burrowlog #2
I had made my animal plush characters into a comic before, when I was about 10-years-old. I drew them with colored pencils, and put them in a black binder that I took to school to show my friends and occasionally other curious classmates. The concept started out with just the gray raccoon and the pink bunny, but another character quickly joined them as the third friend: a black cat with green eyes.
I didn’t have a plush version of Grace growing up, and I don’t really remember the thought process behind adding her to the comics. Maybe a part of my 10-year-old brain sensed that the dynamic could get stale if it was just the energetic character and the deadpan character. Maybe I just wanted there to be someone they could talk to when they weren’t talking to each other. Either way, Grace makes the main cast feel complete.
Grace is shy, anxious, socially awkward in a lot of ways, but at the same time really introspective and more emotionally intelligent than Xochy and Metzi. Plus, she can be easily annoyed and can “snap” if pushed to the edge. In this episode, I set the scene for who she is, why she is the way she is, and how she interacts with her new friends, which was really fun to do.
-- mariano gg (aug 2022)
