SGR: She Ate The 90% Of The Brain None Of Us Ever Uses.
(I'm writing about the webcomic Scary Go Round. My introduction is here.)
Chapter 4: Inevitable
Click on the chapter title above to read this chapter; when you get to a big red page with the title "Robot Town Hall" and a picture of a robot with a heart you have reached the next chapter which is beyond the scope of this post. If for some reason, rather than reading the comic you want to stay here, at the bottom of this post is the plot synopsis and character list I made to keep everything straight in my head.
Review
Shelley has a problem. Tim has an invention. They meet by accident with hilarious consequences in a story that will change their lives for ever!
The ending is just slightly too cute for me, but Shelley's slow descent into zombieness feels both quite real and is hilarious. Right up to the end she's resisting ("Unless your teeth were to accidentally fall forward into his head...") and justifying herself. Throughout Shelley has a wobbly speech bubble, presumably representing a deep, breathy, returned-from-the-dead voice (in my mind).
Meanwhile Tim's invention could actually be built (I suspect the golf cart would fall over, but maybe not) and then works about as well as would be expected. It's realistic!
Interestingly, Copper Edge has a lodging home for the recently dead. More evidence that the Scary Go Round world is full of strangeness; it's not just these characters or Tackleford that attract the weirdness.
I find this one hilarious, but then I like zombies, inventions and making fun of golf. Slightly sad that the zombie plotline gets dealt with so quickly, but I guess a cute zombie redhead solving supernatural mysteries would have been a step too far. The pictures of excuses - Bear (probably) NO, Jimmy Carter NO, Crow YES - are a favourite of mine. Her ridiculous dancing crow excuse however is slightly blunted by the fact that she's a zombie living in a home for the recently dead. In the Scary Go Round world, why couldn't she be teaching a crow to dance?
Rachel and Tessa have been relegated to a one page coda at the end, and don't seem happy about it, which makes them even more unsympathetic. The bodycount is either 0 or -1, if we didn't count the last chapter as -1, for a strip total to date of 17.
So Shelley back to life, Amy working for Tim, everything back to normal. After the excitement of this chapter, maybe the characters should have lunch or coffee or a drink with an umbrella. Time to calm things Down.
Best Lines/ Alternative Titles
But I have to find out where I fit into the world, now that I have no chance of making it with boys any more due to my low body temperature and my weird, staring eyes.
Now I like the reassuring smell of dry rot as much as the next person but I have my pride.
I have to find a job so I can afford the important things in life, like sexy boots and chocolate.
Once you're dead, your paperwork stops paperworking.
Interviews with recruitment agencies aren't meant to end with improvised no-style karate getaways.
Dear Sir, as inventor of the highly successful "Witness Protection Programme", I am now looking for new, discreet challenges...
I can't wear this to work! My unruly charges are clearly visible to passers by.
Hello, Passer-by, meet my chests.
I'm training a crow to dance, and we've like, got no chance at the regional championships if I don't finish making his tiny tap shoes.
It's funny, kicking everyhting in the room to pieces didn't help like I thought it would.
Hey, apparently there is and EU ruling against feeble girly-girls being made to carry loads of metal.
It is probably a court summons for cruelty to ladies.
Copper Edge is nice. They rob you, then shoot you so you don't feel sad.
I don't know anything about golf, except that you hit a ball with a sort of stick.
Failing that Hypno specs!
Keane End Links. Cocking a snook since 1914.
What is the arch enemy of every golfer? Lightning!
You are either the greatest liar alive or a magic man.
The 25 foot mast squirts lightning into the cart's battery, leaving you free to hit your balls with impunity.
Eating Brains is wrong! Super wrong! Unless your teeth were to accidentally fall forward into his head...
I'm not chasing her. I want to keep my skull sexy.
Testing is for weaklings!
She was our little ray of sunshine. Then she died and came back as a sweet little abomination...
I'm not a doctor, but I'd say that being hit by lightning reactivated every dead cell in her zombie body.
By some incredible million to one chance she ate the 90% of the brain that none of us ever uses.
Apparently she just had "one of those bad comas, the sort where they bury you".
Characters
Shelley Winters, the acceptable face of the undead
Tim Jones, Inventor of the Mother Superior
Amy Chilton, Tim's assistant
Ryan Beckwith, here cameoing polishing Tim's truck
Hamilton Percy, golfer and shady businessman
Dave Eye, shady businessman and golfer, with a less caring secretary than Percy
Rachel and Tessa, barmaids whose comment give us the "meh" local response to Shelley's return from the dead
Plot
Shelley, having become a zombie in the previous chapter decides to leave and try and make a newlife existence for herself. Unfortunately, being dead makes it problematic to get a job. She answers a sinister ad to become a discreet assistant to Hamilton Percy at Percy Import/Export. Quite what they import/export isn't clear.
Shelley is staying at the Copper Edge Heights Lodging House for the Recently Dead. She doesn't mix with the other residents, giving ridiculous excuses.
Meanwhile, Amy is working as Tim's assistant (and Ryan as Tim's truck polisher). They get a letter returning Tim's money. There's no address but it's postmarked Copper Edge.
Shelley is getting more and more on edge, wrecking her room and scoffing cauliflowers, which she mistakenly calls brains. Percy and she are meeting someone called Dave Eye to play golf. In a coincidence, Amy and Tim are also going to the golf club to make a presentation. Tim has invented a golf cart with built in lightning conductor, "The Mother Superior". Despite Amy's nerves and opposition to golf, which is Whitey's game, the club chairman tries it out. At that moment on the golf course Shelley gives in to temptation and, claiming that she's getting a Scorpion out of Percy's hair, bites his head. She then turns up by the golf cart, at the moment when a storm starts.
Shelley attacks Tim, but is forced off by Amy. Shelley escapes in the Golf Cart and is inevitably struck by lightning. This destroys the cart and brings Shelley back to life. Properly this time. Additionally, Percy survives as Shelley only eats the 90% of the brain noone uses.
At the end we catch up with Tessa and Rachel who are unpleased by Shelley's resurrection. It seems her cuteness annoys them.
Chapter 4: Inevitable
Click on the chapter title above to read this chapter; when you get to a big red page with the title "Robot Town Hall" and a picture of a robot with a heart you have reached the next chapter which is beyond the scope of this post. If for some reason, rather than reading the comic you want to stay here, at the bottom of this post is the plot synopsis and character list I made to keep everything straight in my head.
Review
Shelley has a problem. Tim has an invention. They meet by accident with hilarious consequences in a story that will change their lives for ever!
The ending is just slightly too cute for me, but Shelley's slow descent into zombieness feels both quite real and is hilarious. Right up to the end she's resisting ("Unless your teeth were to accidentally fall forward into his head...") and justifying herself. Throughout Shelley has a wobbly speech bubble, presumably representing a deep, breathy, returned-from-the-dead voice (in my mind).
Meanwhile Tim's invention could actually be built (I suspect the golf cart would fall over, but maybe not) and then works about as well as would be expected. It's realistic!
Interestingly, Copper Edge has a lodging home for the recently dead. More evidence that the Scary Go Round world is full of strangeness; it's not just these characters or Tackleford that attract the weirdness.
I find this one hilarious, but then I like zombies, inventions and making fun of golf. Slightly sad that the zombie plotline gets dealt with so quickly, but I guess a cute zombie redhead solving supernatural mysteries would have been a step too far. The pictures of excuses - Bear (probably) NO, Jimmy Carter NO, Crow YES - are a favourite of mine. Her ridiculous dancing crow excuse however is slightly blunted by the fact that she's a zombie living in a home for the recently dead. In the Scary Go Round world, why couldn't she be teaching a crow to dance?
Rachel and Tessa have been relegated to a one page coda at the end, and don't seem happy about it, which makes them even more unsympathetic. The bodycount is either 0 or -1, if we didn't count the last chapter as -1, for a strip total to date of 17.
So Shelley back to life, Amy working for Tim, everything back to normal. After the excitement of this chapter, maybe the characters should have lunch or coffee or a drink with an umbrella. Time to calm things Down.
Best Lines/ Alternative Titles
But I have to find out where I fit into the world, now that I have no chance of making it with boys any more due to my low body temperature and my weird, staring eyes.
Now I like the reassuring smell of dry rot as much as the next person but I have my pride.
I have to find a job so I can afford the important things in life, like sexy boots and chocolate.
Once you're dead, your paperwork stops paperworking.
Interviews with recruitment agencies aren't meant to end with improvised no-style karate getaways.
Dear Sir, as inventor of the highly successful "Witness Protection Programme", I am now looking for new, discreet challenges...
I can't wear this to work! My unruly charges are clearly visible to passers by.
Hello, Passer-by, meet my chests.
I'm training a crow to dance, and we've like, got no chance at the regional championships if I don't finish making his tiny tap shoes.
It's funny, kicking everyhting in the room to pieces didn't help like I thought it would.
Hey, apparently there is and EU ruling against feeble girly-girls being made to carry loads of metal.
It is probably a court summons for cruelty to ladies.
Copper Edge is nice. They rob you, then shoot you so you don't feel sad.
I don't know anything about golf, except that you hit a ball with a sort of stick.
Failing that Hypno specs!
Keane End Links. Cocking a snook since 1914.
What is the arch enemy of every golfer? Lightning!
You are either the greatest liar alive or a magic man.
The 25 foot mast squirts lightning into the cart's battery, leaving you free to hit your balls with impunity.
Eating Brains is wrong! Super wrong! Unless your teeth were to accidentally fall forward into his head...
I'm not chasing her. I want to keep my skull sexy.
Testing is for weaklings!
She was our little ray of sunshine. Then she died and came back as a sweet little abomination...
I'm not a doctor, but I'd say that being hit by lightning reactivated every dead cell in her zombie body.
By some incredible million to one chance she ate the 90% of the brain that none of us ever uses.
Apparently she just had "one of those bad comas, the sort where they bury you".
Characters
Shelley Winters, the acceptable face of the undead
Tim Jones, Inventor of the Mother Superior
Amy Chilton, Tim's assistant
Ryan Beckwith, here cameoing polishing Tim's truck
Hamilton Percy, golfer and shady businessman
Dave Eye, shady businessman and golfer, with a less caring secretary than Percy
Rachel and Tessa, barmaids whose comment give us the "meh" local response to Shelley's return from the dead
Plot
Shelley, having become a zombie in the previous chapter decides to leave and try and make a new
Shelley is staying at the Copper Edge Heights Lodging House for the Recently Dead. She doesn't mix with the other residents, giving ridiculous excuses.
Meanwhile, Amy is working as Tim's assistant (and Ryan as Tim's truck polisher). They get a letter returning Tim's money. There's no address but it's postmarked Copper Edge.
Shelley is getting more and more on edge, wrecking her room and scoffing cauliflowers, which she mistakenly calls brains. Percy and she are meeting someone called Dave Eye to play golf. In a coincidence, Amy and Tim are also going to the golf club to make a presentation. Tim has invented a golf cart with built in lightning conductor, "The Mother Superior". Despite Amy's nerves and opposition to golf, which is Whitey's game, the club chairman tries it out. At that moment on the golf course Shelley gives in to temptation and, claiming that she's getting a Scorpion out of Percy's hair, bites his head. She then turns up by the golf cart, at the moment when a storm starts.
Shelley attacks Tim, but is forced off by Amy. Shelley escapes in the Golf Cart and is inevitably struck by lightning. This destroys the cart and brings Shelley back to life. Properly this time. Additionally, Percy survives as Shelley only eats the 90% of the brain noone uses.
At the end we catch up with Tessa and Rachel who are unpleased by Shelley's resurrection. It seems her cuteness annoys them.
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