How We Built Black Beth
Resurrecting a British sword and sorcery heroine and what it takes to write a character 'well'
Art by Blas Gallego
How do you know when you’ve written a character well? When the reviews tell you? When the fans are satisfied that you’ve correctly honoured the obscure rituals of continuity? When the bank informs you your invoice has gone through?
Artist Dani and I have got another Black Beth story out this week, a wintery sword and sorcery tale entitled Death Carries Roses, anthologised in the hardcover Treasury of British Comics Annual 2024.
Covert art by Henry Flint
Art by Dani
Our vengeful sword-maiden and her blind sidekick Quido feature alongside vintage works by legends including Brian Bolland, Dave Gibbons and Steve Dillon, as well as familiar characters such as The Leopard from Lime Street and The Spider. The character having languished in obscurity for decades, Beth’s appearance in this line-up certainly feels like she’s visible once again, accepted into the pantheon of British comics characters.
It feels good to know that all the hard work we’ve done on Beth hasn’t been for nothing. We managed to get her trade collection, Vengeance Be Thy Name, under the noses of a bunch of reviewers, whose feedback was almost unanimously glowing. But let’s be honest. Reviews are there to convince other people, not creators.
Creators harvest review quotes to sell their books to potential readers and themselves to potential commissioning editors. Beguiling as good reviews are, creators who look to them for artistic validation risk stepping from the path and drowning in the mire.
To forget those outer voices and give yourself over to a character, to feel them becoming lithe and noisy inside your head, is a good sign that you’re writing them well. Nothing else has a chance of happening – not sales, not word of mouth, not recognition, not good reviews – until that character feels like they’re alive.