4: A Brand New Year
HEADS UP READERS:
In these early days of this Melvin reboot, Carlos and I are still working out the kinks. Unfortunately, that means that Pages 4 through 8 ended up with text that some readers may find slightly too small to comfortably read.
You can remedy this by clicking the image, which will bring you to a larger version of the page, with much more legible text. Pages 4 through 8 are already done, but we will endeavor to ensure that such issues do not plague any of the pages we create in the future.
Since it’s been so long, here’s a bit of a refresher on those “freak accidents” Melvin’s talking about:
https://melvin.jeaniebottle.com/?comic=careful-what-you-wish-for
https://melvin.jeaniebottle.com/?comic=stupid-evil-bitchface (and the next page)
And the witches in the backyard:
https://melvin.jeaniebottle.com/?comic=112-azure-agents
And genies in the bedroom:
OK, one thing I’m wondering about is who is the blonde girl in the War Mallet post with Red, and will she figure in anyway with the story?
The blonde girl is Honey Smith, one of the main characters of CD’s first comic Sailorsun.org, even though SS.org take place in a different world than JB and MC, there is a Honey Smith in this universe that just so happen to be Melvin’s favorite actress:
http://jeaniebottle.com/?comic=jeanie145-sm
You can find a couple of poster of hers on Melvin’s room both here at MC and on JB, but this one is a brand new poster.
Also, I want to give a special mention to NotShuttingUp who somehow was able to recognize her on the last page with only a third of her face, maybe even less!
So, the real questions are when did Honey get the War Mallet gig, has Red met her, and has Red had the chance to lord it over Melvin yet?
@He Who Abides:
Chances are that Red and Honey have never met. Usually the models are photographed separately, then edited in together. Makes it easier to schedule the picture sessions when you don’t have to juggle getting multiple people present at the same time.
@Kattgirl – ah. Bummer, that. I was kind of hoping to see Honey here at some point, and Red introducing her to Melvin seemed like a good way to work her in.
Panel 3: “It’s in our best interests to keep a low profile.”
Thanks. Fixed.
Let’s see:
1) Melvin’s in a hurry,
2) He’s looking for his bag,
3) There’s a bag on the floor,
4) Melvin leaves,
5) Kazom notices the bag with the dead monster is gone…
Gee, I think I know where the dead butterfrog-thing is.
(Fortunately, there’s nothing preventing Kazom from poofing the bag right back, and giving Melvin his backpack the same way.)
That’s an intriguing theory. But even in a hurry, I can’t imagine that a kid would mistake a trash bag full of butterfrog for his school backpack.
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time a genie left someone holding the bag… 😉
Yeah, you’re right, Robert – I didn’t notice, at first, that the bag was still moving.
Damn. I would have really loved seeing Melvin get to school, and reach in to get his math book, only to get a handful of demon-thing!
[Sometimes I like to stir the pot a little too much.]
There are little lines around the bag indicating movement, so the demon butter-frog has not shuffled off this mortal coil but has shuffled to another part of the house.
I was one of the ones, that said that it doesn’t have to be dead yet too. The question is, what form is it in now. There still talking about it either being butterfly or from monster. But, Kazom just identified the creature as the Demon Butterfly. I am still waiting to see what it turned into.
I was just thinking, for Melvin test subject to be a real live test subject, then that Butterfly would have had to have some Genie magic on it too. So he could test the reaction his witchcraft magic on a creature that had Genie magic on it. If that so, then we have something that has both Genie Magic and Witch Magic on it and we know that Genie Magic and Witch magic don’t mex.
Questions:
1. Where did the Genie Magic come from for the Butterfly?
2. What effects does Mixing Genie Magic and Witch Magic have on a creature, we have two change reality magics being used here.
@Larry Ok, let me help a little here, I try to space the clues of what was Melvin’s experiment on the last few pages, but again, I am still getting use to the whole put just a little of info into each page process.
A couple of pages ago Melvin mention how the genie magic fights back any attempt to counter it directly against the will of their genie, but theorize that maybe he can still cast spells that doesn’t go directly against such will and then work from there, in this case turn Clarence/Tiffany into a frog instead of a boy. He also mention that he already casted a “preservation spell” into the butterfly to act as the genie magic in Clarence’s body, which means that it would try to repel his spells just as Jeanie’s magic seems to have been doing so far, he has to work with his own magic cause as we see in this page, Kazom isn’t really willing to help with what he deems as a losing cause.
Seeing how his little experiment ended here, I guess we all can imagine how this would have gone against actual genie magic.
Ooooh… a Bill S. reference! Love it!
hoo-ray, in panel four, Red got her measurements back. Way to go Melvin.
So the accident with Red was fixed off screen?
Apparently so… Red has gone from flat back to fluffy again.
I hope you reference Saachi’s crush on Red. I hope that wasn’t resolved off screen.
Don’t worry, I have said this multiple times already, but I intend to address all the previous plot points, and I intend to give more relevance to both Holly and Saachi in the future. We decide to skip the story a couple of months to have a fresh start, after all, between me getting used to the kinks of making a webcomic, alongside the writing and drawing of this characters, it would have been awkward to start the story exactly where it was left, of course, that means that some things happened offscreen during that time, and I will address those too in due time, but Red’s predicament is honestly one of the few to be truly resolved, and still that was the last of her problems after all.
Oh My Gawd! I just realized, that Melvin hasn’t seen Red for the whole summer!
That means that Melvin is in for a huge surprise!
Yes, I agree with you, Melvin in for a huge surprise. Remember what we seen Red do so far and that was in the first two or three month of Red being a girl. Remember that Red in an all girl school, she also a model for a female modal magazine. So she has to walk talk like a female and she had a few women’s period too, like five or so, so she going to be getting pretty emotional and acting like a girl by now. She also has someone that was assigned to her like Ida to teach her how to act like a lady also. It would be interesting to see if Carlos does some back ground on Red progress into womanhood too. Like he could go over Red three months too, like her doing her Modeling for the magazine on the catwalk modeling those cloth she wearing and such. Going out in those cloth to modal in the real world or while the Female Magazine for women’s cloth President is visiting. A lot of time, they will use escort services to escort the female modal to the pageant or the live demonstration of those dresses to. They could have also have sent her to a ladies charm school to teach Red to be more lady like too. Like Red could be on her job working on her modeling career for three months getting ready for the late summer or early fall sales for the Ladies fashion Magazine for the teen girls fashion for going back to school sale. She also the modal for that game series too and she could also be modeling that too.
If any of the above stuff has happen, we are going to have a more feminine Red than what we saw a few months ago. A few month ago, we had a boy in a girl body, but, now we going to have someone that act and thinks more like a girl and less and less like a boy. Red going to be taking shorter step than a guy does, because, of the high heals. Her butt going to twist back and forth instead of her shoulder, pieced ears, ladies jewelries, perfume, she going to be applying makeup etc, etc and all the way down the line.
So there is a lot of things that Red could have done or being that we haven seen yet!
Really, at this point the best chance for restoring Red would be for Kazom to contact Jeannie and convince/bribe her to change Red back.
I get the feeling that Kazom is WAY too lazy for that.
Besides, Red isn’t exactly Kazom’s favorite person – he seems to take particular delight in needling her by calling her “Princess”. I think there’s some history there. So he may secretly like seeing her suffer a bit.
As far as turning Red back into Clearance, well that would be a mistake. Red is one of the fire plugs of this series and if that were to happen, it would be at the end of this series.
Demon butterfly? Melvin turned it into a mini Mothra?