March 23rd, 2021
23 Mar 2021 · page 1052 of 1306
The faces of people that are winning.
Sorry for the week off there, I dropped my tablet pen too many times and it died :| Got a new one now though!
Cast: Lei Feng, Tim Chiang, Verity Cunningham
Comments (38)
Events
ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central
Not the wool ones. And the linen ones just burn and drop away. It's always the synthetic fibers that get you; they melt and stick to you while burning. :-(
That is a very amusing summary of Tim's woes.
"You left me high and dry when you left and attempted to do Victorian 9/11... so thanks for that by the way."
I wonder if Sidney will be a little disappointed with his old friend. Tim has the stage presence, and props are an important part of the act, but he seems over-reliant on complicated machines, rather than the sleight of hand that is the magician’s true art.
I caught David Copperfield's act - oh, lord, close to thirty years ago - and he didn't do much that needed a lot of sleight; most of his effects were pretty much equipment-heavy.
{The sets were all built with forced perspective, which, i'm sure, was to make some of the effects easier}
Copperfield vanished a CBS broadcast camera {and its operator} on stage, while it was live panning the audience from inside the specially-shaped box it was inside... Very nice, but somewhat obvious if you spotted one little detail.
Doug Henning, apparently, wasn't all that good at manipulation - i saw him on The Muppet Show {i think - teevee, anyway} and he did some close-up with cards and other props, and his palms and lifts were fairly elementary and pretty obvious if you knew anything about sleight of hand.
yeah, tim's more of a stage illusions guy, sid's mostly street magic. lots of kinds of magicians with varying levels of jiggery pokery.
Then he went a bit daffy and ran off to his private resort island to direct his mysterious unseen "team" of mysterious unnamed "scientists" studying the Fountain of Youth that he supposedly found there
Really? wOw
Yes I knew it! Onstage bad-acting shenanigans!
The only person who is going to win here is you, Vee!
What can possibly go wrong?
The choices are:
-Everything.
-Almost everything.
-Almost nothing.
Dealers choice.
rather, when asking question what can go wrong ... everything, everything can go wrong, its impossible for nothing to go wrong as in order to enact nothing goes wrong you need bring out mary sue, and that's when everything goes wrong anyways
What can possibly go wrong?
Yes.
Next question?
Harry is SO much better off with Sidney!
And Sidney is SO much better off with Harry!
Fortunately I think Vee is more in the category of Object Lesson than Object of Romance, in Lei's eyes.
Tim, all I'm hearing is that you don't own the IP that you use for "your" act.
Yeah, I'm over here thinking "So what you're saying, Tim, is that without Lei your act is gutted, and if it weren't for her inventions you wouldn't have an act at all. Is that right?"
Now, given that we know she sucks at communication, and Syndey isn't exactly great at it, it's possible that what he means is something along the lines of "I was already getting sub-par performance reviews because I was working with a barely-trained assistant after you vanished with no notice, then when your actions associated me with a major crime the act got dropped from the venue (possibly with pay shenanigans) and no-one else would hire me, so I didn't have the money to hire a new inventor."
But that's not what it sounds like he's saying to me.
Had to go back and check that this chapter wasn't titled "Class Act".
Lei's faces are obviously amazing here but so are Tim's!
Called it. Totally called it. :D
[http://disq.us/p/2f6j01p](http://disq.us/p/2f6j01p "http://disq.us/p/2f6j01p")
Who do I relate to the most in today's update?
That's right.. Doris the False Maid
Again, Tim, she ran off and blew up a random landmark because of the way you were using her designs. I refuse to believe that continuing to use her designs in the exact same way was the best decision available to you.
[https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/february-8th-2013 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/february-8th-2013")
That's not quite accurate. Lei was angry because Tim wanted to use magic in her designs, and she didn't want to. That's why she tried to blow up that specific landmark, to get rid of magic. She was fine with him using her designs in his show, that's what they were made for.
So I'm in Tim's corner on this one. Not only did Lei try to commit a major act of terrorism over a disagreement, she tried to commit a major act of terrorism over an disagreement she won.
The IP issue is a bit murkier, but seeing as she simply disappeared without a word one day, it seems a bit unreasonable for Tim to shut down his act without a word. I doubt Lei sent him a Cease and Desist letter from prison, after all. For that matter he probably had at least some creative input into the design, even if the actual mechanical work was all Lei.
Also, who paid for the machines to be made?
Vee, you know how to make Lei uncomfortable!
And Doris is still "out". Heck if I had been hit by a drugged dart I'd take the night off too. And I notice that Vee isn't at all concerned that her victim is still unconscious.
Which means Doris the False Maid is just sleeping normally?
Isn't this guy being very self-entitled? Yes, she left him to do her own thing, but he could go and pick another assisstant, not to mention the whole fallout was because he was misusing her inventions and pressuring her to be okay with it, if I remember correctly. Yeah, she had done some bad stuff, but she was also influenced by the Anchor, and right now, based on what I remember reading ages ago, he's acting too much stuffy up - after all, the act was hinging on her inventions, and if she didn't agree with them, he should've come up with something on his own. And it's no surprise that she would've been angry at him still using her inventions, despite not agreeing to it.
Does anyone else think he's being in the wrong here, for being so angry at her? It just really makes me annoyed, how he acts so arrogantly (okay, she maybe should've waited until after the act to interrupt, on the other hand, if you keep using someone's inventions when they don't want to and - as a magician - he should've had tons of other stuff in his repertoire, it shouldn't be that surprising), and looks like he only cares about himself and his career, and doesn't get that he shouldn't have tried to force her to misuse her inventions and then keep on using them after she's gone, instead of creating his own magic acts and then being surprised when she barges in because she finds out (and flips his attitude when he finds out she's not there for revenge and displays the demeanour she has now).
I mostly agree with you. I recently re-read that chapter, and Tim did seem pretty disrespectful of Lei's feelings in Sidney's retelling of events. He really seemed to care only about his act and not about how Lei wanted her inventions to be used.
But still, Lei massively overreacted and nearly caused a huge disaster in the process. A lot of people almost got blown up thanks to her, including Princess Victoria herself. Tim does still seem too self-absorbed with his act to be bothered with other people's feelings (look at his blithe dismissal of Doris' displeasure just for one), but he's not really wrong about Lei.
just to say i'm glad folks can see there's no 100% clear "correct side" in this particular argument, i wrote it with that intention and it warms my heart to see it being read well :3
Thank you for saying this! Maybe a little self-absorption runs in the family, haha. Being family also complicates the original situation since it wasn't just an employer-employee or a partner relationship.
Um... The URL says "april-23rd"... I assume it's a typo?
what even is time anymore
Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
If so I can't imagine why
We've all got time enough to cry.
Even Lei's indomitable pride wavers in the face of Verity's sheer self-serving attitude. In a sense, there is no better source to learn shame than from the shameless.
Tim and Lei both know exactly what's about to happen.
When Verity does the pointy thing, whatever caused it deserves to looks Lei and Tim are giving.
Those distinct-yet-both-incredibly uncomfortable expressions in the last panel are fantastic.
they both seems very happy at the prospect