Follow TV Tropes

Following

Characters / Broodhollow

Go To

    open/close all folders 

    Wadsworth Zane 

Wadsworth Zane

A down-on-his-luck encyclopedia salesman with a few mental issues, Wadsworth went to Broodhollow after learning his deceased great-uncle had left him an inheritance there. Once in Broodhollow, he realizes not everything is as it seems. He's determined to get to the bottom of things... provided he doesn't lose his life or his mind first.


  • Amnesiac Dissonance: One of the things he's worried about when he learns he's susceptible to Broodhollow's effects. His worry kicks into overdrive when he finds evidence that he may have murdered Maris. Fortunately, though, it's subverted.
  • Cowardly Lion: Even when he's being brave, Wadsworth is always scared out of his wits.
  • Distressed Dude: He starts this way, being captured by Harker at the end of the first chapter. He throws it off at the end of the second, when he attacks the corpsebug.
  • It's All My Fault: Whenever things go wrong, he's usually quick to blame it on his inability to properly follow the Pattern.
  • Madness Mantra: When he's in the throes of his OCD, Zane usually repeats something along the lines of, "I need it to be closed."
  • Nervous Wreck: It's a rare panel where Zane is actually relaxed.
  • Obsessively Organized: Zane is obsessed with doors and patterns. He has a need for everything door-like in a room (doors, windows, drawers, mailbox flaps, etc.) to be either completely closed or completely open. He also believes that his life and fortunes, and that of everyone else as well, is ruled by what he calls the Pattern. He believes that if he can learn the Pattern, he can avoid misfortune and control his fate. The door obsession is a part of this.
  • Perpetual Poverty: To be expected of an encyclopedia salesman during the Great Depression. Seems to be averted after he re-opens the antique store, though that may change if Planchett is still serious about the hundreds of dollars of back-rent.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the giant bats and ghosts encountered during Ouster's Eve, he decides to vacate the town immediately. It doesn't wind up happening.

    Iris Bellweather 

Iris Bellweather

A woman in her late teens who works at her father's law firm, Iris met Zane when he came to collect his inheritance. At first as blind to Broodhollow's strangeness as the rest of its inhabitants, she soon learns her hometown is a lot more dangerous than it seems.


  • Action Girl: Briefly, but significantly. She earned her credentials when she whacked Harker's ghost with a frying pan to save Zane.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Beating up Harker's ghost (roll with it) with a frying pan to save Wadsworth.
  • Break the Cutie: First, she finds out that she forgot that her father was dead. Then, she learns that the town where she lives is Eldritch Abomination central. Things are only getting worse.
  • Due to the Dead: As opposed to Planchett's token funeral, Iris rallies the Broodhollow Ladies' Auxiliary to actually provide a decent service for Maris.
  • Insistent Terminology: She keeps correcting 'died' to 'passed away.'
  • Meaningful Name: A bellwether is a castrated ram (wether) that wears a bell around its neck so that shepherds can hear where it leads its flock. The term generally refers to anything that leads or indicates trends. Iris leads Zane through the labyrinthine traditions and holidays of Broodhollow.
  • Plucky Girl: She's cheerful, determined, driven, and hasn't backed down from anything so far. Including a ghost sewing together a new body and a deep pit a giant bug laden with corpses came out of. She qualifies.

    Klaus Angstrom 

Dr. Klaus Angstrom

A retired Austrian psychiatrist, Dr. Angstrom takes Wadsworth into his care after witnessing some of his neuroses. Skeptical of the supernatural, he is still willing to investigate the town and its effects on the minds of its inhabitants.


  • Agent Scully: He absolutely does not believe there are supernatural elements to Broodhollow's strangeness. Not until he realizes it's happening to him, too.
  • Funetik Aksent: Supposedly. In his first appearance he apologizes for his thick Austrian accent, but his dialogue is written no differently from most of the other characters, apart from the occasional outburst in German.
  • Glad I Thought of It: One of his quirks. He really, really wants to be well-known, so he 'discovers' psychological issues by renaming old ones.
  • Herr Doktor: Though his origin is only mentioned in his introduction.
  • The Shrink: Egotism and obsession with gaining recognition aside, Klaus actually cares for his friends and patients and does everything in his power to help them, professionally and otherwise.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: His biggest flaw. He thinks he's an undiscovered genius. While he is a good doctor, his 'discoveries'... aren't.

    Rutherford Planchett 

Rutherford Planchett

An influential businessman, Planchett comes from a long line of Broodhollowans, and so is concerned with tradition and status. Politeness and sympathy, not so much.


  • Due to the Dead: Subverted. Planchett puts up the money for the funeral of Maris, but it has nothing to do with regard for the dead. He does it simply because it's tradition for him to do so, and when others start setting up a more elaborate service, he objects simply because they're upstaging him. Also see Never Speak Ill of the Dead.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Planchett is an influential businessman, a member of an old family of Broodhollow, and a member of the Order of the Skull and Shovels. People pay attention to him, but they don't seem to like him at all.
    Mayor Oggy: Thor's thunderclap! I was walking down this way and saw Mr. Planchett snarling and sputtering off in a huff! Would you happen to know anything about that, Mrs. Isquith?
    Mrs. Isquith: Why, Mayor Osgood, I have no idea what you're talking about.
    Mayor Oggy: If you find the guilty party, let me know. I have a key to the city for them.
  • Jerkass: Hoo boy. Planchett has been the major (human) antagonist of the strip so far, and has displayed... not many redeeming qualities.
  • Meaningful Name: Given that he lives in a town that's full of ghosts and supernatural weirdness, it's rather interesting that his last name is the part of a Ouija board that's moved by spirits.
  • Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Also subverted. Planchett only talks about Maris after he dies, and it's nearly always insulting or demeaning.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: This is the first time we see Planchett be friendly to anyone, let alone Iris and Wadsworth- all while Broodhollow burns and monsters stalk the streets.
  • Smug Snake: Planchett acts with supreme confidence... so long as no one challenges him. If anyone actually stand up to him or calls him out, he gets easily flustered.
  • Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: First, he wants to own the antique shop. Then, he refuses to buy when Zane offers to sell it to him, for no apparent reason beyond spite.

    The Bottlefly Boys 

The Bottlefly Boys

A trio of large, affable men who befriend Wadsworth almost as soon as he sets foot in Broodhollow. The Bottlefly Boys do their best to keep the town and their new friend safe.


  • Bash Brothers: They've done the bulk of the fighting in the strip so far.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Big? Check. Loud? Well, Maurice mostly, but check. Friendly? Check. In the habit of wandering around town smacking down potentially rabid bats and monsters they may not even be able to see properly? Check and mate. Not that it saves Maris.
  • Heroic Build: The Bottlefly Boys are easily the most massive characters in the strip, and have had no troubles picking up pretty much anything, Zane included.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Maris died holding off the corpsebug so the other Boys could escape with an injured Zane.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: They're not related at all, yet one is very rarely seen without the others.
  • Mighty Lumberjack: Their 'gang' gets its name because they all work at a sawmill, and their mightiness is undisputed.
  • Nice Guy: All three of them. They give Zane a hand before they even know he is and go out of their way to befriend him later on. They even name him an honorary Bottlefly Boy.
  • Sacrificial Lion: Maris at the jaws of the corpsebug. Yes, Anyone Can Die in this comic.
  • Theme Naming: Maurice, Morris, and Maris. Which, in the region where they live, are pronounced nigh-identically.

    Ogden Osgood 

Mayor Ogden "Oggy" Osgood

The tiny old mayor of Broodhollow and the leader of most of its holidays and its traditions.


  • Cool Old Guy: Whatever his intentions, he's certainly an amiable character.
  • Mayor Pain: Oggy overall seems like a good guy. However, he's far too blase about being involved in the coverup of a potential murder to be completely clean.
  • Oh, My Gods!: He has an unusual habit of exclaiming by various deities.

    Mrs. Isquith 

Mrs. Isquith

An ancient and self-possessed woman who leads the Broodhollow Ladies Auxiliary society.


  • Better the Devil You Know: Her justification for staying in Broodhollow all these years instead of leaving, despite knowing it's a Town with a Dark Secret.
  • Cool Old Lady: Very reasonable and very grandmotherly. Can also lay the verbal smackdown when necessary.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Like the rest of the town, but she (and the rest of the Auxiliary) are actually aware of it. They call it the Fray, and since most people only forget events from their own lives, the Auxiliaries act as sort of a communal memory, helping each other remember things they may have forgotten.
  • Meaningful Name: On her introduction, she points out that her name sounds a little like "is kith". "Kith" means "friend", as in the old expression "kith and kin", and she's been a good friend to Iris.

    Maddy 

Madeleine Delueur

A young woman who tragically died in a fire in the 1800s, Maddy still lurks about the hotel where she died, watching through cracks.


  • Big Damn Heroes: When she leads Iris to the basement of Harker's mansion to save Wadsworth.
  • Phrase Catcher: Curious little thing.
  • Poltergeist: She was certainly able to trash Wadsworth's room - and him - pretty effectively. Though her helping to save him later calls into question why she did it, if it was her after all.
  • Stalker without a Crush: She mostly appears peering at Zane through slightly open doors or drawers, and apparently does it somewhat frequently to people who stay in her hotel room.
  • She Knows Too Much: One of the rumors about her death said she was murdered by someone she caught doing something to a corpse. Considering she was working in a burn ward during the fires that killed Harker, she may have been one of the, if not the, first of his victims.

    Cadavre 

Cadavre

A bizarrely French skeleton who appears in Wadsworth's dreams to give advice and cryptic statements in equal measure.


  • Brick Joke: Zane dares Cadavre to scare him. Cadavre doesn't show up until the very end of Book 2 as a ghost, bleeding red from his eyes, in the middle of a cavern filled with geometrically-aligned rituals. Scary.
  • Dem Bones: He's a walking, talking, smoking, bizarrely French skeleton. He may also be a ghost. Or something. More confusingly, the comic strips he appears in are sometimes listed as being written in Broodhollow's newspaper.
  • Dream Weaver: He seems to have some control over Wadsworth's dreams. And may or may not have influence on the waking world as well.
  • Fauxreigner: Cadavre is very stereotypically French. He wears a striped shirt and beret, smokes incessantly (though he doesn't seem to have anything to smoke with), and tosses almost as much French as English into his speech. It may be connected to the Order of the Skull and Shovels's Ominous French Chanting.
  • Gratuitous French: Cadavre peppers his speech with French for no apparent reason beyond his general theme.
  • Spirit Advisor: Cadavre seems to be genuinely trying to help Wadsworth, but claims to be hobbled by undefined rules. It seems to frustrate him as much as it does Wadsworth.

    Whitecloth the Serial Killer a.k.a. William Harker 

William Harker

One of the most influential members of the Order of the Skull and Shovels, Harker was a master tailor who died in a fire in the 1840s. He came back as a zombie, realized how ugly zombies look, and became a serial killer to harvest organs for his opus magnum - tailoring a body for himself that isn't butt ugly.


  • Necromantic: According to local legend, he was planning on building new bodies for the rest of his family as well as for himself.
  • Off with His Head!: Iris whacks his skeleton with a frying pan, causing the skull to fly off. It's funny.
  • Organ Theft: What he was doing to his victims, so he could build himself - and eventually, his wife and daughter - a new body.
  • Pride: The reason his ghost hangs around is because he is convinced he only died because the doctors did a poor job on him, and that he, a master tailor, can do better. Much better.
    • Probably why people looking at him wards him off, he can't bear for people to see the sloppy unfinished project.
  • Serial Killer: He only became one after he died, but still.
  • Walking Spoiler: Notice how most of this entry is white?

    The Thing from The Lake, a.k.a. An alien bug creature from what-the-heck 
An alien creature that has been murdering civilians with forehead-stabbing, using their blood for their markers in a grand ritual equation.

  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: It's a bug the size of an elephant.
  • Genuine Human Hide: They like to cover their lower torso in human bones. Considering they have armor underneath, this is more of a fashion choice than a necessity.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: They're somewhere between too alien for gothic horror and too normal for lovecraft, so it seems out of place in Broodhollow either way.
  • Room Full of Crazy: Their lair is one big ritual space that uses blood and pebbles and geometry and crystals and some kind of alien mantra.
  • Serial Killer: They selected targets to hunt down, suck the brains out of, and used the blood to paint dozens of runes across various stone markers.

Top