All is still calm. I hope

All is still calm. I hope

THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME.

Tension... building... comfort level decreasing... god DAMN IT, you had to make us wait until Monday!

"I knew you were into birds, I just...didn't realise the extent."

Awesome, thanks for the early present.

Simply beautiful

yaaay Kat found her! I really hope things will be ok.D: thank you so much for sharing the extra comics with us!

Yay! Annie in the Forest! Kat found her. I don't think this is going to be a love-triangle issue. I think Annie is simply scared that her best friend, her only friend, is abandoning her. With no mother and an absent father, Annie is scared of losing contact. I really love the first three panels here. Kat's expressions make me feel like she's thought out what she's going to say. Love it!

Me thinks Annie just feels left out of the loop. I feel a heartwarming scene coming up, yo.

Okay I calmed down. But whatever happens, be Annie jealous, 'traditional' or confused, we'll finally get her reaction. Also an extra comics section? YES!

And the world becomes solvable simply by talking, life goes on, but nothing is the same again; they grow old and die never knowing what the other one truly thinks, and then just when the story seem irredeemable, an angel appears

It's so nice seeing Annie!! Long time no see! PLEASE BE OK YOU TWO

Thank you for posting "Annie In The Forest". Kat is indeed taking a bold step, getting Annie to talk to her might take some work. And a lot of patient understanding. Annie isn't good at expressing feelings. She's liable to trip over her tongue and maybe say things the wrong way.

I like Kat's arms in the last panel. Also, I've been and continue to be delighted with her coveralls-tied-at-the-waist.

Huh. I had Annie pegged for the more practical sort. I mean, once you find out that your pet immortal fox spirit had a crush on your mum two girls making out would sort of be a step down on the shock-o-meter.

Annie in the forest was great! Your art looks really good in greytones.. :)

It's enough difficult for Kat, I don't like Annie making it even worse for her. It's not about Annie; it's Kat who will have to face the rest of society. Get a hold of yourself, Annie!

YAY TALKING. also YAY ANNIE IN THE FOREST!

KISS HER, ANNIE Mess with the minds of all the viewers! :P

CHRIST. EVERY UPDATE IS LIKE A CLIFFHANGER. You're killing me Tom, you're killing me.

Aaaaawwwww sweet =)

i feel the concern is that she doesn't know kat as well as she thinks she should.

Good luck Kat!

Aww, this is sad :(

Annie's face in panel 5 is so sad! :(

DARN YOU WEEKEND!

Calm as ever Kat and Annie doesn't seem to want to run away too, now that is what I'm glad of :D

Ooooh, Annie in the Forest! Feels like early Christmas! Thank you so very much, Mr. Siddell, for brightening up my life every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. *-*

Cmon Annie, be alright with it! Please!

Oh hush Annie, stop being a butt about this and be a little more open minded.

KISS HER!!! KISS HER!!! KISS HER!!! KISS HER!!!

SUSPENSE

After I had seen the previous page, this is almost exactly how I imagined the next page would look like . . . with more awkward silence, though. I thought Kat would find her right away, say "hey", then sit down next to her, and sit in awkward silence for a bit. A nervous smile, a little hug, and a few tears later, Annie gets up. "I have a date with Jack Hyland, don't wait up." Hyuk hyuk! Okay, you can slap me now! I still don't ship Paz/Kat, as I believe Paz would run back to Matt when the circumstance allows it, and that this was only a brief interlude. I look forward to this weekend's bout of comments!

Tom, I love you and I hate you for this.

*Here*: If Annie is the forest's medium to the court then Kat is Annie's medium to life. *There*: OH MY GOD I DIDN'T EXPECT IT GO ONLINE XMAS CAME EARLY THANK YOU! Wow, I never expected Annie of all people to go full-on Shoujo.

Wow, that's just stupid Annie can't even accept the fact that Kat's a lesbian. That's bitchy

I wish I had followed this story from the very beginning, but I just started a few months earlier, so I missed out on what everyone else wrote for the previous chapters. There is more than a fair amount of romance in this story, and a lot of mystery. The world portrayed is dark, and dingy, one of the bright spots being the cherry tree room. This is, after all, a gothic romance sheathed in a veneer of high tech wizardry, and arcane magic coupled with fantastic creatures. The room . . . it holds a secret.

Wow, you put Annie in the forest on the internet! Thank you!

Yeah, much better to work it out by kissing! Also, extra comics! YAY!

I also don't think Annie is homophobic like a bunch of others have said, but she is hurt that Kat didn't tell her from the start. I don't want their friendship to end!

Yes. Yes, you can work it out.

EEeeeeeppp! Tell her you like her! PLEEEEEEAAAASE! >.< xD

Tom you gave me enough feels to cry. I hate you. You're the best writer and artist I've ever seen.

She was thinking, why didn't you tell her earlier?

The forest story reminded me of Spirited Away, great work!

calling it now: not a homophobe

what is that symbol of symbolic symbolism

Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.

Yeah! When has talking ever solved a problem?

What Annie is thinking: "Why is everyone but me getting smooches?"

I don't get it. Why not go inside? It's not like you can only go in once every year or something like that nor is it like the tree or the manager of the place will care if you go there for something that's not hyper important.

Oh wow Kat. Way to say the best things.

Oh thank God. No screaming matches, no freakouts, no contradictory statements of any kind. Just a whole lotta awkwardness. :) Good show, Tom. See you next week!

*She doesnt know what to say because of the feeling she haazzzz

IT IS KILLING ME.

I'm sure you can do it! It's probably just a case of "now that you got a Xfriend, how will there be time for us to tease Mort?!" issue.

Is that a "Danger: this room contains sunlight" warning symbol?

What's that on the wall?

Oh no. Annie, no. She's your best friend. It doesn't matter if she wants to kiss girls as well as boys.

I'd say from the expression on Annie's face I'm guessing she is not even fully sure why she feels and acted the way she did get face seeming to show a confused worry

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, Cliffhanger!! I can't wait till monday >.<

I'm honestly a little irked that I paid for what I thought was an exclusive side comic, and you ended up just putting it up for free anyway.

Annie's the medium! Shouldn't she have better communication skills?

"you wanna go inside?"="you wanna get drunk?" "not over something like this=naw, not this time..."

Talking about your issues? Sheer madness! Oh, well, Annie isn't running away (any more), so I'm going to take that as a good sign. Gotta have some kind of optimism to get me through the weekend.

I think this might be one of my favourite pages of GK. It perfectly captures the awkward atmosphere of two people trying to sort out a rift in their friendship, and you can see Kat's concern in the way she's drawn... Just brilliant!

Willing to take a bet that it's not what Kat thinks.

I love the writing behind these two. The friendship, the relationship. They feel like real people to me.

If she's a homophobe i might cry

I like this chapter. It's refreshing to see that even though they live in this crazy world, Annie and Kat and the rest still have normal-people quirks.

ANNIE IN THE FOREST IS AMAZING AND YOU ARE AMAZING

Pretty brave of her. The usual reaction is just to pretend no one saw anything and act as normal as possible.

YAY! Thanks for posting Annie in the Forest! I've been curious about it since I first discovered GC, but I wasn't able to buy it. Can't wait to see the second part!

On the topic of Annie's reaction and people thinking she ought to know KAt better. You gotta consider that Annie lost her Mom, then her Dad basically abandoned her. The two people who should be the most constant and supportive in her life left her very early on. It isn't surprising that Annie is scared. I'm pretty sure her biggest issue is fear of losing her friend rather than homophobia.

Excellent!!! They're just two close friends who have stumbled into a situation neither expected. It's situations like this that can strengthen relationships better than anything else. wonderful writing. you know, I'm beginning to think the "having a child will kill the mother" thing is only when a fire elemental mates with a human. fire elemental can probably mate freely with other fire elementals, but the occasional F.E./human mating is needed to keep the elemental side coherent.

Been a while since I've seen that symbol on the door(or something like it). Saw something like it in a tanning salon. Was a warning about artificial sunlight.

Thanks for posting Annie in the forest. Quite the Christmas gift to get to read so much at once!

Hey, look! A mysterious symbol in a fantastical, technological setting! I had forgotten that I was reading Gunnerkrigg for a while with all the kissing going on. :P JK. Keep up the good work, Tom.

Thanks for posting Annie in the Forest. It's good to see your characters simply being children.

"Working out an issue by talking? Pretty risky." Pffft, I love Tom's statements.

Kat always has the best expressions.

Extra Comics! :D Also, they're so cute! I can't wait to hear what Annie'll say.

"...I thought you liked birds."

be one hell of a plot twist if it turns out that annie has been secretly racist this whole time and launches into a anti-spanish rant..

@Spider. You know, Tom made it perfectly clear from the beginning that Annie in the Forest was going to be available online for free at some point and, knowing that full well, I still bought two copies for me and my friend. I don't regret my purchase for a second. Also, Tom works very hard on this FREE comic FULL TIME now and the man needs to pay rent and you know, eat. Honestly, the least we can do is buy his stuff or donate occasionally for all he does for us. Just sayin'. As for today's panel, I'm loving all the expressions, especially on the last panel! So realistic! Can't wait for Monday =)

Really wasn't expecting Annie to be so freaked.

I'm thinking Annie is jealous. Not because she has romantic feelings for Kat, but because she's her best friend and doesn't want to share her.

Talking it out? That's a bold move, Cotton, let's see if it pays off.

Just read Annie in the Forest part 1. Thanks for making it available online Tom!!! It was really great and the drawing was fantastic(as usual). Thank you for all your hard work!!

Extra Comics!! Yesh! Awesome job on the Annie In the Forest Tom!

........is Kat asking if Annie needs to get super berry drunk to drown her sorrows?

It's really well done how even with the "(tom)boyish" clothes and all, Kat's face (and some other stuff, like shoulders occasionally) looks non-androgynous enough. Also, de-exclusivising print-only stuff? Now i have to get a physical copy!

Anyone else hoping they make out, too? I'm hoping they make out.

Oh Tooom thank you for putting AITH online! This is my favourite comic, and I love the current plot! Thanks for writing such a great comic.

You can start with congratulations.

Annie's still in that adolescent stage where her emotional orbit is likely to be fairly self-centered. Given her history of abandonment, I am almost certain that what is motivating her right now is the fear of losing Kat. This is critical emotional growth time for her. (I just hope that she won't react in the same way that another powerful teenager with unusual abilities and parental abandonment issues in a certain space opera who shall not be named reacted!)

I hope it end up that Annie is squicked out by Kat's foray into lesbianism. The butthurting that would take place in the comment section would be so great. I can't believe how personal people that read this comic take the character's actions.

Pretty obvious what to say . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIfOjkB17BA

Squeee...thanks for posting the extra comics! Made my day :)

So, is Kat grossed out by lesbians or is she jealous that she missed her chance? Or is she thinking of hooking up with girls so she doesn't die like her mom?

Sad Annie makes me sad.

No, they're good friends, they'll sort it out.

Kat is such a good friend. If I caught one of my friends kissing one of my other friends, she'd probably feel to awkward to ever look at me again.

Please don't say you like Kat too! No love triangle, please!

Watch Annie say she's had a crush on Kat this whole time.

I simply love how boyish and smooth Kat is here. After that scene with Paz i had lost some hope in her social skills. Now she is like super cool, greet Annie, rests on the door, look through the window, ask nicely ... English isn't my mother tongue, sorry for any mistakes.

I just now realized Siddell's put up a neat wintry site background. Nice touch without wading into the sometimes-controversial, sometimes-annoying typical holiday theme.

please don't make them kiss i would die. i dont ship anything but something like that would kill me. omg.

I'm not sure I like where this is going. Annie and Kat are going to blame Annie and/or Kat for awkwardness and handling it poorly, but really it's society's fault for making it awkward in the first place.

Come on, Kat be with Annie, you don't need Boxbot.

Annie is descended from a long line of people with their feet in their mouths.

I'm still amazed at how you manage to portray so many different shades of love in the characters relationships. Keep up the good work, Tom!

I don't think Annie is homophobic and I don't think she's interested in Kat romantically, either. Remember that the tree is where Annie told Kat about her father - I think she's worried that Kat will abandon her, which is understandable considering what's happened to her. Also... I WILL WAIT EAGERLY FOR MONDAY... never thought I'd say that.

Tom, Tom ,Tom... Yesterday I received my new copy of "Materia" via air mail (as I live in Germany). I took it home and delved into the first pages. Soon, an entire afternoon, that I had intended to and very well should have spent learning, had been devoted to reading it all again in one row. It was the best afternoon I had in a long time. Says alot about the quality of a story. I hope you will never stop doing this comic. I'm sure the scenario and the characters you have created would provide enough material for 100 years of story. Thank you

OK everyone get out your wire strippers and say "Come on now. Be friends again!" click click click "Be Friends!"

Tom, you are the story teller par excellence! Thanks for the extra comics! :-)

I see L from Death Note in that last panel.

Oh Annie, I can't even tell you how dissapointet I'm at this moment. This is Kat beside you, the Girl that wanted to be your friend from the beginning, when nobody else wantet to, she defeat gravity just to get you out of the Annan Trench, she even hit MUUT for you. It is her who is searching the whole court for you to work it out after you have runaway once again. But you? YOU sit there and don't know what to say just because she had have one single happy Moment without you. Did you even consider for just one second to think of anybody else than your self? How can you posibble doubt in her friendship. It is people like you that make one loosing hope for humanity (or fire-elementality) SORRY, but this needed to get out