Tom Sewell

I have a friend who had a daughter show up he didn't know he had. Adrian doesn't have to be a total villain not to know he's fathered a child or two if the mother(s) didn't want to tell him. I think I was careful to say that Adrian being Susan's father wasn't 100% certain, just that it was more likely than any other explanation. Pandora wanting to consult Susan before marking her is totally believable, especially given the thoughtfulness she's recently displayed. And there's no evidence she knows that the vampire that attacked Diane was a mercenary. But Pandora does know there's another Immortal up to no good, so I'm still thinking she might have decided to mark now and talk later. An alternative I've envisioned is Pandora appearing at the mall now to join Susan, Diane, and Adrian to talk things over. Giving Diane a mark might come up.

@Scotty: Your opinion's your opinion, but I don't think you've effectively refuted the arguments I just made. Nothing is more important to Pandora than protecting her family, and as far as we know Diane hasn't had a potential guardian nearby for most of the time since she was attacked. If Pandora thought marking Diane would make her safer, I think she would have done it. As for Jerry 2.0's protection, better than nothing, but he has doubts about protecting himself. And the possible nasty implications of Adrian being Susan's true father don't decrease the probability that he is, and are more likely to have inspired a lot of effort in covering up those circumstances. Remember, Susan comes from a very wealthy family, and wealthy families generally have more resources and more reasons for fiddling with official records. And then there's Dan himself referring back to the first hint that Adrian was really Susan's father he dropped more than a thousand comics ago in the commentary for this comic. Think he's just being cute with us?

I've been coming back to Susan's face in Grace's mirror, which is the second reference link Dan gives in his commentary, and what Pandora said to Sarah on her very recent visit: "Of course they were his." Pandora almost certainly had to be referring to Diane and Susan because she knows what Adrian looks like in his true form, the form Grace saw when she was checking her enchanted image and saw Susan looking back at her. That doesn't quite seal the deal that Adrian is Susan and Diane's father because Pandora didn't say his what. Children? Grandkids? Descendents? But probability favors the first choice, children. Probability also favors that Adrian doesn't know he has children because he's surprised to see how much Susan looks like Diane. But he might not have seen them since they were infants, and he might have something like the same mental block Nanase had not noticing how much Diane looked like Susan until Ellen and Grace pointed it out to Nanase on their first day at Moperville South. Whether Adrian knows or doesn't know he has children, there's a lot of 'splainin to do, to quote Ricky Ricardo. And that's another reason why I think Pandora might make an appearance soon. And, yes, I think there's a good chance Pandora has already marked Diane. She's had that little chat with Jerry 2.0 and would know from him that Diane has the same magical affinity as Susan but wasn't able to use it to defend herself. Given that Jerry 2.0 figured they were twin sisters on New Year's Eve, and was right there when Ellen and Nanase told Susan about Diane, and that Jerry was further investigating Susan and Diane between that and meeting Pandora, Pandora should know quite a lot about Susan and Diane by now.

Or standing up in surprise when he saw Diane walking toward him with Susan?

Swordfighting skill is rare now, but in Holmes day, not so much, especially among Brits and Continentals. Duels were still being fought. And I don't believe the Holmes portrayed by Conan Doyle actually did much swordplay. I think that's more a product of all those Basil Rathbone portrayals of Holmes. Rathbone was one of the best swordsmen in the movies. HIs duels with Errol Flynn in Captain Blood and Tyrone Power in Zorro are maybe the best ever put on film.

I've already said Adrian Raven could have been Sherlock Holmes. Maybe it runs in the family?

I wouldn't be surprised if Diane has a mark she doesn't know about yet.

Dan's said a lot about that dang table, but he hasn't said a dang thing about why the table is there at all. It looks to me that Raven is manning it. There's clipboard facing Susan and Diane that may be for signup sheets and thingies that may hold flyers/bookmarks or some such. Maybe the table is there so Pandora can walk through it like she walked through Tedd's table this morning.

And Susan isn't a feminist now? Susan has softened her attitude toward men in some respects, but she won't tolerate any bad behavior of men toward women.

I bet on genuine surprise. From his performance in front of Grace, Ellen, and the principal of Moperville South, playing convincingly doesn't seem to be a big part of Adrian Raven's skill set. Perhaps someone asked him to come here? Someone who knew that Diane and Susan were coming here tonight? Or maybe someone who wants Adrian's murder to happen in a very public place. Maybe someone who tried to arrange another murder here six days ago? Perhaps an anonymous phone call or a note with no signature summoned him, and Adrian decided he should, in the words of Sherlock Holmes, "take precautions". If Sherlock Holmes was real in the Moperverse, Adrian might have known him. Heck, Adrian could have been Sherlock Holmes!

Here's something I'd like to discuss: Why does Mr. Raven wear that red tailcoat? It hasn't been in fashion for a century and a half. It's a poor choice for someone concealing who and what and especially how old he really is. Maybe it's armored. To me the way he's holding his right arm suggests he's using a cane. Remember the last time he used a cane?

"You...don't have any kids, do you?" "Of course they were his!" What a coinky-dinky, Adrian Raven--literally the primary target for tonight of who knows how many vampires--just happens to be at the mall when Susan the vampire killer and Diane the potential vampire killer walk in together. And Susan, who as far as we know has never seen Adrian Raven before, senses something familiar about him. As to why Mr. Raven calls one of his students by her first name, it could be any of: He's surprised to see one of his students here. He's surprised to see Diane here. He's surprised to see Diane here with Susan. He's not at work and not in his me-teacher-you-student mode. Dan still hasn't gotten around to giving Diane a last name. Also Rhoda, Lucy, Liz, Noah, Greg, Luke, Sam, William and Gillian...

Meaningful dialog? Define "meaningful dialog". If you mean explaining the whys and wherefores of magic, then maybe. They've already talked about magic a little. But they seemed to be alone while they were doing it. The food court isn't such a good place to talk about The Secret, and they're both more than smart enough to realize this. That's not to say Dan won't have them do it anyway, but still... But the purpose of this meeting is to talk about what Susan and Diane really are to one another. That's not really about magic, it's about Susan's issues with her father and Diane's conflicted feelings about Susan being part of a family Diane never knew she was part of. That's what they should be talking about at the food court. Dan has pretty explicitly explored Diane's turmoil and the reasons behind it, but I think he may have left out something for behind Susan's extreme behavior. I'm not talking about rubophobia and not liking to be touched. What I mean is how Susan's eccentricities are so amplified now. It was only after learning about Diane that Susan that Susan ever defended her dad to anyone else. That scene kind of got quickly neutralized by Nanase telling Susan about Jerry at the New Year's Eve party. But it it also reveals that Susan still loves her dad. And that probably means Susan's been wondering for a long time if she hadn't told her mom as soon as she could about her dad and the other woman, maybe they wouldn't have divorced, or at the least they could have separated in a way that her dad could still have been in her life. And since Susan found out about Diane, could Diane have been a part of Susan's life before now. And despite a long wait, Susan did get around to hugging Tedd last Saturday.

Not nearly enough to do even one mall food court seat. As for fairies, the setup has been that Susan can basically summon fairies anywhere. She's been shown with three fairies at once at least three times in canon, and she has four Nanase-created dolls for her magic chest now. And it's not explicit exactly how many fairies at once she can summon; it might be more than three and even more than four. And back in the 2010 Sketchbook Hey Listen to My Little Friends! Susan is calling out ten fairies at once, very reminiscent of Adrian casting his murder shroud a year before. Reasons Susan might want to bring along a fairy or three: She didn't want to un-summon them. She wanted to show Susan one of them without summoning one in a public place. She wanted one to literally watch her back, although wearing that ponytail doesn't leave a lot of room to hide a fairy. She thought she might need one or more, and wasn't sure she'd have the energy to summon them. They comfort her. Obviously she didn't take this choice--although they could be in her car or on the roof playing with the owls.

So, what's next? Has anyone told Susan that Diane dates lots of boys? Has anyone told Diane that Susan has never dated any boy? Diane's reaction to that revelation might be along the lines, "What, first Charlotte and now you?!" Things are moving slowly, but this is how awkward first meetings go, and there's a lot of baggage to check. Plus, since Susan didn't bring a purse or a backpack, how will she sanitize her seat?

The school I went to in Moore, Idaho, had been built in 1916 and still had the original plumbing.

Maybe I was stuck in an alternate universe. Oh, I was in the San Francisco Bay/Silicon Valley area. Same thing.

Once again, it's better to be in Canada. If I wasn't so damned old and broke, I'd really think of moving there.

I I'm not aware that TNG was ever in syndication. News to me. We were selling the DVDs in Fry's Electronics twenty years ago.

If the current Moperverse year is 2014, the original run of Star Trek: The Next Generation, AKA TNG, ended four years before Susan was born. Of course, if Dan wants to move TNG forward in time in his univerese, he can Make It So. He can change anything. He can say EGS really began in 2002 and now it's only January 2003, and have Tedd make a wand to turn all the CRTs to flatscreens, flip phones to smartphones, and cover up Susan's midriff in those early comics, and give Susan her missing bangs. Greg didn't get shorter, did he? Anyway, I'm sure Dan has remarked that time and tech are fluid in the Moperverse, just like in Springfield where Bart should be in his thirties by now, or in Peanuts, Blondie, Beetle Bailey, etc. I know Dan said that when he thought the story would move on past high school a lot sooner. Although... the Change which seems to be coming up might give Dan an opportunity to diverge from our world in larger ways. Both magic and secret alien super-technology already exist in hiding in the Moperverse now, largely thanks to the successful efforts of Edward Verres and the rest of the MIBs at the DGJ and no doubt their counterparts in other nations--if the DGJ isn't a worldwide international secret spooky society. Maybe something moving toward the world at the climax of Negima?

My internet was off this morning (I'm on Pacific Time, Zulu-8). I don't think any of Dan's quirks are that relevant to the story, other than by giving them to various characters, he makes them more three-dimensional. Now, why Susan has exaggerated responses to things that could be dirty and/or germ-ridden might fit in with catching her dad fooling around while her mom was away. Kids as young as she was are hardly ever averse to dirt, mud, grime, smelly dogs, etc. More like they seek them out. Baby Blues would have to cut back to a weekly schedule without jokes about how messy kids are. I agree with the Hmmm... above. Diane does display similar behavior once, during Grace's first day at school. And while Diane has dated lots of boys, she reasoned when she first set her sights on Elliot that he was unlikely to press for physical romance. So maybe Diane and Susan started out with the same attitudes in these matters, but Susan's became more exaggerated because of the trauma of her parents' breakup and divorce. And just maybe Susan got a bit too much practice cleaning stuff and keeping it clean because that mansion she lives in with her mom doesn't seem to have any servants.

I think they're related, and sisters, but the only consensus that will count in the end is Dan's--assuming Dan ever gives us an answer.

What do you think this is, the Danish parliament?

What else is this forum for?

The story comic is #839, The Other Woman With Susan's Face. Dan put up the cover of the dye box in Sketchbook #401. It's Snazzy Hair Dye in Gloomy Gus Blue. Maybe Dan has forgotten it's dark blue? Well, it still has blue highlights in the last Patreon pinup, I think. I'm pretty good at archive diving because I've saved all the story comics, all the NP comics, most of the sketchbooks, and most of the Patreon pinups I can access, so I don't have to wait to get enough bandwidth to get to the next page. But you found #839 before I did, Thor. Have a cookie.