along with him or her, which is extremely convenient. The downside is that magical shapeshifting can only be accomplished by magicians (witches, wizards, mages, sorcerers, or whatever) which will almost always require some kind of innate, if latent, magical ability, and certainly years of study and access to either rare books/grimoires/mystic scrolls, or a magical teacher, if not both. Once the skill is learned, it takes effort and energy to change form, and probably to stay changed. It may even be possible for a magician to learn to access a variety of alternate forms. If you want shapeshifter characters with several alternates, magic may be a subject worth exploring.

The same model can be used for psionic shapeshifters — just replace innate magical ability with innate mental powers and modify the details of the books and teachers to suit the setting. The long period of study still applies, as does the expenditure of energy to change and stay changed. But magical and psionic shapeshifters may require a gadget or tool to complete the transformations. For a magician it may be a wand, amulet or ring; for a psi, it may be anything from a technology-based psi enhancer to a crystal used to meditate and focus the powers of the mind.

To use magical or psionic shapeshifter characters, a creator needs to develop an entire theory and set of rules and possibly introduce magic (or psi powers) into the setting as a whole. If this isn't part of the original concept, it will be a huge change that will have far reaching ramifications. If you only plan to include one magical or psionic shifter in a story, it's also possible to treat the whole situation as unique, with no explanation needed: Dougal can turn into a black cat and it's magic (or psi) and that's that.

Somewhere in between the natural and the magical shapeshifters are creatures like selkies and swanmays. Usually considered to be animals that can take human form (selkies being seals and swanmays, swans), rather the other way around, these creatures leave their animal skins behind when they transform, and the discarded skin is a gadget with magical powers. A person who finds a skin and hides it then has power over the creature and can force it to keep its human form. But if the selkie or swanmay ever finds the skin, he or she is free to transform again and usually departs forever. Combining natural shapeshifting with details from magic or one of the other approaches below can result in very complex and nuanced comics characters.

Related to magic is the ability of a shaman (or witch doctor or medicine man) to transform into his or her totem animal. Whether a shaman is a kind of magician, a religious figure, or just a person with a very specific unusual ability, shamanic shapeshifters, often called skinwalkers, have certain traits in common. They almost always have totem animals that are profoundly significant to them in religious/philosophical/symbolic ways, and which are far more than simple alternate forms. A shaman often shares many qualities with his or her totem even when in human form: a Bear shaman may be very strong, or a Raven shaman may have excellent eyesight.

Skinwalking is an advanced shamanic skill that requires extensive training, often including fasting and vision quests, and the actual transformation involves complex rituals: masks, dancing, drumming, and so on, and often the use of drugs. These rituals are important and highly dramatic events that make amazing story scenes; don't hesitate to play them up.

The shamanic transformation itself takes time, and may be painful. A shaman may be able to stay in his alternate form for a limited time (an hour, a day and a night, or until the drugs wear off) or conversely, may be forced to stay changed until a certain quest or task is accomplished. A shaman's transformation is never casual or routine.

There is also "scientific" shapeshifting, though it tends to be more a matter for fantastic or weird science (bwah-ha-ha-ha!) than the conventional form. Mad scientists or corrupt government labs may create formulas that induce shapeshifting, or shapeshifting powers may be a side effect of an experiment gone horribly wrong. Since each of these events is unique, scientific shapeshifting can follow any set of rules a creator can think up. For some reason scientific backgrounds are particularly associated with shapeshifters whose alternate forms are savage alter egos of the primary form, and with shapeshifting superheroes.

Finally, there is shapeshifting that's incidental to another, more significant element of a character's life. The classic example would be a vampire's ability to transform into a bat or a mist. The character is a vampire first, and other qualities (immortality, living on human blood, being reduced to powder if exposed to the sun, or whatever) are much more significant than the shapechanging power. A powerful wizard with a library of generic alternates to choose from might also fall into this category.

Creating the alternate form

But the most interesting shapeshifters are those with one (or at least very few) alternate form that are full characters in their own right. Even the shapeshifter whose alternate form is simply another vehicle for his or her personality is going to have different perspectives and attitudes — even a whole different life — as a horse or an eagle than as a human being. If the alternate form is a psychological manifestation, the shapeshifter is fundamentally two different characters who must be developed in tandem since they share a history and come to such different positions from the same point of origin.

To take full advantage of this, take time to research and understand the alternate forms. Work them up as carefully as you would any new characters, asking the same questions. Ordinary animal forms require a detailed knowledge of the species involved, and, if necessary, a serious consideration of how a human mind could exploit the abilities of that kind of animal, as well as the problems it would encounter trying to occupy the animal body. Other types of shapeshifters will require a greater stretch of the imagination, whether it's creating a new species of animal, designing a transform that twists the primary body into the shape of a psychological quality or trait, or giving life to something even more exotic.

Regardless, the more effort you put into fully understanding your shapeshifter characters, the more interesting they will be to write, and read, and the more story ideas they will generate.

Next time: questions to ask when developing your shapeshifters. Until then, go on and make some comics.

Pam Bliss has been making comics since 1989, and the minicomic, in all its infinite variety, is her favorite form. Her cartoon short stories are set in the perfect Midwestern small town, Kekionga, Indiana, where just about anything can happen. Her new ongoing series, KEKIONGA, explores the mysteries of that most mysterious place through the eyes of an innocent young superhero. For more about all the Kekionga stories, visit www.paradisevalleycomics.com. Or, for updates on work in progress, essays on storytelling and other subjects, auto industry comments and random stuff, including a thrilling weekly adventure serial, read Sharkipede's LiveJournal No Silver Cars at http://www.livejournal.com/users/sharkipede/.

Paradise Valley Comics
No Silver Cars
Sparky's Minicomics Tips:
- Part One
- Part Two