I doubt you’ve met!
Jack and Erin Winters have a long history. She supervised him through a work experience week fraught with danger.
Jack’s pushing himself hard in today’s page. People only usually push themselves this hard in manga. It doesn’t happen in western comics. Or indeed Western comics. Apart from the one below, from which I transcribed this entire page verbatim.
(The part of Shelley was originally written for George Montgomery)
I have an astute observation to share:
One American superhero who does the “gotta push myself to use every ounce of willpower” thing a lot is Green Lantern. That’s his whole thing.
He could try writing the alphabet. He of course would be blocked from writing the letters E, R, I or N, but that would still make a convincing clue…
I don’t think he’d have any trouble writing those letters if he wasn’t trying to used them to spell out Shelley’s sister’s name. Similarly, I’m sure he can say the words “I” “come” “from” “the” and “future” if he’s not using them to try to communicate the idea that he’s actually from the future.
“Sorry, Jack, my sister’s name isn’t… what’s this say? ‘Mordawwa’?”
I think it was established in Expecting to Fly that Mordawwa was a character in a comic book Shelley used to read when she was even younger than she is here, and that Erin based her “Queen of Hell” persona on said fictional character. So Shelley would know the name.
I like to believe that, due to the timeless nature of Hell, Mordawwa was based on Erin’s Queen of Hell persona, in an endless loop, a snake eating its own tail.
GO JACK! You can do it! It’s funny how Erin is still so important in his life. Let’s hope he don’t explode.
I feel like the last two panels are vibrating with intensity!
Shelly is a cowboy! Howdy, howdy, howdy!
Flippin nora
Tupping liberty!
What this scene is reminding me of is the Jim Carrey film, Liar Liar, where Jim Carrey’s character is trying to force himself to make the absolute smallest lie he can think of by claiming that his blue pen is red, and when he can’t say it he has to try and fight his own hand into writing it, to disastrous results.
Admittedly he doesn’t start bleeding from his nose or eyes, but its a similar amount of intensity otherwise?
Also Red Dwarf. Lister trying to teach Kryten to lie.
Poor Jack, it seems something or someone has given him some sort of memory blocking.
I think his memory is fine. I think he just can’t communicate anything that would give away that he’s from the future.
Is Shelley originally from Tackleford? Because possibly Jack could name other residents of Tackleford, enough to give credence to his claims of being from there, at least
The Cormorant archives from 1960 mention an Elaine Winters, who I believe to be Shelley’s aunt, so the family’s been in town at least a couple generations. Shelley went to Griswalds, just like the mystery kids did. Though I’m not sure saying, “Oh yeah, Ryan Beckwith was my teacher,” is really going to help Jack’s case.
Has Shelley even met Ryan yet? He was Tim’s friend originally.
Yes, their friendship is covered in depth in Expecting To Fly
Ryan, Shelley and Tim were the OG Griswald’s triple threat, before the incident with the science tutoring and the eyeball.
Well Jack, one of the tricks in this kind of situation is to try to write it with your left hand. Somehow the subconscious breaks through and you get something intelligible.
Other times you just get “Frank the Pokey Horse is particularly gloomy today” when you were trying to simply write “Marmite.”
“So, George, all of Hollywood is talking about your audacious casting in the role of Shelley Winters — beating out, ironically, Shelley Winters. What do you think gave you the edge?”
“Honestly, I think it came down to cheekbones. I really do.”
Shelley’s cheekbones and Tim’s fulsome chest plumage. Sign that man up!
When I was a kid it was all about cowboys and I always wanted a cowboy hat and a cowboy shirt with tassels like the one George Montgomery is wearing.
Not tassels so much as a leather fringe. These rawhide shirts were originally designed to wick away water when the unfortunate wearer was caught out in a prairie thunderstorm. They were a native invention adopted by European settlers in N. America. Similar fringes on gloves and other apparel served the same purpose.
I wonder if his condition would allow him to use a zero-knowledge proof.
Although he probably doesn’t know what it is (nor Shelley, for that matter).
And if so, where is the line drawn. Would he be able to write it as simply a Caesar cipher? Or write down the codes for a rot13 in Amstrad EBCDIC? Crc checksum? Or, it being the 90s, an MD4 sum?
That last panel looks like something from Astro Boy.
Is there an element of the autobiographical in this storyline? Feeling a kinship for being unable to get things down on paper?
My guess is he will reveal his origins with Impossible Future Knowledge, possibly something involving the Gallagher brothers
Isn’t he TRYING to use Impossible Future Knowledge here, though? The point is, he shouldn’t know Erin’s name, which he learned in the future, so he’s trying to prove that he DOES know it. The force that’s keeping him from revealing the truth is trying to prevent him from doing that. I don’t see that it would be any different with any other kind of Impossible Future Knowledge. One question is, does this force only affect him when he’s deliberately trying to reveal the truth about himself, or does it also function if he unthinkingly makes a reference to something he should know?
You’re probably right. Did I mention I hate time travel plots? However, I would love to see someone do a story involving “past-seeing” where it is possible to observe events in the past and set the record straight on world events and/or find out where you left your car keys. But physical travel bugs me because the logical problems are never fully resolved (they can’t be)
Those last couple panels are so good!!