[467]she always remembers it.

I'd say to model the cloathes. What i couldnt tell you is why one of them seems to have 2 spears in his chest haha.

113 on the floor in panel floor FOUR with planks. EDIT: Wow, embarrassing.


I would be flipping out at this point. Scary, scary, scary. 'Specially panel four. The little mask on the torso of the mannequin is a nice touch. Likewise the javelins/spears/pokey metal things appearing in abundance.

Thank you, Tom. Good, solid, atmospheric horror is always appreciated.


I assumed the golden glow was Gamma being calm and radiant.

The last time it re-appeared in Zimmy's presence, she didn't seem to be aware that it even was there. That's how I'd interpret her reaction (or rather the lack thereof) to Zimmy in #191. I'd assume it's the same here.

Egads, I hadn't connected it with this. *jawdrop*

Silly people, everyone knows that nobodies are very conservative and frown upon things like miniskirts and pushup bras... no wonder the store went out of business...

My prediction is that the glow comes from stuff, and object or place that relates to Zimmy's past here with Gamma, we'll find some more background story and then G will show up...

.. and just for the record, I' ve never been right

or maybe her and gamma hung out at that spot so many times that it is a part of zimmy's mind that is healing.

That is interesting.

Also, I love scaredy Kat.

Back on Monday, someone pointed out that the bottom-left panel of that day's strip could be parsed as Zimmy staring out at the reader and pulling away the boundary of the comic. I looked at it again and thought I might have to go hide under the bed. Then I realized that Zimmy's never actually hurt anyone, even unintentionally.* Even when she flips out at Annie, she just looks like she's going to hit her. No giant spiders, no biting off fingers, doesn't even go for the hair like some real-life girls do. That's actually pretty impressive for someone who's as constantly threatened and alienated as she is. It's also got to be pretty embarrassing to have other people walking around your own private hell, but she's being miserably matter-of-fact about it. I was already a member of the "poor, scared Zimmy" camp** but now I think I kind of admire her too.

(I still don't want her crawling out of the screen and showing up in my living room, but I figure if she did she'd just cuss me out for a while and then wander off.)


* I'm not counting the whole sucked-into-Dark-Manchester thing because we don't know how the others are doing. Also not counting that one guest strip with the optometrist.

** I don't think there actually is an opposing camp. From our remove as readers, it seems like we're all able to sympathize with her. Of course, it would be a different matter in real life, where it would take a true mensch to put up with her bulls**t.

I'm not yet convinced that they are in Zimmy's head. I figure it's still a live possibility that this place exists independently, and it made her the way she is rather than vice versa. Then again, that wouldn't invalidate this idea, because it's also possible that attitude affects how these places present themselves to you.

In the story about Annie's first medium experience, with the boy at the hospital, it was pretty clear that he was creating the scene, doing a symbolic reenactment. But there Annie also projected a "reality field" around herself, while here it seems like she only affects the nobodies. I don't just think it's a matter of this place being stronger or Zimmy pulling them in harder; she makes the nobodies go away with no effort, while she's apparently completely unable to affect anything else. That also includes Zimmy, which is significant if you think about what happened when she touched the boy. So maybe they're in a real place, and Zimmy really is what she looks like (whatever that is), but the inhabitants are somehow less real? Zimmy could be responsible for them, or they could be beings who visit that place in some other way.

I want to know more about what happens to Zimmy when she's alone (like she presumably was all the time before she met Gamma). Do the nobodies do something other than walk around being creepy? Do the monsters actually harm her, and if so what happens? Did she spend god-knows-how-long being repeatedly torn to pieces and eaten? Or do they never do anything, and she's just constantly terrified of of what they might do? That wouldn't necessarily be much better -- that's what life is like for some people with real-world anxiety disorders, and in some ways it's worse than if the thing you're afraid of actually does happen.

More data! I demand more data!

I also think it's interesting, although note that Zimmy doesn't say the place was ever a toy store for her. She and Gamma played there while it was a women's clothing store that still had toys laying around. That doesn't work quite as well, though it could still be the same general thing.

Ambivalence about growing up hasn't been a theme in this comic so far. The Court is a pretty magical place where the adults are all at least a little bit awesome. They're all Up To Something, but there's no sense that they're sinister, or sellouts, or even that different from the children. Though that might not have been the case in the place (actual or etheric) where Zimmy grew up.