June 23rd, 2017
23 Jun 2017 · page 708 of 1306
Third portrait along is a cameo for a Patreon supporter! Those are fun to do :3
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Heinrich Wolfe, Sidney Malik, Verity Cunningham
Comments (57)
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Goshdangit Verity
Can't be sure which portraits Mr Malik is referring to, but the clothing in the portraits doesn't look that old. I was expecting the University to be at least as old as those minor seats of learning at Oxford and Cambridge - 12th or 13th century.
Formal academic dress hasn't changed much - the gown is more or less a stylised mediaeval outer garment embellished with the college's colours. Even now the semi-official undergrad attire of college scarf and 'Wherever University' tee shirt is fossilised fashion. Basically academics are not style gurus and it's not until you scrape off the outer layer that you'll get datable garments.
Look at a few graduation photos - Cap, Gown, bit-of-paper. In many cases you have to look twice to guess the date.
These guys are pictured wearing formal magic-attire; who knows from when?
Take it from a Durham ex-student: you take your cues from the hairstyle and the shoes. ;P
Nice rhyme!
Actually, academic regalia is quite diverse, at least at the doctoral level.
I'm a third-generation Ph.D. My grandfather's gown (from Princeton), my father's gown (from Cornell), and my gown (from the University of Wisconsin -- Madison) are quite different from one another: Grandpa's is black with Princeton's colors embroidered on the left breast, Dad's is a lurid canary red, and mine is black. My grandmother's gown (from the University of Chicago) is similar to mine, but her cap is a soft felt cap, whereas mine is a mortarboard. Older institutions have even less standardized academic regalia: Columbia's is a bluish grey with a soft felt cap, and some European universities have formal Court attire.
Disregarding certain modern dyes/synthetics you could wear any of them (with appropriate subfusc) in mediaeval Europe and attract no undue attention. Merely being taken as a clerical scholar.
Of course the various establisments seek to distinguish themselves in details but the overall look is constrained. For eg. Kate has pictured a jabot as part of the WU attire - which could be a C17 addition or a French influence.
Oxford and Cambridge do not have the inherent ability to explode.
I was afraid only the graduated wisards can be trapped there, and ergo Ben is in danger, not Sid...
But if Vee is already behind the glass, it could mean those who get there are those who admire proudly their reflection passing by every reflective surface.
That is, if she has not just retreated a bit around the corner...
Though academic pride/arrogance is not necessarily evidenced by looking into mirrors?
Academic success requires a lot of self-reflection.
You are right, it is not. Necessarily :)
But just look at Verity's posture in front of the mirror on the panel 1. It's self-admiration as is.
Yeah, but I don't think of her pride as being academically-based.
Of course it's not.
I just considered two different options for ermm... becoming behind-glassed victims: to be wizards (whose pride and arrogance were dramatically increased due to the presence of Superbia here) or to be highly-proud people of any profession.
I think now the second option is more likely.
Ben graduated from a different school though, no?
Yeah, and only now I have wondered why his siblings got their (first-class) degrees from Widdershins and Ben not. Did he fail his entry or refuse to try it at all, knowing his limitations? Or there was some different reason?
As for people trapped in glasses, I wonder about students. There isn't the vacation time, there must be students somewhere.
Ben is a lousy wizard. He would have been a great bookkeeper or pin collector, but the depth of interpersonal skills -- shallower that a puddle -- means he can't interact with spirits effectively. Sid is an incompetent student, but he's got such a natural affinity for spirits that it doesn't matter.
Well, if we talk about pin collectors, one may be a lousy wizard and save the world at the same time. :) ("'I can't think of any student less able, but you're here, and that's the only qualification you need.") Or, on the lesser scale, one can lead the process of desummoning Wrath. Or save a lot of people by one good communication with a malform. Or make their "interpersonal skills" better: Ben we met the first time openly said, "I have trouble working with others", but already at the end of that chapter he chose to work with O'Malley and Wolfe, himself. (Not to mention all of progress he made after that.) And I remember as Kate said, "He's not terrible, just unimaginative".
However, my question wasn't about what a bad wizard Ben is, but whether he realised how bad he was that he wasn't able to get even a third-class degree in Widdershins university and chose a different place to get education for this reason, or there was something else. Especially given that Widdershins amplifies magic talents.
It isn't ten o'clock yet. The students are still all in bed.
Really? A Deadly per an hour, our heroes make it fast, don't they? :)
Yeah, but he is a certificated profi, nevertheless.
Ah, you meant graduated wizard in general. I get it. I figured, since this is happening at Widdershins University, you meant alumni of this particular University. My bad. :)
Ben: Vee?
Vee: poses in her frame Yes?
Ben: goggles Vee! You're...
Vee: Spectacular, yes? runs hands around inside of frame And look at the quality of this gilding! smug
>:=)>
The figure in the second picture from the right reminds me of the title character from Ushala at World's End.
I don't know what I love more, that his first instinct is to automatically assume Verity can do something to help them or that when he realizes she's disappeared in a dangerous situation he immediately goes to the nickname.
I had the same thought about the last panel!
Sidney, Sidney, Sidney. Don't look at this as a living nightmare that's engulfed all the people that you used to look up to and professionally respect. Look at this as an opportunity to finagle an honorary degree once you rescue all their butts, via your innovative and masterful command of magic.
Sotto voce, thinking about Rincewind. It not always works in this way, alas. But don't mind me, Sid. :)
But that might get him into trouble with greed later on : P
Ok, so if the rest of them are wondering around among mirrors and not getting caught but Vee got snagged by the front window... she has some long, painful introspection to do about her pride once they are out of this. :/
The front window? She was in the last page and commented that the wizards must've run off, and she's in this page, in the far back of panel one. She's looking into a mirror here, looks like, so that's probably what got her (if anything).
I'm not convinced that it's been Verity in the last couple pages. She seemed awfully startled when she looked in the front window before the went in, and I rather expected her to say something about it.
A mirror duplicate? I doubt that's the case. If it was, I think we would've seen mirror duplicates of everyone who's supposed to be there (like the desk attendant) and then have Sid comment something like "I could've sworn my lecturer was left-handed, not right-handed" to draw attention to it. I can't exactly prove it in Verity's case, since she's fairly symmetrical from the back, but I just don't think that's what's happening here (it's interesting, though).
I was working under the theory that it was Pride personally screwing with them, since as you say if there were mirror duplicates there'd be a lot more of them.
If Pride does want to personally screw with them, I feel like we'd have to actually see Pride first, but... if we don't, I still think this Verity we've seen is the real one. If we don't see Pride and Pride does want to mess with them by making a Verity Duplicate, that would probably happen on the next page, where something happens like... they can't find Verity, and then she comes out around the corner acting normally-but-not-normally.
== and then she comes out around the corner acting normally-but-not-normally. ===
And pinkish in her colours.
She's in the first panel of this page, in the far background at the end of the hall.
Yeah, called that two pages ago.
>So did all the students get trapped in reflections or something?
By the by, is there a forum where we can speculate?
I thought these comments were the forum where we could speculate.
Yes, this is the closest to an official forum that I plan on having, I do love the good lively comments here :3
Fine by me, I just wondered if anyone here made something like the SSSS fan forum with separate topics and stuff.
If anyone wants to, they have my blessing!
Oh my god. It looks like it happens if they stare into a mirror too much.
They're literally being captured by pride by giving in to pride.
I just skimmed some old strips and the cast page, and it seems the chain on Verity's glasses only attaches on the left arm.
Somewhere between this page [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-16th-2017/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-16th-2017/") and this one [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-20th-2017/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-20th-2017/") it switches to the right arm.
I think Eva's comment hit the nail on the head.
A tip for future reference: when you want to include a link to another page in your comment, don't put it in parentheses or have any other character touching the URL, because that makes the link not work (and somehow disappears the whole page, even when you try to get to it from the archives). I know this from painful experience. : (
The page doesn't disappear entirely, just people who used "the wrong link" can't see it for some time, but it is still there to be seen by other users. (I did this mistake once, too, but I fixed the link soon.)
I clicked one of these links, for an experiment, and wasn't able to see that page for a half of hour or so. Now I can see it, again.
Hey, just a heads-up -- came by to catch up on things, but I can't seem to access any of the days previous to this one, either via the arrows or through the Curtain Call storyline page. It just redirects me to the search page titled "Nothing Found." I can't seem to access anything between now and the June 13th comic: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-13th-2017/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-13th-2017/"). Everything else is a 404.
Hm, it seems fine to me, looking on my phone. What browser are you using?
Chrome on Mac. I'll try again in a bit here.
FYI - finally got around to getting back here a few days ago. All the pages are visible. Probably just a cache glitch or something.
I had it, too, for a while, but now they are back for me.
oh good, I think it might've just been a temporary blip! I'll keep an eye on it, thanks for letting me know!
So... the paint thickens
Why not the porridge? Or the pie filling?
I'll just leave this here: [https://youtu.be/ua9VJyRRKXM](https://youtu.be/ua9VJyRRKXM "https://youtu.be/ua9VJyRRKXM")
Thank for you for this. :)
The current cast are immune because they are humble. (Vee not so much.)