Charity
A little shop for Bob? Lovely.
EDIT: For some reason I wrote “CROWLEY” not “WARREN” on the shop. None of my friends who see the comic early, or indeed the Patreon readers, spotted this and pointed it out! Bob Crowley is an old character from Scary Go Round. What a prize I am. This has now been corrected.
Yeah, but is Maggie comparing Billie to Bilbo or to Frodo?
Neither. She’s referring to Drogo Baggins, who was Frodo’s biological father, and whose ill-considered decision to go boating after dinner with his wife Primula led to Frodo becoming an orphan. And which reinforced the well-known tendency of hobbits to fear boats.
Billie, Billie Baker
The bravest little curate of them all
(Let’s just pretend that none of this “giving the characters the wrong surname” stuff happened, right?)
Given that you had an existing character called Bob Crowley, and that Bob Warren bears many similarities to notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, I think the mistake is entirely understandable! And probably why none of us early readers spotted it or remarked upon it as strange…
Also, the name “Robert Crowley” just looks better over the words ‘Occult Books & Curios” than “Robert Warren” does.
Yeah, the two Bobs do have a certain… spiritual resemblance. And for all the early readers knew, Bob Crowley might have escaped Hell and decided to retire into the book trade. Though one wouldn’t expect that to enrage Maggie.
Didn’t he get eaten by a demon while in hell?
He did. He was all about to try to impress Erin with his mighty sorcery to try to free them from Hell, and a demon came by and gobbled him right up.
Just a little bit. I don’t know that that would necessarily stop him, though. I’ve always wondered, where does an evil occultist go when they get killed in Hell?
They’re sent back in time a bit, and reincarnated as evil politicians who end up as major players in the Church of Satan, maybe?
Good to see it was a mistake. Still, either Maggie’s first idea that it’s a way to do money laundry is right, or Bob wants to continue changing his life by opening a nice little neighborhood shop. A place where he can express his new books passions and use his “special” knowledge for help others.
The workman in the last panel is clearly disgruntled at having to paint ‘WARREN’ over ‘CROWLEY’ on the shop sign.
Not as disgruntled as I was at 8 this morning ho ho eh dear readers
I’ve never seen a sign painter who looked gruntled.
I think “disgruntled” is in the job spec.
Meh, it’s not as bad as all of those times he’s had to paint things like “meanwhile” or “next day” on tall buildings, sidewalks, clouds, etc.
You shouldn’t go around calling people “Baggins.”
That’s a bad Hobbit.
As an American, the American Candy shops baffle and perplex me.
One time when I was visiting London, I walked up Oxford Street and counted them. Literally, 26 American Candy shops, all on what is supposed to be central London’s premier shopping avenue. It’s an open secret that they’re just money laundering fronts.
We even have one in Cambridge, with a frontage that probably violates local planning law. My wife occasionally amuses herself tracking the mysterious non-UK-domiciled corporate ownership.
(But Oxford Street’s prestigious status is one with the snows of yesteryear. Personally I think it evaporated when Games Centre was swallowed by Virgin.)
So they’re just, exactly, shops that sell American candy? Or is there some cultural nuance here I’m missing, as a ‘Murkin who’s never been to the UK?
They’re just “novel”
In my adult life here in the US, I’ve always found our candy to be kind of mediocre at best, and downright embarrassing at worst. I’m surprised anyone would actually go to the trouble of importing it.
having the same question myself, I found this article, which seems to explain the phenomenon about as well as it currently can be explained: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/londons-oxford-st-overrun-american-candy-stores-rcna38845
I’ll have none of this insulting American candy! Just off the top of my head, Almond Joy, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and M&Ms are national treasures. There are plenty of great American candies!
Fake Wonka bars. Willy would be ashamed.
imho unless it’s “Candy Kitchen” it ain’t
Bob Warren wants to take over Tredregyn. He wants the Church Grounds and he wants Tom’s Church of Satan. Jason and Brian to the rescue I think.
Honestly, this development could equally well tie in with “Bob’s genuinely reformed” or ‘Bob’s still up to his usual no good”.
So the comments thread on the “Robert Crowley” version on this strip is gone?
I contacted the British Library and the Library of Congress but they didn’t want it.
The fools.
At least the Robert Crowley version of the comic itself lives on, in the Patreon preview.
Poor Bob Crowley, re-condemned to an eternity in a demon’s lower intestine.
Beats trying to make a go of a bookshop in this economy, amirite?
(as he deftly repurposes his comment from the Lost Thread of Crowley)
Violence is never the answer Maggie, but it can be a fun way to spend an evening constructively.
Or deconstructively, as the case may be.