Tom Sewell

Nothing like Ashley screaming in the first panel of Monday's comic with another CRUNCH or a ZAP or SFX DAN THINKS IS COOL, Magus and Elliot rushing in, and in the last panel, the golem is standing over the smoking remains of the crate. Nope.

Interesting that Dan commentary references Ashley's 9EK, but Ashley hasn't screamed yet. This isn't screaming time yet? Dan might be trolling us again. The Golem doesn't actually say whom or what it's charging up to exterminate; it might be the forbidden thingie in the crate, or a new thingie or thingies possessing or trying to possess Ellen. Most of the whatevers bleeding out of the evaporating shards?

And you could be right, but the golem is big and not exactly cuddly-looking. On the other hand, cuddly-looking does not guarantee harmlessness.

Ashley threw Kevin at the golem while yelling "Get away from her!". Voltaire thought it was stupid for Ashley to try to save Elliot, but Ashley did save Elliot and she might have just saved Ellen because the golem was distracted long enough for Magpie to go to work.

If there were a lot of wands like Kevin, I think it would help limit the number of wizards.

They only come in a two-pack along with the other cheesy Danish creature feature, Journey to the Seventh Planet. And why hasn't The Old Hack mentioned either one of those yet? Oh, that's right, it's a capital crime in Denmark.

Maybe something like this? This is for those of you who have never seen Barbarella, and those who have but but don't remember how hot Jane Fonda was in 1968.

That sounds extremely logical to me. Of course, "logical" isn't always the best way of looking at things in EGS. I'm thinking the EEEEEEEEEK! is probably going to be comical, along the lines of Edwards' cry of anguish when he realized he had agreed to fund pizza for eight teenagers. Ashley could have a phobia about mice, spiders (although those bangs would be ironic), or mimes, although the best place for mimes is, of course, a toxic waste dump. Or another crate falls open, and out fall hundreds of VHS cassettes labeled HOWARD THE DUCK, PART 2. My latest insight is that Magpie isn't attacking the golem but capturing it. It could be a magical artifact made for gathering magical artifacts.

Kevin the Cowardly Wand has so far been more of a Barrel of Schtick and a Brown Trowser Job.

I'm thinking that Dan has either forgotten that "Magi" Is pronounced "Mage-eye" or meant to write "Maggie-pie". Now we know that Kevin's full name is Kevin the Cowardly Wand. He should sound like the late Bert Lahr. When danger reared its ugly head He simply shat himself and fled --Spamalot version of Brave Sir Robin.

Magpies are corvids, like crows, rooks, and ravens...

I'm wondering how Dan knows about magpies. I can't remember seeing one outside of Idaho. A mechanical magpie sounds to me something that, say, a pulp magazine version of Philo Farnsworth would dream up. Maybe the Moperverse version of the Mormon Tesla did make the featured player in today's comic.

Ashley being a wizard who doesn't know she's a wizard ties in nicely with her parents claiming they don't know which country they came from except it wasn't Japan. Obviously her parents are hiding the truth from Ashley, and it's not a stretch that they could be hiding their magic from her too. And if Ashley is a wizard, she might even have been an awakened Seer by now if Pandora hadn't decided against giving her a mark.

中国, the Chinese name for China, literally means "Middle Kingdom."

If Ashley can find an interpreter, she could do a lot of commiserating about how bad it is to find out you have an overdue library book.

Oh, joy, I have identified another nit to pick! Is there anything in canon that says that Uryuom actually come from a planet that is not another Earth? That is, we do have several canon examples of travel between alternate universes, but no spaceship has ever been shown any further away than Earth orbit. If anyone is interested, I'd be up for starting a new topic about this and maybe other alien vs. paranormal questions in EGS.

If the librarian Whatsit is looking for is Phix, he should know the late fees can be very substantial...

I already told everyone that Sheldon the wand was obviously working in the Catskills (AKA the Jewish Alps, AKA the Borscht Belt). Haven't you ever seen Dirty Dancing? That's the place and the era where the movie is set. Sheldon the Wand might have actually been around in the Elizabethan Era, but he switched to at least 20th-century language without any magical special effects, so it's probably shtick with all the thous and thines and prithees. I'll take Sheldon's word about Ashley being a real wizard, if a weak one.

I hold that we don't know. The only wizards we know of officially who don't get spells on their own are Seers, who are very rare.

What's even more impressive to Sheldon is the wizard is a maiden, no less. The wand's name is Sheldon because his previous owner was obviously a performer working at the worst Catskills resorts back when there were still Catskills resorts. So getting out of that changing room at the mall on her first date with Elliot may have had hidden significance which is now revealed. Definitely of significance is that having just seen the whatever coming out of the tall crate and maybe squinting at Ashley with its one remaining bug eye--or Uryuom or whatever--Ashley is completely ignoring that menacing whatever to facefault what Sheldon is telling her. I wonder if we'll catch up with the EEEEEEEEEK! in the next comic.

No, I didn't notice the bite out of the top. And now I'm considering that maybe Mighty Mouse flew into the back of Ashley's head, causing the impact starburst. The PTTAOLUTASF may be a three hour drive from Moperville, but it's a lot closer than the museum in Britain where Stoned Abe was when our Ellen was created. Besides, what's the first thing Abraham would see coming out of the crate? Ellen lying on the floor in front of him. Trying to kill Ellen is #1 on his list of sins to atone for, so he walks over to see if Ellen is all right. What Ashley sees is a big bearded man in chain mail going to Ellen carrying a big sword. "EEEEEEEEEK!"

And in Chicago it's 31 F. 51 F here in San Jose. And it's still January in Moperville, at night, and why isn't there any snow anywhere?! It all melted since New Year's Eve?!

Okay, now the UOO (Unidentified Ovoid Object) behind Ashley's head seems more like a motion streak since it has a chunk bitten out of its top. And it's raining. And it's Monday.

The tall crate might be big enough to hold a T.A.R.D.I.S. disguised as a blue police box...

Dan was right when he said perspective was a pain. Anyway, comparing the perspectives of this last panel with the last panel from April 4th, we're looking from further to Ellen's left. The falling-down thing seems like it was one side of a crate, although Dan has not put drawn in any nails or staples to suggest that it was attached to anything else; maybe it's really a bunch of lids or something toppling over one-by-one? Also, the whatever on the floor is only half as thick as the two still-falling-over images and the falling over ridges seem to have a central reinforcing rib the one on the bottom doesn't and the bottom whatever shows planking that the falling two don't. All of them seem to be much taller than Ellen lying on the floor, so if they're supposed to be the side of one crate falling off, that's one tall crate, probably more than tall enough to hold one stoned Abraham plus pedestal, but not tall enough to hold Mighty Cthulhu or a Martian tripod. Another unsolved mystery is what the heck is that white ovoid behind Ashley supposed to be? My first guess is that it's a speech balloon where Ashley's head-and-hair have covered up all the letters. My second guess is that Dan forgot to put in any letters or pasted over all the letters with Ashley and didn't realize it until he'd either already posted this comic, or said "screw it, I'm done!", or hasn't realized it yet. Or maybe it's actually an escaped artifact, perhaps from the crate of blank speech balloons that just fell apart...