The website was originally meant to revolve around Homestar, but Strong Bad grew in popularity after the first few months of the website, and the Chapman brothers decided to give him his own segment, Strong Bad Email (SBEmail for short). According to Mike Chapman, "...He'd already become everybody's favorite character." In the children's book and very early stages of the website, Strong Bad looked significantly different from his present day character. He had very small hands and a plainly colored red and black lucha libre mask, contrary to the blue and green areas of the mask included in the present version of Strong Bad. In the book, Strong Bad and The Cheat were defined as the main "villains" to Homestar Runner and Pom Pom, who were defined as the main "protagonists". This idea of Strong Bad being an antagonist lasted for a short while in the early toons, but did change, however, as each character developed its own style. Strong Bad also started off with a prominent Mexican accent and a deep voice, which gradually transitioned into a more gruff and less accented voice with more vocal range.
