January 16th, 2018
16 Jan 2018 · page 764 of 1306
Can't be impolite.
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Heinrich Wolfe, Sidney Malik, Thomas Macavity, Verity Cunningham
Comments (60)
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This situation needs more pilfering, not less. Start with some Grand Theft Ammo!
Ben: Vee, get the ugly one!
Vee: Which one is the ugly one?
Ben: The blonde girl! Number 43!
Macavity: What.
Ben: Mr. Malik, you've stolen my glasses again.
Bravo for your superb use of the flat What.
Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle?
The Butler as Hagrid, Sidney as "the boy who lived"...
"You're a wizard, Sidney!"
Well well well, if it isn't Mr Potter!
These are my fellow Slytherins: Crabbe and Goyle
It seems like with greed around Sids little bird is running amok :D
Quick Mr Malik! Make Bunny!
we're getting closer to knowing exactly the form of what's helping Sid, maybe <3
Hmm, so is he going to try and get his revenge on Sid, or is the power of greed going to overwhelm Sid or Ben and force them to help out with the cracking of the magical safe.
My money is on Ben and Vee succumbing to greed and Sid and Wolf having to save the day.
But, here's the weird thing -- so far we haven't seen the manifestation of the actual spirit Greed...
Foolish villains. You never should make a grandstanding at the top of stairs, in case you either are pushed or trip. And the high-grounds are combat advantages except when on stairs, since forward and backward mobility is limited.
Heck, the protagonists could just run away with ease. Have any of you tried to run down stairs without banisters or railing that can be gripped?
Actually, I have run down stairs without banisters, not only as a child but as a college student. There was one outdoor flight of stairs that was covered with ice and I had to get down it to a class that always started early. I used to run down it two steps at a time because that halved the number of chances to slip. It just requires making certain that you make each step fully vertical with no sideways slippage - more of a fast hop than a running step, I suppose.
But you'd agree it is much easier to go two steps up than two steps down, right? Bounding in an upwards fashion doesn't require the careful tempo with descents. There is a very good reason why the phrase regarding a situation that can spiral out of control is a "slippery slope".
And rather than 'fast hop' I think it is more closer to 'thundering downwards'.
Two at a time going up seems more secure, but if your foot slips then you land face down and also risk damaging your knees; if you slip going down, you have a fair chance to land on your backside. Either way, your original point is valid: running on stairs is dangerous.
People actually land face-first? I thought that was just a myth!
Isn’t there a human instinct to protect the head by throwing arms outwards when falling?
So what hurts more? Smacking your knee into something substantially denser than your bones, or bruising your tailbone?
I tried to delete this comment for being in the wrong place, but disqus won't let me. There's no 'delete' function.
In my opinion, not having had a broken bone, I think the knee hurts more at first than the tailbone. If there's breakage, I think it would be more a matter of what hurts the longest - a broken kneecap and limping for life, or a damaged tailbone that doesn't go out on you until 20 years later and then makes your hip seem to hurt from referred pain.
Yes, people can land face first. If going upstairs or uphill, there isn't as much time to break your fall as there might be if going downhill, and downstairs it's bad no matter what. Still, a broken arm is better than a broken jaw or broken neck. The arms can help make the fall less hard but your face still continues to the surface. I went over the handlebars of a bicycle on a sandy road and got a mouthful of sand. If you see it coming, you sometimes can arrange your position or even roll with the fall and avoid injury entirely.
>I tried to delete this comment for being in the wrong place, but disqus won't let me. There's no 'delete' function.
If you click on the tiny down-pointing arrow at the top right of your post, there should be a menu that includes a Delete option.
Here's hoping that their attention being drawn turns out to be a blessing in disguise.
On the plus side, it looks like our team didn't know anybody else was in the building, so at least they didn't walk right into them.
Steal his pistol, Sid! I believe in you!
"It doesn't work that way."
"Well how DOES it work then!?!"
"I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that: it doesn't work."
Well then, what's that in your pocket?
...his pistol?
And there you go.
[Deep Sid sigh] "It doesn't work: it stole the pistol but none of the ammunition."
"And besides, that's Harry's pistol. The magpie took it when...ummmm... Just before you all came in."
Well, that's interesting - on the last page, I assumed the Magpie had dropped the chandelier as a distraction before the fight started, but it looks like the fight was already done. (And either Vee was in the path of the falling chandelier, or she found one of her opponents more of a challenge than expected...)
I just love both her and Wolfe's responses to the chandelier falling. And you won't convince me that the two of them being so close to it when it fell isn't part of the reason Ben's so upset.
I don't know what I love more about this strip, that apparently Vee and Wolfe managed to get in and take everyone out without drawing attention to themselves, that at least part of Ben's upset seems to be that the falling light fixture nearly hit Vee (and possibly Wolfe, although he seems less affected by it than she does), or that Wolfe's first and last chapters feature him with someone in a headlock.
First and last? Are you expecting him to die?
It's my understanding that this is the last chapter of this storyline and future chapters will be set in the same world with other characters. Although I could be wrong, in which case I'd say the first and last chapters of this storyline.
These characters will pop up again, but there's a lot of new folks to introduce you to as well!
Left arm eadlock, punching with right hand - looks like "Bud Spencer" in his films with Terence Hill.
No, Ben, you can't send Sid away! This is his fight, just like Sloth was yours. You wouldn't deny him that, would you?
I feel like Ben has a poor grasp of narrative structure.
Do you guys think he's the sort to become frustrated at novels? "Why don't they just [easy solution]?? This is rubbish!" throws book down
I can definitely picture him being a nonfiction-only reader for that reason.
I feel like he definitely has a love of adventure stories though, whether they be fictional or not. The ones where there are a definite Team Good and Team Bad and Team Good always saves the day.
I didn't think about it in these terms, but I certainly can believe that.
I think he prefers to read non-fiction, but it's because reading fiction is a frivolous waste of time, not because he can't understand literary conventions. : P
This opinion is the closest to that one I put into my fanfic "Merry Christmas" (with the supposition that Ben did enjoy adventure stories in his childhood). :)
Though, one can wonder whose books we see there: [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-1st-2014/ "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-1st-2014/") and what kind they are of.
I could see Ben with a large amount of magical reference/theory books and a smaller collection of non-reference material such as biographies or stories about real life adventurers (like the story of the first people to hike the mountain and find the other anchor we saw) that he brought with him when he moved in after accepting the job. Wolfe's character page says he's an "avid reader" so I could picture them initially bond over book discussions/ recommending ones to each other. I can also see Wolfe starting to add books of his own to the collection now that he's got a place to store them.
> I can also see Wolfe starting to add books of his own to the collection now that he's got a place to store them.
Yeah, but I think he keeps... kept his books in his room: [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-17th-2016/ "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/june-17th-2016/")
I wasn't thinking so much that he can't understand them as that he simply finds them exasperating for their lack of logic...
It depends on what you mean, I suppose. I mean to say that I think he is well-educated enough to know that fiction has its own logic (plot structure, tropes, etc.) which is for the sake of entertainment, and that he would think it's illogical to allow himself to emotionally affected by a fictional story anyway. But I still believe he'd be impatient with reading fiction because it takes him away from his Very Important Research.
Sidney gets to leave though. You've already been introduced.
Knowing that Macavity knows his full name makes me hope for him to call Sidney by it, just to see him react.
So Macavity's relationship with Sid is improving: they're now on a known-name basis
So this Magpie like Bugg-- uh, I mean malform, can get all four vital screws out of a lamp at the same time? I wonder how powerful this thing really is.
Given the angle the lamp was at when it was falling in the previous strip I doubt the screws were all stolen at exactly the same time. I do not think there was a long delay between the theft of the first screw and the theft of the last screw, because I think that a long delay would have made it closer to vertical, but if there was no delay it should have been completely horizontal and to me it looks like it is at a slight angle.
It looks to me like it happened too quickly to be consistent with unscrewing the screws, so I am guessing it grabbed each screw and somehow "popped out" (as Mal said) with it, but still had a slight delay caused by the (very short) travel time from screw to screw.
I see your point, but nonetheless, I maintain that was still pretty tricky. Also, let's not forget what Sid's friend was able to steal in chapter one from our recently escaped friend at the top of the stairs... whose name I ironically have completely forgotten...
Powerful. It would so be cool if he could really learn to control it...
Maybe he should try giving it biscuits?
I Support This Assessment.
That bird is good It didnt even have a screwdriver
Looks like the Magpie is getting a little too excited by all of this...
I'm still eager to see Wolfe get into a punch-up with someone. Has the long-awaited day finally arrived?
The king was in his counting house, counting all his money . . .
Yep