November 30th, 2018
30 Nov 2018 · page 855 of 1306
Like I wasn't going to get back to her ASAP.
Cast: Eliza Swift
Comments (65)
Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Equally spaced around a circumference of the earth? Easter Island (with a little AU geography).
That seems the obvious answer, but it also seems TOO obvious, surely they would have worked out that the other three are equidistant from each other already and found the island? The door in the witch world was only an outline too, I'm wondering if it is underwater and thus completely inaccessable.
My idea is, of course, completely wrong. I've never called anything right.
Have any of us? To paraphrase Tom Siddell on predictions made about his own comic: picture a dartboard with every available space covered in darts except for the centre.
I've still got my money on Skull Island. Ooh, or Lincoln Island. Or Caprona. Or the vanishing Aurora Islands. The South Pacific has a lot more weird little islands than many people realize.
Equally spaced would mean, for four anchors, arranged in a tetrahderal manner. Widdershins is in England, the mountain Anchor in Tibet, the south pacific anchor in the south pacific. Thinks... Looks on Google Maps...
Nope -- that doesn't work... Ohwell.
Using Mt Everest (28 deg N, 87 deg E) as reference point for the Himalayan anchor and London (51 deg N, 0 deg E) for Widdershins, we notice that they are about 90 deg in longitude apart. If the Pacific anchor is just south of the equator, the four anchors could form a square/diamond within the Earth.
Then the fourth anchor would be somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico or near Florida. Hints about the nature of the Bermuda Triangle?
This website makes 'opposite Everest' somewhere off the coast of Chile, not too far from Easter Island
, especially if you squint and are measuring your location with a bullet hole in a globe.
[https://www.antipodesmap.com/](https://www.antipodesmap.com/ "https://www.antipodesmap.com/")
If Mount Everest is the Mountain Anchor than it's antipode would be the Pacific Anchor. So the fourth Anchor would be the antipode of the Widdershins Anchor but in a desert so using London I'm putting my money on Australia
The antipode of Widdershins is off the coast of New Zealand, and that’s in the Pacific too. And we know there’s an anchor (and probably a Barber) there somewhere.
But working backwards from that, the closest country on the other side of the world to New Zealand is Portugal, so by that logic the anchor would be there instead of In Widdershins
We are also looking for a Desert, so it'd either be in the Ocean side of the Andes mountains or inland Australia.
According to canon, there’s an anchor ‘somewhere off the coast of New Zealand’, which could be directly opposite Widdershins, probably on an uncharted island, because we know there’s an ‘island witch’.
You only need to be opposite Everest if the plane where the square/diamond lies has to pass through the centre of the Earth. The fourth anchor would then be near the 90 deg W parallel on the plane where the three known anchors lie.
She's going to demonstrate with a gun, so it's in America.
Oh, there is Fourth Anchor Society, with their slogan "Do you believe?"
And a gun, well, I see what Eliza is going to do, but my first thought is "I hope they willn't need it in the near future".
I want to believe
Well, as long as when she's done with it, she doesn't hang it on the wall, that'll be alright.
Or put it on the mantle. Never, ever, ever put a gun on the mantle.
Particularly if you're one of the three Barber sisters.
"Allow me to demonstrate!" shoots the guy in blue "Now, for the demonstration I'll place pins in the globe to mark the known anchors..."
"He had a banana!"
"Suppose 'e's got a bunch?"
I know she's inches away from reenacting (preenacting?) the globe routine from The Great Dictator in panel two, but she's not a supervillain.
No one's a supervillain, until they are...
"Make a hole with a gun perpendicular/ To the name of this town in a desktop globe... ♪♪"
Damn you, beat me to it.
Yeah, the song "Ana Ng" was the first thing I thought of when I saw the gun and the globe.
Google about and you can find the Pogo comic page that They Might Be Giants enjoyed enough to write a song about!
So yeah, basically here we have a comic scene inspired by lyrics inspired by a comic scene. Fun little meta joke.
That's cool, I didn't know about that strip!
Pogo was a tradition in my family so thanks for pointing this out. Pogo the possum exclaims "You drilled a bullseye clean thru the mortal garden of Georgia's heart!" (They live in the Okeefenokee swamp.)
I think I've seen this sort of thing before: it was the origin story of DC's Scarecrow, where Dr. Jonathan Crane, lecturing on the psychology of fear, threatens his students with a pistol as an example. Will Eliza venture down a similar path? She's got the apothecarial setup to make fear toxins and so on...
Nicky: Well, it seems that the Scarecat was behind everything all along. So, I don't think we'll be pressing charges, Mr. Knott - your actions were not your own. And, as a result of what came to light during this... escapade, Mr. Sharpe is now exonerated. Any progress on analysing this "fear spray" that Scarecat used?
Eliza: strokes cat No... it is extremely complex. The work of a master pharmacologist.
Nicky: Well, whatever you can come up with... I do not need another... "super-villain" operating in Widdershins, on top of everything else here... although, thinking about it, where else would one arise... Send word to me the moment you have anything useful. exits
Vincent: sips tea Phew! That's great. Aren't you worried that they'll catch you, though?
Eliza: No, I don't think they'll get anywhere near, especially as I'm not going point the finger at myself for my own invention. Speaking of which, what do you think of my latest invention? holds up bottle marked "fortem" I've also researched in the opposite direction to fear. I put some in your tea.
Vincent: stares at cup I... I feel fine. I hope I'm not the first person you tested it on...
Eliza: So how do you feel about the family trade now?
Vincent: To Hell with it. I'm getting out while I'm still young! sets down teacup I'll go and tell my father now.
Eliza: Yes! Go for it! Strike while the iron is hot... waits for him to exit ...and my potion is still in full effect! hugs bottle
>:=)>
Possible typo in first speech bubble, "here is it"?
"Are there any objections to my current theory?"
"You shot Henry last time you used a gun for demonstrations. Didn't the headmaster tell you to stop with the dangerous theatrics?"
Meanwhile, Parsley is ignoring the whole thing and taking a bath.
He (she?) is not going to be thrilled with this demonstration, I'm sure of it.
The next page will include Parsley dashing for cover with her tail all fluffed out.
One big flaw I see with this theory is they assume there's only ONE more anchor than already known. What about a 5th or 6th ?
That can come if 1. they find the fourth 2. they find the fourth and it's totally out of place for a diagramed 4 point system.
The Four Corners of the World is an established expression though. So four is a logical expectation.
it's only an expression because a room has generally 4 corners, isn't it ?
No...? It's Biblical.
There's a LOT of room on the Witch Control Center™ wall
Is Eliza's research also going to help us connect up with Harry?
Nice touch with the 'Fourth Anchor Society', or is that just 'Fourthian Society'? And I have to wonder if that's Charles Fort in the blue coat being called out. :-}
'I will shoot you if you interrupt me again so help me god.' Wow, I love her. And Parsley.
Umm the bullet will not be to map scale.
(ducks)
That's why we have words like "probable" and "approximate".
I'm suddenly reminded of the novella "Roadside Picnic" (the ultimate inspiration for the STALKER games), where someone explains the placement of the alien-touched Zones across the world by comparing it to the alignment of entry and exit holes if you shot a spinning globe with a gun. Though in that story it's used to plot where the alien contact came from, in stellar terms, not to figure out where more Zones are.
This is going to turn out like that time Mountbatten demonstrated the resilience of Pykecrete at the JCS meeting, and Adm. King almost took one in the leg.
It occurred to me that if Sharpe has actually used his method on himself, then one person who might be able to tell right away and fix him would be the witch.
...and Eliza thinks that Harry is the witch.
I'm already making the popcorn.
:shatter:
... Probably shouldn't have got a globe made of glass.
On a semi-related topic, my copy of Curtain Call from the Kickstarter came today! <squee>
"Hello, Harry..."
I like where this is going…
I'd reprimand her for bringing a gun to her lecture, but she's got a gun!
She could have done this with an unfired clay globe and two needles. So I like what it says about her that she brought a pistol instead.
Uh? I guess Eliza is going to shot the globe in the places of the known anchors, and then let the weight of the bullets upend the globe. If I follow the logic, in order to "balance" the other three, the fourth anchor's location is at the point which will be on top of the globe.
... **think about it too seriously for about 2-and-a-half second - OK, more like half an hour**
...
It's worth a try.
Fridge logic - It suddenly dawned to me this globe is likely made of solid wood, it's not a modern hollow one made of cheap plastic. So it may be bulletproof, especially to the weaker 19th-century pistols, compared to our modern firearms.
Shot away, lady! For Science!
I think her reasoning is more that the anchors are in pairs directly across the globe from each other, so she's going to shoot a bullet through it from the Widdershins anchor, which will come out at the probable location of the fourth anchor.
From the angle in the drawing, she's more likely to shoot the cat.
I think I know what Eliza's doing as I read about something similar in a comic (Pogo). The Pacific anchor is on the opposite side of the globe from the Widdershin anchor and Eliza is going to demonstrate by shooting the globe.
The antipodes of Widdershins would be just south of New Zealand...
Is there an island there?
Why do I feel like this isn't the first time Eliza has pulled a gun on a room full of people?
I thought of the Widdershins world as a nicer place than the real world. I'm sorry to learn that they also developed modern firearms decades before we did.
(Flint lock weapons were state of the art in 1834. One of the technological changes which made the American Civil War so much bloodier that the Napoleonic Wars was the introduction of the sealed cartridge, without which our modern handguns would be impossible. )