As all my loyal readers know, in my comic strip Goldilocks is the second most popular girl in school after Rapunzel.  But when Goldilocks first appeared in Suburban Fairy Tales back in March 2009, she was actually supposed to be Alice from Alice in Wonderland.  Crazy, huh?

Goldilocks in March 2009As you can see from this first picture,  I originally drew “Goldilocks” with straight hair, not the curly “locks” that she has always been depicted with in the original fairy tales.  Why did I design her this way?  Well, that’s because she was Alice!  It wasn’t until I was cleaning up in the artwork from her first appearance in Photoshop that I realized Alice just wouldn’t be a good sidekick for Rapunzel.  I needed a fairy tale character who was more self-centered and snobby.  Then I thought about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  In the original fairy tale, Goldilocks apparently had no qualms about breaking into the three bears’ house, sleeping in their beds and eating their food.  A character as self-centered as THAT would definitely be a much better sidekick than Alice.  So in Photoshop I changed all references of her as “Alice” and made them “Goldilocks.”

The only proGoldilocks in December 2011blem with the quick name change was that it was too late to change the artwork. Suburban Fairy Tales’ Goldilocks didn’t really look anything like classic Goldilocks and that kind of annoyed me.  So with each subsequent appearance I gradually gave her longer hair and “curled” it to give her the appearance of having “golden locks.”  This second image of her was from her latest appearance in December 2011.  I’m much happier with my new Goldilocks’ character design.

So why does any of this matter?  Well I wanted to use this as an example to show that I’m not above making corrections to my strip.  Sometimes I look back at my work and think about how I should have done things differently.  One good example of this is coming up in a future storyline.  I don’t like my Prince Charming — I don’t like this personality or his character design.  So I’m going to introduce another Prince Charming.  Oh, don’t worry, there will be an explanation… but I don’t plan on spoiling it here!