I wish I could say I'm as smart as Javiera, but the truth is I had to use a thesaurus to find the right words in the second to last panel.
I've wanted to do a comic about Javiera's name for a while now, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do it. When I first started drawing Javiera, she had a name, but because she was a secondary character in the early strips I didn't bother announcing it until she became the main character. Until that time, most people were simply calling her "The girl with the headband."
That nickname appears to have mostly stuck, actually, as a lot of people don't seem to know how to pronounce the name. I admit, it's a rather uncommon name here in the US, but I find it rather pretty all the same. Due to the slight difficulty pronouncing it, people have often asked me why I didn't give her a more common name. The answer is simple: Why would I? Frankly, I think it helps make her unique, and it's also a shout-out to her Hispanic heritage. The name Javiera is the Spanish feminine version of the name Xavier, which means "The New House." Considering she's the main character in my first webcomic, it only seems fitting.
This sort of leads into the second-most-often question asked about her: Why have my main character be Hispanic? Again: Why not? It's true I'm a white girl with zero Latin American heritage, but I don't feel the main characters of my strip need to reflect my own ancestry or skin color. Don't get me wrong: White is great, white is fun, but this is America, people. We are The Melting Pot of the world, and I feel it's good to have our comics and literature reflect that.
I wish I could say I'm as smart as Javiera, but the truth is I had to use a thesaurus to find the right words in the second to last panel.
I've wanted to do a comic about Javiera's name for a while now, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do it. When I first started drawing Javiera, she had a name, but because she was a secondary character in the early strips I didn't bother announcing it until she became the main character. Until that time, most people were simply calling her "The girl with the headband."
That nickname appears to have mostly stuck, actually, as a lot of people don't seem to know how to pronounce the name. I admit, it's a rather uncommon name here in the US, but I find it rather pretty all the same. Due to the slight difficulty pronouncing it, people have often asked me why I didn't give her a more common name. The answer is simple: Why would I? Frankly, I think it helps make her unique, and it's also a shout-out to her Hispanic heritage. The name Javiera is the Spanish feminine version of the name Xavier, which means "The New House." Considering she's the main character in my first webcomic, it only seems fitting.
This sort of leads into the second-most-often question asked about her: Why have my main character be Hispanic? Again: Why not? It's true I'm a white girl with zero Latin American heritage, but I don't feel the main characters of my strip need to reflect my own ancestry or skin color. Don't get me wrong: White is great, white is fun, but this is America, people. We are The Melting Pot of the world, and I feel it's good to have our comics and literature reflect that.