Crisis of chivalry
We’ve met Claire’s admirers before.
At this point, I’d like to thank the University of Sheffield for providing a full virtual tour of their new Social Sciences building, “The Wave”. A big help, lads. Offsets how the virtual tour of your student accommodation now auto-rotates. That was a low freaking blow.
Hands off, lads, she belongs with Glorm.
So sayeth us Glaire shippers.
Is Lottie’s expression in the last panel one of …jealousy? …confusion? …strategic planning?
Yes.
It’s nothing compared to Claire’s expression I’ll tell you that much
Lottie’s reaction here is like her reaction when Claire told her about her friendship with Glenn, and how they divvied up Kit Kats…
https://badmachinery.com/comic/harmony/
… last panel.
Panel 2 is her best behavior.
Should’ve told her to be on Sonny’s best behaviour. Or at least Shauna’s.
We’ve met these four before! In fact, Mikey saved Claire’s life! Or at least saved her from being badly hurt. https://badmachinery.com/comic/bombs-away/
THE PACT!
If it weren’t for this, I would’ve assumed Egg to be… not Egg. Watch me somehow still be totally wrong about this.
Except for Mikey, they seemed a slightly older back then.
Not to me. Have you looked at the second page from their earlier appearance? They look pretty much exactly the way they do on this page.
Has the puffer reached its final form? Who can say
THAT will be when it can be inflated with Helium and she can float above the crowd like one of those holiday balloons to their delight and applause!
…or Baron Harkonen in any of his film incarnations.
Also, why is Claire looking so devious in the last panel. Is it what she’s done to Lottie, or anticipation of meeting Haz?
I think it’s delight at showing off to Lottie about how many suitors she has, meticulously suppressed until out of eyesight.
This!
I took that expression as “get me out of thith AKWARDNESS right now, please!”
Greeting committee… or harem?
I think they’re more like Lucy’s suitors in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Chivalrous, simultaneously in competition with each other for Claire, yet honor-bound to band together in defense of their maiden and ultimately doomed to never attain her.
Better that than Penelope’s suitors, eating all her food and drinking her wine. Still, Claire might want to take up weaving.
Or a bow only Glorm can string and fire through twelve axes cleanly.
Why no both?
What the heck is that on Kar’s shirt? (I’m assuming she intro’d them left to right since she started with Mikey)
Looks like the face of a jowly dog.
Ah, now I see that what I took for the horns of a Viking helmet or something are just the strings of his hood.
John has a history of drawing wide, flat drawstrings attached to hoodies.
I really like drawing fat laces, partly because it’s easier to colour them even when the character is at a distance. But I just want to reassure you that I am capable of change. Later in this chapter Lottie wears a hoodie with drawstring holes and no laces at all. It’s possible I could even “go thin” in the future.
Looks more like the face of a jumping spider with great big chelicerae to me.
Egg is the greatest name one could have
Goo goo g’joob.
Is he a good egg?
Lottie is right, but maybe Claire knows that… Maybe she actually likes that? This could be a side of Claire that Lottie doesn’t knows.
Head for buthineth, body for thin.
Not bad, not bad.
Mikey appears to have grown since his last appearance. Perhaps he anticipates having to act as a human shield for Claire.
Nah. Look at the last panel of this. His body volume is more than twice Claire’s. Perhaps he simply puffs up with affection for the wee woman.
https://badmachinery.com/comic/bombs-away/
At least Lottie notices
Mikey dresses like Brian Cox in Zodiac or Jemaine Clement in Legion and I approve wholeheartedly.
Will we learn the current status of THE PACT? Or was it instantly invalidated by Mikey’s “swift hands” during the roofing tile incident?
Or perhaps all will be explained in the upcoming spinoff series “Tales of Kar and Egg” (coming this spring on HBO)
I must say, I am looking forward to this very much. Lottie! Contemporary dorks! Banter! No time travel!
Wait – is this NOW!?!
No time travel YET
I did not think about Lottie inevitably meeting Claire’s anime harem. And given her expression in the last panel neither did Claire.
Claire was the one who suggested Lottie come to her lectures, and has lecture noters to return, so she was well aware of the forthcoming clash of cultures
Returning “notes”? Actual physical, tangible papers that must be carried from one location to another? Is Claire a budding Luddite?
Claire has learned from many longreads and thinkpieces that handwriting is the best way to retain information. We are not talking about Jimmy Dumb-Dumb or Susie Lamebrain here, Ronald.
Names from the bus stop, right?
Meet your new favourite characters!!!
That building was officially opened 20th November 2023 according to the university’s website, which puts an earliest possible date on when this story occurs in the increasingly tangled timeline of the Allisonverse.
I think I have explained this before but while the characters age at a pace appropriate to events in the story, it’s always the present day in Solver or Steeple. There’s no “tangled timeline”. If flying cars arrive tomorrow, your friends will be at liberty to hop aboard. Any anachronisms could be explained away, but given some of the archaic vocabulary that is trotted out by Lottie on occasion, what would be the point?