Misery
Who ARE these extreme freaks? Tom’s little shorts are inspired by Glenn Hoddle’s ’80s attire. Glenn and Tom have both put far too much faith in niche spiritual figures.
STEEPLE – A Scary Go Round Comic
by John Allison
Who ARE these extreme freaks? Tom’s little shorts are inspired by Glenn Hoddle’s ’80s attire. Glenn and Tom have both put far too much faith in niche spiritual figures.
Billie never learned moderation.
Are we to be moderate in the face of the open worship of evil?
Yes.
Moderation in all things, including moderation.
Okay. Of all the things I imagined might have happened to Billie over the past three months, this wasn’t one. It does maintain the surreal, allegorical, dream-like atmosphere of the previous page nicely, however.
This kind of street preaching does not strike me as CoE-sanctioned. Makes me wonder if she hasn’t gone back to the church, but has formed her own evangelical religious sect.
I think people liked Billie better in the pantsuit.
I’m predicting that Billie still kept the backless pantsuit somewhere hidden.
Still kinda slinky in that short jacket and loooooong skirt
How do we know what she’s wearing here isn’t backless?
Aw, and the cross isn’t even upside down.
This is so sad. She was so powerful and full of energy in the CoS. Now she’s the annoying person that scream in the streets.
I wonder… As I recall, one reason (regardless of the actual catalyst) Billie took to the Church of Satan as well as she did was because it was so non-judgemental, which fit her personality (even if in other ways her personality was always a strange fit there). Perhaps the revelation of the truth behind her change-of-church has caused her to now believe that her own non-judgemental side must be evil and wrong, as she associates it with Satan now? Perhaps she’s making an effort to reject that side of herself, becoming a ranting fire-and-brimstone religious fanatic in the process?
And I’m here for every minute of it.
Maggie is lovely and all, but I want to see BILLIE’S holy armor.
Sadly, I suspect that you have nailed it.
That being the case, I am fearful to learn what she now thinks of her good friend Maggie.
I f’ing love it. Billie Baker, spiritual heiress to John Brown. Crazy street preachers will always beat conventional pastors sitting in a haze of false martyrdom.
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in his grave, but his soul is in Cornwall?
(I am totally here for broadsword-wielding radical abolitionist Billie.)
Billie’s got that ol’ dissenter personality. It might be folks that ain’t English (or American in some contexts) haven’t experienced it firsthand. There are two ways to read ‘short way with the dissenters’ and sometimes you read it one way, sometimes the other.
All good preachers are dissenters. I don’t mean that in the particular English historical context – though it may be applicable! – but the general meaning of the word. Without dissent, the body of the Lord falls into hypocrisy and disdain for the real principles of Christ and compassion in a heartbeat.
I recently spent some time calling out fundamentalist, extremist modern “Christian” preachers on social media. This went about as well as one could expect. Of a dozen or more pastors I asked the question “When was the last time you performed a ministry to the poor or the sick?”, *one* had an answer for me. But most had their hands out for money themselves anyway!
That kind of situation requires dissent, and I sadly am starting to believe the problems go all the way back.
As someone who used to travel on Oxford Street frequently, this thread induced me to find out what had happened to this gentleman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Green (now I know his name). Sad to find he is no longer with us. Having said that, I saw Mr. Green using more gentle persuasion than fiery admonition. I also doubt if Billie would want to give up protein and sitting…
As crazy street preachers go, I don’t hate this guy. Kind of a St. Paul meets Jay The Juice Man vibe going on there.
Oh Billie
You can tell she’s all in, as she’s using an actual soap box.
No doubt she had to pay an exorbitant price for it on Ebay.
Bespoke artisanal soap boxes, available on Etsy.
I’m starting to wonder if Billie wasn’t actually allowed to return to the Anglican fold, and now is doing her own DIY fire and brimstone preaching. Oddly enough I find this slightly less saddening than Billie giving out random self-help books.
She can still doing both things.
I don’t think track shorts ever looked more evil than they do in this strip.
Okay, now this is something I was not expecting
Horrible thought: What if Tom’s “extreme freaks” are the Tredregyn merpeople seen in the bushes last issue?
“What new territories, Tom?”
“Have you seen that movie ‘the shape of water’ ?”
It’s incredibly sad to see Billie is such a crazy state. As Maggie said, Tom is probably miserable. But Billie… poor Billie!
Let’s all be honest with ourselves here… Nobody is sad to see Tom miserable.
Billie on the other hand has options. Nobody is stopping her from becoming a Unitarian.
Or a Universalist.
Why not both?
I suspect Lorraine Lumsford helped to catalyse Billie into her current state.
I admit that photographs of me wearing a similar ensemble (if in different colours) exists.
I was 8 or 9 years old, and it was the 70’s.
I’m not proud, nor am I ashamed.
…but those pictures will never see the internet. I do have standards.
Tom’s finger wag is worse than a street preach screech from Billie.
Well thankfully it’s not Kenny Burns’ shorts
(Nobody googled that?)
Where has Billie been for the last few months? Has she been Reprogrammed or Reeducated?
I don’t think it’s “reeducation”, to me it feels more like she’s overcompensating – after devoting herself to Satan, she is trying to make up for it quickly by lurching back right to the other extreme and becoming a hellfire street preacher.
That’s my thought, as well.
The words she’s saying sound like they came from a pamphlet, not from her.
Either that, or she met with a Reverse Curse.
When I was in school, you weren’t allowed to skip PE by conveniently “forgetting” or “losing” your gym kit – you had to go and get dressed from items picked out of the Skeg Bin, which was a trash can full of old discarded and mismatched shoes and clothing. Every so often, someone had no choice but to dig out a pair of running bottoms exactly like the pair that Tom’s wearing now, and suffer the indignity of wearing the Porn Shorts for session.
I, too, was not expecting this.
If this were any other comic, I suspect that Billie would have come to the conclusion that the CoS was right for her after all and would have set about reshaping it in her own image.
Once again, John proves just how skilled of a writer he is!
When Tom tells Maggie, “You think you’re better than everyone,” the correct reply is “No, Tom. Just better than you.”
I see no sign of the Post-It note.
Still, it’s interesting to see how Tom and Billy are wearing clothes who have the same colours. Black and yellow. Maybe it’s a a sign of their similarities and a foreshadowing of a future return of Billie in the CoS?
A sign that their faiths come from the same Divine Bee?
Nice interpretation. Also, Tom and Billie can represent the two faces of bees. One is the insect that pollinates and makes life possible, the other is the insect that stings and can cause death. I wonder when they will ever be able to switch roles. Billie can be terrible and Tom has a great environmental conscience.
TBF, that’s a low bar to set.
And that was meant to be a reply, dang it… Admin, would you mind deleting this comment and the one above from me? Thanks.