Forgive
The terrible truth comes to light. Oh dear oh dear. I hope we can resolve this in the few pages we have left, otherwise I’m going to be in a lot of trouble.
STEEPLE – A Scary Go Round Comic
by John Allison
The terrible truth comes to light. Oh dear oh dear. I hope we can resolve this in the few pages we have left, otherwise I’m going to be in a lot of trouble.
10 pages to go and SO MANY LOOSE ENDS! (Kinda gives me hope there will be more.)
Coming soon: Tredregyn P.I.
A mash up of beloved Americano 70’s and 80’s detective shows and sitcoms. Circumstances “forces” our three beloved clergy-types to live on a houseboat Three’s Company style, while a short inquisitive brunette assigns them cases to solve. A stout, bearded, mechanic friend of theirs “helps” and provides comic relief with his ever-so-inappropriate social skills. Occasionally a middle-aged bald man in a track suit yells at clouds and demands rent.
BBC3 after The Mighty Boosh (Series 4)
I hope it does well. Pretty stiff competition against BBC (or is it Channel 4?) staple, Clotted Crime.
I’m down as long as a bushy mustache in a Hawaiian shirt hangs out and helps solve crimes.
Graham McGraw? 😉
You’re joking, but a page with Graham dressed up as Magnum P.I. would leave me howling in the aisles.
I would watch the fuck out of that.
Don’t forget the painfully obvious subterfuge they go through because something they are doing is against the rules of their lease. Whenever the landlord shows up unexpectedly, hilarious antics ensue.
At least, the antics are MEANT to be hilarious. YMMV.
Could this be a case for… ROBERT COP?
His mother used to call him “Bobby”.
I blame her – Nominative Determinism being what it is.
Stop reminding us about how few pages there are left! 🙁
Maybe he just built the patio the wrong way around?
That’s a surprisingly selective memory Mary has about this. Now I wonder what was said/known by others at the time of his death. Was he ever reported missing? Did people wonder where he’d gone? Did he say something cryptic beforehand, such as “You won’t have Dick Clovis to kick around any more.”?
Would be kind of a dark story if no one even reported him missing
Maybe he was just very, very introverted
Does feel like we’re missing an awful lot of the story here. As is Mary, to be fair. Making me suspect the involvement of alcohol, rohypnol (or some drug like it), or magic.
Hmm, based on panel 2, I think Mrs. Clovis may have been framed by Scavenger of the Constructicons.
That’ll be Carthwr of the Evil Daffodil Haters, look you.
What is that mysterious “G”-shaped object near the corpse’s waist? I’ll likely be told that it’s merely a belt buckle but it looks awfully significant to me.
It stands for “Gravatarless did it”
Allison’s Continuity Absolutely Byzantine
My first thought was “Assigned Christian at Birth”, which I suppose could be a way to describe baptism?
And Charlotte Always Back?
Is it just me, or is the bar on Billie’s cross drifting downward? Compare panel 4 on 15 January.
It looks upside down now!
Yeah, I noticed that too. Perhaps it’s some sort of spiritual barometer.
She’s a religious limbo champion?
I would imagine that if one was an artist who was used to drawing a specific element of a specific character’s apparel in a specific way, and then a change occurred in that element, it might be difficult to consistently draw that element in the new way.
It’s waxing petrine (petrine crosses are upside-down)
A few pages left? OR IS IT SEVERAL?
A plethora.
More than a sheaf, but less than a ream.
You folks sure are a handful.
…
Or is that how many pages are left?
My theory… Mr C dug the hole because he was planning to do away with Mrs C, but he had a heart attack and, rather than report it, Mrs C decided just to cover him over and move on – and get that patio she always wanted!
I think the most she could be convicted of is failing to report a death and offering an indignity to a body, for which she would be released for time served on remand.
So, Mrs. Clovis knew he was dead and where he was buried, but not how Mr. Clovis’s death occurred!? It’s a good mystery. I wonder if the Sesh Gremlin was involved in some way. Maybe everything had happened while both were terribly drunk.
A good mystery you say? Perhaps someone will take up her case, someone short, and bold, and baffling.
George Smiley?
Bold, not bowled.
I would love that. But the last time we saw her, she was heartbroken and wanted to be alone for a very long time. Let’s hope she’s better now. She probably couldn’t say no if Penrose and Shelley asked her to help Clovis.
Incanters put the skeleton there.
Wait, I missed something, last I saw of Mrs Clovis, she was hiding behind the couch at https://steeple.church/comic/youre-fairly-straightforward/. Now, her patio or whatever got dug up & suddenly she’s in jail. Where was Cherenkov when all this happened? :). (<– smiley face makes critical whining more acceptable)
That’s not Mrs Clovis. That’s the busy body always trying to get the Tredregyn, Tregydyn, Trogdor, whatever the town’s name is, church in trouble
That’s not Mrs. Clovis. That’s Lorraine Lumsford, the bishop’s spy (who previously came nosing around in “Silvery Moon“), who was still lurking around the rectory after Brian helpfully spilled his guts to her. This is the first we’ve seen Mrs. Clovis since she left Maggie in charge of her cottage at the beginning of the last storyline, and we’re only now learning what happened during the timeskip between stories.
It pains me to see Mrs. Clovis in this situation, but I must say she’s taking it quite well. I’m kind of wondering if the only chance to clear her name is to somehow summon the spirit of Mr. Clovis.
You just know that no one on the inside gonna mess with Mrs. Clovis. That prison is *her house* by now.
ACAB was, of course, the last truly excellent Genesis album
But it was THE POLICE who framed Mary up – every breath you take and every move you make … they’ll be watching you!
Conan will save us.
Zebus, Warrior Child.
Come, let us stoke the pit!
I hate to say it but it looks like the body had it’s hands tied behind it’s back execution style.
Perhaps Mr. Clovis was just hanging around the house making the place looking untidy and Mrs. Clovis simply tidied up.
Also, great drawing of the digger head.
That’s a very feasible explanation, actually.
Mr Schadenfreude has had some narrow escapes, I can promise you.
I prefer ACAB as expressed in a quincunx. Requires an extra word, of course, but I’m sure you can fill it in.
The Mrs Clovis Murder Mystery got into my dreams last night.
Mr. Richard Clovis, no. Looks like Richard III to me.
No wonder Mary can’t remember his death.
Could be her third husband Richard. You know, like in “I’m Henery the Eighth I Am”.
Is one of his shoulders permanently higher than that other?
Can’t be. They found his body in his garden, not under a car park.
Who grassed on Clovis?
Snitches get stitches.
The gas works people dug him up doing line maintenance.
Panel 5: When Billie fibs her cross turns upside down.
Better than having your nose grow.
I wonder if it would work in reverse. I mean, hang it one way and you’re good, hang it the other way and you’re bad. It’d be like a personal good/bad switch. It might work.
Wait, was that body buried with their hands tied behind their back?
I’m afraid so. Scary!
Let’s say that it wasn’t Mrs. Clovis. Who would execute a man, Mafia-style, only to bury him in his own garden?
I wonder if Pixy Garage is in any way involved.
I appreciate John dumping every last planned story beat on us in this finale. Just a full firehose of things that will never be explored.
Stranger things have happened in Tredregyn than a husband returning from his mysterious disappearance in zombified form, needing to be hastily hidden under the patio…
He shuffled into the kitchen, asking Mary to cook him some brains?
“I wished he were dead”. Perhaps she thought this while polishing a very old lamp recently bought from the WI stall at the Jumble Sale.
Say goodnight, Dick.
Call her a cab.
Ah. So it is as we feared. Does anyone still have Lottie’s phone number?
Billie was in Zoom contact with Lottie after “Author Unknown” (see corkboard), but Lottie’s gone AWOL and I’m not sure she’s answering her phone for anyone now.
I hope we get back to her soon. More to the point, I hope we get back to Claire. I’ve been worried about her being left hanging.
I don’t think she will answer her phone. But if Shelley and Penrose go to visit her and ask her directly, perhaps… This is my hope.
And I’m all caught up. Bugger.
It’s not like any of us is going to catch any sleep until Monday.
Even after death, Richard was always underfoot.
So did the whole TRIDENT situation get some kind of resolution or payoff in the Dark Horse published stuff? I feel like there was probably more to the story there than I’m seeing.
No.
There certainly was a lot more to the story than what we’re seeing. JA has written that he it’s uneconomical for him to keep doing Steeple as Dark Horse won’t commission any further print editions, so as he’s finishing early it looks like he’s rushing through to give a light taster of all the outstanding stories he had planned and would have developed seen more fully had the series continued.
-New blood at the Church of Satan
-Brian getting a regular job
-Billie trying to find a new balance after returning to Christianity
-What happened to Mr Clovis
-Defeating Trident
And so on.
This is… exactly what I did.
“With my hands zip-tied behind my back, I will be placed in this wooden frame which will then be poured with concrete. And to ensure my wife is unable to assist me, I have had her hypnotized to forget this entire incident. BEHOLD THE GREATEST ESCAPE STUNT OF ALL TIME!”
Given how things have turned out in some of the author’s other works, your theory seems entirely plausible.