November 27th, 2015
27 Nov 2015 · page 543 of 1306
Mwah!
Kel McDonald and I have a new Kickstarter running for the next book in the Cautionary Fables and Fairytales series, please check it out here! It's full of fantastic art and awesome stories, and there's free shipping in the US and UK! We're really close to the goal too!
Cast: Henry Barber, Isabelle Holt
Comments (53)
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content sigh
You're easily pleased, you know. :D
I dunno, based on Wilde Life it seems like puns tend to "light up" Pascal's day.
Having read Kraken, I know that magic operates almost entirely on bad puns and semantic quibbling
Webcomic or book?
Book by China Mieville. And that's not even some sort of snide observation of mine. That's literally how magic works. It's even a plot point (or several).
And the live studio audience goes "Wooooooooooooo"
Where did Lord Barber find a box to stand on?
It all begins when you sink into his arms.... and it ends with your arms in his sink.
He's on his tiptoes.
She has heels, too.
The knees bend until one descends to exactly the right height. Bracing walks in the country and gardening are just the right kinds of exercise to prepare one for such an exigency.
Miles Vorkosigan is fond of pointing out that such differences become irrelevant in a horizontal orientation.
love those books
I don't believe you've met the lady, apparently.
Well, I can't see Lord Barber helping with the washing up.
Ha.
Married to a wizard?
He'll help.
Flying knives across the kitchen...
Pass! Or, "Duck!" Whichever. ;P
I was thinking more along the lines of "If that washing up isn't done by the time I get back from the library, you'll be sleeping on the couch". Given the era and Lord Barber's background, I expect they'll have a maid (and probably a cook) to do all the housework.
Given Henry Barber's discomfort with his background, I am not sure that he wants a maid (or any servants for that matter).
There's one in the lower left corner of the first panel
Yay! Finally, smooches :D
melts from all the cuteness
Those three middle panels are perfect. They create a much slower buildup to the lovely last panel.
Also, eeeeeeeeeeee! <3
Perfectly correct on both counts!
I wonder if everyone watching the lighthouse will be able to see them kissing in silhouette.
Oooo. The Ghost of Gloomgurgle Strait lives!
=====
Ah ha! An upvote! I knew there'd be at least one fan of Uncle Carl here.
Release the cannon! Fire the doves!
==========
Izzy's leaving off her specs?
:D
EEEEEEEoh yeah this was a foregone conclusion wasn't it but still
Spark spark sparkity spark!
I was looking for something on "sparking" as old-fashioned slang for kissing, and found this:
The James T. Callow Folklore Archive SLANG: SPARKING FOR KISSING AND HUGGING
AUTOGRAPH BOOK VERSE
THE SMALLER THE TREE
THE TIGHTER THE BARK
THE YOUNGER THE COUPLE
THE MORE THEY SPARK.
Where learned: MICHIGAN ; DETROIT Date learned: 11-05-1967
In Mechanicsburg where I come from, Spark means something else entirely and if Ms Holt is a Spark, Lord Barber should be very, very scared.
Ach, he iz a wily vun. He'z gunna be jost fine.
He's gon' need a bigger hat.
OH geeze. You're from THAT madhouse? Hey, could you grab those tools? The masters have me trying to fix this flying machine, although it doesn't look like any flying machine I've ever seen.....and don't mind the Jaeger, it's.....um.....there.
It's weird how I've just been reading that myself (found a copy in the library), and literally the first page I see when I check in on Widdershins again after a 10-day break is this! ...and yes, immediately had to stop myself making a pun.
- And she totally is, any fool could tell you that. Or whatever they call it in Widdershins. (I think what they call it in Widdershins is probably just "The wizard thought to be responsible for the accident...". I've been squeeing regularly at the way her eyes light up when she comes across any magical question at all, at however inappropriate a time. It's the look that, if you don't get in quickly enough, is followed by the words "Hey, what if we...", followed by an explosion or frogs or both.
Also, November 20th, panel 6. Nuff said sigh. Luckily a quiet life is the last thing Henry is after so he should be OK.
:) Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw
Joining the "Awwww" parade. Now, does newfound love protect them against Envy?
D'awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. <3
Am I the only one that finds the most interesting thing on this page is that you can use magic to produce a light source? I keep wondering what emotions have been combined to make that work? Obviously Lust / Love / Affection comes into it somewhere.
If they can magically produce light since long ago,
I'm wondering why they were still bothering
with oily streetlights in the future / chapter 2.
See [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/july-27th-2012/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/july-27th-2012/")
If I were to speculate I'd say that the cost of setting up magically-produced light, either in terms of financial cost or cost to the wizard, is very high. So worth doing for an important piece of major infrastructure like a lighthouse, but not viable for the hundreds or thousands of street lights in a city. For the same reasons, the skies in 1834 aren't full of sailfins and wizards don't telepoort everywhere all the time the way the Bad Guys did.
They're slowly replacing them with magic ones, like the one Mal lit his cigarette on here- [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-3rd-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-3rd-2014/") It's just that it's a long process that was being fought against because it's rather expensive, and because there were already people with oil lamps who could do it perfectly well, when they weren't summoning Sloth.
...I wonder what Edison will end up doing about that. And I mean that to refer to his ability to industrialize the research process itself, not Edison's personal abilities as an inventor.
Magic seems to be stronger closer to Widdershins (and other special places), and weaker farther away. We've seen the present-day, with electronics in most of the world, but they have to use an old-style steam train to go to Widdershins, and advise people to turn off their phones because magic and tech apparently don't get along.
Yes, but Agatha's Law ("Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE!") suggests that in this universe a guy like Edison could create a systematic, relentless framework for magical research. He wouldn't need to be a magus himself in order to tell the magi working in his facilities what to research and how to squeeze every drop of value out of the research that they'd do. In fact, a person who COULDN'T do magic him- or herself might be more motivated to push the research envelope.
Of course, it's Kate's world. All of this simply might not work. :)
Much of the US is a little lacking in magic at this point in time, being as it's quite far from the Widdershins anchor, and the next closest one is near New Zealand. So I suppose he could push for an automagic boom, but he'd have to move, first!
Heh. I can see three different, mutually exclusive, story lines that would branch off of that. Cool.
I suspect that Florrie's reaction to this part of the story is the exact same as most of the commenters' here.
Meanwhile, in the background, Harry is either making gagging noises or mouthing "TMI! TMI!"
D'awwwww.
-fistpump-
Question is will they ever be able to put out that light again...
An inevitable non-event.