I think you will all immediately
understand what a difficult decision I had to make here. I
agonised over this strip for nearly half a year before I finally drew
it; it was, in many ways, inevitable, but I really wished it hadn't
been. I actually had to force myself to draw that final panel.
Now, however, I just want to get this plot twist over with so I
can move on in the radical new direction the strip is obviously going
to have to take now. I have therefore chosen to publish the comic
a day early. The next one will follow immediately on Wednesday.
Though West of Bathurst
has been a combination gag/story strip from the beginning, it is now
clearly going to have to undergo some changes. Starting next
Monday, I will be moving to a full-page, comic-book-style format.
The artwork will become more detailed and closer to manga in its
provenance, and there will be a great deal of exposition and no jokes.
I feel that the "comical" aspects of the strip, as well as the
bits involving grad school, have had their day. They were fun
while they lasted, but I need to get serious about this whole
comic-strip thing so that I can be discovered accidentally by some
prestigious reviewer who happens upon the strip by googling "manga,"
"breasts," and "sci-fi plot involving immortals with blue hair."
I am aiming to make several thousand dollars via merchandising in
the first year alone.
As will be evident from the strip
above, the focus of the comic is about to shift from Marie and her
friends to Frankie and hers. I don't want to give too much away,
but I will
say that I am rather excited about a coming plot-line focusing on
Frankie's alien ancestry and her connection to the hereditary
gatekeepers of a mystic portal called Zoog. I like Marie, but in
the end, Frankie is simply a more dynamic character with far more
potential for fan service. I have already designed several new
outfits for her and mulled over the creation of a sequence in which she
is tastefully nude for at least seven pages in a row.
I trust that you will stick with WoB
during this difficult transitional phase. If the new direction
upsets you, I apologise. Unfortunately, the public has spoken,
and the public wants scantily clad aliens, huge explosions, characters
with improbably huge eyes, and the sort of dialogue that would make
George Lucas wet his pants with entirely unfounded excitement.
Quirky comics about grad colleges are just not the thing any more.
I won't see you in the funny
papers, but I will, with luck, see you in my store, which will soon
feature a round of new products involving Pokemon rip-offs and
characters screaming, "LOL!"
Sincerely yours,
Kari.
