Well, that'll about do it for this chapter! I hope you've enjoyed it, and that you'll consider checking out the Kickstarter for the print version- if you've been waiting for your chance to grab the full Deadly Sins arc in one swoop, here it is! There's also Kickstarter exclusive signed/sketched bookplates, custom ink drawings, and keyrings too.
If you’ve enjoyed the comic so far, please consider supporting the Kickstarter, pledging a little monthly via Patreon, or simply spreading the word to any friends you feel might enjoy our doofy tale of wizards and feelings. So what's next? As I've said before, the comic is not over, just this arc. I will be taking a break, however, to sharpen up my skills a little and get a few things in order- you may see some changes to the site as I get into janitor mode. We're going to have some Q&A filler and some fanart in the meantime, then we will return to our regular update schedule on September 4th when we start Widdershins Volume Eight: Hangman's Knot. See you then!
Want to avoid the guest/extra content and skip straight to the next storyline? Click here!
Cast: Harriet Barber
Comments (86)
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Should have picked the other door, Harry.
Oh. Sparsely inhabited island. Well that's a problem.
I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Ms Ashwin for creating one of the best webcomics out there. It has great characters, great stories, an imaginative setting and an entirely original system of magic. It has strong, competent female heroes with normally proportioned bodies who keep their knees decently covered at all times and who aren’t foul-mouthed obnoxious little brats. Even better we have strong female villains who are neither decorative accessories nor plot devices for the hero to seduce / bump off. And we have one hero who is German (a Prussian no less) and another who is a small fussy little man with no sense of humour, both of whom are always Evil Henchmen or Threshold Guardians in less imaginative stories. And nowhere do the words ‘dystopian future society’, ‘teenage misfit’ or ‘evil multi-national corporation’ appear.
So, bravo Ms Ashwin, bravo!
Now, here we all are, sitting waiting expectantly for your next brilliant story!
No pressure or anything.
Well, there goes her idea for the next story arc about teenage misfits running an evil multinational corporation in an effort to conquer their dystopian future society.
Don't forget the virtuous enjoyment of tobacco!
And then there's the sweet and goofy romantic interest guy who is of Indian descent...
The only one seducing a hero was first introduced as a male too... so that allows us to avoid the normal trite tropes one would expect when the main villain of the series is "Lust".
Seconded heartily. Also.........thanks for the cliffhanger, Ms. Ashwin. XD
I second the motion, Harry.
Well, getting back through that door is going to be problematic...
Also, what was that second "krk" in panel four?
Snapped twig, I'd wager.
Kong
OMG, that's it? It was absolutely great, like always, but... they don't get at least a "You beat the deadly sins"-cake-party at the end?!
Well, let's head over to the kickstarter to see if there's the cake.
Nearly seven years after Sidney headbutted a desk in despair, Harry headbutts some dirt. It's been one heck of a mighty effort, and just as mighty a pleasure to read; Widdershins has always been a webcomic I can recommend to anyone without hesitation. Looking forward to whatever grand adventure comes next...even if Hangman's Knot is a very ominous title :|a
Could be worse. Could have ended in the middle of the ocean, and she had to swim home.
Congratulations on finishing the chapter Kate. I have really enjoyed the whole story so far. Everything is so well done, the characters, the world, the story.
I hope you get a well deserved break
The other door's to the Himalayas. THAT could have been a lot worse.
Why???
There are no cannibalistic indigene maori there. There is a decent, rather regular route to Europe there (by which Voss arrived there). There are people, merchants and tourists there... And a friendly witch. Speaking German at least. Perhaps English too... :)
And here there are just trees for time being. And we don't know if the local witch is friendly.
Year round frozen mountains. Death in a couple of hours.
Freezing solid in record time while dealing with sudden altitude adjustment (and oxygen deprivation) isn't much fun. At least here, Harry is more or less at sea level and can peel layers off to survive long enough to meet the welcoming committee.
If there is one. :/
Yeah I'm pretty sure the altitude thing would be a bigger problem. Anyone have any idea what would happen if someone was deposited directly from a low altitude to a very high altitude? I don't think it would be good...
the pressure change would kill you pretty quickly, especially at the top of chomolungma. then there's the temperature, the thin air, and even attempting to climb back unaided... well. i may have watched a lot of tv shows about climbers a few years ago when coming up with some of that stuff...!
Oh, right! The actual Mountain anchor is 5 or 6 miles up, and the Mountain witch tells Voss that "no-one has ever made the climb." Although I suspect she herself has ways to get there, because she has to be able to use her own door... If Harry had been deposited up there, that could have been... really bad.
I think that circle of bare earth where Harry just did a faceplant is the Island anchor.
I hope that 'krk..' in the woods is the Island witch. Not because I expect the door to be opened for Harry right away, but because Harry discovering the Island witch's personality, and interacting, and perhaps having to push past a few more of her own personal limits, would make for a more interesting (and Kate-like) story than just dealing with some random wildlife.
Yes but Maria, don't you want Harry to get her name in the history books for being the first European to visit the Pacific Ocean anchor? What is the point of being an adventurer, if you are only going to visit places with which people are already familiar?
You got a point here :)
And if Voss got there, you know it's gotta be easy to navigate!
Of course, if this is the Chathams and not New Zealand proper, then it's a pacifist non-cannibal society for a few years more, until a bunch of disposessed maori warriors show up and enslave or kill the locals. At least in our timeline. If the Moriori had had a witch, though? That might have served them well.
Thanks SO much, Kate. Time for reading it all over from the start. And so many questions left unanswered, so many material for future stories, yay! Good break to you!
"She took her vorpal gun in hand;
Long time the manxome foe she sought—
So rested she by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought."
(With apologies to Lewis Carroll)
I want a +5 vorpal shotgun. I'd love to crit and then explode the enemy's head.
Excellent chapter, excellent wrap-up, excellent cliffhanger. Excellent!
Door's locked until you complete the level, Harry. Better keep it hand-to-hand unless you find some stashes of ammo - you'll need the gun for the boss monster.
And now over to the engine shed at Widdershins station for a rendition of Freight from Starlight Express:
♫Kate is great, Kate is great, We'll staunchly wait 'cos we love Kate, And Kate is great. Kate is great, Kate is great, We won't berate, just state the date, 'Cos Kate is great. We will not make a fuss. She's got the goods for us. We'll purchase loads for our abodes, And Kate is great!♫
Macavity: sneaks out of boxcar with copy of Volume 7 :-)
Nicola: collars him, throws him to the ground Were you going to pay for that? Or do you want to be part of MY kickstarter? prods him in the ribs with the toe of her boot
Macavity: ;_; Can't you just let me Indiegogo...? :-(
>:=)>
(Editing stupid question that I'd put here.) I figured out the pledge levels.
Should have used the mountain door, Harry.
P.S. I was hoping for the deluxe book & sketch tier (all 7 books plus something sketched). Hint, hint. :)
Heyo, if you back at the 7 book complete set tier and add £10 to your pledge I will add in a bookplate sketch :)
Ahhh, you are so nice!
Oh, good: the gun's got its muzzle out of the muck. That will be handy.
Elephant, Harry. I feel that you should aspire to re-enter Widdershins riding an elephant. You're probably better off doing the land route anyway.
Also: it's 7 A-freaking-M in the States here. Whaddya MEAN, "All the key-rings are gone?" :hopefully: Add-on, later? :)
If you add £5 onto the pledge I'll chuck in a keyring!
Done, but you may want to double-check the shipping on that before you do a formal add-on. :)
Have no fear, the shipping has been checked and double-checked! It goes in weight bands here, the keyring doesnt come close to pushing it into a new band.
Rocking.
Done, also. I am eager to, at long last, be able to get my hands on a print version! I've been looking wistfully across the pond since volume 1, but couldn't justify paying that much for shipping seven times. The complete set is going to be one of my treasures.
What land route? Island witch, remember?
It's probably safer for her to get off the island, get to Asia, and travel back that way than it would be to go by sea the whole way. They're not quite in the Golden Age of the British Navy, after all. Or the Golden Age of the Tramp Steamer. :)
Idk, if I remember correctly, people traveling to east or south Asia from Britain in the early 1800s usually went by ship? That land route is pretty intense. Lotta mountains and/or deserts to cross...
Someone, something, is purposely blocking the door behind ?
I dunno, when not being used, doors seem to disappear. While Mal's just sort of unceremoniously winks out, Island Witch's disappears in a somewhat more dramatic fashion.
I was thinking the same thing. Mal is still new at this and hasn't exactly had time to figure out how to change the physical appearance of his door; maybe the more experienced witches have more elaborate doors.
Although I can't help but think the plain, blue door suits him.
Well done.
I got caught up on the archives during the Envy section of this chapter, so this is the first time I've been onboard for the ending of a chapter - and it's the end of the whole arc, no less! It's a little disconcerting not really knowing what's coming next, but I can hardly wait to find out.
By the way, I assume the next chapter is starting on August 21, since August 20 is a Monday?
oops, you are quite right!
That looks like Birch.... I don't think the Red Door was Maori after all.
It looks like silver beech/tawhai, and the larger tree would be kauri. If so it's welcome to New Zealand.
In real life the two species only overlap in a small area, but a bit of creative leeway can stretch that.
The large tree is a totara!
That makes sense. We don't have many of the massive ones left, I've not seen any myself wider than a person. But there's a few that size or bigger.
There is good news, and there is bad news.
The good news is that I backed the Kickstarter for all seven PDFs!
The bad news is that, assuming the Kickstarter is successfully funded, that will make Widdershins the seventh webcomic series for which I have bought PDF compilations. Does that mean I now have to desummon each webcomic in reverse order?
>Does that mean I now have to desummon each webcomic in reverse order?
Love this!! 🤣
Yes. I encourage you to buy a print copy of Widdershins to use as a charged object/anchor.
Have gun will travel, eh... I hope you have a good supply of pipe tobacco on you, Harry!
Indeed that is an ominous chapter title!
This has all been fabulous - I love this comic, it's inventive and funny and intriguing and deeply good-natured.
Have a restorative break, Kate, and thank you so much for sharing your art.
=== I hope you have a good supply of pipe tobacco on you, Harry! ===
And of bullets too, which is a bit more important in the wild.
id say she picked the wrong door. On an old game show called "let's make a deal." you would choose from 3 doors. and if you picked a door where the prize was something like a bucket with no bottom or a broken tv. it was called getting ZONKED. harry just got Zonked.
Yeah. Harry could have won a brand new car, but no, she is left stranded somewhere.
Without even a goat.
Wait, maybe the goat broke the twig.
I afraid the way her luck is going right now. The snapped twig is something predatory. And hungry, let's not forget hungry. So let's all say this together... Oh, Crap! RUN!
I remember one time on the show the zonk prize was a donkey. which in this case would be handy as she could ride it out of there.
Website issue: on [the previous page](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/july-17th-2018/ "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/july-17th-2018/"), the "next" button is broken.
EDIT: It's fixed now. Fittingly, Disqus says that this is my 404th comment. Error 404: button not found.
Think I fixed it now
Congrats on finishing up this big arc!!! Widdershins has my favorite cast of characters and style of narrative out of all the webcomics I read, and I can't wait to find out what happens next.
Bugger indeed
Hopefully she isn't somewhere in which malaria is common.
FOREST WITCH!
Part one--- END. Part two starting...
Hope you packed insect repellent... Wait: nicotine residue. Eh, she's fine. ;P
Okay, so over on the kickstarter page it says you have been drawing & writing comics for sixteen years? That's a great achievement! Really impressive. (Especially if you compare the first page from the first comic you ever drew to this one.)
Well, New Zealand is a nice place. Beautiful scenery, lovely climate (well parts of it), and too far out of the way for most people to bother with it. I lived there 10 years and it's still a home to me.
Admittedly it was a trifle violent during the early 19th century, when Widdershins seems to be situated. But in a world of magic and such, would a musket arms race really have occured?
What I know of New Zealand during roughly this period comes from Elizabeth Goudge's 1944 historical novel Green Dolphin Street. The story begins in the 1840s and follows the main characters from youth to old age. I never saw the 1947 movie, but the book was in our local library. It made a deep impression on small-girl me.
I don't know whether I want to reread it now. Sometimes it is better to keep the memory of a book read in innocence.
Annoying to avoid the hobbits though.
It took me a while to realize that the 'krk' from the smaller trees indicates that they moved too. Looking at it more closely, I think the smaller trees are supposed to act as prison bars. So the door back is locked, and the way forward is closed off.
"Bugger."
Side note- if this is the intent, then an establishing shot of the way forward would help to indicate that Harry is being blocked off.
Unless the smaller "krk" was somebody or something snapping a twig while approaching through the woods.
All I am saying- we can see tree magic going on with the door. And the door probably belongs to another witch. So this is not an unreasonable assumption.
That is an interesting possibility. The "krk" does look like it is coming from the tree itself.
Well, it makes sense. Harry just walked into someone's house (?). Or body, if we are talking about some kind of sentient tree. General point- she is certainly not invited.
I started following this comic near the beginning. A lady internet pipe smoking friend alerted our pipe smoking group to the adventures of Harriet Barber and her battle with some deadly sins.
Here we end, with Harry and her pipe, alone and stranded at the end of the world.
Let’s fix this quickly, please.
Well Harry, I guess it's time to make like a tree and leave.
I would like to heartily second General SturzKamph's comment. After i finished reading "Darken", I found "Widdershins." This has been... beautiful? Exhilarating? Words fail me. Thank you. (("Thank You" sounds so trite & lame, but... words fail me...))
Next chapter; The witch, the Lion, and the wardrobe in the tree.