February 12th, 2016
12 Feb 2016 · page 563 of 1306
Time travel.
FYI, I'll be in the Excel Centre for London Super Comic Con next weekend! Come along and say hello, if you fancy! I will have books and also smiles.
Cast: Geoff Fenton, Nora Fenton, The Butler
Comments (44)
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Holy crap, the Butler can make expressions besides 'gruff'!
He does an excellent girly scream in mime.
Huh. Considering his expression, it doesn't seem like he was working willingly. I'd have expected him to take the first opportunity to rebel that came along. Then again, he doesn't seem to be the brightest bulb on the chandelier, so I guess his decision to go along with it isn't too surprising.
In the face of a power capable of twisting time and space and devouring him whole - and with which he had a strong resonance - discretion and knee-knocking obedience probably seemed the better part of valour...
Given what we've seen of him so far he probably wasn't the best choice for someone to resist Gluttony's influence in the first place. And Luxuria's efforts are unlikely to have increased his ability to resist.
While the moment of Gluttony grabbing him seems to have induced some rational fear, if his duties were not too onerous (from his point of view) he may not have been all that unhappy to go along with what was expected of him once he was there.
Looks like the butler...
Was a glutton for punishment.
Solvin' this mystery will be a piece o' cake. As lovingly depicted by our Nora here.
It was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: huge success.
The Butler will be still alive.
He's.... doing cooking and he's still alive?
Or skullduggery? That doesn't fit in the syllable space, though.
And when you're eating he'll be still alive.
And when you're fed he will be still alive.
Hmm, might be a little plot hole here. Glutton before only took cooks, and from the "future". [Our assumed past case was in fact from the far future.] Now we have this non-cook definitely from the past.
Probably nothing too serious. Glutton could have realized there was a need for some muscle, and the butler was attuned to Glutton. Still, it is a weak point.
The butler was likely on Glutton's side right away. Maybe he was given some of the food and promised more. But there was no fuss that anybody remembers when he showed. So the butler likely arrived just after the big spell was set off. And he was all for Glutton by the time the doors opened again.
Or Gluttony took him because it remembered him.
Summonses do sometimes require a vessel or a medium of some sort. The butler / Mr. Gula may have been the only road Gluttony could walk to get at Widdershins even in a limited capacity.
I suspect you are correct that the butler was the channel that allowed Gluttony to take over the hotel Gula in the first place, which could very easily have made grabbing him necessary from Gluttony's point of view.
As far as the original post's objection to grabbing a non-cook from the past goes, nothing I saw made it seem required that Gluttony grab people from the future. It may be that as this is the moment Gluttony arrived at the hotel Gula it can't go back before this moment but even that is speculation rather than something firmly established (despite what the characters thought Sam does not contradict this possible rule). And I do not think it was required to grab cooks (or other food/drink preparers), that's just who was most useful for Gluttony's plan. About the only rule that may be in place is that you have to be inside the hotel Gula for Gluttony to be able to grab you, which the butler I in this comic.
So Gluttony nabbed his little friend from 1792 to help out in the 1834 pocket universe, which explains why the butler looked the same in 'Piece of Cake' and 'Find the Lady'. But wasn't he in the Hotel in 1834 before Gluttony was summoned and before the pocket was created?
[http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-14th-2013/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-14th-2013/")
Maybe the Butler wasn't real in the 1834 pocket universe? Maybe he was consumed in 1792 and a simulacrum put in his place? That would at least be consistent with the fact that he was unchanged 40 years later.
We've seen that time is a bit ragged around the edges, as Ms King returned to 2013 slightly earlier than she left. Perhaps Greed was able to work a similar trick to deposit his little friend in the timeline before it was actually summoned, so it had an inside man to prepare the ground. Who knows, perhaps it was the butler who gave Mr Cartwright Jnr. the idea of summoning a deadly sin in the first place.
Aaah, that guy didn't get peace for long. I kinda pity him.
Yeah. Kinda.
Turns out he had less choice in his association with Gluttony than was initially apparent. :-/
I wonder what happened to him in the end...?
Anyone else notice the stealth pun in the last panel?
The speal under the comic points it out (literally, Time travel.), so it's not a particularly stealthy pun. A good one, but it failed it's sneak check
I thought that the visual pun was what Nora was eating...
That's the one
Ah, I was thinking the story for a different time...my bad
Um... what are you talking about?
The story for another time is a story that involves time travel. SomeGuy411 focused on the pun that wasn't stealthy, rather than the one about what Nora was eating and the name of the Chapter where WE get told the story.
That wasn't even a pun, though.
This is such a cruel page. It makes me feel sorry for the Butler when he will get beaten up by a weak and weedy chef. (Along with a superpowered secret agent from the even further future.)
The people in the pocket dimension didn't seem to think that 1834 was the backwards limit. The other cooks (and the readers) thought Sam was from the middle ages: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-22nd-2013/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-22nd-2013/")
D'aww. But hmm, does Geoff not wear a wedding ring? Nora's pops up a lot but I can't find a clear shot of him wearing one anywhere?
Honestly? Because they're extremely annoying to remember to draw, haha.
Oops! Heh, I thought maybe it had something to do with his activities!
Don't worry, Lady Ashwin! We, the fans, shall concoct an appropriate tale for the lacking ring!
Where are the shippers? They're always good for a bit of extending the canon.
You! Crazy Theories Fan! Get over here! We need your brain!
Hey! Enthustiast Fans! You know how you like to show everyone and their grandma's cat everything about the fandom? Your job is to publicize the Tale of Geoff's Ring!
...I suppose one of the punners can come up with a better title than that.
Everybody ready? Backstory....Engage!
Man, don't ask the shippers, they'll just ship him with someone other than Nora, probably who is also male. That's not fair to Nora.
As a crazy theories fan, how about, since he's a painter, he uses paints which would tarnish his ring, and thus makes a habit of taking it off and putting it somewhere safe, maybe even a necklace like that one guy from the Gula storyline.
The shippers scare me, tbh.
Some people find them annoying to wear - you might turn that into an excuse.
Wedding rings for men is a new thing. My married friends of my generation have them, but my Dad and his generation did not. I just realised that when I say 'new' I am talking of 40 years ago... :-(
You know what, this makes a lot of sense. I did not know that.
Originally, the wedding ring signified the husband's ownership of his wife. Of course, this is a Utopian AU, where women already have equality, so it's quite possible that men wear wedding rings in this version of 1834. But Mr Fenton is obviously a domestic tyrant who doesn't hold with all these modern notions. :-)
I doubt that Mama Barber holds with them, though. She just seems like that kind of person to me.
That question did occur to me too.
I hope at the end of the story we find out what happened to The Butler/Mr Gula. Because he escapes being the vessel for Gluttony, only to be devoured by Gluttony possessing the Hotel Gula. And the last we saw him was after he's been beaten up by Agent Samuel.
Assuming he's actually Mr. Gula, I'd like to hear the end of Mr. Gula's Gluttonous Adventures in Time and Space