Commentary for April 28, 2022:

At the risk of making the subtext text, I’d like to just briefly discuss CJ’s motivations here. Why is he defending Silver? He just met him, after all, and doesn’t know who he is or what he intends to do. I didn’t want to spell this out on the page itself, but in case it isn’t obvious, CJ just got done with a meeting where a group of authority figures told him to stop helping people (at least, that was how he read it). Here he has encountered someone who needs help standing up to another authority figure. This is rebellion, an act of defiance, and the kind of thing CJ would do in this situation. Maybe he’d be a little more cautious if he hadn’t just come from that meeting the guild masters, but he did, and he’s angry.

Now, while it could have looked a little better, I am pleased with panel 4, showing Kathy breaking CJ’s sword. This is a moment from the original version of this story that I absolutely wanted to re-create. Indeed, in many ways, this story is very faithful to the original in all the places that matter.