[1105] Your governess is here.

D'awwww. Nothing much new here, but in any case, that family has Kat's nose!

This is getting kinda creepy. What is it with Jones and small kids?

Also, why does the baby have an eyepatch?

Baby duels. In the old days, if someone took your pail and shovel at the beach, it was on.

Obviously Jones stole the childs eye getting the name "Wandering Eye"

[/sarcasm]

Seriously though, she's a god/demigod of some sort

OK, so now we have a precedent for Jones staying with a kid to adulthood and beyond since she raises Samuel Langdon and remains with him unto death, the same way as she seems to be staying with Eglamore from childhood up and we can probably intuit that she did the same thing with the original Mr Jones from the munitions factory.

Do we have a mythological precedent for this kind of serial cradle-to-grave loyalty?

Two consecutive previous centuries. Will the next page be the previous century? Which is the 17th century... This lights a light bulb for me because Robert Boyle was of the 17th century and he was an alchemist, or at least studied alchemy if not chemistry, philosophy, and physics. I'm obsessed with the theory of Jones being an alchemist, so I'm hoping maybe that the next pages might have Robert Boyle in them? Just a crazy guess, hehe.

(Also, along with Robert Boyle, there were other first scientists of the 17th century and the Scientific Revolution: Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, etc.)

She's almost like an inversion of the "Maiden, Mother, Crone" triad. While she doesn't change, her connection to each host is variable depending on their age. She moves from caretaker to lover to daughter-surrogate in each man's life, becoming the dominant female at each point. Seems almost parasitic, though not malignant.

Perhaps Surma's dislike of Jones was a reflection of Jones' dislike of Surma intruding in her territory.

I think this further points to her being the reason that Jimmy and Surma broke up.

OHMYGOODNESS. I wasn't actually suggesting that, but...

Lang Don
Don Lan(g)

Duuuuude.

EDIT: In any case, it's pretty clear that IF the Eglamores and Donlans were related, they're family tree split off pretty early on. It's probably all just coincidence.

Precisely what I thought. And not a clever one either, as it is basically the pronounced syllables turned around. Try to say the names one after another: LangdonDonlanLangdonlandonlandonlandonlandonlan.

Well, that's a theory, not necessarily a right one, but Alexh: great observation with that nose! Would we have ever noticed that similarity of the names had you not pointed out the similarity of noses?! Even if this would be a distraction, it is quite sweet one. It goes together so nicely, with so many cues.

Well, Kat mentioned that she used to call Elgamore "Uncle Jimmy". Perhaps they're not necessarily biologically related, but still considered "family"?

You know, it's been 50 strips since we've seen Kat. It could be possible that Tom wanted us to not think of her whilst showing us her ancestors? (Again, probably not)

EDIT:
Ah, nice catch! And from a story telling perspective, is there any other reason for that page to be there..?

Okay, I may be posting a bit much now, sorry! But the Jones is Kat's Golem Theory:
www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=404
(time travel paradoxes, woo)

(As an englishman) I think it is more likely that since Jimmy and Donny were brought up together they are very close, and consider each other like brothers, hence the uncle Jimmy. I don't think it is that common to call unrelated people uncle or aunt unless they are very very close family friends.

And this does seem to me she becomes companion to someone, from young childhood till death, whereupon she takes their name?

I think the Langdon/Donlan thing is a bit of a coincidence personally, how any nose shapes can Tom actually draw! Especially since Master Samuel is assumed not to have any children anyway, right?

And expanding on what someone said earlier about Boyle being an alchemist, many of the most famous scientists from that era were also alchemists, famously Isaac Newton, now hailed as one of the greatest scientists ever, personally considered his work on alchemy to be much more important than the other things he came up with, such as gravity, light and calculus.

Soooo... Jones is Kat's veeeeeery long plan to make sure that she has the hunky games teacher as a family friend when young... and in the end the hunk ends up boinking the robot instead.

But hey, we don't yet know what happens when Kat gets adult, things can change.