Changed
Dame Elaine Stevens has been mentioned occasionally in Scary Go Round, Bad Machinery and Steeple. I think she has only ever been depicted, once, on a television screen, and do not ask me which strip contains this appearance. She’s a bit like Elaine Page, but with a bit of Montserrat Caballé, and a bit of Marje Proops. An all round entertainer, warm, witty and wise (of course).
Hmmm. A “special, one-off individual.” Who is presumably the figure standing behind him in the flashback panel. Who seems to have a somewhat familiar frame. Hmmmmm…
Seriously. What happened to Billie in these three months?
She borrowed Clotilde’s outfit?
Wait wait wait! Was it Billie the one who gave Bob the precious book by Dame Elaine Stevens?!? I have no idea what she’s doing, but if she did it, she’s become incredibly powerful! What happened in these three months?
Plot Twist: It’s Gibbous Moon, returning to the comic after 15 years in the ultimate Scary-Go-Round call-back.
I wonder which named character has been absent from any new stories for the longest?
Take your pick http://bobbins.keenspot.com/cast.htm
A Gibbous Moon / Robert Cop crossover adventure would be a sure sign that I have won the lottery and paid John just absolutely stupid amounts of money to whip something up just for me
If you are going to go through that much trouble, please ask for cameo’s from Mimi and Elodie.
You’d think if Billie was going around handing out self-help books Maggie would know about it by now.
Not if Billie went on a journey of self-discovery after the events of three months earlier.
He’s basing his new life on a self help book that was on sale for 50p? At least have a LITTLE dignity and take the price tag off.
Maybe part of the program is radical humility?
Seems unlikely. He’s still wearing the red trousers. Also, he’s Bob Warren.
The harder circle to square here is why he would have thought she’d buy it. My guess: he’s messing with her. Second, uncertain but intuitive guess: It’s part of some scheme.
I’m pretty sure that everything Bob Warren does is part of some scheme.
As it’s one of those old small style of sticker with a handwritten price, it was probably swiped from a charity shop.
Seem plausible. That makes it even worse though. It means he’s basing his new life on advice that someone else deemed so worthless, they chose to throw it away.
Is it Billie? Hmmm… the fine print does talk about rejecting “external authority”, which does seem like the the kind of thing Billie would be into at this point. On the other hand, I think I’ll secretly pull for the Gibbous Moon plot twist suggested by RJF, on the basis that it would make me squee like a giddy child
I’m not sure about that. Billie did seem quite eager to be welcomed back to the fold judging by her conversation with Rev. Penrose (whom I fear may not be with the church anymore and not of his own free will). Also, I think Billie would prefer to actually help someone than to just hand them a dime-a-dozen self help book anonymously.
“Warm, witty and ever so wise” — note-perfect. If the cartooning thing ever falls through, John, you have a future in writing book blurbs.
A right good laugh once uou get to know her
Maggie pointing at the direction Grandmama did NOT go post-demise.
Or… DID she, indeed, go up? That would have been just the fate to eternally annoy her.
She is not using the pointing-finger there
For the purposes of displaying how sorry she is about Grandmama’s demise, that IS her pointing finger!
As that’s Maggie’s middle digit I don’t it’s pointing she’s doing.
*think
The skull above it gave it away.
Maggie’s send-off is so perfect. Got to say, Bob getting by on self-help? Just when I thought he couldn’t get any lower.
It just hit me- panel 3. Things were, indeed, going to change.
For a moment I thought that the author picture was Lorraine (?) from the diocese.
There’s a loose end that needs to be tied up.
Maggie’s doing well to bail on this conversation. Someone dying to tell you about a book they’ve filled with that many Post-It notes is a guaranteed two-plus hours of excrutiating tedium waiting to happen.
I have a book like that, called “Getting Things Done,” and while it has helped me a lot I’m not going to hand it to someone who tosses it aside. My copy! Mine!
It’s a great one! I think I have the sequel handy… https://www.robcottingham.ca/cartoon/archive/from-our-vaults-for-the-gtd-crowd/
Shelly Winters!?
That would be a great plot twist. I would love to see Shelly and Penrose together again.
It seems no one’s considering the two extreme possibilities= a) Bob’s completely making up the story, and there’s actually no “special one-off individual”; b) Bob’s telling the literal truth, and this really was a “special one-off individual”- no one we know, or will ever see again.
Nah. I don’t buy it, either.
I wonder if his mother really died. For what we know, this could be still part of their plan for force Maggie to do that ritual with the snake.
I go for a).
That book is really completely random, just a prop that’s supposed to lend credence to his story.
I admit I’m hoping as well that Bob is faking his newfound self-awareness.
There was such a menace there, a grandeur, that deserves more than a half-quid worth of dogeared New Age fluffery.
I can usually figure out which panel the title comes from, but this time I’m having some difficulty. Is it from panel 1, panel 3, or panel 6? Or maybe the title generation process itself has changed?
It was a team effort by panels 1, 3, and 6 (with additional support from panels 5 & 7, for the nearly matching word “change”)
I believe Bob. Sucks that he’s made such a mess of it that his daughter refuses to believe he’s trying to be a better person.
Probably Bob has turned his life around in the sense that he wants to make amends with his daughter, not in the sense that he’s really repented. It remains to be seen what extremes he is willing to go to make said amends…
What dark secrets surround the wisdom of Dame Elaine Stevens!? WILL WE EVER KNOW THE REAL TRUTH
If this is like most self help books, the secret will be that she had one good idea that could have been stated in a few paragraphs, and she padded that out to a whole book.