>>85242061Here's what the man himself had to say about it. I screenshotted the text because I'm not entirely sure he's going to leave it up on patreon. So far the comments seem to largely prefer this deleted sequence.
"I finished aaaaaaaaaall these comics as an increasing feeling of "this isn't the best way to do this" came over me, and I had to wait for the strength of that feeling to overcome my pride in my productivity inertia to finally go OKAY FINE, let's REDO IT, gawsh.
Anyway. Walky being in the Ruth's room took too much focus away from Mary's meltdown outside. Walky being in there (and Dorothy, of course, following him in, because of course she would) kind of felt awkward, and I thought many of those lines would work best moved to the eventual health center scene. And, honestly, as much as I love the first comic up there and the satisfying rhythm of it all, having Dina dinosaur-pounce Mary is a little too fanservicey and flying in the face of what Dina would likely do. It's funny, sure, but she probably wouldn't pounce Mary, who has given us zero in-narrative reason for Dina to harbor ill will towards.
Plus, with the NEW version, by being able to focus separately on Mary's flameout and then later Walky's approaching of his best friend in trouble, I was given the narrative room to put in all this other important stuff, like Walky being Billie's emergency contact. And, despite retooling so much, I was still able to save some of the bits of dialogue and gags I liked, so that was nice."
So to recap: He thinks Walky's jokes are good, he thinks Dina showing up for no reason to talk about how great being Becky's rebound is is good, but he doesn't the nice little moments of pathos are good enough, and he didn't think Walky actually admitting he cared was worth saving. Or maybe he did, who knows what the next strip will bring.
