I had a feeling there were some historical inspirations for this comic. I have no idea what the Koala did, but after this fiasco I have the feeling he won't do anything very stupid from now on. Love the bickering between town officials - typical I don't want to pay for a proper construction/repair - just make do. I'm really liking Mary - she's looked fed up with this whole thing.

According to the start of the comic, the charge was treason, but we never get to hear what constitutes treason in this polity. And yeah, if I were the koala, I’d be making sure not to waste my new lease on life now that I’m no longer for the chop.

Yeah, treason in medieval stuff is a very broad charge, can go anywhere from plotting to overthrow the ruler to farming rats.

Farming rats? Because of the plague?

Yes.
I have no idea if calling it treason was really done historically, but I've read the whole "Offer reward for killing pests, make farming them a capital offense" did happen at least once.

In my reasoning, if the Crown offers a bounty on dead rats in an effort to exterminate them (usually because of the plague, yes), then someone who farms rats for the bounty is accepting the Crown's money for doing the direct opposite of what the Crown actually wants. Hence, treason.

I actually went with "treason and harboring the enemy", framing the thing as an extermination war against rats. The result is a crime that can justifiably be capital without being particularly heinous

Should've built gallows. Fewer moving parts to malfunction. Plus it's more entertaining for the crowd to watch. ;P

But then it would just be a furry version of John Babbacombe Lee.

I'm not a history buff. I don't know who that is.

Read the description.

I did. I still don't know who those people were. Like I said, I'm not a history buff.

Okay. Now I have more time for this... I first read about Lee in a book series called "The Unexplained" which examined various weird stuff from UFOs to Tesla. Lee was hanged several times and on each occasion the trapdoor failed to open but only when he was stood on it. In the more lurid accounts the hangman had a dream that it was all going to go wrong, and Lee seemed to think so too. Supposedly there were three attempts, then they decided it was an act of God and commuted his sentence. When I double-checked on Wikipedia last night they reckon that official records only show two attempts.
The Wikipedia entry also linked to Samuel, who I'd not heard of before, but he definitely ticks all the boxes - three hanging attempts and then it's considered divine intervention.

I'd heard about the "failed execution attempt = full pardon" thing that some European countries used to do for a while (before the French revolution anyway), I just never bothered to look up who actually got that "divine pardon."

That DOES bring up a potential neat idea for a scenario with your characters though... "Viva La Revolution!~" Some unlucky damsel will get to be Queen Antoinette. >;3