173: The Responsibility of Being Big

This comic started as a piece of fan art for someone else’s character. I drew it and then wrote to them asking for permission to put it on the Things website. An upside down way to do things, but sometimes the muse happens like that.

I tried a few modes of communication over several months, but never got a reply. I was tempted to just upload it anyway, but for me it’s one thing to use a mass media/pop-culture character where everyone can easily tell it’s not my character and a very different thing to use another independent creator’s character without permission. It made me sad, I really liked this comic and the characters within, but I didn’t want to do it without permission and I didn’t want to bother someone who was well within their rights not to reply.

It only occurred to my yesterday, as I was worrying about what to create and feeling sad that I had this perfectly good comic that was not able to go up, that I was allowed to create my own very small adorable character! Sometimes it’s good to be a little sad, it makes you create something new and interesting. I never would have created Mayara if I’d received permission. I hope you like her, we’ve only just met, but I think I adore her. Mayara is a tamarind seed sized tamarin!