Did you ever end up talking to your bully about what happened?
Man, this thing is still doing the rounds huh! I'm glad people like the comic, it feels like a long time ago for me. I haven't talked to her since we were kids, there just isn't any reason to. I don't harbor any real feelings about her either way, I hope she's well I guess!
If I can veer away from this specific question a little bit (I don't open tumblr much anymore so I'm trying to cover a few things at once) there's a couple things I want to say about the comic now with almost 10 years of distance from it:
1) The events in the comic are true, AND
2) the last time I saw this girl I was 12. I made this comic in my late 20s for an anthology themed around best friends, in fact I probably looked her up in the first place because the anthology had brought her to mind. So while there was real pain in those memories, I didn't have any present-day animus towards her and I still don't. The comic was rejected but it got a lot of eyeballs on my work. In fact...
3) I have some complicated feelings about the life this comic has had, I even made two follow-ups to try to bring some nuance to the reaction it got (here: https://www.meghanlands.com/bff-2 and here: https://www.meghanlands.com/bff3 ) but there's no denying this thing did a lot for my career. It was shortlisted for an award I really cared about, it got the attention of comics outlets I wanted to work with, and when I talk to students it's the thing they're likely to recognize. It reached a lot further than a print anthology would have, for better or worse. Thank you to the readers for spreading it around. Lastly...
4) I turned 40 this year, I'm still a cartoonist, and I'm still ok. The events in the comic feel far away now, as does making it. I hope for the many of you in pain that one day it will feel far away for you too. Thank you for reading.