Week 50! (Patreon)

Next on our list of relevant RGCs is Ryan, a coyote who was introduced alongside Eve in comic 025.

Now, if you go back and look at him in the comic, you'll immediately notice that, well, he doesn't quite look like this. Specifically, his fur coloring is completely different in the comic than it is here years later. The truth is that, despite being a coyote, his old color scheme isn't a coyote's at all, more just a dark brown generic canine. I debated about whether to change and update it here to an actual coyote's coloring or whether to just leave it as it was, but my reasoning eventually came to Eve, whose appearance has slightly changed over the years as well, her ear shapes and her nose design specifically. This was far more dramatic and obvious of a change, but I figured if Eve and even other certain characters have had alterations over the years, I might as well overhaul this character who only appeared maybe twice to be more 'accurate'.

So Ryan was present with Eve as another 'nerd' that looked up to Kale standing up to Lupin and wanted to be taught how to have that confidence and such. Whereas Eve was the 'female' sort of nerd, bullied by other girls for her appearance, Ryan was meant to be the typical chubby 'male' nerd, which... I would be lying if that wasn't inspired by happenstances in my own high school life. Heck, even his appearance, from his hair color/style, glasses, and fatter build, were meant to take after my own younger self's.

Ryan appeared one more time I believe, a quick glimpse during Bruce's birthday party, before vanishing like a lot of the other earlier RGCs. Like those other RGCs, he was meant initially to appear more as a minor character and friend to the group outside of the main action. He was particularly meant to be a long-time friend of Eve's, and eventually become a friend to the rest of the group as well.

Like the others, perhaps Ryan did do that off-screen, he's still around, and I'll be able to bring him back at least somewhat to fulfill his original purpose, although I'll just have to handwave the redesign since 2008.