I love, love, love circular storytelling. I can't remember when I knew that I'd be mirroring the first page in the last page, but I'm certain I considered it as early as when I wrote and drew the first page.

Back to being subtle, notice Gideon's shirt. There's no star. That's the end of his story arc. Again, I like the parallelism here. They each had a crisis of faith. The subtle implication is that Gideon gave up his star when he left the keys behind, and his brother used the keys to let the Freak go. His miracle.

It may be too subtle, but for me, looking back at the story, it was the only ending I could have had. I like the way it wraps itself up. Maybe, someday, I'll come back to this story. Perhaps rewrite it to make it better and smoother. Perhaps get a real artist to work on it. But then, there's a big part of me that says . . . why? I've already done this story.

~ Ben

The Ballad of the Freak, “Ace” of Diamonds, Remix Comix, Whisperingloon Studios, and the other stuff I made up for this webcomic are TM and (C) Ben Avery, 2009. While the original Black Diamond Western is in public domain, “Ace” of Diamonds (the story and the artwork) and the contents of this page are NOT public domain.