Before I get to the second part of this exploration of the creative process behind the design of my co-lead character Trixie Trouble, just a quick progress update on The Crimebusters #120: As of today, I have completed the linework on page 13, and am starting in on page 14. There will be a slight delay, as I am taking the weekend off to attend the Arisia science fiction convention in Boston, but my hope is that by this time next week I will have completed page 15, which will put me at the halfway point now that the story is set to be 30 pages.
Okay, so back to Asking for Trouble! In the first installment, I looked at why I felt it was necessary to create a co-star to appear alongside Chuck Chandler. This time around, I’m going to look at the process of actually creating the character that became Trixie Trouble.
The first thing I had to do was look at the dramatic necessities of a co-star. With Chuck Chandler, I had a defined quantity. Chuck has certain character traits: he’s smart, honest, dedicated, loyal. He has a sense of humor in that he appreciates other people’s jokes, but he’s not a jokester himself — he’s serious, straight laced. He’s also very self-confident, a man of action: he’s not introspective, but has a very strong sense of wrong and right, and doesn’t question himself when it comes to what is just and unjust. Above all, his paramount principle is fairness.
In order to have dramatic tension between Chuck and his partner, the partner had to challenge Chuck. The partner had to be someone who wasn’t like Chuck — someone who would call him out on his shortcomings, and push him to think about things.
In other words, I felt Chuck needed a partner who he could argue with, rather than agree with all the time. At the same time, though, the new character had to be a true partner, rather than a sidekick. Watson challenges Holmes all the time, for instance, except Holmes is always right and Watson is always wrong, so they don’t have an equitable partnership. I wanted a true partner, which means someone who has a point of view which is different from Chuck’s, but equally correct. Both Chuck and the reader have to respect the partner, or else it doesn’t work.
I quickly identified some traits I wanted my character to have. The most important was a sense of fun and adventure, which brings with it a sense of humor. Chuck, bless him, is a great straight man, but he embarks on most of his investigations out of a sense of duty. I wanted someone who enjoys mysteries, who embraces the unknown, who gets excited about cases — someone whose enthusiasm will drag both Chuck and the reader along for the wild ride.
Since I had already decided I wanted to add some hint of the supernatural to my stories — ghosts, ghouls, creatures, and whatnot in the best Scooby Doo tradition — the idea of a Mulder and Scully type relationship quickly presented itself to me. Chuck isn’t the type to believe in any of this nonsense, but more important than being a skeptic is the fact that his curiosity is limited by his need to take action. What I mean is, if an alien kidnaps a cub scout, Chuck’s priority is going to be rescuing the kid; the fact that it’s an alien isn’t important.
I wanted someone who could act as the eyes and voice of the reader and express a sense of wonder and excitement at the weird cases they encounter — someone who would be amazed and thrilled to see an alien. Heck, she would much rather it be an alien than not. Just as Chuck is less of a skeptic and more of a pragmatist — if it’s not germane to the case, it’s irrelevant — the partner would be less of a believer and more someone who wants to believe.
As I mentioned before, I also pretty quickly decided that the series needed a strong female voice, something that Chuck’s previous adventures in Boy Comics were sorely lacking.
That gave me this list of traits for Chuck’s new partner:
- adventurous – brave
- sense of humor
- excited by mystery – curious
- delighted by the unknown
- female
These all felt reminiscent of the classic girl detectives like Trixie Belden, especially the idea of a character who loves mysteries so much she just wants to believe everything is a mystery — to the point of it routinely causing trouble for her and everyone around her.
But these traits also seemed to me to have a lot of overlap with another classic literary trope from the same 1930’s-1950’s time period: the girl reporter. Lois Lane is the perfect example of a character who has all of these traits — rushing headlong into danger because she needs to solve the mystery is pretty much her entire schtick.
With that in mind, I started to craft an identity for my character. As an homage to classic teen detectives from the same time period that Chuck Chandler originated from, I decided to give her the first name Trixie. But I also wanted her to be a reporter. Starting from there, I worked out a backstory: as a youth, my Trixie was a rambunctious tomboy, athletic and adventurous. But two big events as teen had a big impact on her: her parents divorced, and then she was stricken with a serious illness that left her bedridden for a year.
Confined to bed, she had to turn to reading so she could experience adventures vicariously. She voraciously read detective magazines and crime novels, as well as newspapers. By the time she fully recovered, she had gained an encyclopedic knowledge of detectives both real and fictional, as well as a love for the written word. She decided to attend college to study journalism, with the aim of becoming either a private detective or the next best thing — a journalist.
Along the way, she couldn’t help but insert herself into all sorts of situations where she didn’t belong, solving crimes and getting herself and her friends into massive amounts of trouble.
Which is where the name came from, of course. I wanted a name that had the classic comic book alliteration of a Chuck Chandler or Peter Parker. So I began a list of words and names that began with TR to go with Trixie. I soon narrowed it down to two: Trueheart, and Trouble. Trueheart sounded more like a person’s actual name, and was nicely evocative of her spirit, but I liked Trouble as well, so I decided to just give her both: real name Trixie Trueheart, but her nickname is Trixie Trouble, because wherever she goes, trouble surely follows.
And this brought me back around to the idea of someone who could challenge Chuck. One thing that struck me reading through Chuck’s adventures is that, unlike most superheroes, Chuck was never really a vigilante. Very early on he became a protege of Loover, first when Loover was at the FBI, and then when Loover was the New York City District Attorney. So Chuck has always had the benefit of working with the authorities, meaning he’s never really had to think about or question his belief system. But what would he do if he had to work outside the system — like Trixie? Would the ultimate boy scout actually choose to break the law in order to serve a greater good? What’s ultimately more important, order, or justice? The ends, or the means?
Chuck has never had to think about that sort of thing. He’s someone who has always seemed to think there’s simply a right way and a wrong way to do things. But with Trixie on board, she’s about to bring him somewhere he’s never been: the moral grey area. And I can’t wait.
Thanks for reading! Next time I will discuss some of my inspirations, both for this issue and series, and just in general as a creator. And then the following week, I will conclude the Asking for Trouble series with a look at how I designed Trixie look! See you then!