Jim Goodlow's life story was rather uneventful up to his first big encounter with the police. He found a bag of cocaine when he was thirteen and wanted to get rid of it, but was afraid of what the cops would think of a kid with a dimebag. Up to this point all he heard about cops is the overbearing kind who'll tackle him to the ground and demand that he'd be respected while screaming at full lung.
Imagine his surprise when the cops actually commended him for taking some drugs off the street. In fact, they even show him around the precinct and even let him do ride-alongs. This positive experience with the police is where Jim decides that he would be a cop as an adult.
His formal education is in a college with a Law Enforcement education program, which he calls his Academy.' He majored in investigations and forensics, making him a more competent version of Columbo. He can walk a beat all right, and could even be in a car chase, but there are lots more physical cops out there that can tackle down a pursued criminal. But he's perfect for keeping tabs on skateboarding kids. "Calling me a dude? Come on, I'm on duty. <smiles>" As long as you're not doing drugs or molesting a kid, Officer Jim Goodlow would be one of those Cool' cops teens won't mind tooling around.
Jim's extended family includes Sargent Corylow; an uncle from his father's side and the one who knows the most about Jim's exposure to the cops. He's the one who suggested Jim to go to Kissime when he moved out of the nest. Both of them hoped that Corylow would have a position ready for him by the time he finally settles in. However, things didn't go exactly as planned.
If there were any signals he gave people about whatever or not he was gay, he didn't know about it. In fact, he wasn't even aware of his orientation until his late teenaged years, when he discovered it himself. His family seemed to figure it out long before Jim realized it himself, but they're grateful over Jim's non-flamboyant attitude over his decision. To Jim, being gay isn't something he'll wear on his sleeve; in every other area in life, he considers himself to be as quote-normal-unquote' as straight people. He doesn't show it to the public, not because of homophobia, which he doesn't see more than 1-2 times a year, but because he hears more of people nearly bending over backwards for him. He considers his lifestyle a private matter, and keeps it that way.
And most of his livestyle's trappings are kept in the private area. The most he'll show is his dress style and grooming habits, otherwise known as The Queer Eye Effect.' He's not even much into the erotic sex, but rather prefers to be treated like a wife from Toni. At the kinkiest, he'll cosplay.















Comments
I'll haggle more about this later.
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David FoxFire of FoxFire Studios
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To round up the character better, maybe you should do some investigations on forensics and how the police investigates the cases. By saying that he's a more competent version of Columbo means that you probably have no idea how they do their stuff outside of what you've seen on TV.
Come on, there's no excuse around that: searching a little, you'll find a library with some nice books on the theme, and I'm saying this from a country where reading is almost a luxury.
Even if it doesn't show in this background you have written, it'll show later on your story. Someone that, as you say, is a "more competent version of Columbo" has the sense to remain sceptic to situations, while at the same time, keeping tabs with all the possibilities, and a keen sense of observation to the most ridiculous details.
Columbo didn't went around asking apparently senseless questions because he was gallivanting around doing nothing. And with the current technology and techniques, Jim needs to be in his 7 senses all the time.
Let's take the first strips for example. Unless Jim was psychic, he'd have no idea wether the talking suit was full of horse shit; she could be lying for all that is worth.
Adding a few pages of Jim investigating on his own, poking here and there out of curiosity, developing interaction with the yet-to-be-used suit urging him to stop the investigation garbage and use her already, him of course being more suspiscious of the suit until he finds a wall so unsurmountable there's no choice but to use the suit... That could have told us more about both characters than all the heavy-handed exposition you unleashed upon each page.
I know it's hard to know when to get to the insteresting parts, but a clue to know when is that, if the characters that will interact at that event do not feel well-fleshed enough for people to either be able to predict their probable behaviour (so either you give them a bone, or totally twist their expectations), there are good odds that it isn't the proper time yet.
Take this example: A man you know well and some stranger are walking through the lane when, suddenly a piano drops from the skies, almost crushing both persons. Who'd you care the most, the total stranger or your friend? Or, more likely, who'd you be more prone to ask first "Are you OK?"
In other words, which are more simple: Know your characters, and know what they are good at.
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