Eyes on
I’m very sorry that we didn’t get to spend more time with the eccentric jewellery expert, the broken former ski champ, and the political dissident chess grand master. If this had been a proper Bad Machinery case, you’d have got really sick of these people.
I sense a certain …instability in Beate in panel 4
or maybe I’m just reading too much into the vertical-iris eyed, grey grimacing girl with the looming blood red and black evil – who can say!
This whole page is amazing, but I especially love the face and “poo” spitting of the cigarette in the first panel, really sets the tone perfectly
I think by this point it seems near certainty that Beate =EvilLottie.
The young lady is cracked, sir. She also has those same lovely brown eyes…
What’s the over/under that Beate is actually a red herring?
There’s a chance, but at this point, it’s not much of one, I think. In some way, Beate’s almost (but not quite) certainly EviLottie. There are still a bunch of different variants on exactly how that works- for example, she could be possessed, or it could be another personality or something- but she’s got to be involved somehow. I mean, the Scrabble pieces spell out her name (as a couple of people pointed out). And someone who looks a lot like EviLottie seems to be sharing her head in some way- whether it’s another side of her mind, a separate personality, some sort of hallucination, or an evil spirit of some sort.
There’s a fair chance that EviLottie is in fact ActuaLottie and OurLottie was Beattie all along, or at least since the ski trip.
I say “fair chance” only because John A has read the same Simon Furman comics that I have. It’s probably closer to “zero chance”.
She tried to kill Claire. I think that makes it a zero possible chance that she’s any actual Lottie.
Unless maybe Lottie was replaced immediately after this strip. On the gripping hand, if we’ve been reading about replacement Lottie for that long, has she not become actual Lottie, and the original the imposter?
Well quite, and which of them becomes Galvatron?
I’m a bit worried that the security guard will suspect Lottie of being a thief. Then again, he probably expects a thief would not be so brazen.
Lottie’s subtle-as-a-tossed-brick approach in this strip is reminiscent of her confrontation with Blossom at that outdoor party at Claire’s house.
It helps that he can just grab her by the scruff and put her somewhere she can’t climb down from.
The style in panel 4 reminds me of Psychonauts. Like, it would fit in perfectly as a frame from a traumatic memory in someone’s mental vault.
I never expected to see Lottie refer to a Domenico Modugno song, but… awesome! The three suspects are interested, but I don’t think Lottie has ever considered them, even for a second. The expressions Bea makes already show a very angry personality, she’s almost scary.
I’m sure Lottie’s considered ALL of them, plus a bunch of suspects Beate’s never considered. Lottie’s usual mystery-solving style is to pursue a bunch of incorrect theories before she narrows it down to the correct one.
Beate has met her Mozart and realized she was Salieri all along.
Poor Salieri. Peter Shaffer really did a number on him. Although, I suppose he also brought him back into public awareness, even if it’s only a fictionalized version of him.
Never got a sniff stateside (90 something top 100 for a hot minute)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLAgzDL3tfk
That’s where they’ll switch the jewels for a paste copy? He can’t have eyes on constantly (but nobody has considered the security man as a suspect, so HE could be in with the trio for a piece of the action.)
So the thieves are… Omphale Flambeau, the eccentric nemesis to Mrs Brown and her boys; Jean-Claude Killer, who had a reputation for always going off pissed, and… Stanley Kubrik.
He wasn’t really a political dissident, he just resented the US child prodigy chess champion Bobby Fischer for beating him in the Marshall Chess Club and wanted to fight back*
* ok probably a lie but bizarrely, they did actually belong to the same chess club? Kubrik did put chess into many of his films too
Ok possibly/definitely I went over the top there with obscure references:
– that drawing is Kubrik, right? And he really was a big chess fan, and really did belong to the same club as Fischer (at a different time). See https://en.chessbase.com/post/stanley-kubrick-inspired-by-chess
– Father Brown’s nemesis from the first story – The Blue Cross – was a tall jewel thief called Hercule Flambeau, who initially pretended to be a priest. Brown is often depicted in a broad-brimmed capello romano hat, so presumably Flambeau wore one too, just like John’s jewellery expert (a woman?). In myth, Hercules was placed in bondage to Omphale who dressed up as him and he had to do his labours in her clothes. So…a gender swapped Hercule (Omphale) would have a nemesis not of Father Brown, but Mrs Brown. Which is a terrible UK tv show so I had to go there.
– the easiest one to explain is Jean Claude _Killy_ who was a french olympic skiier who became an early reality show star in the 70s then a big wheel in the olympic movement in the 80s – I know him from Fear & Loathing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temptations_of_Jean-Claude_Killy
If you put more than one link in a reply it automatically ends up in my spam folder, so beware (or split your links across replies)
I thought you’d just decided to spare the world my late night ramblings, which would have been fair enough tbh. I need some browser extension to stop me posting incoherently in the wee small hours.
While there is some Kubrick in the political dissident, I would say that there is also more than a touch of Salman Rushdie to him.
Whatever his political views might be, the GM is clearly a dissident when it comes to the orientation of the board.
Careful! Hamper tax!
Haha! I didn’t even notice, and my nom de plume comes from shortening the name of a famous chess GM. (An online friend nicknamed me that about 20 years ago, and it stuck.)
However, there are many possible in-universe explanations.
1. He’s playing a variant (as GMs are wont to do) that happens to have the board rotated 90°.
2. Someone else set up the board and he’s being gentlemanly enough to not insist on resetting the board.
3. He’s giving the unfamiliar board orientation as a handicap to his opponent.
4. His political dissent extends to board orientation as a metaphor for exchanging the roles of light and dark squares = light and dark skin.
5. All of the above, somehow.
6. Other.
Chess is very specific about titles – Grand Master is not an enthusiastic club-player. In the Alps the political dissident GM has to be Victor Khortnoi (sp?), surely.
The Happy Bride is beautiful as only a bride should be!
Ciao ciao body guard Race Bannon!
The political dissident’s chess game was hampered by his unwillingness to use his king or queen.
Not even for a Botez Gambit?
Why does the sign not say “private parpy”
Is the hotel stupid
If it’s a Privat Partei in Bavaria it might say Eintrit Verboten.
But essen will definitely not be verboten!
Given that he’s playing dragonfly chess on an inverse 7 x 7 board (white on the corners instead of black) it may be a bishop that just looks like a queen, since there are no queens in dragonfly chess…
This seems typical of Mr A’s love of curios and oddities
He’s looking at the board sideways to gain a more objective perspective of the game, and his arm is covering the 1-rank (not the 8-rank, because he appears to be on the left).
Another point in favor of Beate being EviLottie is that our imposter is acting very much like the version of Lottie that we have seen Beate constructing in her head as she seethes in this flashback.
Indeed. The way it’s shaping up in poor Beatle’s head is that she simultaneously hates Lottie, but desperately wants to be her.
Much as I would enjoy seeing side stories about those three new characters, I appreciate maintaining the pace with this one.
I’m eager to know what happened to Claire, Glenn and Dean.
I mixed up my Jean-Claude Killy with my Spider Sabich, and I was wondering how the former was available for parties.
Claire seems to be watching through the glass door in panel 1. Is she watching the boys, or worrying about Beate?