A very spirited performance
Tom’s office pictures were suggested by members of the Steeple audience on Twitter. They’re Aleister Crowley, and former TV “funnyman” and all-round entertainer Michael Barrymore.
— COLOURS BY SAMMY BORRAS
Tom’s office pictures were suggested by members of the Steeple audience on Twitter. They’re Aleister Crowley, and former TV “funnyman” and all-round entertainer Michael Barrymore.
— COLOURS BY SAMMY BORRAS
Where did Tom get the egg? Nobody knows. Nobody really wants to ask.
ALL HAIL EGGSY
There’s a carton of eggs on his desk in panel 1.
he seems to keep a six-pack on his desk for just such occasions
I think there’s an egg box in the first panel. Why Tom keeps it on his desk is anybody’s guess.
Because it’s the most convenient starting point for a cardboard coffin you’ll find.
Because Billie.
It appears to be a half dozen, because he didn’t think she’d be around long enough for a dozen.
Tom has a thing for eggs, esp in stressy situations. See earlier comics.
Tom likes to mutilate chicken eggs when he’s stressed out. I think needlessly destroying a symbol of birth and renewal helps him reestablish touch with his core values.
For just such an occasion. Same reason Foghorn Leghorn keeps his feathers numbered.
It’s almost as if he knew his attempt to dismiss Billie would take a stressful turn.
…..afternoon delight. Apparently.
I remember listening to that song when I was a little kid in the 70’s and only much later being mortified that I had been singing along with it.
What?!
I always thought that was a sort of blancmange-type dessert?
Well, it kind of is.
Now that’s how you do a performance review in the Church of Satan. Also it appears like not just the readers here came to appreciate her way of making cleavage count.
Tom is screwed without even the common courtesy of a reach-around. Between Maggie’s Dad threatening to phagocytize his Church and Billie who could take it over from inside if she weren’t nice he doesn’t have many good cards left to play. He’d better take his priestess up on her offer; he’s not getting a better one
Oh Billie’s not nice. That’s the whole point. That’s why she joined the (regular) church in the first place. Yes, I have just been reading the trade paperback of the early issues why do you ask
The question is if Billie will become totally evil, maybe even worse than Bob, or if she will remain friendly.
Billie saved the real “spirited performance” for Tom!
Assuming he pays for them, Tom may be single-handedly keeping some local chicken farmer afloat.
I wonder how many times Maggie has been featured in Sex Magik magazine? And did she make the cover?
Centerfold, maybe even
I had to let my subscription lapse because I was following Blood Sugar instead.
And – was she solo, or in a group like Billie?
“Gudrun the Last”?
The five in a group on the *cover*. I’m sure each has her own feature article. And remember, in [fictional] Satanism, nudity is just another variety of worship attire, so it won’t be as big a deal. 😉
I’m reminded of how John A has previously created characters for magazine covers and then decided that he wants to write more about them. One from the cover of a “mystery kids” magazine (“15 under 15” OSLT?), for instance. Maybe we’ll be hearing more about these other four priestesses. If nothing else, they were obviously in the same room with Billie in order to have the photo taken, so they HAVE met each other, and even if they’re noticeably “evil” (the two on the left have the eyebrow thing going, anyway), Billie’s brought out the best in “evil” people before.
“Gudrun: the last interview”, I think.
Whither Robert Cop?
I wouldn’t assume they were all in the same room. These days, those sorts of group shots are easily assembled in Photoshop.
As to whether they were in the same room simultaneously, it’s not rare for such cover images to be collaged from separate photographs.
Well, he had a good run.
Please, please…give us a t-shirt of that Crowley poster.
I would love any kind of Steeple shirt or other attire.
Go Billie!
Come on, Tom: you know you enjoy being thwarted like this.
It takes some serious dark mojo to get the black candle to spell out diegetic narration with its smoke.
It’s awesome to see how strong and WAY more sure of herself Billie has become since she joined the COS♡. Tom is doomed. HOORAY!!!
I love the group of priestesses on the magazine – now I want a comic about their adventures.
I see the dark dalliances of the Bobbinsverse with the Barrymore family continue!
Did Len Pickering ever land himself a date with Drew?
It looks like Tom’s new war wound is acting up right now, too. No doubt adding to the festive air about this meeting.
Woohoo Billie!! In your effin’ face Tom!! BTW I take it the editors of Sex Magik went with the title because they’re big Marvel fans? Also noting the priestess on the left in the wheel chair, glad to see it’s a very inclusive publication.
What’s that green thing she’s holding, anyway? Is it alive? Was it formerly alive?
Here in the real world (such as it is), “magik” is simply a — heck, I don’t know — quirky alternate spelling for “magic” (which, when rendered with a C, has non-religious connotations on multiple levels: stage magic, magic realism, magic as practiced by Harry Potter and other figures in the fantasy genre (the kind that, you know, actually allows one to fly and zap and hang around with unicorns and so on), “Could This Be the Magic at Last,” and so on).
I think it’s more commonly rendered “magick” (with both a C *and* a K for that extra kick) but I’ve seen “magik” in non-Marvel contexts before.
Do a little search for “Letitia Cromwell Community College Witch” and “Hentai Action Theater.”
Not safe for the lab, else I would just post the link.
So did Sex Magik comp her, or did Billie have to pick up that copy at the local corner shop in preparation for this meeting? Unless she has a subscription- for professional development purposes, of course.
Probably the CoS has subscriptions to all the (serious) satanist magazines.
I hope he cleans that egg up immediately, otherwise he’s going to get egg all over his elbow next time he sit forward to do some gloating.
The dark church needs an equivalent of Mrs Clovis, she’d be in there with a damp cloth quick as Jack Robinson.
It’s supposed to be a naked acolyte. Or equivalent. But they can’t get the staff.
That’s probably why he wants to get rid of Billie. I don’t think she’s going to clean up his egg.
I love that variation of the “Hang in there baby” poster with Crowley in place of the cat. I agree…this would make a great tee shirt.
Is Billie wearing socks? I know when you live and work in the same place the lines can get blurred but I think you should wear shoes when you go to your “boss’s” office. Maybe at least put on a pair of slippers.
Also, as someone in the US I still can’t get over how the rest of the world doesn’t refrigerate their eggs.
Eggs naturally have an outer coating (outside the shell) that protects them from spoiling. Here in the U.S., eggs are required to be washed before they can be sold, which removes the coating. So, in the U.S., eggs will spoil if they’re not refrigerated, but in the rest of the world, they won’t.
I mean, if you think about, an egg is designed to be sat on by a warm creature for a number of days, no hen is going to pop their eggs in the fridge for the duration.
That’s if you want them to hatch. The fridge makes sure that will not happen. Here in the steamy mid-Atlantic U.S., I buy unwashed eggs from local farmers, but in our hot summers too many of them left sitting on the counter go foully bad. Sadly I have returned to refrigerating them, washed or no.
We’ve been buying eggs from a nearby chicken farm (which thankfully survived this winter’s catastrophic floods), which doesn’t wash off the cuticle. So for the first time in my life, I have a kitchen that not only has eggs on the counter, but has them on an egg skelter.
(For those unfamiliar with them, egg skelters are the universe’s consolation prize to hen’s eggs. “Here’s the deal, kids: You don’t get to be chickens. But you *do* get to go on this miniature amusement park ride.”)
“Do what thou willst”
I’m honestly loving the Sexy Satanic Cassock/Warm Wooly Socks combo.
I am pleased to see that, in the Bobbinsverse, Satanism is helping teen sleuthing keep the paper magazine industry alive (along no doubt with celebrity gossip and embroidery).
Do I want to know why Tom has a random egg carton on his writing desk…?
Well, he uses one of the eggs as stress ball here, but that can’t be the main purpose, right? Would get very messy if he keeps doing that…
He’s been shown using eggs that way before, so I think that’s something he does. https://steeple.church/comic/the-silvery-moon-concludes/
And on that occasion he was keeping them in the fridge, outer coating or no.
Chekov’s Sex Magik. Show a copy in frame one, use it to devasting effect in frame four.
“You know the flock love me.”
AFAIK this has also never been mentioned before but I could easily have overlooked/forgotten the strips to that effect. 😐
It was heavily implied, at least, in “The Silvery Moon”.
Explicitly acknowledged, ackshully
https://steeple.church/2020/02/18/?post_type=comic
Does the frog belong to the lower-left priestess, or *is* the frog one of the priestesses? 🤔
I think that’s a pet chameleon.
Maybe it’s Danny, of the Wendlefield Mystery Kids! Maybe his lizardization has progressed even further than when we last saw him!
Maybe it’s Danny, of the Wendlefield Mystery Kids! Maybe his lizardization has progressed even further than when we last saw him!
I wonder if Tredregyn has mystery kids of its own, whom both Penrose AND Tom consider to be meddling kids…
Well, there’s Godsplann.
This ain’t no party. This ain’t no disco. And Billie ain’t definitely fookin’ around!
It is also neither a Mudd Club nor a CBGB.
She ain’t got time for that now!
Billie saved the hurt for Tom and I am all here for it. She was super considerate with her friends at the anglican church, was thinking for the best way to end things with Rupert with the less damage, but Tom has made clear he won’t get the kiddie gloves. I am glad
She’s actually offering him the best deal he’s likely to get from anyone right now.
Damn you, Tom, you got that atrocity stuck in my head.
Billie’s eyes look dilated. I’d be very careful about what you do next, Tom.
Looks like there are only 6 more pages to Clotted Crime. As much as I’m looking forward to seeing what John has for us on badmachinery.com in February and March, it makes me sad that we won’t be seeing more steeple for a while. As much as I love all of John’s work, Steeple has become my favorite. I feel like these people are my friends. I want to know what happens to them, I want to keep being around them. And I suspect this story’s going to end on something of a cliffhanger, which will make the wait for more Steeple even harder (there’s too much going on here to be resolved in 6 pages, I think). So, my hat’s off to you, John, for creating such an amazing series, such wonderful characters, such an immersive world. I read a lot of webcomics, including some extremely well-thought-of ones, like Girl Genius and Dumbing of Age, as well as less well-known, but still worthy, comics (like Accursed Dragon, The Specialists, and The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!) and exactly which one(s) is/are my favorite(s) changes over time, but currently Steeple’s easily in the top spot for me (not that I don’t enjoy the others- I wouldn’t keep reading them if I didn’t enjoy them). This entire series is an amazing accomplishment.
Wow, thanks! I’m not sure exactly when Steeple will be back as I am juggling several projects, but there’s something Steeple-ish in the works that will hopefully bridge the gap.
I was also thinking there are too many balls in the air to wrap them all up neatly in the few comics left in this story.
Hey, Alaric. Thanks for putting me onto Dumbing of Age. Not as good as Bad Machinery, but it’s been great to binge. (Bad Machinery and Steeple top my list. Too bad they can’t go on forever.)
But what might that thing in the middle of Billie’s forehead be? A third-eye eyepatch?
(very, very casually, almost suspiciously so) And where might one get a subscription to Sex Magik magazine?
Great knod to Skin Deep magazine there… :¬D