Initially, I was going to have Growtree Island be an abandoned colony, to give it an air of mystery, like the mythology surrounding the lost Roanoke colony. But I decided that the story really didn’t need it because it is essentially about characters working for the benefit of all and improving lives, which is a message served best by having other people around. I then started getting inspiration from shows like Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks, imagining a cast of unique and eccentric individuals. However, after finalizing the main characters, there wasn’t a lot of room left for a bunch more Growtree natives, but on the other hand, I needed someone for Donovan to connect with on the island (other than Owl, since she has her own backstory to contend with). So I decided to utilize a character I had been sketching for awhile: A big burly, lumberjack looking guy with a bushy mustache named Glen Underwood.
Glen never really changed much from his initial look, mostly because he was always fun to draw. He was inspired by characters like Hagrid, Totoro, and by one of my favorite character actors David Morse. I wanted him to come across as immediately likable despite his seemingly intimidating size. He would be kind, welcoming, and a little dim. Glen would also prove to be an integral part of the secrets of Growtree, in a conspiratorial sense but not necessarily nefarious. As he became more and more of a wealth of information, I found that I was pulling his character in a lot of different directions without much explanation. To help with this and take some of the burden off Glen, I came up with Dale.
Dale came out of wanting to show other residents of Growtree, and to also be a counterpart to Glen. He could offer a more serious tact when Glen would be goofy, more focused when Glen would go off-topic, and grounding when Glen would be confused. I decided that Glen would be the proxy Marshal of Growtree (essentially a sheriff), Dale would be the doctor, and imagined them as the old codgers who would bicker constantly but be the best of friends. Then as I began needing Dale to be closer to Glen and more concerned for his well being, I thought they could be siblings. But that’s when I almost immediately realized that they were spouses.
Proper representation in stories, media, and pop culture in general has been important to me for sometime, as a creator and a consumer. As their characters developed in my head, I knew that the level of intimacy between Glen and Dale was an essential part of their story and that it needed to be properly conveyed. They should not simply be alluded to or hinted at as a gay couple (which is often the case in a lot of stories), and not just for the sake of a narrative but because that kind of underrepresentation stems from the erasure of LGBTQI+ life in mainstream culture, and I did not want to contribute to that.