Originally it isn't! Initially I started doodling creatures when I was in elementary school far, far to many years ago. I started doodling them, and my partner encouraged me to get into comics and I needed a name. I used to call them in Finnish something resembling a "badly drawn creature" and didn't have good enough imagination to think of anything other.
Later I thought, "oh.." when I bumbed to poorly drawn lines (you know, you know something, then forget it for years, until you bump to them again), but figured that I'm certainly not doing anything as brilliant as pdl is, they deserve every single drop of love, and won't ever be as successful as them so there most likely will not be any bad feelings one way or another.
Haha! Trekkie here 👋 You're the first to notice the tribble thing. Sometimes people compare them to Susuwatari from Totoro. For me, they're just badly drawn creatures :D