West of Bathurst

Happy New Year, everyone, and I apologise for the fact that I'm still struggling to catch up. I may find travelling across the country a little tiring, and now I have the wonderful, wonderful jetlag to contend with. This is also the week I need to organise this term's courses. However, I'm plugging away and may (with luck) even have the Monday comic up later tonight, though no promises. And yes, depressing things are still happening.

Regarding the whole "hey, look, it's the New Year" thing: hey, look, it's the New Year! I never actually expected WoB to continue into 2014. You can either regard that as a bonus or decide, possibly quite accurately, that I am not very good at endings. As I'm discovering, it takes a while to wrap up a story that has continued for seven and a half years and contains several mysteries. We do seem to be nearing the end now; Evil Marie's revelation is a bit of a clincher. As the Christmas header says, thank you all for sticking with the comic this long.

After the comic does end, whenever that may be, I'll take a short breather, then begin the new comic. Hurrah/*sob*!

I hope your 2014 goes relatively well and does not involve evil rabbits.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Panel 1: In the title panel of this Sunday-style colour comic, Barbara sits up in bed, in the dark, as someone knocks at her apartment's door. She thinks, "West of Bathurst?" and "by Kari Maaren."

Panel 2: Barbara, dressed in a nightgown, answers her door. Casey is outside. As usual on Christmas morning, he's ragged and beat up.

Panel 3: Barbara helps Casey limp into her apartment.

Panel 4: Casey sits on Barbara's couch, his head in his hands. Barbara pats him on the back and prepares to hand him a cup of tea.

Panel 5: The cup of tea is beside Casey on the couch. He cries as he talks to Barbara, who listens intently.

Panel 6: Barbara gives Casey a hug.

Panel 7: Barbara stands at her door and watches Casey walk away.

Casey: And of course, this never happened.

Barbara: If it had, I would have called you Satan at some point.

Alt-Text: Barbara is clearly one with the shiny object.

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