Legit sidle over
Looks like a piece of vintage Rotastak there, bit of class. I always thought Rotastak was a bit tight on size for a proper hamster. Fine for a little one. But that was the 1990s. Perhaps they’ve got bigger. Like cars have. Aren’t cars BIG these days? And don’t policemen look young?
Chekhov’s magazine has gone off!
YES!!! Billie’s fame will grow! Ending up arriving at the homes of his parents and grandparents…
And quite possibly the Archbishop, who would undoubtedly like to have a word with Rev. Penrose about why one of their most promising young vicars is apparently on the cover of Sex Magik.
Won’t that mean the Archbishop would have to explain how exactly the cover of Sex Magick came into his possession?
Can someone link to the original? I remember it, but can’t find. Thought it might have been toilet reading but that was Marmaduke On The Loo
It’s this page: https://steeple.church/comic/a-very-spirited-performance/
Here ya go: https://steeple.church/comic/a-very-spirited-performance/
Thanks to you both!
Also, props to the traditional green witch with pointy hat.
Needs a good wart.
She’s a growing crone. I’m sure one will sprout soon enough!
That’s making me think of Grotbags, who I think would fit very well in the SGR universe.
Fun fact I just found out this week:
One theory is that the stereotypical “witch” costume we are all so familiar with, with pointy hat, cauldron, staff, and black cat, was actually the costume of female medieval *beer brewers*, also known as alewives.
Late medieval alewives had a pointy tall hat so they could be easily identified by thirsty patrons from distance. The cauldron was for the beer. The stick was for stirring the cauldron. The cats kept rats away from the hops.
Eventually, jealous male brewers decided that the easiest way to attack the reputation of the competition was to say that the most prominent alewives were actually in league with the Devil – a theory probably all to easy to accept under the influence of the next day’s hangover!
I love it.
Hmm, sadly it didn’t take me long to find a debunking of that theory…
https://braciatrix.com/2017/10/27/nope-medieval-alewives-arent-the-archetype-for-the-modern-pop-culture-witch/
I never trust theories that explain too much at once about some folkloric, mythological, or cultural trend. I tend to think these things develop over time, from multiple influences, even if that seems less satisfying.
Mother Louse would like a word with that debunking!
I did a bit of research on all of this too and the one real medieval depiction of an alewife that I found does does not contain the pointy hat on and so forth.
Mother Louse, however, a famous alewife who lived during the 1600’s, definitely wore a costume that could have been mistaken for witch’s garb.
I think we may safely debunk the theory about *medieval* alewives, but apparently at some point, *Renaissance* alewives *did* adopt the Phrygian cap and did start looking like witches – a fact that your Braciatrix doesn’t address.
1: A single picture of a single alewife doesn’t really prove anything about how alewives in general dressed; 2) The hat in that picture isn’t actually pointed, it’s flat on top. 3) While I’m not an expert, that outfit, including the hat, looks to me pretty similar to outfits other women of the time (who weren’t alewives) are shown wearing in other pictures.
Podcast transcript examining the connection between alewives and witch costume (through the lens of patriarchy / male takeover of the profession) with at least one further witchy alewife example, Ellynour Rummyng
There’s a lot of cultural DNA in the modern witch archetype, no doubt.
I’m not willing to rule out the Renaissance alewife without more rigorous study.
Do we know much about the inner workings of the Tredregyn COS?
Is young Miss Baker 9th OTO? 11th?
Awwww. Billie met her fans. It’s nice to see her become a role model for the next generation of witches and evil worshipers. Great way to say how terrible the Q&A were making it sound like a compliment. Debra will certainly be impressed.
I’m unsure if they’re pre-teens or teens. It might make a difference later. Or it might not. I have narrowed it down to those two possibilities…
Billie already has fans!! I’m sure Tom will be delighted to hear this!
He might go through TWO dozen eggs at that news!
Cars, like people, tend to put on weight as the model ages.
Now, our young crone won’t be able to use that signature on her familiar’s cage to work some dreadful magic against Billie, right? I’m old and easily confused on such subjects.
I think she might be able to use it in that way, but it would be considered a massive social faux-pas in cronehood.
Note that the hamster doesn’t belong to the young green-skinned crone, who I imagine probably has a traditional black cat familiar. In panel 3, we see that someone else is holding the hamster, and in the final panel, the hands offering the hamster forward are not green.
I am also poor of eyesight and completely missed those details.
I see the green-skinned one as less of the black cat sort of witch and more the blue flying monkey sort.
Good point!
I’m guessing that’s just the familiar’s travel palace, and will be reinserted in the full Maxi Mansion when they return to home base. Thank you for giving us a clue by hinting that it might be a hamster as I had thought it was a mildly deformed hedgehog. I don’t have the full Bladerunner “zoom and enhance” but it seems that the familiar is sharing the same facial expression as the tattooed audience member in the second panel. Is one of them possessing the other?
Also, I don’t mind Billie’s fan going full green skin, but the teeth! The teeth!
The “hedgehog area” is its bedding. Very accurate drawing of a hamster otherwise. Very accurate.
It’s the most accurate drawing of a hamster I’ve ever seen (on this page).
A hamster’s outline is ever-changing. Comes from being like 70% loose skin.
Dunno about the green skin. But the theet could just be a sign that she’s Susan Ptolemy’s relative.
In years to come, will these young witches boast about how they were in the room wnen Debra Blight and Billie Baker met? Is this the stuff of social media ‘clout’?
They will surely do that. After all, this may really be a historical moment. I wonder if Billie will even meet again the Head Witch and her coven from the 4th story.
Indeed! The meeting of The Present and The Future! In future years, there will be 32,472 people who will claim that they were there!
The hours of my young life I spent trying to scrub the crystallised hamster wee off plastic Rotastak pieces…
We went trad cage after a while for the same reason.
We had to stop using ours after witnessing the cat carefully push down on and start to unscrew the top of the bedroom module.
Ours developed an unhealthy fascination with escape after being separated from its mates, who weren’t supposed to be its mates, and after two unwanted litters. It eventually learned to run on top of the hamster wheel and take running jumps at the escape hatch.
This method bore fruit eventually, with the result that one fine night I woke up in the middle of the night and took a refreshing drink of hamster.
Maybe it’s the aura of popularity, but all of a sudden Billie started giving me strong Shelley Winters vibes
Mr Allison, want to salute your brave and bold choice of including so many shots of Bille’s patterned dress.
Outstanding effort! To perfectly draw each curve from so many angles. I am in AWE!
The aesthetic of this crew is definitely “harry potter convention”, it’s quite fascinating!
Is Rotastak the British version of Habitrail?