It’s a trap!
AKA I WENT TO THE KUBERT SCHOOL FOR A MORNING; TURNS OUT, WAR IS HELL I think this comic features every trick I have ever learned making comics, a shallow toolbox to be sure but I used every chisel on this occasion. I don’t want to diminish anyone’s service in an actual conflict, so as the sharp-eyed will see, this war seems to be between the British armed forces and mercenary soldiers on the Isle Of Man. I think there’s a jungle there. There’s no speed limit on the Isle Of Man, you know.
Who exactly was he fighting against, Mr. Allison? Britain didn’t participate in the Vietnam War. Was that the Falklands or something?
Looks like the Isle of Man
It says the Isle of Man in the description.
And there was me feeling pleased with myself for spotting the triskelion.
Well, just because everyone else climbed the mountain by driving up the paved road doesn’t render your climb up the sheer north face without merit!
I laughed out loud at the thought of the war being in the torrid jungles of the Isle of Man when I spotted the triskelion in the Patreon preview.
It’s the Gulf Stream that gives the island an exceptional subtropical climate, they always used to tell me when I was a kid, shivering in the fog half way up North Barrule.
Come now. Wiki gives the average temperature of the Isle at the height of midsummer as a balmy 64F. Shirtsleeves weather.
It does put the lie to “overseas” a bit as well, doesn’t it?
Wouldn’t it just be “sea”? Half a sea?
I’ve been on a ferry from Hersham to the Isle of Man. That is *NOT* half a sea.
Oh I see. I never read his descriptions but maybe I should.
Your missing most of the fun! Reread the lot from page one. Stat.
Or just learn to enjoy with wider eyes?
I try to illuminate any of my more cryptic references in the little posts, they’re definitely meant to be read with the comics, N.
I like how even the fonts are flashbacks in the last couple of panels
And Rev. Penrose’s war flashbacks feel very Commando comics
Penrose’s backstory is too traumatic!!! I’d like to know how he managed to survive. On the other hand, Lottie’s story about her friendship with Shelley is so sweet. Shelley is simply awesome AND tasteful!
I’d like to know where the gangrene set in, given that his limbs all seem to be intact. Perhaps the good reverend embellishes a bit…
IDK, have we ever seen all his toes?
Not that I’m petitioning for nudes of the Rev.
Much.
Tasteful ones, like they do in the LRB?
Maggie would be happy to sign that petition.
There was a man my family knew when I was a kid who had suffered from gangrene while escaping from Eastern Europe. His leg was saved because the maggots ate the gangrene. (Sorry about that, but it’s a true story.)
The Rev could also have a really amazing prosthetic, ok? 😀
I’m going to guess he was rescued not long after the gangrene started. I mean, how long could a war between the entire UK military and the Isle of Man actually last?
It’s like Afghanistan, a recurring nightmare for the Empire
Perhaps in the Bobbinsverse, the Scottish lost the Battle of Ronaldsway. And as a result in the modern day the Isle of Man is full of wild-eyed Manx separatists who wear balaclavas and skulls, loudly screaming the glories of Guðrøðr Magnússon, the last true King of Mann.
And riding their giant feral Manx cats.
Yes, yes!
We’re all poorer that these headcanons aren’t real!
It’s a goddamned shame that I can’t draw well enough to start truly being John’s biggest fanboy.
And that all the young people I want to hire to start doing a cartooning app with me are too busy to take more commissions.
Didn’t Shelley once tell Amy that ‘her boobies were for her & her alone and not for public viewing’? Authors, man. They’ll do anything to sell more books.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
That was one of my mother’s favorite quotations.
Who says it was frontal nudity?
Alternately, maybe she used the “cross-your-arms bra” method of covering up in the photos
I was going to say we’ve seen cover of that issue previously; Shelley was doing a straight rip of Demi Moore’s famous pregnant Vanity Fair cover. But I just checked (it’s in Bobbins book 4) and it was a different periodical altogether!
At the bottom of the panel we can see what appears to be a pair of bare legs and a Tibkins book, so probably two or three books strategically placed.
“It was very tasteful” may translate as “the cert.15 bits were just barely concealed by a couple of well-placed review copies”.
It was all done in the best – possible – taste! [insert Kenny Everett shriek]
We do know from her time in the mayor’s office that power and fame act to significantly weaken Shelley’s better inhibitions.
As does temptation in general.
I play a lot of Crusader Kings. Stranger wars have happened.
Oh! Lottie’s “well” in panel 7 is insouciant heaven.
I was playing the second to last track of the Matrix Reloaded (I already know) soundtrack, the extended edition… and somehow it fit… admittedly I have had quite a bit of rum tonight due to… job.
A nude photo shoot for The London Review Of Books is another item we can add to the “Only Shelley Winters could pull this off” pile.
In all modesty, I think I could do it justice.
Isn’t the Isle of Man also haunted by a talking mongoose or something?
Gef!
As explored, a couple of years ago, in the LRB – bringing this strip full circle! https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n15/bee-wilson/i-am-the-fifth-dimension
>Isle of Man
Oh, I thought that was a Sicilian crest.
Sicily also has a three-legged triskelion (with the head of Medusa and three wheat ears) on its flag, but putting the war on the Isle of Man is funnier.
Along with the escutcheon for the British East India Company, these are the few that have three of something, arranged rotationally. (EIC divides the field.)
I enjoy the notion that in the Bobbinsverse, Britain formed a short-lived “British West Manx Company” to explore the notion of subjugating and colonizing the Manx, and their rich natural fields of resources like tax shelters and offshore banking.
Also, what happened about the gangrene??
Loved the exchange of flashbacks.
Think I wrote those sentences the wrong way round.
Shelley’s last-panel wink suggests it wasn’t that tasteful.
Not to mention Lottie’s grimace.
Not to mention Lottie’s statement that the reason Shelley never judged her was because “she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on”, with that scene as the illustration.
Those black and white panels are gorgeous. I’ll take one gritty Reverend Penrose side project please.
So in this world there was Manx independence movement that the UK military fought? Sure, sounds legit.
I imagine quicker minds have already noted Steeple has an element of homage to the TV show Grantchester—or is the PTSD vicar and his grumpy caretaker just a classic British trope?
I don’t know that show! Is it on ITV? I have been to Grantchester, Cambs though.
it is on ITV, featuring an unusually attractive vicar, scarred by the trauma of World War I, who solves crimes while his grumpy housekeeper complains about him shirking church duties. Lacks the wit and supernatural flair of Steeple but I can imagine a crossover!
Ah yes, that awful war against the Isle of Man!
Also: Classic Lottie & Shelley!
I s’pose the Isle Of Man technically counts as ‘overseas’…
Technically it’s a Crown Dependency. Overseas Territories are places like Gibraltar, Bermuda and that army base on Cyprus.
Maybe it was a Christine Keeler* type photo
* Ask your grandparents
WHY ARE YOU SO AMAZING JOHN
WHY