I’ll be at the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival this weekend! If you are in Vancouver BC you should stop by! I’m at table E2 with Sfé Monster! YEAH!!
I’ll be at the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival this weekend! If you are in Vancouver BC you should stop by! I’m at table E2 with Sfé Monster! YEAH!!
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At this point I’m convinced that Blanche’s hair is so thick that he can’t actually see where he’s going and he just knows his way around town by heart.
Nah, when he tips his head back, he can look through the narrow gap between his hair and his muzzle. The hair doesn’t block his vision, it just shades his eyes.
(Psst: You misspelled a word in your comment. I’m sure you meant to say, “…just knows his way around by hart.”)
This may be just me being dumb, but I imagine Alec sounding like Bob Hoskins, but slightly pitched down.
I dunno, it depends if Alec, and I haven’t checked, is from Liverpool itself and has the Scouse accent/dialect. Scousers are and can generally be a little higher pitched i guess, having family who hail from that City.
Alec is originally from London. He and Ike grew up there and moved to Liverpool a couple (I think) years ago. It’s been covered several times.
No I totally thought so too.
I know almost nothing about British accents. Would it be foolish of me to assume that most accents in the L.A. might be similar to those of the “Lads from Liverpool”?
British accents vary widely, they really do. “Scouse” is what is ofter refered to as the Liverpool accent, but even then there are two variations of that, a posher version and the rough version we all know, but it depends on where you come from within the city. You get a Brummie accent from Birmingham, Georgie from Newcastle, Cockney accent for London, or parts of it. If you live on the border of England and Wales, then you get a sort of Border accent, which is where I’m from.
I wish I had an accent. As far as I can tell, the middle / northern bit of the US’s only distinction voice-wise is that we have no discernible accent as compared to the rest of the country. I’ve been told by others that there is a ‘Michigan’ accent, but hell if I’ve ever heard it.
Ah, the good ol’ Yooper accent. Fairly familiar with that one. It borrows much from our northern neighbor, Canada, sometimes even down to the trademark Eh.
Really sad that I lost my accent.
Sometime I’d like to hear someone with a different accent tell me what my US Pacific Northwest one sounds like.
“I work here, I’m allowed to POP UP.” hehehe
Looks like poor Tony’s pop-up blocker doesn’t work on bugbears.
So how much time has passed here? How long does Tony get to ‘stay the night at Blanche’s’ before talking to Mom for real has to happen..?
This is apparently the same day in late August ’04, 2 or 3 weeks after Tony’s transformation in Exchanges, which happened in early August.
When does the fall term of school begin? Mrs. Gillis will have to answer some questions when Tony is unable to attend. I doubt she can satisfy them with a string of obscure medical excuses.
Going by the first panel of the first page of this strip, it looks to be later in the same day as Kill Them With Kindness.
That’s my take on it, too. Unless, that is, Ike & Rhonda take Cy & Lee for a similar stroll another day. (I don’t think so, either.)
Early September, so they’d better figure THAT out before they go buying guitars, hmmmm kids?
Is it just me, or did you draw Tony a wee bit differently? New style or not, I like it.
Also, that moment when you realize that Tony walks like a velociraptor.
We just found out what Tony is: a giant velociraptor
I hope Alec is being very careful handling that vinyl.
Coloured vinyls are quite collectable.
I wouldn’t want to handle even one of these LPs with claws like that! (PDF link) Oh Alec, the things you do for the bugbear cool factor… Come to think of it, if Lily Snodgrass had been a bit more clever about things, she could have used the cover given by the Bugbear Talisman to set up a booby trap to exploit this…
Alec: *checks catalogue code of Black Sabbath album in Rock Record* Nice! A first pressing of the debut LP… and it’s mint! *chuckles, replaces disc in inner sleeve, begins replacing outer sleeve* That should go for at least-
Remotely-triggered banger (planted under counter): BANG!!
Alec (jumps): AAA!
Disc: *crunch*
Outer sleeve: *crumpleshrippp*
Alec: ………..NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Lily (with remote, watching through binoculars): Yes! Yes!Yes!YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes! IdiditIdiditIdiditIgotimIgotimIgotimgotimgotimgotgotgotgotgotim!!! HAHAAAAH! But… *pauses to shed crocodile tear* oh blameless classic vinyl, know that your sacrifice was worthy, and will live on for all time…
Alec doesn’t strike me to be the sort to jump at a loud noise. XD
It stops being funny when there’s actual property damage involved, even if you trick the victim into doing it himself.
If he’s as dexterous with them as he appears he may be at an advantage. He won’t be getting oils or fingerprints on anything.
Especially if the edges are blunt enough that scratching the vinyl isn’t an issue.
So, now we see Alec’s day job. Rhonda works in a seamstress’ shop. I wonder how many other day jobs we’ll see any time soon, in the L.A. or outside.
I checked the character listings to refresh my memory about some birth dates: Blanche, 05 April ’88; Tony, 10 October ’88. If they are classmates, Rupert (18 June ’88) should be in the class of ’06 along with them. Back in Exchanges, Tony may have been gawking and pointing at someone he knew but didn’t recognize. Sam Hain’s birth date is only listed as 1988, but Tobias (09 August ’89) is a year behind them.
Jimothy’s going-away party was within a week or so of Tobias’ birthday.
I just had a rather silly thought about the name of the shop.
With Alec working there, it could very easily be renamed ‘Scaryophonic’.
;)
I can picture him doing that fade-out/fade-in trick, that Myra used in the cavern, to appear at a customer’s elbow and ask, “May I help you?”
An absolutely flawless mental image indeed, Lynx-Eye.
:)
Too bad that there’s nobody in the Avalon who does not yet know about Alec/bugbears and would want to try a bit of shoplifting … >:->
Not a case of Alec preventing shoplifting, but Alec using his bugbear abilities, to appear out of nowhere, in serving a customer.
What I meant to say was “imagine how much vocational fun Alec would have at work with *that* poor misguided soul, rather than having only pff-limits paying customers around all day”. Or should I start a new thread titled “Screamy-O-Phonics” for that? ;-)
I suspect one of the conditions of Alec’s employment is that he does not scare the pants off of the customers.
That would be difficult to do in a literal sense, to some of the residents of the LA.
Try as I might I cannot imagine the kind of guitar that can be playable by Tony without it being completely ridiculous…
I suspect that less customizing would be needed for a guitar to foot-playable than hand-playable, for Tony. Whatever the case, I won’t be surprised if Kory has compared notes with someone who actually does instrument design.
I just flashed on an image of Bhadraksh playing a six-hand flute, or some other instrument that requires more than two hands.
That’s a nice Modest Mouse vinyl you’ve got there, Alec
I’m sure Tony doesn’t want to hear some good news for people who love bad news, though
(rather fitting for Tony however) XD
I thought that the hot air balloon with the anchor looked like the one on a Modest Mouse record. But the one with that image has a blue cover and is “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” and was also released in 2007. GNFPWLBN has that same color cover but arrows sticking out of a wall as the cover art.
…Yeah, I guess you can tell what my favorite band is.
Wouldn’t a pedal steel guitar work?
If you check out the clean copy of panel 3 (below, for now), you see a lute, a dulcimer(?), and a mandolin on the wall.
I spotted the mandolin, on Patreon, when Kory posted the uncoloured inks for this page.
It looks to be an A style mandolin with f holes.
Looking on Google Images about the dulcimer, it’s a mountain dulcimer.
I can’t figure what the instrument to the right of the mountain dulcimer is though. It’s got a too flat a base and has a triangular shape to be a lute.
mandolin, maybe?
I want to say balalaika…
But those are usually wider.
Flat bottom and triangular body seems to fit otherwise?
(I do not know much about musical instruments, so I don’t know what the parts are called.)
-Badger-
When I was looking for what that instrument might be, I also looked at, and discarded the balalaika.
Like you noted, it’s a lot wider in angle than what is hanging on the wall.
Also the instrument body of what is hanging on the wall, whilst basically a triangular shape, has slightly curved sides.
Could be a travel guitar.
Alec Hyde: Pop-up Bugbear.
I would trade places with Tony any day, think of the possibilities. That said i would find it most ammusing as a plot twist if the pair of them where to bump into Tony’s mum on the street looking for him and having known about the LA for some time.
Really? Not knowing yet what he really is, whether he can go back to human looking or continue his life? or if their is some complications (remember the Nokk ? always crazy around 50)
We dont even know for sure if he will be able to fly: if he is a magical human -bird hybrid, he may be too heavy.
even if his current issues are all prefectly resolved, there will still be the time he has been abscent from home/school … and a severe potential identity crisis + the risk of passing it to his descendance or of straight sterility.
well honestly, Tony had reason to be whiny and i wouldnot want his position.
Unlike Michelle (convenient shapeshiffting, guarranted flight and knowing place where to, good health and long life, magical power, didnt miss any day)
There are issues granted, and to be perfectly honest it would be perfectly cool to have such appendages even if they can’t fully be utilized, however Blanches mum has suggested that he could fly. Though the only sure way to know if Tony gets a shock when he stands on a set of scales and finds out he is lighter than he used to be, feathers and all.
Even if he does miss the last two years of school (assuming from an earlier post and i haven’t checked dates)Tony would be leaving school at 16 as thats the leaving age in Britain, though he wont hold any GCSE’s I dont think that would matter too much if he stays in the LA. Not that he would be really missing that much in the last 2 years.
Just to be clear on the age thing, Tony would be turning 16 a month or so after this story. (His birthday in October 10th.)
My mistake, I did see dates posted somewhere but was too lazy to look. Either way he will still have the last year of school to miss and his exams, and then probably no chance of 6th form college.
Finally Alec makes a return.
Last three panels: best ever.
In the last panel, all the red records (lines) disappear from the background.
Apart from the cream-white sleeve at the front of that pale blue rack, none of the colours of the other sleeves stay in any consistent positions.
Any plans to attend AC?
Gotta love Alec’s ‘modest’ face.