They’re both crackers
I’m not sure that the Reverend has ever been happy to see Brian and given his current mental state, he’s probably not sure what he’s seeing, but I’m sure his thanks will eventually be noted. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
STEEPLE – A Scary Go Round Comic
by John Allison
Not the most conventional way to throw oneself in front of a hex!
This is exactly the sort of rescue I was expecting from Brian.
Is it time to break out “Tits and Grease” for the soundtrack? If so, I may avert my eyes…
Brian isn’t *that* much of a tit.
Have you ever seen him on a ladder?
No, but the British Ladder Council has!
Why bother with a glass when you can mix the drink internally?
What does crackers mean in this part of England?
In the USA a cracker is a racist. (Derived from the Scottish word meaning braggart.) Sorry, my Scots dictionary in not at hand.
Or does Crackers mean crazy? Or something else?
It’s roughly equivalent to the American “nuts”, as best I understand.
Crackers = mad, batty, crazy, insane. Like “he’s cracked!”
Oh i read it as Brian saying they’re attractive, rather than mad. As in they’re both stunners, they’re both smashers. I think he’s not processed the situation enough to have decided on their mental stability.
I agree, Alix. My first impression when we just had the title was that crackers = not right in the head (i.e. each one of them is crackers). However, the context of this page doesn’t seem to support that meaning. Something along the lines of shortening firecrackers, now that fits (i.e. each one of them is a firecracker).
(from my computer’s dictionary, firecracker (noun): an outstanding, exciting, or attractive person or thing)
I’m thinking bonkers would be equally appropriate here.
I think you can understand it’s a different word from the context too. In the USA, the crackers were poor rural Southern farmers. Try as I might I can’t see the co-hostesses of the UK’s top witchcraft podcast (Spotify contract pending) chewin’ hayseeds with Billy-boy banjo or whatever it is that they do over there.
The “Deliverance” days “over here” are mostly past, except perhaps in some particularly remote villages. Nowadays, this is what “hayseeds” are into:
https://youtu.be/aSkFygPCTwE?si=jL6SKNFeiHlz1Cxt
Not Hayseed Dixie so?
https://youtu.be/BV9Xuw0Sojg?si=LR3n8bvFktjQ1sze
Yikes! My first reaction that was that this was the U.S. equivalent of The Wurzels. But then I realised it was simply an homage to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00y3gV0dJow (Fry and Laurie at their peak).
He lifted that riff from Warren Zevon, didn’t he? I was expecting a werewolf to show up.
Not o much a “lift” as a copy from Werewolves of London
I hope they’re paying royalties to Zevron’s estate
The word “crackers” meaning “crazy” was certainly in widespread use in the US when I was a kid. Has it disappeared?
It has, for all intents and purposes. The word is too loaded now as a slur to risk misunderstandings.
I think this is a plural noun, tho
“Cracker” is also frequently used in Derry Girls. I previously wasn’t sure if it was specific to Northern Ireland or used throughout the British Isles.
Could it be a formation from “craic”?
Thanks, I believe this is the origin of the southern cracker.
Given “craic” appears around the ~1960s – it’s a Gaelicization of “crack,” which had entered Hiberno-English probably from Scots, into Irish (altered spelling is apparently contractually obliged: this is the language which gives us “carr” as one of the words for “car”) and then from there it mostly replaced usage of “crack” in Hiberno-English* – it’s more that they both come from the same root?
* Theories about this being driven by Fáilte Ireland for tourism reasons must contend with the other theory that it was driven by people who wanted no ambiguity in interpretation when they wrote “we had some great crack last night.”
“What’s the crack?” Used to mean “What’s going on?”
Crackers is generally on a par with bonkers, buy is a little more congenial, friendly like
“She’s a right cracker” – generally a Major Babe
Can also mean they are both good looking. Cracking girls both of ’em.
He means ‘Very attractive ladies’ as in ‘A right little pair of crackers’
They’re good looking.
A “cracker” is anything good – “a cracking party”, “a cracking big bonus”, “a cracking day out for all the family” etc.
Broadly British, not just England. Related to “crackerjack”, apparently, and appears from the early 1800s.
Yeah, I can see this is what’s meant now. “They’re both good-looking, so it doesn’t really matter who of us gets which girl so I’m happy to let you take first pick.”
A cracking good day to travel to the moon for some cheese, Gromit.
firecrackers
Ludmilla and Clotilde seems so unhappy to see an intruder in their special party with Penrose. But Brian sure knows how to party.
There’s a fine scowl on the first panel.
So Reverend Penrose lost his trousers last year, he lost his shirt this year – next year they’ll go for his shoes. How many years will it take until the wtiches can pilfer his entire wardrobe? Maybe it’ll be the next event in the calendar from Tredregyn’s tourist office, the ancient tradition (as of 6 years ago) of Brogue-Rolling, where people hurl themselves down the beachside cliffs after a cassock and a pair of socks that have been thrown into the wind.
I think Maggie would secretly hope to rescue a fully unclothed David.
I don’t think she’s keeping that hope very secret.
I love this. When the spirit possessing Maggie referred to the Systers as “Followers of the Goat”, a lot of readers seemed to think that had demonic connections, but, given the way witches were described in one of the early Steeple issues, I suspect that in this case “the Goat” would be the Greek nature god Pan. Brian is a lot like a mortal incarnation of Pan, I think- in fact, he’s a LOT like the ancient Greek idea of a satyr- not the romantic modern idea of a Satyr, but the way the Greeks actually described them- short hairy uncouth wildmen with tails and oversized genitalia. I doubt these two know how to handle someone who’s more like their lord than they are.
Or Shub Niggurath or the Goat of Mendes…..
Ïa! Ïa!
Brian: Inadvertent Hero.
I’ve long learned never to question Brian’s methods, just roll with it.
Very advertent
I am *really* gonna miss this comic when it goes!
Me too, but I doubt this is the last time we’ll see the Steeple crew.
Where did John actually say this was The End? I was under the impression this was merely the end of this arc, after which he would probably switch back to oddball one-shots and more Tackleford-ish stuff for a while, the way he’s been doing for several years now
From the Patreon post at the beginning of “Maggie’s Party”:
“Here it is, the penultimate issue of Steeple. Issue 20 will be the last, but believe me when I say that I am going out with a bang. Your PDF is linked under the cover – let me know if you enjoyed the issue in the comments.”
He may have mentioned it in the blog here, but I’m having problems finding that.
…and in a post on Nov. 3 about Girlspy:
“Dark Horse passed on volume four, so after issue 20 it will be time to move on. While this Patreon sustains the daily production of webcomics (thank you very much), I rely on print royalties as well, and I’ve produced a lot of work now – a few hundred pages of Steeple and Solver – that hasn’t been printed.”
Ditto. This comics has a very special place in my heart.
Based on forthcoming titles it looks like a happy ending, at least… IF we can believe those titles!
Is there like, an official Bobbinsverse discord server or any kind of online community/forum around it yet? I”ve been looking for any kind but the most discussion I’ve found around John”s work to my knowledge is on SomethingAwful and I have to pay to make an account there. I’m sort of aware of the old scary go round tumblr and the forums but truth be told, I’m kind of a new reader so I don’t really know the hidtory behind those. Sorry if this is a little unrelated to today’s comic.
No discord as far as I’m aware, not an official one anyway… although that is certainly something I would scroll.
I still say that Brian looks like my Dad but with more hair.
Poor Lud and Clo, they thought they were the forces of chaos at this party.
Regardless, I’d take Brian over them any day.
It’s ironic that a disruptor like Brian is such a fan of Status Quo.
It makes complete sense otherwise though I’ll admit to misreading it as Satan’s Quo
I read somewhere that Status Quo shifted to hard rock sometime in the late 80s or 90s. I associate them strictly with “Pictures of Matchstick Men” and “Rockin’ All Over the World,” which don’t seem like Brian’s sort of thing at all. Either they went really hard, or he likes them ironically.
I think he just likes them ’cause they bash away on their guitars, they have catchy songs and they were on telly when he was a nipper. He’s not really a man to overthink his taste or worry about credibility.
I mean, if there’s a phrase here which doesn’t translate into the US psyche, it’s got to be “Big Sainsbury’s”
J Sainsbury PLC, commonly known as “Sainsbury’s” is one of the big supermarket chains here. It has small branches and ones of a more grand stature.
I think all of us wonder what hour the poor Reverend eventually cometh.
Upon rereading the page, I realize that Ludmilla is giving David an actual therapeutic massage, not simple a sensual one. Maybe she’s not 100% devious.
She’d planned on the latter, but after feeling the dire state of Revs back and the dread knots contained therein her Certified Massage Therapist training took over and she automatically switched to the former.
Good for her to work those out. After all, it’s hard to be a dreadnought with dread knots.
possibly she quickly switched to therapeutic massage when Brian popped in
I suspect it was more that she realized she needed to work through some stuff before she could do the kind of massage she really intended to do.
She had to work her way through the hard shell before she could get to the creamy goodness inside.
An overlooked detail – the piano is now playing itself. Magic!
Party foul, Brian.
Anyone else wondering about the ectoplasmic curtain of blue goo on the right side of panel 1? Checkov’s goo?
that’s the ‘magically locked door being visually manifested as a reminder to the reader’
Yeah, that’s the other side of the magically locked door that Billie and Maggie are trying to get through. It’s the same visual effect. Go back a couple of pages.
Uncomfortable in a truly incredible variety of ways.
Poor rev.
As someone who rocks a bearded dad bod myself, I’ve got to say, Brian is surprisingly fit. I guess being a were-man is good for the physique.
As a US resident, I don’t hear the expression “crackers” very often, but I learned it when I was a young lad. I found a link to an newspaper article by someone approximately the same age, who explained it very well. Here’s a link to that article:
https://www.messagemedia.co/aitkin/opinion/other_opinions/it-s-crackers-to-slip-a-rozzer-the-dropsy-in-snide/article_2afd2e28-5681-11e9-8d00-6f7a99a70754.html
By the way, nobody seems to have commented on Brian’s remark about now having a ‘warm willy’. I think I know what that means, too.
Yes. I shudder to think of Brian operating with a warm willy!
So I’m dying to know what kind of weird sx situations j-all has wandered into because this feels entirely too Real
The ladies did not like being called out as such a normie thing as grocery clerks :{
They’re not grocery clerks, as far as I know. Brian recognizes them because he hired them a couple of years ago to cure his lycanthropy, which they only halfway did. https://steeple.church/comic/hipster-witches/