This is actually the second strip in which Clarence has made an appearance, although it's the first one that he actually plays a significant role in.
The general idea for Clarence's character was that he would serve the opposite function of Boofer's; that is, he would be a potentially dangerous predator, higher up on the food chain than Skippy and Liska, who they would routinely have to outsmart in order to survive.
I originally resisted the idea of making Clarence a coyote; I really wished to avoid any comparison to the Warner Brothers Wile E. Coyote character. I considered going with several other species including a bear, a wolf, and a cougar, but for a variety of reasons finally decided in the end that going with a coyote was the best choice.
My choice of the name itself was inspired by a variety of sources: Clarence was the given name of the bully nicknamed Lumpy on "Leave It To Beaver", an unfortunate character from a "Far Side" comic strip, and the main villain from the first Robocop movie. I've always liked the name and wanted to use it somewhere; to me it just has a somewhat whimsical, harmless quality to it, an ideal name for a hapless, antagonistic character.
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