February 23rd, 2018
February 23rd, 2018
23 Feb 2018 · page 775 of 1306

Gamble made and failed.

Cast: Lei Feng, Sidney Malik, Thomas Macavity

Comments (66)

  • Tikatu 8 years ago archived

    Well, McCavity turned out not to be a complication and Sid now has another partner (of sorts). Now to see how Mal and Harry deal with Greed.

    • Tyler Shelton 8 years ago archived

      I'm confident they'll handle this one pretty easy. Neither Harry nor Mal seem very attracted to the complications brought on by wealth and luxury.

      (That said, I'm obviously prepared to be gobsmacked by some kind of twist)

      • Tikatu 8 years ago archived

        Greed doesn't have to necessarily be about money. It can replicate the other sins very nicely. You can be greedy for fame. You can be greedy for food. You can be greedy for thrills. Lots of ways to be greedy. Just like Lust can extend to these things. Lust and Greed are pretty close cousins.

    • Archangel 8 years ago archived

      McCavity is still breathing, which means he's still trouble and a half.

  • seers 8 years ago archived

    sid loves his new(?) friend so much...... but i would be just as excited if i found a regular non-magical bird that liked me

    • JuaSaysHi 8 years ago archived

      Out there somewhere is a hand-raised cockatiel that will really like you a LOT if you just give it a chance & bring it home... but they're kind of super noisy.

  • Maria Gerasimova 8 years ago archived

    Just look at Sid fleeing from the vault for dear life! :D


    And now he has his own familiar...

    • Emily 8 years ago archived

      >Just look at Sid fleeing from the vault for dear life!


      The visual is especially effective with those long, skinny legs of his at full stretch!

      • Kate A 8 years ago archived

        His doofy pipecleaner legs are extremely fun to draw.

  • Tyler Shelton 8 years ago archived

    Man, compared to the other Sins, Greed seems to be taking his defeat like a champ. Doesn't even look irritated. What a bro.

    • Sturzkampf 8 years ago archived

      I think he still has one more card to play...

      • Moe Lane 8 years ago archived

        He also knows that he'll be back. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow; but soon. He and Lust are the sins that humanity cannot bear to give up for too long. We fear Wrath, become disgusted at Sloth, show contempt of Gluttony, roll our eyes at Pride, and laugh at Envy. But Greed and Lust are almost respectable.

        • Sturzkampf 8 years ago archived

          The demonisation of the so-called “deadly sins” is all a ploy by the Ruling Class to maintain their oppression of The People! Only by embracing the Freedom that the Sins offer will The People throw off the chains of morality and attain their true potential!

          • JWLM 8 years ago archived

            Morality is the Fentanyl of the masses! A bas les aristos!

          • Pangaea 8 years ago archived

            The twist at the end "Greed is good" all along and warns Mal and Harry about Lust.

        • Dee 8 years ago archived

          Very well said!

      • Margot 8 years ago archived

        or he thinks he does. Maybe he just hasn't noticed that he's being caught, so is moving on to thief king number 2?

    • BrokenEye 8 years ago archived

      Sloth was pretty okay with being defeated. That being said, I don't think Greed has been defeated yet. Sid merely escaped.

      • Darkening 8 years ago archived

        The end shows him getting tethered to get pulled into the Anchor, so I imagine he's defeated on this end at least.

        • JWLM 8 years ago archived

          I suppose that MacCavity could still hold Greed on this end despite its weakening

        • Bobismeisbob 8 years ago archived

          That said he seems to be grinning while looking at it as if he has a plan for it.

    • Gary Foster 8 years ago archived

      I think this comes from the nature of the sins. Think about it, Sloth didn't fight it either, because sloth isn't about anger. Wrath, well that's a gimme, he's gonna be mad even when he's winning because, wrath. Pride gets haughty and insulted when challenged, envy leads to rage and vindictive spite when it doesn't get what it wants (which is what everyone else has). It's the natural process of the sin itself.


      When you foil greed, you don't get rage and venom, greed isn't envy. It's not about wanting what other people has, just about wanting more than you need. It's a lot like gluttony. Gluttony wasn't angry and vengeful so much as it was just desperate for more. Well, greed is about appeasing a social need, not a physical, the pang of not having money in your wallet isn't quite as desperate as the pang of not having food in your stomach, so he's not going to be so hopeless. Look even at his dealings with the mark of thieves, he wasn't about coercing his targets, he was just about appealing to their desires and getting them to desire too much (so that he could take it instead, muahahaha!) He wasn't, in any sense, vindictive or abusive about it, so why should he be now? He wants what he wants not for spite or anger or self-importance, but simply because he wants it, and when he doesn't get that, it's not going to be productive to yell and scream about it.


      Yes, he is taking his defeat like a champ, because of all of them, that's his lot.

      • Ocean Burning. 8 years ago archived

        Maybe. But look at the expression on his face in the last panel, when the bindings are catching him. I have a feeling he thinks he knows what's going on... being caught and dragged away might seem to fall under his domain, after all!

  • Linka 8 years ago archived

    Nice touch: The bird stops being green once it accepts Sid's request.

    • Del 8 years ago archived

      And yet again.... the color-blind reader thanks the comment board for pointing out a clever detail that he was unable to see.

      • Bobismeisbob 8 years ago archived

        As someone who's not colour blind I also needed that pointing out :D

    • Merle 8 years ago archived

      A subtle touch I completely missed. Thanks!

  • caribouchat 8 years ago archived

    "Heh... Perhaps I would not.": from the start, Greed has been the most likeable of the seven of them to me (in this story!)

    Maybe because he looks smarter than the others...

    • Pangaea 8 years ago archived

      Greed is also the only Sin who 'defeated' himself by giving the heroes the winning idea.

    • Archangel 8 years ago archived

      Certainly the most self-aware.

    • Moe Lane 8 years ago archived

      Yeah. He's reliable, in his way. Greed doesn't seem to loathe humans the way the other Deadly Sins do.

    • billydaking 8 years ago archived

      Greed was also grateful to Sid for giving up the mark and giving back his freedom. Which was a weird thing for him to feel. So I suspect that Greed kinda likes Sid in his weird way, just because he was different from everybody else.


      Sloth also had a different attitude about things. "Oh, you're going to desummon me? Awesome. Finally get to sleep now."

    • Nomes 8 years ago archived

      I like Greed best, too (=

  • Dinglehopper 8 years ago archived

    I do not understand what is happening with the glowy star trails. ('Course, it is not yet five in the morning). Halp?

    • Odo 8 years ago archived

      Those, I think, are the bindings that will draw him (it?) back out of the world.

    • Maria Gerasimova 8 years ago archived

      It's Mal trying to catch Greed from the in-between-spaces place. From the Anchor.

      • Dinglehopper 8 years ago archived

        Oh! Thanks!

      • Odo 8 years ago archived

        Love your description of the "in-between-spaces place." It has a ring to it.

  • Sanjay Merchant 8 years ago archived

    I do love a man with a solid pair of shoulders. Or three pairs, as the case may be.

    • Del 8 years ago archived

      Gives me an idea for what to do with the love handles! Just grow a couple of arms now.

    • Kate A 8 years ago archived

      Drawing it from behind for the first time here was.. kind of an education

      • Bobismeisbob 8 years ago archived

        I have a friend who tried to 3D print an action figure with 6 arms from the same shoulder (like Hindu goddesses) that took a lot of work to make it look normal from anything other than straight from the front.

  • Bieeanshee 8 years ago archived

    Sid. <3

  • Darkoneko Hellsing 8 years ago archived

    Uh, it looks like the influence on Macavity broke somehow

    • Ganurath 8 years ago archived

      What influence? He was content with the massive pile of gold he was laying in.

      • Darkoneko Hellsing 8 years ago archived

        He looks like he just woke up from a trance

  • Qwefg Lockheart 8 years ago archived

    Other sins lose and they complain like little. Children... Minus sloth because he was too tired to even care.


    Greed losses and you can practically clap his hands as if saying... Well played... even if I don't understand how it happened.


    Greed goes out like a good sport...Well at least until he plays his trap card to prevent being sealed away by the witch in training and buddy.

    • Frankie D. 8 years ago archived

      "Screw the rules! I have green, well, everything!"

    • Fairportfan 8 years ago archived

      Like the Vulture in the latest Spider-Man film - yes, he threatened to kill Peter's Aunt May if Peter gave him away but in the end, even in defeat, he's a stand-up guy with his own sense of morality and honour.

  • Velgar 8 years ago archived

    Well, he might not be the smartest of sins... I mean, he's the embodiment of Greed literally and feasts on it and still couldn't tell when one of his prey is simply radiating with non-greedy thoughts and ideas. The very sentence "I don't wanna" should have tipped him off that Sid wasn't buying what he's selling.


    Buuut... As mentioned, he's apparently real good sport about losing. Or maybe he isn't... Just yet... Dundunduun...

    • Gwennafran 8 years ago archived

      To be fair, greed wants more. So wanting one of the least greedy humans around because it's special makes good sense in this context.

      Also, perhaps the victory would be even greater if the human picked wasn't inclined to greed to begin with (but comes equipped with the perfect magpie tool).

      • Velgar 8 years ago archived

        That, indeed. But I'd imagine them being able to perceive our world in a way that would let them know about our moods and interests a bit better. There are the auras after all. So even when Sid yelled "that's it", his aura probably didn't shift in any way towards greed... =/

        • Nonesuch 8 years ago archived

          But even with that power, the Deadlies can't really understand us. They are too fundamentally singular and we are... not.

  • Emily 8 years ago archived

    You know, Macavity, you're really lucky that Mal got hold of Greed when he did - otherwise its next move might well have been to have a good meal...

  • Altzbeta Boutelier 8 years ago archived

    Can I just say I love Sid and his interactions with the magpie, it's adorable.

    • Ocean Burning. 8 years ago archived

      Yes. Yes, you can. : )

  • Brother Nightmare 8 years ago archived

    I had not expected Greed to take this as well as he has. I'm starting to think he has something up his sleeve though... or, bracelet thing, I guess?

  • Ocean Burning. 8 years ago archived

    That fourth panel should be a meme. Or at the very least a reaction image, I can already imagine many possible applications.

  • Falco 8 years ago archived

    This does not appear to bode well for Macavity...

  • DataProwler Netizen 8 years ago archived

    I have no idea what Greed is up to. I never thought greed could be so ambiguous...

  • Sturzkampf 8 years ago archived

    Foiling the nefarious plans of a Deadly Sin was the easy part for Mr Malik. Now for the difficult part of telling Ms Feng he prefers Ms Barber.

    • Ocean Burning. 8 years ago archived

      You are right on the money this time, sir.

  • Dshim 8 years ago archived

    At least he's understanding

  • maggPi 8 years ago archived

    The magpie reminds me of early Snoopy (1960/70's). "Ptoo!"

  • Nonesuch 8 years ago archived

    Magpie: "If I've got respect, then... I don't need your chump change. I have a MISSION!"

  • Matthieu Cravatte 8 years ago archived

    I really like this strip. Good facial expressions, good emotional payoff, things that have been unfolding from the very beginning of the comics come to a head. Small remark however: is it me or is Sid's right eye blank in panel 4? It's a little creepy.

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