September 1st, 2017
1 Sept 2017 · page 728 of 1306
Summer's over, immediate fog time.
Cast: Benjamin Thackerey, Heinrich Wolfe, Sidney Malik, Verity Cunningham
Comments (70)
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Wolfe and Malik interacting is just precious... Wolfe noticing how talkative Sid is is a priceless moment.
On the downer side, I have a bad feeling that I have a reasonable guess what they're walking toward.
In Panel 2, Wolfe looks like he's staring at Sid's speech bubble. "Whoa."
Haha, he almost does, doesn't he? XD
And I just noticed Sidney twirling the mist around his finger as he tries to figure out what it is.
Well, it is the first time when Sid goes into "walls of text" mode before Wolfe.
I'd like to know what Sid is on about, actually.
following the light at the end of the tunnel ? Not necessarily a good idea.
Nevertheless hooourayl Ben isn't sleeping! Yet...
All of them aren't sleeping, that is.
Средь них был юный барабанщик,
С отрядом он шёл впереди...
:)
I know, the circumstances are awful. But, but...
I can't help myself.
Is this a quotation from something, Maria? : )
Yeah :) It's a very old song from twenties of XX, Rot Front etc. About an heroic young boy who fought shoulder to shoulder with grown-ups.
AFAIK, it was translated then from German into Russian.
But even in sixties we taught this song in schools.
For those of us who don't know Russian, Google Translate yields:
Among them was a young drummer,
With the detachment he went ahead
How close is this to accurate?
It's very accurate this far :)
But I insist the following must have nothing similar with that song!
:)
Interesting, do you remember the name of the song? : )
Well, here you are :)
It's "Песня о юном барабанщике" ("Song about the young drummer"), Russian adaptation of Mikhail Svetlov, 1925 1930 (you can find info that lyrics were created by Okudzhava, but it' a mistake ) - [http://a-pesni.org/grvojna/...](http://a-pesni.org/grvojna/oficial/malbarabanschik.php "http://a-pesni.org/grvojna/oficial/malbarabanschik.php")
I've found even an animated film (1972) for you - [https://m.youtube.com/watch...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hHOhckLAw4o "https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hHOhckLAw4o")
Though you have to know the original translation here in the movie was converted to fit Russian and Soviet realities.
In particular, the last two lines of the first strophe in the film are "Вперёд продвигались отряды / Отважных и смелых бойцов (Moved forward the troops / Of the brave and bold fighters".
But in the original Svetlov's adaptation it has to be "Вперёд продвигались отряды / спартаковцев, смелых бойцов (Moved forward the troops / Of the Spartacists, bold fighters".
Very interesting, thanks!
Only I'd like you to understand: it's just an image of somebody short, fragile but nevertheless tenacious and unyielding that came to me when I recalled that song.
But nothing of it's pathos that is completely alien to Ben, IMHO.
:)
I hate pathos :)
I was halfway wondering if this would turn out to be ["The Little Drummer Boy"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1fA59oH7Q "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1fA59oH7Q") translated into Russian, 8-) but it's completely different.
Ooh, this could be interesting. Sloth was like some kind of giant seal-like creature wasn't it? I'm picturing an angler fish holding it's light out for lost travellers wearily walking towards it through the gloom, glad to reach the light and safety so they can finally rest their tired out feet...
As I recall Kate said it was part walrus and part blobfish
Sid: In the velvet darkness of this magic night, burning bright, there's a guiding star, no matter what or who you are...
Sid and Wolfe: ♫There's a light -♫
Vee and Ben: ♫- Over at the Lamplight Co. place -♫
Sid and Wolfe: ♫- There's a li-i-i-i-iii-ight -♫
Vee and Ben: ♫- Burning in enchanted space -♫
Sid and Wolfe: ♫- There's a light in the darkness of every Deadly's night.♫
Sid, Wolfe, Vee and Ben: Er... glance at each other
Mr. Luxuria: steps (struts, really) from darkness How do you do, I- ♪da-da♪ see you've met my- ♪da-da♪ slothful handyman!
Sid, Wolfe, Vee and Ben: !!!!
Vee: What is he-
Ben: It.
Vee: -wearing?!?!?!!!
>:=)>
I love Vee's Victorian era glow stick.
It's an impromptu lambent chemical mixture. Obviously.
Darn English and their weird weather. In America, we never have this problem.
Can confirm. Of course, in America you might get scorched to death by the summer heat, frozen in a blizzard, drowned in floods, struck by lightning or hail, or (depending on which part of the country) all of the above, but, you know...
At least you won't get eaten by a manatee!
Heh. One of my few professional paid RPG writing credits involve mutated, man-eating manatees.
I'll buy the drinks, you tell the story.
This so much right now.
You forgot the tornadoes, hon. I live smack in the center of Tornado Alley. Also earthquakes; I used to live in what might be called Earthquake Alley.... Also hurricanes; I've never personally had one of those, though.
Trust me, they are a weather phenomenon to definitely be missed.
Yeah, watching 'em on TV is close enough for me.
Yeah, good catch. I'm from the area of death by heat, lightning, and hurricanes (aka Florida) myself...
Fun times.
Also, volcanoes. Lots of volcanoes.
Especially that great big one that IS Yellowstone Park....
...tick...tock...tick...tock...tick...tock....
True 'dat. I tend to forget that one: I live in the shadows of Rainier, Baker and St. Helen's and those are quite enough for me.
A moderate degree of anxiety is the price you pay for all the pretty, though. *
Come to think of it, that applies to this entire thread. The exorbitant weather is the price North Americans pay for all the pretty.
When we went to Seattle for ECCC, I have to admit that I had no idea Mt Rainier was just THAT huge- it made a hell of an impression as we flew in!
Ah, Sid's signature danger wizard babble returns. ^_^
Kind of hard to read behind the people talking over him (nice visual pun there, I think) but it seems he was almost getting somewhere before being interrupted. Oh well, I'm sure knowing what caused the fog is in no way important for facing Sloth.
Well... he seems to be inclining toward group lucid dreaming.
BUT - it's been a long, busy day, they're all legitimately tired, more or less the opposite of sloth you'd think 'though rest and sleep is Sloth's avocation...
Which would imply Ben and then probably Sid are best prepared for this? (Or least prepared if it isn't true) Ben in on screen tired and didn't sleep the night before. And Sid had a late night and an early morning. He may have gotten sleep but who knows for how long and how well it was.
Sid has his danger babble.
Vee has her chemo-luminescent bauble.
Wolfe has his cheerfulness bubble.
And Ben might as well have a fastidiousness bible.
(Even if O'Malley has ruffled up a few pages of it.)
By the way, the copy of Find the Lady that I asked my library to order arrived yesterday, and I read it last night. It's really interesting to read the bits about witches again now that we've seen Mal in action. I'm kind of surprised that I didn't realize the first time around that Victor Cunningham is Ben's grandfather as well as Verity's; they act a lot alike, and Victor's face in the second-to-last panel on this page ( [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-8th-2015/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-8th-2015/") ) is pure Ben!
I had the same reaction rereading the pages with Victor in them, and I'm really looking forward to seeing Izzy and Henry's reactions to realizing who he is. Have you gotten to read the short story about the Barber's wedding yet? There is no denying the family resemblance there.
I did read the wedding story, and you're absolutely right about the resemblance!
Where might one find access to this short story? : )
It's at the end of the print version of Find the Lady.
PDF version- [https://gumroad.com/katedra...](https://gumroad.com/katedrawscomics "https://gumroad.com/katedrawscomics")
Print Version- [http://widdershins.storenvy...](http://widdershins.storenvy.com/ "http://widdershins.storenvy.com/")
Thanks, I really need to get with it and buy all the PDFs! I was thinking I'd wait until this book was finished and buy them all together or something, but if there's extra stuff I'm missing in there...
The extra material at the end of each book is well worth it! My favorite might be Green-Eyed Monster, which has notes on the various types of malforms, compiled by Ben (with difficulty) from Mal's vague descriptions and illustrated by Wolfe. Vanishing Act is cool too - it has some pages from Harry's notebook after she takes Sid on as an assistant.
10$ donation on Patreon'll give you all e-books of Kate. :)
Aha, we have a will-o'-the-wisp. Watch out!
Vee: "Don't split the party!"
Ben: stalks out in front
Let's hope Ben doesn't get too far ahead...
I'm wondering if they might not all get separated and all have to battle Sloth alone.
Light at the end of the tunnel, or an oncoming train?
Don't be silly; of course it's much worse than that!
"Never done one before!"
I think the walking you did way back in Sleight of Hand probably counts, but I'm not surprised you don't think of it that way.
Walks with Harry? Worth every step.
The last panel is just gorgeous.
It is very satisfying to see that it would take something worse than Ben's experience with Pride to stop him from going ahead of the team.
I had a random bit of dream last night where I was a malform removal person, talking to someone who had tried to imbue their wifi with Swiftness and gotten a buggerup that was frying the switches in their fuse box. The problems of the modern age...
Wondering if that's a MBMBaM reference snuck into panels 2 and 3, or if I just spend too much time thinking about the McElroy family podcasts.
Yessss I was wondering if anyone would notice that :3 Though honestly at this point the McElroys have completely infected my vocabulary to the point where I can't tell where the line is any more.
by which i mean greatjob
Uh, so for those of us who don't recognize it, what's MBMBaM?
My Brother My Brother and Me, it's a podcast! Very much worth a listen if you wanna hear three doofy brothers making endearingly dumb jokes.
Aha, thanks!
Though the comic has moved on, today... I'm going to throw this comment in anyway because I woke up this morning thinking about this page here. (See? Sign of great storytelling: the characters take up residence in your brain!)
Ben's great strength is what my father used to call "stick-to-it-iveness" - the ability to grit his teeth and keep on slogging to do what needs to be done, no matter what. He has to be the most physically and emotionally exhausted of any of the four. But will that stop him? No!
It's exactly the quality Sid most lacks, but then, what Sid brings to the table is intuitive brilliance. He is likely to be the one who figures out that Ben's dogged persistence is ideally suited to combat Sloth. Don't know what he'll call it -- perhaps Determination.
We've seen this before. In Piece of Cake, Alexa figured out that seemingly-timid Nora had huge courage, precisely because she had been battling her own fears all her life. Rosy was able to summon Nora's Courage to stand up to Gluttony. [http://www.widdershinscomic...](http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/february-5th-2014/ "http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/february-5th-2014/")
I just noticed how Wolfe cheers up as soon as he has a cheering-up-others job to do.
Just now remembering that, on top of being on the heels of Ben's troubles with Envy and Pride, Ben was the one who actually performed the summon on Sloth, and then failed to desummon it thanks to Fairbairn smacking him in book 2. I wonder if he's going to end up taking this one personally...