What’s Going On In Prince Valiant? Wait, Aleta is Queen of the Witches? May – August 2020

Yeah, she said on Sunday that she’s Queen of the Witches. That she’s a witch hasn’t come up much lately. But when Valiant first saw her he was enchanted, and they teased a while about whether that was literal or figurative. And she’s done magic stuff lately. I don’t know if this Queen of the Witches thing is established or whether that’s a bluff, though. So that catches you up on Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant as of early August 2020. If you’re reading this after about November 2020 there’s likely a more up-to-date plot recap at this link.

Also on my other blog I’m explaining words from the mathematics glossary. No promise of comics there, but you might find something interesting. Thanks, and now back to the time of King Arthur.

Prince Valiant.

10 May – 2 August 2020.

Prince Valiant and team were just outside Camelot, dealing with local issues. Imbert, local landlord, died. His son Gareth died shortly after. The suspect: Afton and Audrey, with whom Imbert was quarreling about some land. Sir Gawain had arrived in the story to sort that out, but he hasn’t been much use to anyone. The locals figure Afton and Audrey are witches, what with how they have good crops and aren’t dead of the plague. Valiant’s son Nathan believes the women are good students of nature and learned how to farm.

Audrey lead Valiants and Nathan to the cave, key to the land dispute. Some say it contains eternal youth. What it mostly has is bats, loads of guano that are indeed good fertilizer. Valiant also notices it has a curious yellow ore, and he keeps a sample.

March Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant for the 24th of May, 2020. This made me wonder whether guano is something you really have to gather at night. But then I guess at night most of the bats will be out, so you don’t have to worry about disturbing them? So I guess that’s an advantage? So anyway, if you somehow didn’t know what kind of person I am, now you know, it’s “person who wonders about the best guano-gathering practices because of reading a comic strip”.

Meanwhile the villagers have had enough of this, and attack Afton and Audrey’s cottage. Gawain tries to defend it, but he’s just one person, and not main cast(?) I guess(?). Afton escapes being feathered. But the mob burns her cottage. Valiant sees this and races to the scene. He bellows that the women are innocent and he can explain the deaths. As soon as they get back to Imbert’s estate, anyway.

The proof is in Imbert’s kitchen. The cook recognizes Valiant’s ore. It’s arsenic. This gives Schultz and Yeates the problem of having characters who think this is a good thing not advise newspaper readers to take poison. Valiant settles on saying how “it is rumored to aid good bodily health”. So Imbert was stealing ore from the cave, and taking it for his health. But Valiant knows arsenic is a poison, used “by assassins in the court of a distant land”. So Imbert arsenic-poisoned himself. Gareth, trying to have the same meals as Imbert, had the same poison.

March Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant for the 26th of July, 2020. Aleta’s not a stupid woman. So we must ask, then. What are the experiences she has had which make her believe this is an effective way to protect women reputed to be witches?

Gawain reports that the royal records confirm Afton’s claims on the disputed land. Also, that Imbert and Gareth’s death was their own fault, and there’ll be no further persecution of Afton and Audrey. Aleta steps in to support Afton and Audrey against the claims of witchcraft. She declares their innocence and she would know, as she’s Queen of the Witches. She summons her raven familiars to put Afton and Audrey under her protection. Aleta thinks she’s helping. Our heroes leave. They trust Afton and Audrey will have a good time next week, when I look at Joe Staton, Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, and Shane Fisher’s Dick Tracy.

Next Week!

You know, I did get the Prince Valiant plot summary finished way ahead of deadline. I should be getting to work on the Dick Tracy plot recap like, four days ago. Well, shall try to have that for next week. Thanks for reading.

What’s Going On In Prince Valiant? What are those women doing with bats? February – May 2020

They’re collecting guano as fertilizer. So thanks for catching up on Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant here. If you’re reading this after about August 2020 I should have a more up-to-date plot recap at this link, where you’ll also find past plot recaps. And if you want to be up to speed for the time of King Arthur, as seen in May 2020, please keep on reading.

Prince Valiant.

16 February – 10 May 2020.

Prince Valiant was heading home! Or at least to Camelot. It turns out his ‘home’ thing is complicated. Our Heroes are about a day out from Camelot when they run into a village trying to execute some witches. The evidence is pretty strong: they’re women. They’re doing a lot with bats. And shortly after criticizing the women, the old Baron Imbert died. Sir Gawain rides in, adjudicating a land dispute between Imbert and Afton, one of the locals. The land has a cave on it that legend says restores youth. And there’s the rumor that Afton, or one of the women, summoned a demon to clear Imbert away.

Aleta figures the women aren’t witches. Valiant agrees, but they are out there being weird, and that’s all your average peasant needs to tag women as witches. Valiant and party go to the tavern for dinner. They’re confronted by a drunk and belligerent Gareth. Gareth was Imbert’s son, but was not recognized as his heir, so I got that wrong last time around. I’m sorry. Goaded by his mother to “claim what is rightfully ours” he stumbles out in the night. Gareth’s mother, Hadwise, reiterates that he totally has a claim on the dead lord’s estate. Valiant and Aleta groan that they’ve got plot to deal with now.

Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant for the 22nd of March, 2020. So, fun recreational puzzle for you. Prince Valiant, like most of the story strips, is designed so that you can lay it out for a broadsheet newspaper, two broad rows of panels, or a tabloid, with three narrow rows of panels. How can you rearrange these panels to fit the tabloid format without redrawing them all? If you’re stumped, The Daily Cartoonist’s D D Degg solved the problem, albeit for a different Sunday page.

A band of 1d4+2 ruffians who overheard all this confront Valiant outside the tavern. They warn him off asking questions. And mention that what was done was ‘at the baron’s behest’. Valiant wins the fight, although since all the ruffians except the one he knocked out fled, he can’t get more information.

In the morning Hadwise is outside, calling out the mob. Gareth’s dead and she blames the women as witches. Aleta tries to break this up. She points out if they are witches who’ve magically killed Imbert and Gareth maybe don’t rile them up? This buys a little time for investigations.

Gareth’s corpse is in Imbert’s manor house, looking pretty well twisted and tortured. The cook was the last to see Gareth alive. The drunk Gareth came in, declaring he was the new Lord, and demanded the same supper Imbert would have. The cook decided making it was less hassle than arguing, fed him, and left. Aleta can’t find any poisons. And the staff is cleaning up the room where Gareth’s body was found, so there won’t be any fingerprints or usable DNA. Oh, also the mob has gone off to burn down the accused witches. Which, great. They race off for the cottage.

Turns out that’s a misunderstanding: the women are doing a controlled burn of their fields. All right. And Valiant and Aleta’s son Nathan has a discovery too: the women are not witches. They’re just very observant, have looked around, and found that the dark ages sucks. They want to zip right to the era of Jethro Tull. The agriculturalist, not the band. For bands they’re more into Pink Floyd, or as they exhaust everyone by saying, The Pink Floyd Sound. Valiant sighs but accepts it’s his duty to work out their land dispute.

Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant for the 3rd of May, 2020. Sir Gawain has not had a lot to do this story, but what he has done is “be Johnny Bravo”. So that’s why he’s got one black eye and is cruising for another.

The women are proud and defensive of their discoveries. And would like to point out the villagers are idiots who’ll mess with the bats in the cave. Valiant wants to see this cave that everybody’s so excited about.

And that’s where we’ve gotten. I understand the women’s interest in the cave. And Imbert’s, although where he had gotten the idea the caves would grant youth from is a mystery yet. And we’re still lacking an answer for how Gareth died. It could be something in his being an angry entitled drunk demanding lots of food. We’ll see what develops over the next several months.

Next Week!

It’s the traditionally busiest of these plot recaps. I look at
Joe Staton, Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, and Shane Fisher’s Dick Tracy, if nothing disrupts my schedule. But it’s 2020. It’s the year of un-disrupted schedules. For decades to come we will be saying, “2020 was the most rupt year of our lives”. Can’t wait to start work on it. Thanks for reading.

In Which I Am Once Again Angry At Inspector Danger’s Crime Quiz

Look, I understand the conventions of the quick little crime-detection puzzle. It’s not like anyone should expect the deductive process of Slylock Fox knowing that it’s possible to drive a car with a flat tire if you’ve put the spare on to secure a conviction. Heck, there’s cases Columbo nailed that I’m pretty sure the District Attorney had to decline because they just wouldn’t hold up in court. But now, here, this week’s Inspector Danger’s Crime Quiz? I’m offended by the logic and I’m annoyed enough I’m ready to go over to Comic Strip Master Command and demand they tell me if they’ve ever had a typed-out deathbed fingering of the murderer because I’m just that annoyed and no I am not reacting inappropriate to this and if you say I am come closer where I can tell you how I’d spit at you if I could stand spitting. Also why do people who murder typewriter-owners never rip the last sheet of paper out? Come on, show some professionalism.

Werner Wejp-Olsen’s Inspector Danger’s Crime Quiz for the 11th of December, 2017. I do not protest that all these relatives of Conan O’Hoyle do not share the last name O’Hoyle. I’ll allow for pen names. I also don’t protest that no two of these relatives have the same last name. There are enough varied relationships that the family names could vary. However, “Tiffany Oakley Milller[sic]”? Excuse me? And yeah, I know it looks like a continuity error but I think we’re supposed to take it that the laptop in the last row is at Inspector Danger’s Crime Office instead of at Conan O’Hoyle’s writing desk.

Does This Old-Time Radio Plot Really Make Sense?

So I was listening to an episode of Inner Sanctum, the old-time radio series that you maybe heard of from that Bugs Bunny cartoon where he says this creaking door “sounds like Inner Sanctum,”, and it was an episode where the newlywed husband spends the whole train ride back home tying little nooses out of loose pieces of string and warning his new wife that if he ever goes crazy she’ll just have to shoot him, which sounds pretty dire but is actually one of the more upbeat episodes of Inner Sanctum. It’s kind of what I love about the show. That and that the narrator delivers, archly, the kind of jokes that you think are gallows humor when you’re twelve, like, “a bachelor ghoul is someone who knows two can die as cheaply as one”, and I’m not even making that one up. I’m not sure anyone ever made that one up.

Anyway, the villain turns out to be the Creepy Butler, voiced by Jackson Beck, also known as the cartoon voice of Bluto or, in this particular episode, the Other Character In The Story. It turns out he, his father, his grandfather, and so on back for generations have been the servants of the groom, the groom’s father, grandfather, et cetera, going back generations, and each of them have been busy waiting for their employers to get married and then kill their wives in horrible mysterious circumstances so as to perpetuate a curse, all because generations ago the groom’s great-something-grandfather wronged Bluto’s great-something-grandfather.

Gotta say. I admire traditions, especially quirky local traditions that are clearly not mass-produced and supported by commercial interests. I just don’t see how being a lifelong servant of the guy who’s wronged you pays out, especially given the extra workload involved in being a serial killer. And passing that down through generations? I mean, I can barely keep track of my own grudges, and I only have two of them. If my father (hi, Dad!) wanted me to pick up one of his grudges, I guess I’d tell him I was going to, but I can’t see putting more effort into it than making some snarky comments about someone on the Internet. I realize that wasn’t an option in the days of Inner Sanctum, because that series ran from 1941 to 1952 when the Internet was just a big round-robin typing circle, and typewriters were strictly rationed during the War so it’d be hard to requisition one just to insult someone your Dad was angry about, but.

Of course, if all Bluto’s ancestors in this were that good about killing their employers’ brides, how have they got around to like four generations of this? I guess I’m just having problems with the inner logic of this. I hope I’m not hurting the feelings of whoever wrote that episode. I don’t think I’m hurting Bluto’s feelings by saying all this.

Also, you know, killing wives for decades because one guy cheated another guy about a gold mine or whatever it was people in the west did to wrong themselves in the mid-19th century? Besides being a ripe slice of evil there’s also incompetent planning at work here; there’s supposed to be a karmic link in a good story of horror and retribution and here it’s just … what? Yes, the groom are being pretty irresponsible in not mentioning the “long string of horrible, mysterious deaths” to their wives before getting married, and introducing it by giving her the gun she should use to shoot him if he starts getting murder-y is just … you know, I’m glad I don’t live in an old-time radio suspense series, that’s all I can really say about it.

And, the comics

Over on my mathematics blog there’ve been another set of mathematics-themed comics, which gave me the chance to talk for like 1,800 words about things they mention, which is pretty impressive considering it’s mostly about π and some name-dropping.

If you’re not interested in all that, I’m hurt. Really. I thought we were friends. But, anyway, the mock history of comic strip Working Daze has reached the point where it’s folding into its actual history, so they describe less death and doom for its cartoonists, and do show some of what the strip looked like before the current artist and writing team got together. I have to imagine the series ends next week, unless they want to do a future-history projection. This isn’t necessarily absurd, as the indefatigable writers do write produce the comic strip Zachary Nixon Johnson, based on their series of comic/science fiction/mystery novels.