Dear Readers:
Well...that's it. That's the final
West of Bathurst
comic ever. I made it all the way through drawing and colouring
it without losing it, but that seems to have ended now. I am
very, very, very, very sad at the moment.
It's been great
drawing these comics for you guys since 2006. Back then, I really
was planning for the comic to last for about seven years, but seven
years seemed like a long time. It's a little less long from the
other end.
I didn't anticipate a lot of things about the comic.
I didn't know Rahim would be important; I didn't realise Evil
Marie would be a character at all. I did, however, always know
that the core of the strip would be Marie and her bizarre friendship
with Casey. I also knew the comic wouldn't be possible without
its setting. The characters have grown away from Davies College
in the last few years, but Davies has still always provided that tinge
of otherworldliness the fairy-tale elements of the Casey plot need...or
so I claim. The fact that Davies is based on the genuinely real
Massey College does not make it (or, in fact, Massey itself) any less
otherworldly.
It's going to be really hard to give this comic
up. I know I've got a new one in the works, but I haven't really
got to know its characters or situations yet, and I'm at the "But it
will never be the
same!" stage of mourning. I hope you'll give yourselves a chance to get accustomed to
It Never Rains. I'm going to have to do that too.
If you want to continue to receive news about
West of Bathurst and
It Never Rains, please subscribe to the
WoB Talk
blog (click on "Comments" above to get to it), send an e-mail to
westofbathurst(at)gmail(dot)com and ask to be added to the mailing list,
or "like" the comic's
Facebook page.
Once I have forced myself to figure out the whole print
collection / Kickstarter thing, there will be messages about that too.
(And yes, if the book does eventually spring to life, it will
include a segment on the folklore underlying
WoB. People have been asking about that.)
You
guys have all been great; I've enjoyed getting to know many of you over
the years. You've been very encouraging, even when you've wanted
pretty badly to kill me.
Thank you, and farewell for now. I too need to cross the long-standing metaphor.
Yours ridiculously tearfully,
Kari.
| Sunday, February 9, 2014 |
Panel 1: Marie,
dressed in a black coat, red scarf, and red gloves, stands in front of
a brick wall. She is looking at a street sign that is set up like a
"one way" sign: a black rectangle with a white border, and inside the
black rectangle, a white arrow pointing to the right. Inside the white
arrow, in black letters, are the words "WEST OF BATHURST." A much
smaller arrow is right under the big white arrow; it's pointing to the
left, and the words in it read, "BY KARI MAAREN."
Panel 2: In
an echo of the very first comic, Marie is in the Porter's Office. She
hands her Davies key back to the Porter, who is represented only by a
hand being held out over the reception desk. Behind Marie are
pigeonholes filled with mail and a calendar next to them on the wall.
Panel 3: Marie leaves Davies for the last time, walking out through the gates. The bricks of the College are visible behind her.
Panel 4: Marie walks down a sidewalk, past a maroon building. There are patches of snow on the ground.
Panel 5: Marie reaches an intersection and looks up at a street sign, which reads, "Bathurst St." The traffic light is green.
Panel 6: Marie stands paralysed at the intersection.
Panel 7: Evil Marie appears behind Marie.
Evil Marie: Will you just cross the long-standing metaphor already?
Marie: It's harder than it looks!
Alt-text: And let us leave it there.
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