A classic stickybeak
I hope that you will have a little more sympathy for painted trollops on drug benders (real or imagined) than Mrs Clovis does. They need our understanding and our care, not quickly cast aspersions and scorn. Today’s comic is brought to you by Brasso.
Sine your buttons with Brasso;
It’s only three ha’pence a tin.
You can buy it or rip it at Woolworth’s
But I don’t think they have any in.
Mrs Clovis has a point, Lottie is a stickybeak, it’s like the number one requirement for be a detective! Love to see how determined Lottie is to find Shelley ♡. While, seeing how unable Maggie seems to stand up to Mrs. Clovis is pretty sad. I know the old woman is crazy strong, she really helped her a lot, they loves each other ike a grandmother and niece and she probably knows her since childhood. But it’s still a bad way to deal with strangers in need. Lottie will go straight to the Church of Satan and find more reasonable people!
Mrs Clovis is probably about 70% of the reason Satanism has such a significant presence in Tredregyn. God knows it’s not because of Magus Tom.
Probably best not to mention it in her presence, though.
I think we are on something here. Mrs. Clovis is Magus Tom inside agent without knowing it!
Hopefully Lottie will run into either Rev. Penrose or if she has to seek out the Church of Satan, hopefully she’ll run into Billy before Tom can twist the investigation to serve his own purposes.
Imagine if Mrs. Clovis knew that Shelley had a child out of wedlock. She might want to sign up with whatever forces it might be that wish Shelley harm.
“hopefully she’ll run into Billy”
And mistake her for Shelley’s Doppelganger in some context or another. 😉
Tom is no match for Charlotte.
Agreed. A single “j’accuse” and Tom would be blown all the way to the Hebrides.
I’ve only just noticed that Lottie’s rolling suitcase seems to have a happy face on it.
It’s “glad to be of service! (hmmmmmmm!)”
+1
Thank you!
That stuff does work great. Haven’t tried it on my axe.
I use Sidol and I’m happy with it. But I wonder if there’s something better.
The painted trollops need understanding. I need an introduction.
Did I go back and check out the yellow liner inside Lottie’s coat in the previous pages now that I noticed it? Yes.
“over-run with Satanism”? She’s been to the inn and the bookstore. Two locations can hardly be extrapolated into “over-run.” Perhaps she’s seen more than we’ve seen her see.
Compared to most towns she’s been to, that’s pretty over-run.
Chill, ronald.
She’s seen the flyers and posters in the bookshop with all the upcoming Church of Satan social events. It’s a reasonable extrapolation.
We can logically presume that her eyes have seen more than the two locations shown to us in the comic.
I’ve begun to feel picked-on by Ronald. He holds me to the same high standard that the Federal Aviation Authority applies to airlines. I’m almost too scared to read the comments now.
My apologies. I frequently don’t even remember that you, the artist, are reading the comments. I sometimes make comments on “Doonesbury,” for example, and I’ve never once had G.B. Trudeau express the slightest bit of interest in me or anything I’ve had to say. Again, my apologies. 😐
That’s quite all right Ronald. I enjoy joining in the comments and remember the names of all my regulars, to the extent that I worry when they disappear permanently.
Yes, she has.
‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me’ doesn’t get much traction with Mrs Clovis.
Shame that ‘I was a painted trollop and you assisted detectives with the investigation into my disappearance’ never made it past the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Most yiayias are just as fierce. Strangers in this area anyway tend to be… troublemakers
(Also, if she wants to see the vicar, isn’t Billie the vicar and… somehow INVOLVED in the local satanism problem?)
Rev. Penrose is the vicar.
“I’d like to welcome the pommy bastard to God’s own earth, and I’d like to remind him that we don’t like stuck-up sticky-beaks here.” Mrs. Clovis and the Bruces of the Philosophy Department of the University of Woolamaloo think alike.
“Painted trollop”, in Miss Clovis’ book, clearly refers to any unmarried woman under 40.
Shelly was born on 5/4/1980, so there’s a good chance she’s tipped the big four-oh.
Presumably a lot of fraught phone calls with Amy involving a heady mix of mild wailing, cheap wine and existential terror.
From John, in a response on the April 26 installment of this very story: “Don’t go trying to match up ages too carefully. Whatever happened to Shelley at the Ministry of History will keep her spry and youthful for as long as we’re all alive.” https://steeple.church/comic/a-lot-of-dads/
Is the same true for Tim? Or will she be forced to remain eternally youthful while her beau slowly slides down the slippery slope of entropic decay?
I’m pretty sure John let slip in a comment or response somewhere that Tim and Shelley probably aren’t together anymore, but I’m feeling to lazy to try and find the reference right now.
Yes, that was in reply to my question about who was looking after Peggy. https://steeple.church/comic/just-keep-headin-on-up/#comment-6334
Also she’s been to other dimensions and exposed to mad-scientist stuff and hobnobbed with supernatural beings and died that one time. The influences add up. 🙂
The date of her birth has definitely slipped. That date was a revision in itself! You’ll notice that no actual date has appeared in a comic for a long time. The Mrs Clovis rule stands.
Put enough paint on a trollop and they remain ageless
Brian will help her. He may be a beast on the chain of lunar cycles, but he knows his children’s authors.
I would put my faith in Brian, he may be a horny beast in love with the moon but he’s also a solid town presence.
Ironic considering the moon is Shelley’s sworn nemesis
Plus he can lift Big Ken. Greased and ungreased!
Has Lottie ever backed away from making an over-the-top statement?
Whatever else one might say about Magus Tom, he’s a lot less defensive about (and thus more secure in) his religion than Mrs. Clovis is about hers. Such has been my impression, anyway.
IMHO he’d certainly be more fun to hang around with than Mrs. Clovis…which is admittedly kind of like saying “I’m a nicer guy than Stalin” but still.
Tom’s niceness is the niceness of a venus fly trap, though. Clovis is just an introvert
No, I’m an introvert. Mrs. Clovis is hostile. That’s a kind of extraversion. The kind that turns all their emotions into rudeness and shouting at people to get off their lawn.
Whereas Tom welcomes people (Unless I’m Wrong).
IMHO that’s one of the reasons that Christianity’s numbers are supposedly dropping, because Christian organizations are increasingly being perceived as unfriendly and unwelcoming. Please note that I didn’t say they necessarily are in fact BECOMING unfriendly and unwelcoming, I said that that’s how they’re being PERCEIVED.
Back in my Navy days, I huffed more than my fair share of Brasso, but I never read all the way down the can to discover that that I could use it on my steel axe heads. I thought it was for… you know… brass.
So many wasted opportunities.
I used to have a lot more sympathy for Mrs. Clovis. I’m hoping she’s doing this to be protective, and not just being a snotty asshole.
Looking at it another way, it does make sense to deny access to any reporter, journalist or investigator unless they have a warrant.
I’m astonished at the level of vitriol against Mrs Clovis I’m seeing here. She’s just doing what she always does. Remember how she treated Billie at first? She still has good traits, to balance the bad ones- she just usually has to already know you before she lets them out. I suppose it’s a testament to how much people love Lottie that they have such a strong negative reaction to someone being unpleasant to her.
Clovis reminds me of Granny Weatherwax. She knows her own importance and hates flighty thinking. Open hostility is but one of her many tools.
Mrs. Clovis practices headology. Prove me wrong.
I cannot imagine Granny Weatherwax being anything less than kindly disposed toward Lottie, at least without a great deal of contrivance in the vein of a Thor versus Spider-man fight to drive up the sales of a flagging series. Lottie is very clearly Granny Weatherwax’s kind of people, and even her pretense of naïveté wouldn’t conceal it.
Ms. Clovis knows she is insufficient to her task (the town, is, after all, overrun with Satanism), and strives to conceal it from those who would threaten her position by exposure. Esmerelda Weatherwax knows she is capable, and doesn’t care who discovers it.
Further evidence: Weatherwax can be in the same room with Nanny Ogg, and recognize her value. Clovis would fulminate herself to little molten pieces.