Still might tweak his design a little but over all I'm fairly happy with it. There are a lot of meanings behind this design that I think help build him as a character.
Also yes his character name really is friend. This comic is going to deal a lot with the development of intelligence and how we learn things. So in the beginning no one knows how to communicate using words. Its slowly introduced to them, so names are rather simple if they even have a name at all.
For instance right now I have characters named: Friend, Shadow, Hero, and the voice, but only friend's name is actually used in the comic. Voice might be used way latter in the comic, but i doubt it. However hero and shadow are never used, and the names were implemented for clarity reasons only while writing the script.
Hopefully I'll be able to sketch up some more concepts and you can start to see more of the cast
I love the idea of doing a comic where no one uses words often. It sounds challenging, especially for story boarding, etc. Out of all the artists I watch though, I'm sure you're the best for pulling it off. Can't wait to see more!