Well that was useless
NIGHT EXCITERS! A lot going on in this page. My favourite panel is the central one, where Lottie and Shelley are partly obscured and involved in two very different thought processes. One of the pleasures of a genre piece is that it frees up my mind just to have fun in the provided framework. I’ve done a few – this one, the THAT miniseries from a year or so later, the X-Men issue and my fantasy comics, and they all opened a door in my mind that the serial structure of most of my work keeps shut. More room to play.
NIGHT EXCITERS! would be a great name for a band.
Their shows are guaranteed to please, unless one is seeing them in the afternoon.
Then you’d need the Afternoon Delighters.
Maybe leave the kids at home for that show.
Perhaps their diehard fans lament that it would be nice if it were always midnight.
Shelley doesn’t bother pointing out to Lottie that, actually, now that Lottie mentions it, no, they DON’T gotta solve this crime because solving this crime is NOT THEIR JOB. She recognizes how futile it would be.
Lottie is a child detective. She has been snowed in at a remote resort where a murder has just been committed with a bunch of suspicious characters who have all efficiently provided motives. She could no more not solve the crime than a scorpion could not sting, or a fishman could not squirt ink when poked in the earhole. Solving the crime is not her job. It is her wyrd, her fate, her destiny.
Counterpoint: This is fiction, it is a mystery story, they are the protagonists, Lottie is a character who is established to be a “mystery solver”. Ergo, they must solve the mystery.
Lottie, at this point, was one of the Tackleford Mystery Kids. Solving mysteries IS her job.
More a calling, really. It wasn’t her job because she never convinced Linton’s dad to deputize her.
Lottie is really using her smallness and inconspicuousness to great effect here. She’s got Judy talking to Shelley and doesn’t even notice her taking photos.
Not that it matters but that’s just her notebook she’s peering over, not a fancy camera phone.
Good point
I see now. I think it’s the way Lottie was holding it that threw me off. Which makes this even more impressive.
Are we sure the murderer is not Barry the literary agent, who has managed to get people who want to murder Hugo together while HE does the dirty deed??
Not a bad shout, but given that he’s still Shelley’s agent when she’s signing books in Tredregyn, we might reasonably deduce that he really did get delayed in the Quantocks and isn’t around to enact his devious plan.
Lottie continues to question suspects and gather evidence while Shelley, who really just wants her head to stop thumping, tentatively suggests that maybe Hugo’s chest “just did that”.
All things considered, it’s a wonder that only Beate tried to kill Lottie for revenge.
I think in this case Lottie is technically an intern for Shelley at this point and an early adolescent so I think whatever ire she may cause in the suspects is directed at Shelley by default.
Shelley looks very classic Shelley in this one.
Indeed, Shelley has always looked great in winter attire.
It really is a good look on h….I see what you did there!
I think my favorite panel is bottom center, Lottie just looks so happily mischievous and mischievously happy.