January 14th, 2020
14 Jan 2020 · page 956 of 1306
Absolutely never an ominous thing to say.
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Eliza Swift, Gren, Pemberton Pryce
Comments (61)
Events

ThoughtBubble
14 Nov 2026 – 15 Nov 2026
Harrogate Convention Centre
Manchester Megacon
31 Jul 2027 – 1 Aug 2027
Manchester Central






Why what a kind and generous man, offering jobs like that.
If only I could get someone to offer me a job, especially one that uses my degree. Mal is so lucky to be so sought after.
Working for this guy would probably be almost as bad as working in retail, though.
Are we certain he isn't retail, though? "Job of a lifetime" and all.
Meaning you do it once and then never want to again
Or you're stuck in it until you die because retail is the black hole of low-wage jobs
The two are not mutually exclusive, y'know.
(Themed formatting is fun!)
It's so true??
Going all the way to England to hire an actual witch seems like a lot of effort to boost Halloween-season business at your costume shop.
Americans do a lot of strange and inefficient things, to be honest. You can never tell with us.
What's Ben looking at in panel 4? If it was Mal I'd assume it was a spirit, but...?
"Wearing the wrong kind of hat" when he's not wearing any hat, maybe?
Ah, but we don't know what sort of hat he was wearing that day. Way, he might have been so gauche as to show up in England in a ten-gallon hat!
That's Americans for you- we're always wearing the wrong kinds of hats.
People in this comic just don't wear enough hats.
Says the person with a Jäger icon 😂
Exactly. 900 pages and Mr Thackerey still hasn't acquired a hat from the head of a defeated enemy!
To be fair though, none of the enemies Ben has personally defeated were wearing hats.
Hence my original post that there are just not enough hats in Widdershins! :-)
He's putting two and two together, realizing that the hat comment meant Mal looked at Pryce's spirit and realized he was bad news, and that may be why he made himself scarce.
Seconding what Andy said. Ben can't see Pryce's spirit himself, but he knows Mal would have seen something there.
Ben had possession of Mal's power for a short time. He knows what sorts of things Mal is able to see.
crying Wolfe! Mal went away because he didn't want to get his friends into dangerous mess, not because he wanted to leave you both! 😭
If only Mal had explained this to anyone
Thinking about that, maybe Mal's experience with Lust was a part of his decision to go away silently.
I mean, he could be afraid that Pryce'd use his friends as hostages to make him do "the job of a lifetime" (like Lust did)... and maybe Harry's example (she went away to defend other people, including her friends) "inspired" him a bit?
Yeah, maybe? But still, you'd think he could have, you know, phrased his note so as to give them more of a clue about the situation, a bit better than "Gone for a walk"??
Wait, you're telling me this weird dude guy actually got it right?! I'm impressed!
Now, as for that job, I'm sure it's something perfectly fine. Tobacco tester?
Silly Mal, you leveled up from defeating the Seven Deadly Sins. Americans are now a level appropriate encounter.
The problem is that we have statblocks all the way up and down the CR scale, so it's really difficult to tell with any given one of us.
My understanding is that we Americans tend to be high Damage but low Health creatures. We can dish out tons of damage, got lots of minion summoning, and cause all sorts of status problems but once you actually get a hit in we go down pretty quick. Just be sure you actually take us down, because if that hit doesn't end the fight, our DPS skyrockets until we get taken out.
Definitely a gear check boss fight.
Methinks by 'lifetime', Pryce means less 'have the time of his life' doing the job, and more 'his life's time will come to an end' when it's done
Or "he will be forced to do it for the rest of his life"
Hmm, think Pryce is aiming to use the Anchor? Or is American feeling a bit bummed not having their own witch & anchor since theirs (if we go by Eliza's anchor finding method) is at the bottom of the sea
That would certainly explain why he needs the witch rather than a wizard.
I'm calling stereotypical American consumptiveness. "What do you mean, you won't do this thing that abuses your power and harms the land and people?? YOU and I get lots of cool stuff this way!"
Hmm...I wonder if some Rando wanting something from him for being the witch had a reason why he's running now instead of earlier. Before at least the only people who knew he was the witch were people who weren't gonna bug him about it or try and use him.
"I... see" looking above the man is a really nice way to accentuate what O'Malley saw XD
"probable arrest record" says they don't have have moles in the police to check them.
I supposed it's "Check probable arrest records", like they just haven't done it yet.
Now it's clear why Mal left...
Poor Eliza, got shown up by the new antagonist.
You can practically see her internally screaming:
"The hobo? THE HOBO!? WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS NONSENSE!?"
That is some cold, cold sweat... Poor Ben.
Panel 1: in which Eliza finds out who the witch really is and refuses to believe it.
Do you think she recognized O'Malley?
Hard to say. She remembers Ben, so she might recognize his friends as well. Unless Ben has the only page with a picture...
She took Ben's page.
She’s probably figured it out by the last panel, then.
Pro advice, guys: Ice this creep, hang him on a hook, and lock the door behind you.
That is a very...mortal offer.
It seems she recognized Mal in the penultimate panel ('cause she saw him during the malform-bustung in her drugstore some months ago). But I think now she understands already they need to save Mel from this Pemberton.
Is this "job of a lifetime" the same way that Scar's surprise is "to die for," or the same way that Remake Scar offers his brother a "gift he will remember for the rest of his life?"
Another good one is: "stay here and you will be surrounded by luxury as long as you live."
"Seen around Cooper St. Boarding House": the boarding house is near their burned house-office, it seems.
It might be where he (all three of them?) were living after the fire. And might still be, honestly. I'll have to go back and see if Wolfe or Ben mentioned anything in previous comics.
Wolfe said, "We are still at the boarding house until we have saved enough money" [there](https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-11th-2019 "https://widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-11th-2019").
Of course he was wearing the wrong hat; any hat besides Gilgamesh Wulfenbach’s Magnificent Hat simply does not command enough authority.
Meaning the lifetime of a mayfly?
I have noticed just now! Someone chewed off a piece from the meat in panel 1. :)
"looked at me like I was wearing the wrong kind of hat"
Americans, they have some wonderful turns of phrase. 😂
Oooh, he's a sharp one, that Mr. Thackery. So sharp he could just cut himself.
Now he just sounds like Charlie from Erfworld. =_= Or any number of evil thugs who think they're oh-so-clever and subtle.