No bars
An important player has just arrived on the pitch, maybe they will kick a goal and take the pennant. Or maybe they will be sent off for an “early bath”. How about that local sports team?
An important player has just arrived on the pitch, maybe they will kick a goal and take the pennant. Or maybe they will be sent off for an “early bath”. How about that local sports team?
Lottie to the rescue!
YEEEEEEEES!!!
IT’S LOTTIE! The one and only ♡♡♡! She came in the wild city like a spaghetti western hero, looking for a missing friend. She will have no mercy! By the way, that road atlas idea is really good.
The road atlas printed on dead trees, of course, in case you get caught where there are no bars.
The suggestion to use Bing for the search is more provocative than the suggestion itself.
Well obviously not Google. Google created Google Earth, which we all know to be blatant sphereist propaganda.
Also, Bing is the dominant search engine in the Tackleford universe. If I recall correctly, it has come up explicitly in Bad Machinery. Probably in the Case of the Forked Road or shortly thereafter.
Now I have the worst impulse to create “Google Flat Earth” as a prank.
If you scroll far enough to any of the edges, you’re treated to a little animation of the ocean falling off the edge of the world, and then a dragon eats your mouse pointer.
I love this idea very much. If you do this I promise to use it every day.
Yay! Lottie! Can’t wait to see her meet the Steeple bunch. (Why didn’t I say the “Steeple people”? I never think of these things in time…)
HERE IS THE CHURCH, AND HERE IS THE STEEPLE
HERE ARE ALL OF THE PEOPLE, AND TOM’S STILL A CREEPLE
You know the audience cheered when Panel 4 came up!
Is coverage that bad in Britain? I live in what can be conservatively termed “the sticks” and unless I get quite a bit out in the mountains coverage is pretty good.
It is in parts of Cornwall.
If you read Le Morte D’ Arthur, Cornish knights are constantly getting knocked off their horses and laughed at by all the other knights (except Sir Tristram who makes it a personal mission to avenge Cornish honor by knocking all the other knights off their horses).
I’m not sure what kind of crooked plumb line you have to draw through history to correlate this with today’s poor cell reception. Perhaps the Ministry can look into it one day.
The South West in general is pretty bad. Lower than average population density means signal masts are usually focused in the towns and suburbs. I’m only 5 miles from Salisbury but my village essentially has no signal.
Oh lord, I think this might be my favourite page with Lottie in it yet. There’s something about her uniquely endearing brand of obnoxiousness that just lifts my heart and brightens my day.
Maximum excitement reached! Shelley’s captors don’t know who they’re up against!
Yay! Lottie!
Also yay! Close-up of a Little Trees air freshener, that’s the sort of detail I like
The hair on the driver’s knuckles is a nice touch, too.
Ooh I hadn’t spotted that
I see that Lottie has yet to upgrade to the Zambian Elite phone, with its eight-camera array. Unpleasant memories of ‘the one that got away’?
Lottie viewed with scorn the willingness of the hardcore Zambian fans to fork over tons of money for those phones so she may not feel the need. Or maybe the price is beyond her means.
Well this is bigger than the Avengers already!
Shelly’s signing was on a Saturday, but this page looks to be earlier in the day than when her signing finished up. Am I reading the sky wrong, or was Lottie on her way before Shelly went missing?
The sign in the book store window for her signing said “Saturday 3-5pm”….
And this first panel is Saturday. Hmmmmm, how did she know?
Her signing should be on Friday, I messed up. Another classic.
I have fixed my error.
Did you employ the Ministry of History to repair the timeline?
I employed Tipp-Ex to fix the poster.
The Ministry of History is basically Tipp-Ex for timelines.
The Ministry of History may have been necessary if Barry had received the Missing Shelley call at 4:55 on Saturday. But as it currently stands, he safely received the call on Friday.
Yes, because Barry says these things always happen at 4:55 on Friday.
Didn’t Brexit include moving the International Date Line to the Welsh border extending south past Bristol?
Yorkshire to Cornwall on the train is at least five and a half hours, so unless Lottie was on holiday in Devon or somewhere this is clearly the next day. Maybe they have two Saturdays in Tredregyn, it’s a strange place. Maybe it’s a glitch in the matrix. Maybe John will fix it in the print/ebook. Go with the flow, it’s the next day.
Ah, John beat me to it.
If Lottie needs bars, I’m sure the cabbie could find her one. (ba-da-bum)
Lottie wearing a tie, that’s how you know she’s here for business
(Is her collar button undone for comfort? Perhaps we will find out!)
She has confidence in the tie since she defeated the clowns wearing one in Circus Windows. Now it’s her power look!
She’s adopting that schlubby, disheveled casual style popularized by the noir detectives of the 30’s, with a bit of Lottie’s signature style thrown in.
Aaand… Lottie has entered the game!! 😀
HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER
Huh. My money was on Erin Winters. She would have had a thing or two to say to Tom, I’m sure. Perhaps bringing in the Queen of Hell (retired) is overkill.
This story was specifically billed as a Lottie/Steeple crossover, so it was pretty obvious it was going to be Lottie. She’s even the most prominent character on the cover.
Hmm, Boscastle seems like an odd place to start a Taxi journey, no real major transport links, pre Beeching cuts the nearest station was close to 5 miles by road, is it normal for Taxi drivers to drive you for 5 miles before asking where you are going? Although my inability to find this entrance to Boscastle may hint at a significantly different geography to the real world.
Boscastle has never had a station but I like the idea of the home of the witch museum as characters’ gateway to Tredregyn which, I am sad to say, does not exist either.
America wants to know: What does ‘Cheers’ mean in this context?
It means “thank you”.
(…and, in this context, may have overtones of “shut up, this conversation is over”.)
I tried to buy a house in Boscastle once. When we came for the second viewing it was on fire. Someone from London bought it instead.
They burned the summer house *before* the out of towners bought it? That’s getting your retaliation in first.
Makes a change from being underwater.
I’ve been looking at the titles for upcoming pages, trying to figure out who says them. “A classic stickybeak”, “Knock off the noise, Beardo”, and “Justice is my mission” all sound like Lottie to me. John can sometimes be tricky, though- the dialog responsible for a page title doesn’t always have the context one would expect.