May 25th, 2018
25 May 2018 · page 798 of 1306
Gonna be at MCM London all this weekend with all six Widdershins books, all 3 Cautionary Fables books, and some super cute pins too!
Cast: Harriet Barber, Heinrich Wolfe, Jack O'Malley, Sidney Malik
Comments (53)
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Uh.
Oh.
Buck Jones is starting to chew his gum...
And thus ends several weeks of speculation with a confirmation of some pretty deft sussing from various people :)
(I know many authors like to watch speculation unfold, but I wonder if it ever ends up feeling like driving a large van full of very enthusiastic children shouting questions that begin with, "But what about-" and "I don't understand why-" as you slowly throttle the steering wheel, gritting out, "I will explain. When. We. GET. THERE" at every intersection.)
Yes, how does it feel to have people analyzing every aspect of your work, Kate? !!! You should be very proud that your work holds up well to the scrutiny.
Winger - great imagery in your description. :)
Great, now we've gone to the meta level of analyzing her reaction to our analysis.....
Well, the children must keep themselves busy with something until the next page stop. ;)
I like your comparison. :)
I have long felt that doing a webcomic is performance art--in effect, you're doing your rough draft in public, while the audience kibbitzes.
Well, it's more of a penultimate draft, if not the final draft.
Pascalle Lepas of Wilde Life does occasionally tweet that this is a feeling, mostly when a fan has gone totally off the rails in the comments about "what is actually" happening in the comic and getting judgy.
Yeah Pas has mentioned that in the comments too :D
As an author, I can confirm both. I love watching speculation, but sometimes I'm like "It'll get there when it gets there! I swear there are answers to everything" (Except sometimes one thing, which mysteriously acquires an answer in an upcoming chapter)
What is she throwing in panel 2 to make the tear? I can't make it out.
The candlestick, it seems.
It was Harriet Barber, in the Lux! World, with the candlestick.
Oh wow, I didn't even notice that. I just figured she was punching her way out, but now that you point it out, there is absolutely no way that hand motion could be a punch.
I wonder if it turned into the musket.
Man, I haven't thought about Labyrinth in ages, and suddenly I'm having flashbacks. That'd've been a totally different movie if Harry were the main character.
David Bowie playing the part of Luxuria, though... that actually kinda works. Maybe even a little too well...
I really disliked that movie and this is spot-on hilarious anyway.
Myself, I looked at 'Where is this?' in the dance scene a few pages back, and said 'It's the Hall of Dreams Where Goblins Dance, of course!'
Parting the veil there, hey Harry?
Can't pull the wool over her eyes.
It's pretty weird when characters break the fourth wall without actually breaking the actual fourth wall
It would be a heckuva lot weirder if they were, literally, breaking the fourth wall: e.g., a hand reaching up out of your screen....
Things We're Glad Technology Will Never Do: part 314.
I love the characters in the third panel looking outraged at the hole in their world even as they go sketchy.
Ripping through the fabric of illusions!
Wow, that 4th panel is amazing. The shadows of people in panels 2 & 3 are rather fun also.
This page reminds me of this scene. =p [https://www.youtube.com/wat...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B56YRizoTc "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B56YRizoTc")
Now, Harry! Grab your gun and shoot off the bastard's damned head!
Hrm. I mean to say, use the box with two-minute-respite.
"Embrace the healing power of 'And.'"
and. . . ?
She can use the respite box AND shoot Luxuria in the head!
Yeah, this isn't the best forum for trolling people.
Who let a bugger up of "minor annoyance" get on the keyboard? Someone get Mal out here before it starts repeating itself again.
...and Save Mr Malik. And give O’Malley a kick up the backside and tell him to get on with it.
I really like how in panel 4, the part of Harry's body that's still behind the veil from our perspective (left arm and legs) still has the outline of the floofy dress, but the part visible through the gap is back to normal.
There was some speculation a couple of pages ago about whether Harry would be able to see the caged spirits. The last panel isn't in Mal-vision, and we can see Wolfe and Sid's spirits above Mal, so it looks like she can too...
> The last panel isn't in Mal-vision, and we can see Wolfe and Sid's spirits above Mal, so it looks like she can too...
Yeah, but I don't know if she does see them now, it seems she is looking down, at Mal. I don't envy Lux when she sees Sid.
Ooh I didn't notice that in panel four, thanks for pointing it out!
I bet malforms and other spirity things are fully visible here as well.
Which makes me wonder: did Lux pull a certain magpie malform through by accident? It might be a help to team Mal and Harry.
If any malform suddenly appears to save the day.... then it's gotta be the Purple Hippo of Happiness.
I believe, Ms. Barber, the word "tawdry" sums it up best.
It seems to me that here, Lux's nature contributes to its downfall in a way. It planned for so long how it was going to go about its world domination scheme. But now that it got this close to getting what it's wanted, its lust for unlimited influence was its focus, causing it to do a poor and rushed job on Harry. I don't know if this idea will make sense to anyone else, but it's just the thought I had when I read this page...
And back here, Lust pretty admitted he doesn't understand human relationships:[https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/may-1st-2018/ "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/may-1st-2018/")
(Panel 4.) Nature and ignorance can be pretty self-destructive when you combine 'em.
Yeah, but you'd think he could understand the 4 basic personality types/character flavors/ninja turtles- this construct was an in charge Leonardo type, when Baker is more looking for a relaxing Michelangelo type.
So he was REEEEAAAAAALLLLLYYYY phoning it in. He wasn't even batting in the same ball park here.
I don't think he took that class.
Lust isn't human. He's intelligent (obviously), but despite hundreds of years of living as a human and watching and learning, she still sees more chaos than anything else--and that was just the emotions. Trying to parse out how those emotions affect relations between people is beyond him, because he doesn't have that experience himself. She knows how to manipulate them to get what she wants, but that's just the surface. It's not the same as understanding.
Lust has no reason to phone it in or rush. Everything's going exactly as she planned. He's got his witch tied up, She's got his Barber blood. He's got all the other Deadlies in his pocket. What happened here was a miscalculation on Lust's part due to her ignorance, compounded by her own nature.
Well, he might have had to rush so he could get the witch tied up.
Go get'em, tiger.
Lux says that since the other spirits are bound, he'll be the only human desire... The way Harry is eyeing that gun, me'thinks wrath still has some sway.
Ok. So Lust was phoning it in since he was busy. I'm glad that they acknowledge that. This was too cheap and cookie cutter of a fantasy- it doesn't apply to baker at all.
I also assumed doing it for all of them at once split his attention.
“Cheap”? Is Ms Barber insulted by Luxuria’s illusion of her wedding with Mr Malik, or the fact that he only portrayed a cheap wedding, not the very expensive wedding with all the trimmimngs that she’s always secretly wanted? I’m pretty sure I know what the answer is and also sure that I’m never going to ask that question in Ms Barber’s hearing.
The fake husband was cheap, although the fake wedding may have been apparently expensive (although, being fake, it was simply fake). But I think we all might know that it's much worse to have a cheap, fake husband than a cheap, fake wedding, so there you are.
I wonder if Lux saw the wedding scene just as a necessary prelude to the "interesting part", another cliche from romantic novels. :)
You just reminded me of something I meant to write on an earlier page, that Lux is like this quote from a character who was the supposedly "sexy" version of the ordinary character: "I put the 'super' in superficial" 🙄
Harry, already angery: If what I think is happening, is happening... it better not be.