October 2nd, 2018
2 Oct 2018 · page 839 of 1306
Yes, that was an actual tradition. I agree with Eliza, it is grim.
Cast: Eliza Swift, Parsley, Vincent Knott
Comments (67)
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The third panel: oh, I suspected that.
I mean is he really going to be let down if you go into law. Really? Have you thought hard about this knotty, like...really?
You'd be surprised how seriously some families can take family businesses, I doesn't matter if what you are doing is more impressive or makes you happy your family will still not be happy. Hell, sometimes they don't even need a family business to still have an idea of what you should do.
Seriously I'm in one of the top accounting programs in my state and my family still finds things to complain about cause they think I should be doing something else. I can seriously sympathize with Knotty even if that might not be his situation in reality
I mean, I can see it being both. I defend them, and then if I fail, I hang em. Might as well let them die at the hands of a kind friend.
I feel like that is a conflict of interest and not something most would be able to handle emotionally
>not something most would be able to handle emotionally
And certainly not our poor anxious Vincent. 🙁
Ah yes lets get emotionally invested in this person I am about to kill, that won't leave long lasting psychological scars
Could very well be. Could also be his Dad only became a hangman because it was the family business & the done thing.
Know a guy who's a professor of chemistry.
His dad was disappointed he didn't go into the family business, plumbing.
I hope Captain Barber is still on compassionate leave, because she is not going to be amused by this amateur meddling in the due process of The Law.
Nicola strikes me as the sort of person who would deal with being upset by throwing herself into her work more fiercely than ever, so she might not have taken compassionate leave even if it was offered.
Is ‘throwing herself into her work more fiercely than ever’ a euphemism for hitting people with her night stick?
Probably!
No, it's a euphemism for throwing the people who are her work, typically out a window or through a wall.
And believe me, when Nicola throws you through a wall, you know you've been thrown.
There's a rumour that she originally joined the Royal Marines, but was thrown out for unnecessary brutality.
I'm wondering if she and Verity got back together after all this...
I'm pretty sure they didn't, but at least Vee would understand the idea of being totally immured in your work.
I doubt that Captain Barber is on compassionate leave. I expect that after she learned that Harry hadn't come back, she'd do two things in order: first, she'd have torn Our Feckless Heroes into shreds for losing her sister and then she'd have launched a single-minded crusade to find and rescue her sister.
I pity the fool who got in her way.
What about the fool who’ll be trying to help?
They're the same person, usually.
(OT: I just used 'plural they to refer to a singular person of unknown gender' because that's just how modern English works. I didn't even realize I'd done it until I was about to post this comment.)
I was actually thinking of a ‘he’, specifically Mr Malik, who will also be highly motivated to rescue Ms Harriet.
He might, indeed.
But what about Vee? Vee's the best hunter ever -- just ask her. How could she not contribute to finding the second best?
Oh, definitely. If nothing else, she needs to get Harry back so she has somebody to outdo!
Don't they pretty much know what happened to her? She went through the door to one of the other anchors and now has to make a long trek back to civilization?
I mean I'm not clear on exactly how far from civilization the other anchors are and I don't remember if they've invented the telegraph yet, so maybe she'a overdue for a message saying something along the lines of, "was transported to Tibet, finally made it to city with telegraph. Wire me money for my trip home." But I get the impression that even if they have the telegraph it would take a bit of time to get to a place that has one. Especially since even if they have telegraphs they probably don't have wires going all the way from India/Tibet to England so there would be some delay. And they definitely wouldn't have one in the immediate vicinity of an anchor.
If there's no telegraphs, then it would likely be months before they even got a letter, and with no funds except what she has in her pockets it might take even longer to get back.
Eliza the 4th anchor conspiracy theorist, nice. Surprised her cat isn't named Mulder now.
Being a conspiracy theorist must be so much more interesting in a world where magic and other freaky shit aren't being suppressed by the Palladist World Government exist.
I'm not sure. "Hey, look, alien visitors!" "Dude, that's just some spirits of Spookiness. Bor-ing."
Surely the weirdness of the conspiracy theories would have to increase proportionally to the baseline weirdness of the setting.
Oh please, we all know that "4th anchor" nonsense is just a bunch of hokum.
:P
To be fair, nothing put forth so far has been more than a little off base. And all the research that went into those theories is probably what's going to save the about to be hanged.
Isn't law and order kind of what being a hangman is, anyway? The family biz is already dispensing law...
This is kind of like a guy being depressed because he really doesn't want to run the small, traditional patisserie because he's really into the thought of the catering of bread, sandwiches and savoury pies in a big way. :/
I feel like this is much more like a guy being depressed because he really doesn't want to run the small, traditional patisserie because it involves pulling a lever that kills a person.
In a lot of countries executioners were shunned publicly as well due to the stigma (although some would say that lawyers carry their own stigma in modern society too...)
Apparently you've never accidentally caused anaphylactic shock via peanut, strawberry or sesame. Or the hellishly slow death gluten can do a body if they have celiac disease. Or the less-than-legal practices some did with things like sawdust and chalk. ;P (My family... has. In their defence, it's not like allergies have been all that well understood until relatively recently. There's no defence for the not-actually-raspberry seeds-eggs-or-flour brigade, though: they knew full well they were peddling wood, wallpaper paste and plaster.)
Ah, wartime cutting of the mix due to supply shortages or just being cheap in the baking biz?
Bit o' both, I'm sad to say. Some few got kicked out the family, let alone the guild, over crap they got tempted to pull over the decades and centuries. <_<
He seems more interested in being a public defender than a prosecutor. Though I don't know if law in the UK works that way.
I would add that a hangman and a public defender are really opponents more than colleagues in the law business. One put the final seal on the society's process by which it deems someone unworthy of living, the other does its best to keep people away from the noose.
Well, yeah, that's what I meant - he wants to be the opposite of a hangman.
Barristers, advocates, solicitors and advocate solicitors... We don't have the same system, no.
Any one of those may specialise in defence or prosecution, but... in their own area of expertise. Or, you know, dabble in both defence and prosecution... or in avoiding both entirely to focus on systems. What counts is where and how they spend any face-time with a client and how much time they spend on procedure and theory.
It's one area where Britain is rather less Punch-and-Judy than the US.
Oh yeah, I recall a passage from "The Old Curiosity Shop" now:
The gentleman who was against him [the boy framed for thieving] had to speak first, and being in dreadfully good spirits (for he had, in the last trial, very nearly procured the acquittal of a young gentleman who had had the misfortune to murder his father) he spoke up, you may be sure; telling the jury that if they acquitted this prisoner they must expect to suffer no less pangs and agonies than he had told the other jury they would certainly undergo if they convicted that prisoner.
Love the perspective in Panel 6. Makes Eliza's head look huge. 🙄
Ah, so that's what the false starts were.
Interesting use of singular they, by the way. From what I can remember no other people in this comic have used it, so does this say something about the person in question, or about how Victor literally haven't even been able to find out their gender, or is that just his speaking habit? (Or, does the plotline mandates that the identity of this person be concealed until later? ;) ;) ;) )
We don't think about it, but "plural 'the'y referring to singular persons" is quite acceptable, although only in reference to unknown persons. That's one of the reasons that the NY Times Style guide accepts "plural 'they' referring to singular persons, known or unknown," since that usage is basically well established. (FWIW, the use of "plural you in direct address of a single person" was still a matter of debate until well after Shakespeare.)
Parsley needs her own character tag!
No character tag could possibly suffice to capture her feline majesty in all it's glory!
I'm kind of surprised that Vincent hasn't thought seriously about going into law. With that trunk full of legal books, I assumed that was his plan all along.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: make up your bloody mind, lad.
I have the distinct feeling that the person who's supposed to be hanged is someone we know already...
Interesting tradition. Any reason for it?
Dang, even if he's only doing it to avoid having to pull the lever, incredible respect for Vincent for working that hard on winning people that last-minute reprieve. Even if he does end up in the family business, hopefully he comes to value what he does and has done with direct access to these people's cases.
Hey, at least they weren't kept in the village stocks the night before
Ah. Doing that you believe is right or trying to please you dad. That's indeed a knotty issue.
(sorry, could not resist)
More seriously, I can see how leaving dad's business is not that easy a decision to take: on top of family loyalty, there are also all the people who are in need of help now - like the three people he already saved from the noose. Leaving behind him one person to its fate on the hope that later one, as a lawyer, he may hypothetically be in a better position to save others people is a very cold calculation. He has too much empathy - or too much sense of duty - to go this way.
Also, breaking with the family's tradition/abandoning his father feels too much like a no-return situation. And if he decides to leave to become a lawyer, it will be with the objective to come back. Until he can see a way to leave without risking burning bridges...
The tradition that always annoyed me was that hereditary peers and those with the Freedom of London could be hung with a silken rope. Upper class always have to be different even with their executions.
You know Vinnie (can I call you that?) I think your dad would be okay with you setring aside the family business since you really don't like it that much and he knows.
You'd do right to heed her career advice. This profession is just knot going to go well for you.
A sudden drop in business seems likely
Plus, it seems unkind to leave your father hanging.
He'd be at the end of his rope for sure
What he needs is for them to abolish the death penalty, if were going for historically correct then the last hanging was in 1964, but the actual penalty itself wasnt abolished until 1998. So i dont think thats going to be his way out.
Well, it's magical AU Britain, in a few ways more progressive than it was in real history. So I think they have a chance, at least.
The problem is, even if they abolish the death penalty in Widdershins, Knotts are travelling hangmen, and there will be job for them in other places, still.
Yes, you would definitely be letting your dad down if you went into a job that makes a lot of money instead of one that requires you to kill people.
Still not on Comic Chameleon after two days. The previous comic, and the ones before it that had been missing, all went up at once, but it still does not seem to be picking up new comics without (I assume) active prompting.
agh, it takes active prompting every time anyway, i just was better at remembering about doing it with the last storyline :| sorry, i'll try to get better!
Ahh, I see, I had figured it was automated somehow.
nah, since the panels need framed up it has to be done by hand! apologies again, will try to do them in the same day as the update!
Guy avoids death-penalty job by solving murders.
Maybe you should send this to CBS.