Commentary after the jump.

Finally!  We're out of that suffocating carriage.  I never thought we'd leave.

Whaddya mean "that was only two pages."?

So yeah, there's the infamous Clint Eastwood panel.  Could've even been a swipe for all I know.  Again, great character shorthand, but I didn't want to write Collins like that, nor did I want him to look like that.  Truthfully, I might've been better off keeping Collins as a greenhorn, a tenderfoot, an...Easterner through and through.  Every time you have a grizzled cowboy, it's only natural to impose the Eastwood template on him.

Here's one of the things that got overlooked that I probably should have punched up a little bit.  Collins refers to his shotgun as "fancy".  This gets paid out in about seven or so pages, and I'll talk ya through it once I get there.  Just remember it when things get hairy is all I'm saying.

Luis, as usual, did a great job with the atmosphere here.  I really shouldn't have wrecked it with my word balloons that don't need to be there, other than to reassure insecure writers that their input is important and vital to the continuing telling of the story.  I harp a lot on comics writers who don't add text when there's space for it, or when it could flesh things out a little more fully.  But by the same token, putting in stuff just to put stuff in will take away more than it contributes.  Do we really need Collins asking "What the hell happened to you?" to the maimed horse?

Now, could this sequence be shortened a bit?  Sure.  Not much story being imparted, other than Collins being as full of bravado as any cowboy when he's got a gun at the ready.  Is that important?  Probably just as important as him not looking as Clint Eastwood.

See you on Wednesday, where I break the shocking news that I won't be running the strip the week of Comic-Con because, really, who the heck wants to read old stuff when there's going to be SO MUCH PRESS coming out of SDCC to compete with.  It's like shouting in a hurricane.  Maybe it makes you feel better, but its not going to get your message across.