Return to Liesel Van Helsing

Liesel Van Helsing is not a widely-known character, she’s a comic heroine who fights monsters (like her father, the original Van Helsing) and basically kicks ass and takes names. I came across her in a Humble Bundle of digital comics (delivered as .pdf files) and I recently dived back into the digital stack to have fun. I had forgotten how much I like the world of Liesel Van Helsing, despite the obviously ‘male-gazey’ designs of the female characters (at least there’s a lot of them). Here are a few reasons why I like her and her world so much.

The comics come with a lot of characters, recurring as well as non-recurring. There are villains (like Dracula himself) who make an appearance more than once, but it’s mostly Liesel’s friends who are around regularly, helping her fight or being drawn into a situation and making the best of it.
The design of the female characters, as mentioned above, seems to be more for the male gaze than for the female one, but that is pretty much a given for comic books. Yet, despite tight-fitting clothes and skin showing where a fighter should not show skin (like the midriff), the characters are well-written and have depth. They have their own problems, they have their own dreams, they have their own goals. Sometimes, those goals align when they work together, sometimes they don’t — just as in real life.
It’s also not that Liesel can’t fight on her own — she very much can —, but that many of the enemies she is facing as bosses in the stories simply are too powerful to be taken down by one more or less normal person (all characters, including Liesel, show some superhuman or supernatural tendencies, but then, that goes for the villains as well).

I do enjoy the way they work with each other, too. They support each other, they’re not trying to prove they’re better, stronger, or faster than the other one. It’s all about the monsters, about getting them down. It’s not about who kills more vampires, it’s about getting all those vampires killed. It’s a group effort and nobody tries to use it to make themselves look better than the rest.
The characters have different strengths, too. Some are physically strong, sometimes to a point where it’s not realistic, but this is a comic series about vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. It’s not unrealistic in this context for a descendant of Henry Jekyll to morph into a super-strong and super-ripped self at times. Some are excellent shots and agile to boot, taking out enemies long-range while they’re avoiding being hit. Some have strong magic at their disposal (or they are part demons themselves). Some are mentally strong and can go on despite all the things which have happened to them. They all make do.
By supporting each other — even if, as in two of the story-lines, the original meeting wasn’t very positive —, they manage to take down enemies who are by far too strong for one fighter alone.
There are male characters, but they aren’t put up as the ultimate saviours (even though Hades, for instance, ought to be extremely powerful). They might fight alongside the women, but they never take the central role and push Liesel or other female characters out of the limelight.

The stories include a lot of different enemies, too, not all of which need the same kind of treatment. We have Dracula and his daughter (who is Liesel’s half sister), of course, because whom else would we have as the nemesis for a character named ‘Van Helsing?’
We have Frankenstein’s creature. We have werewolves. We have different kinds of vampires (because Dracula is not the only bloodsucker and not all vampires must be his offspring). We have undead beings with great power (such as a proper Egyptian Queen Reborn — take that, “The Mummy 2018”). We have low-class demons. We have creatures from all over the world, as Liesel lives in the early twenty-first century and can just hop into a plane.
The villains are well-balanced between being powerful (as they ought to be) and still having a weakness that can be exploited by Liesel and her friends in the end. They make the heroes work, which is always good, and they have the upper hand for quite some of the story. Especially Dracula’s daughter proves herself to be a dangerous adversary (perhaps more so than Dracula himself who seems to underestimate Liesel a lot despite prior encounters). All in all, the villains are very satisfying in the stories, because a story with a weak villain is no fun, especially in a comic book.

The graphic design of the series is very much early twenty-first century, which means a gorgeous use of colours and details, a free use of panels, and great inking. Sometimes I would wish for the female characters to be drawn with less revealing clothes, but that, too, was normal at the time and I can’t fault the artist for going with the flow there. At least Liesel, Robyn, and all the others look gorgeous, strong, and confident, so there’s that.
The storytelling is good as well. Sometimes, comics give the impression of hurrying over some aspects which are hard to put into a picture, but the artists do a good job with portraying the inner workings of their characters through facial expressions and the occasional thought bubble or suchlike. Sure, Liesel and the others don’t get that much of a character arc in most stories, but that isn’t necessary — it’s a comic book, not a novel focused on personal development. Comics are about action first and character development twenty-second or so.

If you come across the comics somewhere, like in another Humble Bundle (they’re doing very nice comic bundles — I’ve bought several from them), you might want to give them a closer look. I know that I’ve been entertained by them the first time I read them and I have been entertained by them when I reread them recently, too. They’re fun to read, have gorgeous artwork, and women working together instead of trying to out-do each other for the sake of a guy is always a good thing to see.

Non-Combatant Characters

There are definitely stories which need a main character who is capable of fighting the fight and doesn’t need any diplomatic or other less martial skills. There are many, however, which are fine without it, too. Many of those stories get a strong fighter where a smart speaker or a stealthy thief could do just as well. Non-combatant main characters can be interesting to explore and offer a whole host of new plot points to use that would never work with your regular fighting-form hero.

There are a few genres where a fighting-form hero is not only the default, but also a necessity. You won’t get a proper action movie without a hero who is ready for all that action, obviously. And while you may play the ‘Greenhorn in the West’ trope card in a western movie or novel, you will eventually get them up to fighting-form because the genre demands it.
On the other hand you have stories which almost never feature a fighting-form main character. Romance stories are more focused on emotions and drama than on fighting your way through a horde of enemies. Political thrillers are building the tension on the manipulation of people, not on the ability of the main character to kill twenty enemies before breakfast.

It is said that if you only have a hammer, every repair job will look like a job for that hammer and that is true — you need a full set of tools to have the right one to apply to any repair job to do it right. The same is true for characters.
If you have a fighter or a group of fighters as the main character(s) in your story, every problem will be solved with fighting, either directly (against enemies) or indirectly (by only offering tasks that need fighting to be done). Every time your character(s) get into trouble, they’ll draw their weapon(s) and get down to killing or at least disarming enemies.
If your main character(s) or at least the most major one are non-combatants, though, they will have to find new ways to solve a problem. Violence will not do. They might have to talk people into letting them pass where a fighter would merely draw their weapon. There might be a tense scene in which they sneak past a gaggle of powerful guards who are looking for them. They could look around for another way to where they need to go or find out whether there’s another place to get what they’ve come for to this one.
There’s more than a hammer.

Another way of having a main character who is non-combatant and still get in all those sweet sword duels or shootouts is to have them have a bodyguard. Instead of featuring the fighter as the lead character, make them a backup for the lead character.
In a way, that happens in the 1999 version of “The Mummy” — it is clear from the structure of the movie that the main character isn’t Rick, but Evie. It’s her actions and decisions which drive the story and she is the one who is responsible for the rise of the mummy in question. Rick is her bodyguard. Rick is the one who in the climax takes on Imhotep and gives her the time to find and read the right lines to turn Imhotep mortal again. He gets to kill Imhotep, but it would never have happened without Evie’s actions. Evie is a librarian, not a fighter, but Rick is a former soldier, so fighting is how he made money in the past.
Not only does the bodyguard give you the chance to work in some of those sweet fight scenes, it also opens up new plot lines. What if the bodyguard is captured and the main character is suddenly on their own? What if the bodyguard betrays them and delivers them to the enemy? What if they fall in love with their bodyguard? The potential is endless (well, almost).
If you need or want all those fights, but want to have a main character who is not into them, a bodyguard might be the answer.

If you decide to use a more ‘fight friendly’ genre and want to go with a non-combatant, one of the biggest questions to ask yourself is ‘what can they bring to the table instead?’
In a noir detective story, your detective might be less of a fighter and more of a talker. They might know a lot of dangerous people and be able to hire or borrow muscle for when they need it. Or they might be sly and sneaky and avoid being attacked by not being where they’re supposed to be. They might also be very fast runners — until their luck runs out.
In an ‘old west’ setting, the non-combatant lead might instead be making friends. There’s no need to fight the ‘locals’ when you’re friends with them. There may be no need for a shootout when the main character can prove that the owner of the biggest farm paid those cattle thieves for stealing from all the other farms. Yet, for that to work, the character needs to have the right skill sets and the right traits.
I’ll admit that I can’t see a way to use a non-combatant in an action scenario, although it might be possible to construct all action around someone running and hiding instead of fighting.

When you plot a story, you can go about this in several different ways. You can already have a main plot in mind and build everything else, such as characters and setting, around that plot. You can have a character in mind and build everything else, such as plot and setting, around that character. You can also have a certain setting in mind and then go looking for the plot and characters that will go best with it.
If you plan to use a non-combatant character, you will most likely be building the plot and the setting around the character. In such a case, you can easily leave yourself a chance to make sure that the character can survive all possible conflicts they get into. That can take the shape of the conflicts being social or otherwise non-violent, but it can also take the shape of a bad-ass bodyguard to protect the main character.

The next time you’re looking for a main character for a story, consider a non-combatant. Even if you don’t go through with it in the end, it might still give you a new insight into what you could include in the story that is not bound to the main character being a fighting-form hero.

Myths & Monsters Review

“Myths & Monsters” is a collection of horror-themed short stories by Scottish author William Meikle. I have to admit that I had the book in my ‘to read’ stack for a long time without really getting into it. That is more of a ‘me’ problem, though, because I just have so many unread books in my stack and some just slip out of sight. Now I regret that, as the stories are great and I have certainly enjoyed myself while I was reading them — in that uneasy way in which you enjoy horror stories where people are killed and maimed. Meikle fuses monsters and mythological creatures from all over the world with his Scottish homeland and the Scots and creates short, poignant, and readable stories of monsters, myths, and humans.

Every now and then, I love reading some short stories. While I’m also a fan of novels and novellas (and comic books and audio books and graphic novels), the nice thing about a short story is that it is short. A small, nice package to enjoy in a short time (an hour or less) which is a lot of fun if it is well-crafted. Meikle’s stories are always well-crafted, no matter the length.
When I just want to curl up on a rainy and cold day or when I’m not feeling too well, a short story is the best choice for me. It doesn’t demand that I devote a lot of hours to it in one go. It gives me quick gratification while I’m having a cup of coffee or tea and let the world around me fade into the background for a little while. While I can certainly wait for my gratification, sometimes a quick shot is welcome as well.
Many people do not give short stories the respect they deserve. A short story needs to be very well-plotted, because there’s not much time and space for mistakes. It is much harder to write a good short story than it is to write a good novel. The novel forgives a few weak plot points, the short story does not. Every word, every sentence, every scene counts.

As these are horror stories, not all of them end well for the main character or characters. There are only two stories which share the same main character (the first and the next-to-last one) and both of them don’t necessarily have a good ending, either, even if the character survives.
That doesn’t mean, though, that the stories are exceptionally depressing or dark. They are horror stories and that means that not everything will end well for everyone. Within the story, you will find monsters and mythological creatures which are not always nice towards humans and often enjoy killing, maiming, or even eating them. Yet, we humans do have a tendency to survive even against the worst odds, as many monsters have had to learn the hard way over time.

I’ve first read several pastiches by William Meikle — he’s written several Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger, and Ghost Hunter Carnacki stories as well.
I find his Professor Challenger much more palpable than the original by Doyle and like how he has the three characters he’s worked with cross paths every now and then. One of the stories in “Myths & Monsters” does include Challenger, Malone, and Carnacki, although they can’t find out what the message given to them and several others means — until history makes it clear what ‘three and thirty at three thirty’ means.

Meikle loves to set his stories in Scotland or to use characters from Scotland in them. That’s not a bad thing — Scottish people have travelled far and have seen much, in real life as well as in this collection. The Scottish highlands are also a great place to set a horror story in. He has a great way with words and has mastered the way of pulp writing. That is not a negative thing at all. Meikle writes in a way that makes you want to follow the story, to read on, even if you don’t really have the time or have something else you need to do. It’s a good thing, therefore, that this book is full of short stories.
Another great thing about the book are the illustrations at the beginning of every story. They are beautifully done and always connected closely to what the story is about. While they’re not the main draw for me, they certainly add to the overall atmosphere of the book.

“Myths & Monsters” is a book for people who love short stories and enjoy horror stories where not everything ends well. The stories are well-written and span a wide range of monsters and mythological creatures. There are some which are tinged with Lovecraftian horror (like the second one) and others which follow a much more traditional path. Give the book a chance as you should be able to read most of the first story through the ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon. I had a fun time with the book and I’m sure many of you will have one as well.

What Makes Good Horror?

What indeed? It’s not that easy to define what constitutes ‘good horror,’ as horror is a personal experience. There are a few general fears which we all — or almost all of us — have in common (among them seem to be spiders). Then there are common ones like heights or being caught in a narrow, locked space, which both very much goes against our survival instinct. Others are more specific and often connected to our past, such as someone who has sustained a severe dog bite being afraid of dogs. Of course, a dog like Cujo from the Stephen King novel of the same name can scare us all. Danger breeds fear and fear can be turned into horror.

One way of invoking fear that almost always works out is to put the main character into a helpless situation. Sometimes, that includes them not knowing they’re in danger — while the audience does, of course —, or making use of the monster being much stronger than them and being able to overwhelm them physically. Having the character be alone — physically or simply because nobody else believes in the danger or nobody else can see it — is also a good way to manage that.
Helplessness makes the audience worry more for the character, but it shouldn’t go too far — if it seems too obvious that the character can’t survive, there won’t be a satisfying way to make them and it won’t be that much of a surprise or shock for the audience if they don’t (horror movies are supposed to have a high body count, after all, so deaths are expected).
The bus situation in the second “Jeepers Creepers” movie is a good example of helplessness. Not only is the bus of the sports team stuck in the middle of nowhere, the Creeper also goes for the adults first. The students, already in their late teens but not yet experienced adults, are left alone and can be depended upon not making optimal choices in this situation (honestly, many adults wouldn’t, either). The students are stuck alone on a lonely road and are hunted by something which looks scary and intimidating and has already proven its strength and resilience. They are, by all measures, helpless food, at least until the first victim’s family arrives.
Horror set in modern times can make it harder to have someone completely on their own, as smartphones and the internet make it easier to stay in touch even if you’re physically alone somewhere. Research is much easier and so is calling for help.
Of course, the villain could be able to block technology, making the smartphone useless, which could be much more of a horror to a modern-day protagonist than to someone born during the 1980s or earlier. There might be no reception in the area or the phone can have been taken or destroyed. Yet, the fact alone that a phone might go offline could make people come to the character’s aid because they worry about a missed call or can’t get a connection when calling the character.
On the other hand, suddenly being without phone and internet contact can be scary on its own, being cut off from everyone, not being able to easily look up information. For someone who isn’t used to the time before the internet, this can definitely be a heavy restriction and add to their helplessness. For everyone, being hunted by a monster and not being able to call for help is scary.

One big discussion in horror is whether or not to hide the monster. Should the audience ever see the monster before the big showdown in the end? Should it, perhaps, even be hidden from them at that point?
One reason why people keep the monster hidden is that uncertainty creates more tension. What if the monster is ten feet tall? The audience will gasp and then say ‘oh, I was worried it would be twenty feet, ten feet I can deal with.’
There’s always a moment of relief when the monster is finally revealed because we all tend to imagine something to be more horrible than it is in the end. What we can picture in our mind will be tailored exactly to fit with our own biggest fears. Whatever the writer or filmmaker can put up will never match that. It will never be precisely what we fear.
On the other hand, the audience wants to see what the main character is up against. No matter whether it’s Pennywise from “IT” or whether it’s your run-off-the-mill zombie, at some point the audience wants a visual, whether in actual pictures or in descriptions.
Show or don’t show? I would always say ‘show.’ Show early or late? That depends a little on how you work the whole story. If you want to establish the precise threat early, perhaps in a scene where the main character isn’t present, so the audience always knows what kind of danger awaits them and the main character doesn’t, show it early. It’s a good thing that King, for instance, shows us Pennywise and the danger he presents especially to children early on. The death of one main characters’ little brother also creates a personal connection between monster and main character.
If you want for the audience to be as much in the dark as the main character is, drop hints, but don’t show the monster until late. Have the audience read about the hissing breath as something disappears from the scene of murder. Have a victim talk about the ‘horrid face’ they saw right before they expire. In a visual medium, show a distorted shadow or a scaled limb in a quick shot. Then, towards the end, have the reptilian zombie monster jump out of the ground and latch on to the main character’s best friend — shock reveals are great reveals for monsters.

In every story, the odds should be stacked against the main character to a degree by the time the climax rolls around — that is where tension for the climax comes from. The main character must be invested in the situation and prepared to go all in.
Yet, in a horror story, the chances for the main character should be in an even worse state. It must be as likely, if not more so, that the main character will die and the evil will win as it might be that they’ll survive and be victorious. Many horror stories have an ambiguous ending. The main character dies, but takes the monster down with them. The main character kills the monster, but the body disappears (that’s the slasher way). The monster wins, but is mortally injured as well. The main character fails, but someone else takes up the mantle in the last scene, suggesting that the monster’s victory might have been short-lived. The main character gives in and joins the evil side, because why not?
The less likely it seems that the main character can win, the more the audience will be on the edge of their seat. Yet, there must be a chance. The situation can’t be completely hopeless. The main character must be able to make a difference, if perhaps at the price of their life.

What makes good horror? It’s not the body count alone, although horror stories often sport a high one. People tend to die when monsters and murderers roam the area. Yet, a few poignant, emotionally important murders can be much better than a long string of unknown deaths.
As mentioned above, it matters that Pennywise’s first victim in “IT” not only is a child, but also the younger brother of one of the protagonists. Pennywise has killed thousands, as becomes clear over the course of the story, but that is not what the protagonists are thinking about — it’s their friends and relatives who fall prey to Pennywise who motivate them. They are not righteous monster hunters, but people who have lost loved ones and are prepared to end Pennywise’s reign of horror because of that.

When you want to write horror, the first step should be to look into your own heart. Whatever you fear most, you’re not alone in that fear. It is much easier to write a horror story where the horror comes from a fear you really feel, so you can portray it well. In this case, ‘write what you know’ has merit. Being helpless and alone makes people more vulnerable, whether they are physically far from everywhere or just not taken seriously by others. Show your monster when it is time, as it is extremely hard to get away with never showing it. Ramp up the odds against the main character. Splatter a few bodies around, or a few more, but don’t think quantity is all in this case. Most of all, even if the topic is serious: have fun with the story, it will be much easier to write that way.