[496]Renard looooves humans!

Boom phazoom.

Coyote says that Rey used to love Surma, something that many of us have suspected.

Coyote also says that Rey loves humans in general, something that very few of us have suspected. I certainly didn't. Maybe it's a question of perspective: Rey doesn't want to Kill All Humans, so that equals love for the wacky hairless bipeds as far as Gillitie is concerned.

Supernatural love quadrangle, thy name is Surma.

Also: vis-a-vis the whole "loves humans" thing... Renard <i>has</i> been away from home for a while now. Especially with the "lack of a body" stuff and the "imprisoned for killing a guy" stuff, there's a lot of room for changing opinions.

Eh, it's the gratuitous body-snatching thing, probably.

And so the connection between Surma and Reynardine is finally revealed.

As usual, Tom answers one question and gives us more to chew on- namely, who was the young man, if Reynardine loved humans why doesn't he anymore, and how did he get to be a body-stealing demon?

I'm guessing Rey tried to become human for Surma, but something went wrong and he was trappd between bodies.

Does anyone else just love the second last panel?

Maybe a possessed body only dies if Rey is forced to leave that body?

Anyway, Surma sure was popular; Anthony, James, and now Reynardine too. Maybe in a world where people can change into animals, love affairs between humans and animals are not uncommon.

Couple of random things:

* Everyone loves Surma! But that isn't too surprising. She's clearly attractive and it seems like she spent a lot of time developing skills that made her good at being nice to people whatever their shape/beliefs/mentality. It's easy to love someone like that.

* Remember, the only information we have about Reynardine's body-snatching ability comes from Eglamore, who is not an unbiased nor necessarily an omniscient source. He probably wasn't lying about it (/probably/), but it's possible he doesn't know exactly how it all works; maybe Rey could have done something other than kick Annie out of her head or maybe he knew of some way to get her back afterwards.

* Eglamore said "we" wanted to find a way to stop Reynardine's departure from killing the host; maybe Reynardine was cooperating with this effort to some extent? It's possible he doesn't want to kill people when he leaves and was gambling on the idea that there might be a way around it.

* Alternately, Reynardine was probably kind of desperate there. He'd been imprisoned for a long time and wanted to escape. It's possible that he just wanted it so much that he was willing to sacrifice Annie to get it. This one is a bit odd, though, because he tells Coyote that he can't leave even if he wants to. (Implying both that he can't escape at all and that he doesn't want to escape anyway, although the latter is probably due to Annie.)

Annie needs to tell panel 6 Coyote to stick to the "three foot rule". Stupid dogs...

Doubt it. He was alive at least until Surma's death, which is when he disappeared. By that time, Reynardine had already (presumably) been imprisoned for several years, given the way the Donlans described their battle for a cure. Unless Good Hope employed ghosts, I'm not sure the timelines check out.

I don't think this is the kind of joke your father would pull.

EDIT: This was in response to all the comments on today's comic with the idea that Rey + Surma = Annie. ...Yeah.

I bet this is how Rey feels about Surma now

Specifically when he says "Do you think a woman like that could feel anything other than pity for such a [man]?".

Possibly Rey also feels like he would have been able to stop whatever ailment befell Surma that made her bedridden.

I agree with economo: Anthony didn't vanish from Good Hope until *after* Surma died and Annie went to Gunnerkrigg, by which time Reynardine had been imprisoned there for years.

It's a relief to find that Surma's friendship with Reynardine took place before he became a body-snatcher (presumably, he didn't start possessing others or kill the young man until after Surma left the Court). That removes the most disturbing part of the connection: Surma being close to such a being. So Annie will (I suppose) be spared the revelation of "Your mother wasn't as noble as you thought she was."

All the remarks about how popular Surma was point to one of the differences between mother and daughter: Annie's a loner (her only human friend is Kat). Though she hasn't entirely avoided the "love interest" part of her mother's life, since Mort has a crush on her, and maybe Reynardine has some kind of attachment for her. None of the human boys have noticed her yet, though.

It's been raised before. That theory is like a zombie; no matter how many people try to kill it, it keeps coming back.

See, this is why Tom has ocassioanlly thrown comments like "No, that person is not important" onto his strips.

To shoot down very silly theories before they take root.