March 7th, 2014
8 Mar 2014 · page 336 of 1306
If you can imagine the sound of a brain creaking you can mentally add it to panel 3 if you like
Cast: Ethan Booth
Comments (50)
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Awwww. <3
Ohh, good, it hasn't completely sunk yet.
Hotel Gula has electricity in 2033.
When Ethan is taken from his time in the strip from 2013-12-2, there is no clock on the wall. No electric food warmers either, although they might just be out of the shot. If true, then either magic got a whole lot weaker or the hotel is now shielded.
I suspect that the hotel may be shielded because of the working they did to get everybody home.
Yes, it's shielded.
[http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-29th-2013/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-29th-2013/") panel 1. Sign
on side of building "Now magic shielded"
EDIT: Ignore that. That's a picture of a cafe & not the hotel.
The 2013-12-2 strip where Ethan was abducted shows a slightly different kitchen. No clock or food warmers. Did history change, affecting magic in Widdershins?
It already had electricity. Panel 1 here: [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-29th-2013/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/november-29th-2013/")
EDIT: That's the place they were having coffee at. Never mind. But Ethan and the manager were walking along in the kitchen, so they probably were a few steps along and in front of a different background when Ethan got borrowed from the timeline.
"We're going to need a vacation to talk about this because my story is just THAT LONG."
"does it have anything to do with the way you aged 5 years during a 1 hr interview?"
Wait, was he really there five years? Cause I missed that if it's true....
Something about this page is just adorable.
Who is that woman sitting at the bar in the background?? I wonder if she has rabbit tattoos... ;)
I was wobdering that too! A lady who likes tall brown boots and green in her hair and who just happens to know the date a certain chef is fated to be leaving the Hotel Gula to meet up with his husband at a nearby cafe, perhaps? XD That'd be awesome.
Could be. She's wearing boots, too. Instead of green hair, she wears a green blouse. If I was in her shoes, I'd be curious, too.
Your predictive power is akin to that of the gods
That's wonderful. :) I'm glad for the cantankerous sore-head. And for his husband, too.
I can't be the first one to notice that nowhere does it state in this strip that Ethan took the job.
Or that he turned it down, for that matter.
Oh well, so much for Ethan's career. I'm sure he'll be just as happy cooking Lard Burgers (R) in his local health food shop.
Bah. There are plenty of places beyond the Hotel Gula. As far as everyone else knows, Ethan just showed up for the interview, but he's probably sick of the place and definitely ready for a vacation.
He may have accepted the job you know....
When asked when could he start, he just says in two weeks. He has the best resume (after all, gluttony picked him) so management would almost certainly be willing to wait.
Sounds like a happy ending. Hopefully in Venice theycan talk it out with Ethan accepting the need for work life balance and his husband accepting the fact that he has to allow Ethan room to devlop his career.
Eh? Not taking one well-paying (but stressful as all hell) job doesn't mean that your career is over, does it? Goodness, where is this attitude towards work coming from? There is something as middle ground, you know, and also, with his newfound determination to balance work and life better, he will most likely be able to get a really satisfying job, one that benefits his marriage -and- his career. The definition of career as something that you have to sacrifice your life and happiness to, is in my eyes appalling.
Well, I've always dealt with work life balance by not having a life. :-)
<3
So the next few pages are everybody arriving in their home time?
So, the next adventure is going to be called 'Guest Ales'? Will it feature tbe apprentice druggist conspiracy theorists promised in the top webcomics list I wonder?
Was wondering where you got this from.....then I noticed the sign behind the cafe bar.
Unfortunately, they get into another big fight over WHICH Venice they're going to. Venice, Italy? Or the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, California?
Could that boyfriend of Ethan be a descendant of Sid and Harry? I don't think that such a resemblance would carry over half a dozen-or-so generations, but still :D (I'm overinterpreting)
I feel I should note that Venice presumably has cafes too.
I will probably be pierced by dozens of flaming arrows.... but I like Ethan, and I am glad to see his redemption at the end of the story arc.
I just wish that he hadn't been stereotyped as another really self-absorbed gay guy. He would have been a jerkier jerk and a more highly redeemed hero if the love interest were a tender-hearted young woman.
No flaming arrow here (well, maybe a lit match ;) ), but I wonder: Are gay guys often portrayed as being self-absorbed? To me, he was just a guy who was a bit too career- and ego-driven, and somehow, I don't know, it wouldn't have made the same impact on me, him redeeming himself if "a tender-hearted young woman" had been waiting for him. Because that in itself is a whole 'nother kind of stereotype.
To be fair, this sort of story-telling relies on "types" -- We identify quickly with a character because of her type, or her antithesis of a type. I feel in love with Harry as soon as I saw her pipe and ponytail. I knew right away that she was going to smart and bad-ass, independent and tender-hearted. She did not disappoint!
Rosie is so sweet because she is that icon of the 1950's home-maker, the ideal mother and grandmother that we all love.
The "type" of the 'gay guy' in storytelling is not nearly so settled. He's not the same as he was 30 years ago. He's not the same in England as he is in America. I've seen the type evolve from "swishy little fairy" to "hard-living, quick-burning, don't-care-if-I-die" to "cute pet of the socialite leading lady." The stereotype of the gay guy in American television nowadays is a couple of bumbling bachelors who are ill-equipped to keep a home without a woman. The gay guy type is still looking for a solid reality to attach to. I'm kinda sorry that the story went there... I felt that this was just a nod to some obligatory product placement for gay culture. (Sorry Kate, please don't hate me! I love your comic!)
Meanwhile, the tender-hearted girl type is one that everyone knows. She loves her man (who is too stupid to see her value). She's not hot or flashy; she wants to be a contemporary Rosie and she wants to do so with this man. And she'll be brilliant at it. It is the climax of every love story when the self-absorbed guy realizes what a treasure she really is, and no promotion or career or flashy-thin hottie is worth more than her.
I do appreciate the criticism, but I gotta say I'm not sure where you got 'bumbling' or 'ill-equipped to keep a home' from with this character? He's neither of those things (I'd imagine he keeps a pretty tidy, if spartan, home), he's just a guy with poor work/life balance, is all. The basis for that is really my own personal fear about these things, as someone who works silly hours and worries that they're not spending enough time with their spouse.
I don't really see that as a particular stereotype for gay guys, but I don't watch a lot of TV that isn't awful Investigation Discovery documentaries, so it's very possible that I missed something!
Apologies if anything came off as insulting in any way of course D:
The bumbling bachelor type is from a current American TV show called "Modern Families." Ethan does not resemble them. Ethan is competent -- no, excellent -- at what he does. However, the gay guys on American TV are always insufferably self-absorbed. They take themselves way too seriously. (Actually, the whole show is like that. All of the modern families [gay, straight, divorced, blended] are dysfunctional, because all of the characters are so self-centered. Everyone demands more from the rest, and no one realizes the need or joy of self-giving love.)
Ethan's redemption comes with this realization that he is called to give himself, freely and joyfully. Not because his beloved demands it, but because he wants to give. He has learned how to love, for the first time. This is a lesson our world needs to see, over and over.
If it helps, please realize that I am a pipe-smoking grandpa from America, and I'm a life-long culture warrior. I can't look at anything - not even a web comic - without speculating how every bit of present culture is going to shape the cultural environment in which my grandkids will grow up. I'm pretty happy with a universe that will have Widdershins!
Umm.... never mind. I love what you are doing with the characters. I love how medieval Samuel is quiet and humble and virtuous, and folks grow more modern and self-absorbed as time progresses (except Rosie, but the Greatest Generation never did fit that time-line). When we first met Ethan, he felt just right... Of course, that is how everyone will behave in the near future! We'll all be more self-centered and unable to love.
I talk too much. I should simply ask the author: Why did you make Ethan gay?
And how would you feel about an ending in which Ethan realizes that his beloved is really made of the same stuff as Rosie or Nora, filled with hidden strength?
I dunno, I guess for much the same reason as why Harry's a redhead, or why Wolfe is German, or why Sid's Indian, it fit together that way. It's another layer of interest to the character.
Also, in part, when I'm at a comic convention I sit at my table and look at the audience that's going by, and it's this vast array of people, all genders, all races, all sexualities, and I think about how when I'm reading something, I automatically identify more with female characters. It's nice to present lots of different people with characters to identify with, basically.
As per your second point, that'd certainly work! I didn't really have chance to flesh out Ryan as another character, since I have to think about the length of the story as a whole, but I'd have liked to have done so. I've thought up an embarassing amount of backstory for pretty much all of the characters..!
And a special thank you for Heinrich Wolfe, possibly the only happy, optimistic, friendly and all round nice guy Prussian in all of fiction. Definitely not a stereotype.
I got that he was a jerk while enslaved by Gula, because he felt guilty (IMO justifiably so) about having pulled out of an argument with his spouse, in which he suspected he himself was in the wrong, in order to go do the thing his husband was urging him not to do. I understood what Alexa found out from him to mean, that if he ever had a chance to make it up to his guy, a burden would lift from him and he would once more have the emotional energy to be a non-jerk.
Yep. There's some around the bases of the heat lamps in the first panel, too.
Just imagine the scraping of cogs as the brain rapidly shifts gears.
Chastity? or some other spirit that could be interpreted as "purity" or "exclusiveness"? I dunno what the whole definition of the Cardinal virtue of chastity is, just the vows of celibacy and chastity, so the virtue might be classified differently.
Aren’t they Hope, Faith, Love, Prudence, Patience, Temperance, Fortitude?
Is Chastity one of the Big Seven?
Venice? With what money?
Or were you doing the extra hours for some other reason besides needing to?
Back when they were arguing about it, the justification he gave was "It's another step towards head chef." In other words, he wanted the job for the promotion, not the money.
I can't believe that you had the reveal about the girl in the background planned out for so long.
:)
The more i think about it the more i get the idea that Mal and Ethan are some sort of very distant relatives