Milksops, murderers, or both
Maggie has really softened up Mrs Clovis. Mrs C. doesn’t let people in easily, but she’s truly taken the town’s most painted jezebel to her heart.
Maggie has really softened up Mrs Clovis. Mrs C. doesn’t let people in easily, but she’s truly taken the town’s most painted jezebel to her heart.
As a Cornishman I can relate to just liking seeing Cornwall on the telly… But Devon posing as Cornwall? I don’t know how I’d feel about that!
It’s just a ROLE!
You’ll be saying that only gay actors can play gay characters next.
My theory is that one of the reasons Mrs Clovis likes Maggie is because she’s so obviously an actual painted Jezebel. With most young women, she probably can’t entirely rid herself of the nagging feeling that maybe she’s being unfair to them when she calls them that. Maggie takes the pressure off.
My suspicion is that the affinity is typological: the same genera of being, at different life phases.
Like how limes, lemons and oranges are all the same fruit at different stages of ripeness
THEY ARE NOT
they are all pineapples wearing cunning disguises
The orange is an almost entirely fictional fruit.
A grapefruit is just two satsumas in a trenchcoat.
They’re all just different combinations of pummelo, mandarin and citron. Oh wait, that’s actually true–more or less :P.
An orange is often green before it ripens (unless it is a green orange.)
So what colour is a green orange before it ripens?
I think she only likes Maggie on occasions like this, when they’re bonding over television. She’ll probably go back to hating her after the credits roll.
I’ve never gotten the sense that Mrs Clovis hates Maggie.
I’m implying that Mrs. Clovis was once like Maggie, which is the source of both her distaste and affinity.
I think she disapproves of Maggie, not hates.
i wonde if someone has decided to shoot a new season of that old series in the town. It would be great to see the Church of Satan involved.Tom would be very happy to help the writers and actors in portraying these evil, milksops and murdereras vicars.
What is that book he’s taking from the shelf? It sort of looks like Thomas the Tank Engine, but with submarines instead of trains?
Thomas the Sank Engine?
Excellent
Tom Clancy (maybe Hunt for Red October?)
Though Thomas the Tank Engine But Submarines does describe the picture quite well. Dive! Dive!
The CBC did a show called Theodore Tugboat, which was a sort of Thomas the Tank Engine on water. There was a submarine named Northumberland (minor character).
If you visit Halifax NS you can take a harbour tour on a full-size version. (Or you could before the end-times descended. Perhaps again after.)
Full-size version of Theodore, that is. If you try to get onto any of the submarines in the harbour you’ll probably be arrested.
I almost got married on Theodore, but common sense and my wife-to-be’s wishes prevailed
“Milksops and Murderers” would be a weird RPG.
Now I want to play it.
Do you need a Game Whiner?
I note that Mrs. Clovis keeps firm possession of the remote, however.
Mrs. Clovis is not the sort of person who makes the same mistake twice.
NOSTAGIC SELECTION
Hopefully Mrs C hasn’t scoffed all of the soft centres.
Keep away from the Crunchy Frogs!
It’s the Spring Surprise you’ve really got to watch out for.
I get the impression that Mrs. C has taken to Mag because Mag reminds her of her younger self. Mrs. C has a past, and I’m betting it was far more wild than anyone would suspect. Like touring with Hawkwind when Lemmy was still a member.
That’s my same thoughts. Mrs. Clovis was probably a real wild heart. Then, something terrible has ruined her spirit and make her become a cranky old lady. But her relationship with Maggie is slowly returning her to a happier life. Maggie is doing a miracle ♡
Sometjing terrible like… Mr. Clovis?
That’s a typo — I’m not Norwegian.
She was become her worse enemy!
So I take it Renwick is the McGarnagle of the Bobbinsverse?
I can’t speak for the UK but in the USA, the terms “the church” and “laughing” don’t tend to go together. 😐
Indeed. Faith over here tends not to be all that joyful.
When I was in high school, I had a teacher from Cornwall. He asked the class
the distance between London and Cornwall. No one knew. His answer was 400 years.
I’m digging the Tibikins hoodie.
We’ve been over this:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2015/jun/23/david-shrigley-mascot-kingsley-football
No, it’s clearly Tibkins. She has one with the mascot on it, but this isn’t it.
My theory is that she modified the original onesie by covering the original Kingsley face with Tibkin’s face. Maybe there was a giant Tibkins embroidery patch among the items that Shelly sent them? This seems more likely than there being two of them, identical in all respects except for the face. Compare the current one with the original: https://steeple.church/comic/tankards-in-newquay/
Either that, or Shelley saw the original while she was visiting, and she had a Tibkins version specifically designed for Maggie.
This is canon now, she cut Tibkins off a duvet cover and quilted him on to the onesie. She then quilted Kingley’s legs to make them chickeny. I’m sorry that there is not a comic about this already, maybe I’ll make it for the Patreon.
I suspect we will discover that Tom created the series and penned many of its episodes, both as a form of anti-Christian propaganda and as a reliable income stream. Have we established how the Church of Satan is funded?
Oh god I’ve just seen what the stripes on the onesie trousers are. That’s just wrong on so many levels.
That is a LOVELY detail though.
And her pose on the couch in panel 5. How is that comfortable?
Me, too, other Tim, but my first thought was “Wow, Tibkins has got legs that go all the way up.”
Not Tibkins.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2015/jun/23/david-shrigley-mascot-kingsley-football
Chris, alas, Maggie’s onesie is now Tibkins, I couldn’t keep drawing a copyrighted character over and over again.
THANK YOU!
As I pointed out yesterday, the design on the other version was noticeably different. This one’s obviously Tibkins. https://steeple.church/comic/tankards-in-newquay/
What kind of creature IS Tibkins, anyway? I’m sure I knew at some point but alas…
You might have to ask the Purleys.
I thought he was a hedgehog?
Hedgehog with chicken legs is more or less how JA described him in the comments several stories ago, IIRC.
Have we had quite a long time gap from the last story? I only just noticed that Maggie’s side shave has grown out, which I’m aware would take a good few years in the real world! (Obviously I wouldn’t want to rule out the possibility that Maggie has magic hair)
Maggie has so much hair on top that sometimes her undercut is hidden, you can see it in panel 1.
Ah, I see! Thanks for clarifying, so she just fancied a change to that brilliant gold from the silver?
That’s just the evening glow.
John once did an exceptional doodle in which another character asked Maggie if her mother was a storm cloud. I do believe Maggie’s hair catches a good bit of whatever light she’s around!
Where can one find that?
I think it was a “throwaway” on his Patreon months ago? Maybe he remembers and would weigh in, it was really a glorious little snippet.
“Spit spit”? Puzzled American here…
I can’t remember if this has come up in the Steeple webcomic or just in the print comics. Devon and Cornwall, neighbouring counties, have a deep rivalry.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/28/devon-cornwall-scone-wars-identities
Cornwell and Devon are adjacent counties (the latter being the former’s only land borderer), and maintain a lively rivalry over matters like “who invented the pasty*”
(* A type of pie, not a nipple cover.)
In the UK it’s traditional to “mock-spit” when mentioning semi-serious rivals – members and ex-members of the Coldstream Guards and Grenadier Guards invariably do when forced to mention the other, for example.
Cornwall is also, historically, not quite “English” (having a Celtic makeup) even though it’s now subsumed by England geopolitically: it had its own Brythonic Celtic language, which died out but has latterly been academically revived, and has a small but existing national independence movement. These and other factors give ample excuses for maintaining the sort of low-level antagonism between regional neighbors (nearby soccer teams, etc.) that we Brits enjoy pursuing when we’re not banding together against an external common foe.
Yep. To do it properly, imagine you have a trace of something nasty and bitter in your mouth. You are not spitting at anything, just getting rid of the taste of the word you just used.
The rivalry is played for laughs in this comic to a wonderful extent, too.
Maggie’s “Sir, are you from…DEVON?” line from the original Dark Horse Steeple #3 is one of the things that hooked me to pieces on this comic.
I remember an English show like that.Vicars always weird, sometimes murderer. I used to think England has a serious problem with their vicars.
We have.