There is something rather wonderful about animal characters.
You can have a completely ordinary story about a group of people going about their lives, or you can replace everyone with a collection of animals and suddenly I'm paying considerably more attention.
I'm not saying every story needs a horse in it.
...I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt.
But what is it about animal characters that makes them so appealing? Why do we keep coming back to stories about talking foxes, adventurous dogs, grumpy horses and creatures that probably shouldn't be allowed to operate heavy machinery?
I have a few theories...
Animals Give Us a Different Way to Tell Stories
One of the most interesting things about using animals in fiction is that they allow us to explore familiar ideas from a different perspective.
A story about friendship is one thing.
A story about friendship between a horse, a cheetah, a dog and an eagle? Now we're talkin'.
Each animal brings its own physical characteristics, behaviours and instincts into the story.
They don't all experience the world in the same way.
They don't necessarily communicate in the same way, either.
That creates opportunities for storytelling that you wouldn't have with an ordinary group of human characters.
Animal Characters Can Be Surprisingly Relatable
It's funny how quickly we can become attached to fictional creatures.
We might recognise ourselves in a character who is nervous, stubborn, enthusiastic, protective or just generally fed up with everybody.
Those personalities are familiar even when the character happens to have four legs and a tail.
And sometimes the animal itself adds another layer.
A character's physical nature can influence the way they approach a problem, interact with others or respond to their environment.
The result is a character who can feel both familiar and completely different from ourselves.
Different Species Create Interesting Relationships
I particularly enjoy stories that bring together animals with very different personalities and physical characteristics.
Imagine a group where one character wants to make friends with everyone, another would rather be left alone, another is constantly looking for trouble and another believes they're considerably more important than everybody else.
That's a recipe for some interesting conversations.
Or... (in the case of my comic) some interesting looks, gestures and questionable decisions.
The differences between characters give their relationships room to develop.
They can misunderstand each other. They can become protective of one another. They can learn to tolerate habits that initially drove them completely mad.
And they don't have to become identical to belong together.
Animals Make Visual Storytelling Fun
From an artist's perspective, animal characters offer an enormous amount of visual variety.
A horse has a very different silhouette from a dog.
A bird has a completely different range of movement from a cheetah.
Even two animals of the same species can communicate very different personalities through posture, expression and movement.
You can tell a surprising amount about a character before they've done anything at all.
That's one of my favourite things about drawing creatures.
The anatomy, the movement and the personality all work together.
Sometimes Animals Let Us Look at Ourselves Differently
There's also something interesting about seeing familiar human experiences played out through fictional animals.
A character struggling to fit in.
Someone who feels misunderstood.
A friendship that develops despite considerable differences.
A group of unlikely companions who eventually become something resembling a family.
These stories can feel surprisingly close to home, even when none of the characters are human.
Maybe that's a part of the appeal.
We don't necessarily need to see ourselves reflected literally in a character to recognise something familiar in them.
That's What I Love About The Golden Troupe
My own comic, The Golden Troupe, follows a group of animal companions travelling together in a story set around 2,500 years ago in the Achaemenid Empire.
The group includes Aspa, a moody mare. Morgh, an eager golden eagle. Rioxia, a cheerful cheetah. And Qui, a rather particular saluki.
They have very different personalities- and they don't always see eye to eye.
Which is the whole point.
I love exploring how these creatures interact, how their individual personalities affect the group and how they gradually find their place alongside one another.
They're not perfect characters. And they're not supposed to be.
They're a collection of individuals trying to figure things out together.
And I think that's something the world needs to see more of right now.
Come Meet Some Fictional Animals
If you're fond of animal characters, fantasy adventures and stories about unlikely friendships, I'd love for you to meet The Golden Troupe.
You can read the comic and meet the characters here.
And if you'd like to follow the artwork, character development and other things happening behind the scenes, you're welcome to join the Troupe.
(There are quite a few more creatures waiting to cause trouble.)
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