It’s all relative
With his chaos level usually pegged about a fathom lower than the average Tackleford resident (eg Mad Terry, Potty Grote), Glenn is the perfect emollient for a lot of situations. Here he soothes a sigma wolf.
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Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
Knowing Rob heard Glaire’s excitement isn’t awkward at all
…Except that we know it isn’t going to happen again in that house
I like the implied “we will never speak of this again” in Rob’s dialog in that last panel.
I think Claire was too severe about her advice on avoiding poor uncle Rob. He seems a nice, supportive guy who is just stuck in a ad moment, but will be able to stand-up again. Of course, Glenn’s emollient power is helping both of them in building a great friendship.
The type of interaction depends on the two people in question. Being younger, Glenn seems to inspire older men to go Obi Wan on him. Pull that on Claire, and you’ll get a thumb up your nose.
I know he’s a fireman, but something about Rob says “mariner” to me. Or possibly “ancient sea god”. I noticed it on the previous page, too. Perhaps I’m simply picking up on his deep-seated enmity with fire.
I can easily see both. He’s spent a lifetime wrestling the elements and has seen the worst of them and what they can do to nature property and people. The ultimate cost of course is alienation from domesticity and everyday civilian life.
Yes! That’s it, exactly!
Yep. While I don’t see them being friends with each other exactly, I could see Uncle Rob and Rev. Penrose enjoying a sullen drink together (even without Rob knowing what exactly David does on the side) before he goes back to Tredregyn.
Absolutely!
They could exchange beard-grooming tips, or compare axe techniques!
This is it! King of the seven Seas! It cannot imagine big beards being very practical in a firefighter suit. Or in a fire, as is. (On the other hand: sogging wet and full of shrimp can’t be good for swimming, either.)
Firefighters are traditionally not allowed beards, as they can interfere with the seal on respiration equipment. I assume that Uncle Rob’s beard is a symbol of his decline.
I would really love to know details of the mad weekend at the festival
Took an e, shagged some bird, I presume
Not going to lie, some of what Rob said struck a nerve for me personally.
Since we can no longer give comments an upvote please accept this reply as a verbal “thumbs up” in its place.
How’s your ant doing, Michael?
I wouldn’t have pegged Lottie as the average force of chaos even for Tackleford, but I guess if you average Shauna and Mildred, Lottie is about where you end up.
Also, good life lesson here: You are never as quiet as you think you are.
In the building I used to live in, the couple in the apartment next to mine would sometimes suddenly turn their TV up extremely loud for twenty minutes or so at some random time, typically on Sunday or Saturday morning. This would start at a random point in the middle of a random TV show, and then stop at an equally random point in the same show. I think they thought they were being cleverly discrete by masking the sounds they were making, but in effect they were loudly announcing what they were doing to the whole building (and maybe a few neighboring buildings).
Choir singing? Haka lessons? How considerate of them…
Heh. I was pointedly avoiding any of the words that might get me insta-banned by the comment filter, especially the word that rhymes with “hex” and starts with the same letter as “soup”.
Superflex?
Shhhh! Not so loud!
Sexigesimal? By which the 20 or so minutes could be counted, for instance. It fits the rhyming scheme if “hex” is abbreviating base 16.
Sesamex …
SUBCORTEX!
Gasp!
Please gasp more quietly, Rob might be listening
My upstairs neighbor’s bed squeaks. Fairly loudly.
Fortunately, I find it more amusing than anything (at least so far).
Uncle Rob seems all right. Eternal in vigilance with not a minute’s rest, but all right.
Aww, that was a lovely interaction. Even though I’m reading these as they come, I appreciate the flow of energy through the pages. Like, I can really feel the quiet cold air outside on the balcony and calmed by this insightful conversation before returning to potentially more Little sibling chaos inside the house.
You can tell what a bad place Rob is in by the way he casually flips his cigarette off the deck. Even if he carefully stubbed it out between panels, that’s no way for anyone concerned with fire safety to dispose of something that was recently burning.
Yes! At the time I read today’s comments, yours was the very last and I was wondering “Has no one noticed that casually flipped (vs. stubbed out) cigarette onto the wooden deck or at least flammable dried vegetation?” I think there may be family excitement shortly.
I just assume that everything in Tackleford is too damp to burn, which was Claire’s original reason for leaving.
If it does start a fire, I suspect the poor little fire doesn’t stand a chance in that household.
Maybe this is an old family Christmas tradition? First uncle Rob carelessly starts a cigarette fire, and then the rest of the family can bond while putting it out?
Also, I’ve never heard the phrase “sigma wolf” before, but at least he’s not an omega wolf.
NO CONFORMO
Is that one of the two wolves I’m always hearing are inside me?
Though I’d say Glenn is more of a chaos absorbent (like Shauna) compared to Lottie being a chaos emitter
“Our rooms share a wall and I don’t sleep” x3 to the tune of Jimmy Cracked Corn
Uncle Rob strikes me as a sort of working-class John Cheever protagonist, a man who late into life has a destabilizing episode, sees as through new eyes the shabby foundation of convention and obligation on which his entire life has been built, and, in seeking to transcend or at least escape it, learns too late that it was the only earth under which his feet would ever find purchase. Sure, said revelation comes through a handful of dried-out psilocybin at a Midlands music festival rather than a furtive six-week indiscretion with a friend’s wife, but there’s an arc to his life to which the Chekov of the Suburbs would nod in recognition. His family is pissed off at him but also secretly glad someone is around in case Mum has a fall.
Rob really just flicking a glowing cigarette butt off the porch like that at Fire Family Xmas?? Surely not! Feels a tad Chekhovian…