Jean AKA Jeannie AKA Jeanie is a film, book, and magazine reviewer for a national magazine. Most of Jean’s work is done through email, which means he doesn't have to go into the office.
On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found an empty Genie Bottle. Upon picking up this bottle, Jean became the bottle’s new genie-powered occupant. Not only was Jean turned into a genie, but the bottle turned him into what he believed a genie of the bottle should look like. Which, due to his fascination with a classic 60s TV show, turned him into a busty blonde woman.
No, she only has control over the possession of the bottle only. She is fully a where of what would happen if she open it or did what Jean did with the bottle that it would make her a Genie, which she doesn’t want to happen.
Well Foradian, the problem isn’t covid, never have been. The disease itself is basically harmless, and interrupted out lives in no significant ways. What did disrupt everything was the covid restrictions. That is the true bane and our anger should be directed towards our politicians who dares to infringe on our rights.
EDIT by the mods: all of the above is false. But I’m leaving it up because someone already responded.
um, the disease is as harmless as a loaded gun… with a hair trigger.. depending on what part of the body is hit that can be fatal or give lifelong extreme disability..
Jean (original timeline) bought the bottle because he was a big IDoJ fan (and would “so do her” (2nd comic)) given the chance.
Maybe he got turned off women who look like Barbara Eden / Jeannie, after getting totally shut down by Jeanie.
Since (presumably) Natalie knew enough to not do anything which would create a bottle genie after acquiring the bottle, it *should* have remained empty in the timeline created by Jeanie’s alteration of her earlier self.
Not gonna complain about “realised” even though I don’t think CD, Robert, or the characters are British. 😉
That what I am thinking too, that Jean was so disappointed by what Jeanie did that he will now avoid Blond Girls that look like Barbra Eden. Which means, that Jean never became Jeanie. Which is one reason that Natalie was surprised to see Jeanie.
Anybody for Back to the Future where Marty McFly interrupts the meeting of his parent and history starts to re-right itself by erasing Marty older brother and then his sister and erasing Marty. I wonder if that going to be happening here now too.
Please tell me there wasn’t a suicide in this timeline. (That hesitation, plus lack of mention of what happened to Jean has me worried. Not to mention the tearfull “I was starting to think I’d never see you again” and the present being all out of whack.)
There are two time lines here. The one that Teen Jean and Neil are in and the time line that Jeanie and Natalie are in and there running side by side to each other.
Phew! Glad to hear it. (I thought that’d be bit dark for CD, but things have occasionally taken a turn for the dark before — Omaha Beach, Blue Djinn, etc.)
About the only way that I could see not having two time lines, is for Jeanie to undo the damage she and Neil did the first time going into the past. She would have to try and salvage Jean, swash any relationship Neil might being developing with Zoey and that Natalie and Danny Chase Match, may or may not be allowed too. Then come back to the future and let everything run it course after that and then everything can fall back into place again and continue as always.
@Larry: That’s asking quite a lot for Jeanie to pull off. I don’t think she’s capable of that measure of detailed manipulation… she’s more of a “I have a hammer and you are the nail” sort of technician. Nothing she’s ever done shows any level of sophistication (The I Dream of a General arc being an exception… maybe… and that’s a strong maybe).
That was exactly what I was getting at Mike. We either have two time lines to deal with or we have Jeanie trying to operate out of her pay grade scale to fix everything.
If it the second one Jeanie fixing everything, all I have to say is: “LORD HELP US”!!!!
There is no way that Jeanie is going to fix every detail, but they will probably end up with a timeline that she and Natalie can live with, if they don’t simply end up erasing their original time traveling so that the entire adventure never happened.
.so.. Jeanne shouldn’t exist right? Which means she can’t go back in time to change things… so she should exist and will change the past… which means she shouldn’t exist? Ima gonna lie down now.
If you follow that logic, not only should Jeanie should not exist because, Jean didn’t turn into Jeanie, also remember that it was Jeanie that took Neil into the past to become Natalie. So Natalie should not exist either.
This is where the timey-wimey stuff comes in, I suspect. Jeanne created an additional copy of herself and Neil/Natalie who are now living in parallel with the originals. See The Man Who Folded Himself for an extreme example of that trope.
Strip #6 states that event A leading to wish B leading to another event leading to wish C can’t undo Event A or wish B. Then again, it also says that wish C would be invalid because it disrupts the flow of time and space, which appears to have happened as Natalie bought the bottle instead of Jean. So maybe we are not yet all the way back to when Jeanie and Neil poofed to their past? If so, maybe Natalie has to patch up the friendship between Neil and Jean, return the bottle to the store (consignment maybe?) and then trick Jean into buying it?
Problem is that it wasn’t the wish itself which disrupted the flow of time and space. I actually think some magic was correcting all little differences to keep stable loop until Jeanie did too big change to stabilize when those other people saw her reaction to Jean. THAT poofed her back.
Awww…Jeanie’s look of dismay in frame 1, at being so harshly scolded by the one she adores more than she knew.
All true learning experiences are painful, I guess.
This leads to all sorts of possibilities. What happened to the origbal Nea? Did he and Zoey get married? Do they have kids? Could Natalie be married? What about Hean? He was publicly turned down by Jeannie and humiliated. Did that have an effect pf his fucture/ What happened all the people who’s life changed by Jeannie/ For instance is Red still Red or is she still a guy?
Ny just being there this could have nassice implicaruib either Natikie kept a low profile ie not.
(Of course, as I argued in the comments to yesterday’s strip, that ultimately he was at least negligent. jeaniebottle dot com/archives/comic/jeanie-bottle-672#comment-42078 )
We still need to know why the time jump happened. Where did Jeanie intend to poof herself too?
I think it’s been mentioned in comments that she poofed to her bottle in present time, because it wasn’t her bottle back in prom time.
But why back to the bottle? Simply the natural place a genie’s nature sends her to when in emotional distress?
Or are we seeing the subtle intervention of, say, Guano, or even the Genie Lord Himself?
In any case, I hope Jeanie and Neil end up back together, each with a new appreciation of their roles.
And I’m still wondering what Natalie’s new career is. Does “low profile” mean she never went to college? Has she given up her engineering proclivities? Does she keep a workbench, like Fran of Fran in the Lab?
She didn’t poof herself anywhere to go from the hotel in the past to her bottle in the present. Something in the timeline (or possibly a higher genie power) did that. Jeanie poof-ed herself *out* of the bottle and into Natalie’s apartment in the present after suddenly finding herself in the bottle.
It looks as if, in this universe, you can do things while not altering the timeline, as long as they don’t directly apply to your past self. (This could be wrong.). Otherwise, Natalie would have changed things just by renting apartment(s), buying food, getting a job, being known by co-workers, etc etc etc.
The return to the bottle could be instinctive. She does return to the bottle (normally, at least) when she sleeps. She could’ve thought, “I want outta here!” and jumped back to the present and her bottle because she wasn’t thinking of anywhere else specific. Still, other things could be true. We’ll see.
For anyone interested in my views on Neil’s responsibility for this situation, I once made a (very) rough draft of a fanfic, viewable at booksie dot com/643110-neils-discipline
There’s no way to tell, by external appearances, whether or not a bottle contain a djinn. In all those years, didn’t Natalie ever speculate that Jeanie might be trapped inside? All she had to do was pull the cork and start giving orders.
Yes, if the bottle’s empty there’s a risk of being sucked in. But, knowing about that beforehand, Natalie could concentrate on how she (or he) would LIKE to look. Kim Kardashian, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck. Michael Ansara. Having magic powers and an indefinite lifespan isn’t such a bad deal.
What about having a Master? We’re still not sure why Neil ‘owns’ Jeanie. Closest person? Just drive out into the desert, miles from everyone and everywhere, before experimenting. Can djinn be their own masters? We’ve seen djinn who apparently don’t answer to anybody else.
We don’t know Natalie didn’t rub the bottle. I suspect she did, but nothing happened. Jeanie wasn’t IN until just now. And she didn’t leave the bottle because she was summoned, but by her own volition. When she entered the bottle after poofing away from Jean at the hotel, remember, she wondered why she was there. /jeanie-bottle-671
Yes, it’s possibly Natalie tried the bottle, after taking the precautions I mentioned. And no one “was home”.
I’m assuming Jeanie returned to the Present, an instant after she and Neil left for the Kibble Burger. So she was still a genie for maybe a year before that. Her absence changed history in several ways. I wonder if this is leading up to a “It’s a Wonderful Life” scenario. She does tend to ruin other people’s lives usually, though not exclusively, Neil’s.
But she does do good occasionally — mostly inadvertently. In this new timeline (if it is new)…
Is that little Rover still stuck in the sand on Mars?
Did the Blue Djinn overthrow Haji?
@Mark Couple of things. First, this is mostly just head canon, but I doubt neither Jean or Neil would ever be able to open a Genie bottle without thinking of a Genie Babe from now on. Natalie could make the biggest effort to “Don’t think of Genie Babes, don’t think of Genie Banes” While opening/rubbing the bottle, and we all know how that would end.
As for genie freedom. There is none. The genies you are thinking lacking a master and going free, are Lords, which may as well be Haji’s private circle, Haji’s own Harem who lives in his palace, same for his guards and soldiers, Asha, who got an special deal with Haji himself, and a handful of outcasts, that being punished for different reasons, the ones with most freedom being the ones living as mortals, like Rouyaa, but whatever punishment you get, is something up to Haji. Natalie, if opening the bottle and taking Jean’s place now, would jut be tie to the regular rules of staying inside the bottle, until a proper Master appear, and from there, either ask to stay with that master, or back to her bottle to wait for the next one.
@Carlos: Yes, and in spades. Bottle genies pretty much exist to serve Masters. Aracelli, who’s been a bottle genie all her life, is pretty much compelled to need and to love a Master. Jeanie, converted from a rather self-centered human, has been having trouble adapting, but I think her blissed out response to Natalie’s hug shows she, too, is succumbing to her genie nature. And about time.
Neil is/was an engineer. Went to Cal Tech. Can’t be stupid.
King Solomon (or whomever sealed the genies in bottles) never anticipated things like https://www.amazon.com/Oster-Cordless-Electric-Bottle-Opener/dp/B003YFI0O6
I’m sure Neil could modify one to trigger on a timer. Who or what is “master” if no one (human) opens the bottle?
Just trying to stretch the limits of the strip’s “logic”. ^_^
Returning to another subject, I just read a story about a guy who robbed a bank decades ago, built himself a new life, and told no one about his past (not even the girl he married and his kids) until he was on his deathbed. Two years after the robbery, he walked into a Social Security office, gave them a false name and age and requested a card. So it’s possible. Probably harder these days, but identity theft is still with us and all too common. Neil had his wallet and could have lived on ATM withdrawals for awhile. Who was going to complain?
It is a bit of a jump. I’m guessing that it reflects Jeanie and Jean’s emotional dependence on Neil’s friendship, which apparently extends back at least until prom night.
As Natalie explains in panel 3 when you don’t ignore any parentheses high school Neil just like before went to. CalTech and then moved down to Florida just like before. Natalie followed Neil to Cocoa Beach. But when Natalie realized that “you(Jean) and Neil” weren’t going to buy the bottle, she bought it herself.
Maybe tomorrow we will find out why Natalie was so sure Neil
or Jean would buy the bottle. I’m putting my cookies on either. Natalie explaining what the relationship between Neil and Jean is or showing us the new present-day Neil.
All true–and yet still doesn’t explain Jeanie’s “not friends” assumption. As you say, a lot happened “just like before”, and it sounds like Jean and Neil were still associated, at least up to the point where Natalie realized neither of them would buy the bottle. Something changed, and we don’t yet know what it was, or how it affected things between Neil and Jean.
@50srefugee, I think there still on friendly terms with each other, but, I don’t think is as close as it use to be. It was Jean that found the Genie Bottle and was fondling it and he became Jeanie. Also remember why Jean wanted the bottle originally, so he could do Barbra Eden, which kind of got swashed by what Jeanie did to him on Prom Night. Neil was never interested in that bottle in the first place and would have look passed it as something get or even pick it up to look at it even.
So, that even of Jean becoming Jeanie never would have happened.
@Larry: The bottle was supposed to be a gift for Belle. Jean was fantasizing about Barbara Eden when he opened it (page 1). It is explained on Jean’s cast page. “On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found an empty Genie bottle. Upon picking up this bottle, Jean became the bottle’s new Genie-powered occupant.”
mike: Good catch. Belle’s lucky Jean triggered the bottle before giving it to her, or she’d’ve ended up as Jean’s genie. I don’t imagine that would have ended well for either of them.
This, big time THIS. Even if the timeline is healed in such a manner that Natalie once again becomes Neil, I hope Neil remembers having grown up as Natalie. I’m more than a little sorry that we’re only going to get the briefest summary of Natalie’s experiences.
If you turn Natalie back into Neil, then what are you going to do with the other Neil that Natalie been talking about all this time?
While we are on the subject, what are we going to do with the other Jean that didn’t become Jeanie and what are we going to be doing with our Jean that did come Jeanie? Do we trick or try to convince Jean to become Jeanie?
> we’re only going to get the briefest summary of Natalie’s experiences.
You should read the new Patreon bonus page that takes place immediately after this one, if you want to learn more about Natalie’s experiences. It’ll be linked in the description of tonight’s page, though it’s only available to Patrons for the next month. Then it’ll go free-to-view.
There not Gay, but, I am curios in if something happen between Neil and Zoey and if Belle is still Jean girlfriend. It would have to be Zoey by default, because, Neil has never met Belle yet and only meet Belle because she is Jean girlfriend, which means, that Neil didn’t have that hot steamy night with Belle masquerading as Jean.
We now seem to have a serious hiccup in the timeline that indicates a possible alternate universe (which fits a radial time-travel model as opposed to a linear one).
As explained by Natalie, Neil continued with his education and settled in Coco Beach working as an engineer for a NASA contractor. So far there’s no change. It is not stated whether or not Jean followed suit, but let’s suppose (for the sake of argument) that he did because despite all, Neil seems to be his only friend. Something caused Jean to NOT purchase the bottle for Belle and I surmise that something is Zoey, and Neil was too busy with his girlfriend to go present shopping that day. Jean skipped the shopping trip or purchased something else and Natalie grabbed the bottle and put it on the shelf. Obviously, some time has passed since that fateful day and Natalie had to wait another year or so before the anniversary of their botched burger run and Jeanie’s unexpected return (the exact date of which Natalie probably forgot, judging by her surprise).
Natalie following Neil to Coco Beach does not affect the timeline, but here’s the hiccup… JEAN DID NOT OPEN THE BOTTLE AND COULD NOT BECOME JEANIE! Everything following that point in a linear timeline, up until now, should have changed, having not happened at all. Because Jeanie and Natalie still exist supports the alternate timeline theory.
Now, some things may have remained unaltered. Araceli might still be Caley’s genie, Rodge would still be Neil’s coworker (and have the hots for Natalie who he may have bumped into at the post office) and Kazom would still be sleeping in Melvin’s bedroom. Any other thoughts?
Araceli either, because, she was a replacement Genie for Neil when Neil complained that he could not be without his Genie Jeanie. That when Guano poof Araceli into the picture, which also would not have happened either.
However Caley is still Rodge Nice and she still has the hots for Neil, that would not have changed.
Even with Natalie trying to keep a low profile, there only so much stuff that she can do to keep from corrupting the time any more than it has already been corrupted.
I was searching for this quote to add to my summary: Everything that follows is a result of what you see here. I, Robot (2004)
If Jean doesn’t open the bottle, there’s nothing to see here.
There no longer friends. Could Natalie be the new genie of the lamp?
No, she only has control over the possession of the bottle only. She is fully a where of what would happen if she open it or did what Jean did with the bottle that it would make her a Genie, which she doesn’t want to happen.
That sounds like a messed up timeline to me….
At least she got ahold of the bottle instead of someone else finding it..
“I didn’t mess with the timeline”.
Neil, there was Covid, there was Trump and there was Bolsonaro in Brazil. BY ALL MEANS MESS WITH THE TIMELINE, TEE-WHY-VEE-EM. 😛
I mean, we at least know Covid was a thing in THAT universe. 😛
And Modi in India, and Duarte in the Philippines.
Yes, thwart this guy’s fantasies, please.
OK, I was wrong, the timeline did change. Alas, it looks like they still have covid. Stupid butterflies never flap the way you want them to.
What are you talking about? The timeline seems to be exactly as I left it last week…
Oh boy…
Not to mention them getting squashed underfoot by clumsy dinosaurs.
Well Foradian, the problem isn’t covid, never have been. The disease itself is basically harmless, and interrupted out lives in no significant ways. What did disrupt everything was the covid restrictions. That is the true bane and our anger should be directed towards our politicians who dares to infringe on our rights.
EDIT by the mods: all of the above is false. But I’m leaving it up because someone already responded.
Sigh. I guess you are one of those who think all those death statistics are falsified.
Maybe YOU were lucky to have no problem with covid, but others were not.
So the 820,000 deaths in the US alone “aren’t a significant disruption” in our lives? Take your head out of your ass you self-centered prick.
um, the disease is as harmless as a loaded gun… with a hair trigger.. depending on what part of the body is hit that can be fatal or give lifelong extreme disability..
Jean (original timeline) bought the bottle because he was a big IDoJ fan (and would “so do her” (2nd comic)) given the chance.
Maybe he got turned off women who look like Barbara Eden / Jeannie, after getting totally shut down by Jeanie.
Since (presumably) Natalie knew enough to not do anything which would create a bottle genie after acquiring the bottle, it *should* have remained empty in the timeline created by Jeanie’s alteration of her earlier self.
Not gonna complain about “realised” even though I don’t think CD, Robert, or the characters are British. 😉
CD is Canadian, and they use British spellings.
Ah… that explains it! Thanks!
That what I am thinking too, that Jean was so disappointed by what Jeanie did that he will now avoid Blond Girls that look like Barbra Eden. Which means, that Jean never became Jeanie. Which is one reason that Natalie was surprised to see Jeanie.
Anybody for Back to the Future where Marty McFly interrupts the meeting of his parent and history starts to re-right itself by erasing Marty older brother and then his sister and erasing Marty. I wonder if that going to be happening here now too.
I hope not, because it’s totally unexplainable. Why would they be disappearing slowly instead of immediately?
I think Jeanie is, thanks to her genie powers, immune to being erased or something.
Chapter labeled 273 not 673 just noticed.
I fixed it.
Please tell me there wasn’t a suicide in this timeline. (That hesitation, plus lack of mention of what happened to Jean has me worried. Not to mention the tearfull “I was starting to think I’d never see you again” and the present being all out of whack.)
There are two time lines here. The one that Teen Jean and Neil are in and the time line that Jeanie and Natalie are in and there running side by side to each other.
Nothing like that.
Phew! Glad to hear it. (I thought that’d be bit dark for CD, but things have occasionally taken a turn for the dark before — Omaha Beach, Blue Djinn, etc.)
About the only way that I could see not having two time lines, is for Jeanie to undo the damage she and Neil did the first time going into the past. She would have to try and salvage Jean, swash any relationship Neil might being developing with Zoey and that Natalie and Danny Chase Match, may or may not be allowed too. Then come back to the future and let everything run it course after that and then everything can fall back into place again and continue as always.
@Larry: That’s asking quite a lot for Jeanie to pull off. I don’t think she’s capable of that measure of detailed manipulation… she’s more of a “I have a hammer and you are the nail” sort of technician. Nothing she’s ever done shows any level of sophistication (The I Dream of a General arc being an exception… maybe… and that’s a strong maybe).
That was exactly what I was getting at Mike. We either have two time lines to deal with or we have Jeanie trying to operate out of her pay grade scale to fix everything.
If it the second one Jeanie fixing everything, all I have to say is: “LORD HELP US”!!!!
There is no way that Jeanie is going to fix every detail, but they will probably end up with a timeline that she and Natalie can live with, if they don’t simply end up erasing their original time traveling so that the entire adventure never happened.
I don’t think the relationship Neil might being developing with Zoey is a problem which needs to be solved.
Well there goes my stable time loop theory.
“Well….” Glad we don’t have to wait a week to hear the end of that.
How did Natalie end up with all the manuals?
.so.. Jeanne shouldn’t exist right? Which means she can’t go back in time to change things… so she should exist and will change the past… which means she shouldn’t exist? Ima gonna lie down now.
If you follow that logic, not only should Jeanie should not exist because, Jean didn’t turn into Jeanie, also remember that it was Jeanie that took Neil into the past to become Natalie. So Natalie should not exist either.
This is where the timey-wimey stuff comes in, I suspect. Jeanne created an additional copy of herself and Neil/Natalie who are now living in parallel with the originals. See The Man Who Folded Himself for an extreme example of that trope.
Strip #6 states that event A leading to wish B leading to another event leading to wish C can’t undo Event A or wish B. Then again, it also says that wish C would be invalid because it disrupts the flow of time and space, which appears to have happened as Natalie bought the bottle instead of Jean. So maybe we are not yet all the way back to when Jeanie and Neil poofed to their past? If so, maybe Natalie has to patch up the friendship between Neil and Jean, return the bottle to the store (consignment maybe?) and then trick Jean into buying it?
Problem is that it wasn’t the wish itself which disrupted the flow of time and space. I actually think some magic was correcting all little differences to keep stable loop until Jeanie did too big change to stabilize when those other people saw her reaction to Jean. THAT poofed her back.
Awww…Jeanie’s look of dismay in frame 1, at being so harshly scolded by the one she adores more than she knew.
All true learning experiences are painful, I guess.
Neil and Jean aren’t friends anymore because Zoey, Neil’s wife thinks Jean is a douchebag. 🙂 Just a guess.
I’m partial to this theory, and it also could potentially limit options on ‘fixing things’ if Neil and Zoey are now parents.
I like this too, although I don’t want it to keep things from going back to “our” timeline.
My guess: Teenage Jean stiffed Neil on the hotel room since he didn’t get to use it in this timeline.
Natalie “tried to keep a low profile”. Kinda tricky, looking like she does.
This leads to all sorts of possibilities. What happened to the origbal Nea? Did he and Zoey get married? Do they have kids? Could Natalie be married? What about Hean? He was publicly turned down by Jeannie and humiliated. Did that have an effect pf his fucture/ What happened all the people who’s life changed by Jeannie/ For instance is Red still Red or is she still a guy?
Ny just being there this could have nassice implicaruib either Natikie kept a low profile ie not.
There’s an easy solution… just send Natalie back in time as Jeanne, to seduce Jean… problem solved.
Two jeanies later… what?
Didn’t Brian and Stewie do this on Family Guy?
Heh.
Jeanie: “We didn’t change anything.
As if Neil/Natalie was somehow complicit.
(Of course, as I argued in the comments to yesterday’s strip, that ultimately he was at least negligent. jeaniebottle dot com/archives/comic/jeanie-bottle-672#comment-42078 )
We still need to know why the time jump happened. Where did Jeanie intend to poof herself too?
I think it’s been mentioned in comments that she poofed to her bottle in present time, because it wasn’t her bottle back in prom time.
But why back to the bottle? Simply the natural place a genie’s nature sends her to when in emotional distress?
Or are we seeing the subtle intervention of, say, Guano, or even the Genie Lord Himself?
In any case, I hope Jeanie and Neil end up back together, each with a new appreciation of their roles.
And I’m still wondering what Natalie’s new career is. Does “low profile” mean she never went to college? Has she given up her engineering proclivities? Does she keep a workbench, like Fran of Fran in the Lab?
She didn’t poof herself anywhere to go from the hotel in the past to her bottle in the present. Something in the timeline (or possibly a higher genie power) did that. Jeanie poof-ed herself *out* of the bottle and into Natalie’s apartment in the present after suddenly finding herself in the bottle.
It looks as if, in this universe, you can do things while not altering the timeline, as long as they don’t directly apply to your past self. (This could be wrong.). Otherwise, Natalie would have changed things just by renting apartment(s), buying food, getting a job, being known by co-workers, etc etc etc.
The return to the bottle could be instinctive. She does return to the bottle (normally, at least) when she sleeps. She could’ve thought, “I want outta here!” and jumped back to the present and her bottle because she wasn’t thinking of anywhere else specific. Still, other things could be true. We’ll see.
For anyone interested in my views on Neil’s responsibility for this situation, I once made a (very) rough draft of a fanfic, viewable at booksie dot com/643110-neils-discipline
There’s no way to tell, by external appearances, whether or not a bottle contain a djinn. In all those years, didn’t Natalie ever speculate that Jeanie might be trapped inside? All she had to do was pull the cork and start giving orders.
Yes, if the bottle’s empty there’s a risk of being sucked in. But, knowing about that beforehand, Natalie could concentrate on how she (or he) would LIKE to look. Kim Kardashian, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck. Michael Ansara. Having magic powers and an indefinite lifespan isn’t such a bad deal.
What about having a Master? We’re still not sure why Neil ‘owns’ Jeanie. Closest person? Just drive out into the desert, miles from everyone and everywhere, before experimenting. Can djinn be their own masters? We’ve seen djinn who apparently don’t answer to anybody else.
We don’t know Natalie didn’t rub the bottle. I suspect she did, but nothing happened. Jeanie wasn’t IN until just now. And she didn’t leave the bottle because she was summoned, but by her own volition. When she entered the bottle after poofing away from Jean at the hotel, remember, she wondered why she was there. /jeanie-bottle-671
Yes, it’s possibly Natalie tried the bottle, after taking the precautions I mentioned. And no one “was home”.
I’m assuming Jeanie returned to the Present, an instant after she and Neil left for the Kibble Burger. So she was still a genie for maybe a year before that. Her absence changed history in several ways. I wonder if this is leading up to a “It’s a Wonderful Life” scenario. She does tend to ruin other people’s lives usually, though not exclusively, Neil’s.
But she does do good occasionally — mostly inadvertently. In this new timeline (if it is new)…
Is that little Rover still stuck in the sand on Mars?
Did the Blue Djinn overthrow Haji?
@Mark: Oh, gods, the poor little Rover! CD, we have to know about the Rover!
@Mark Couple of things. First, this is mostly just head canon, but I doubt neither Jean or Neil would ever be able to open a Genie bottle without thinking of a Genie Babe from now on. Natalie could make the biggest effort to “Don’t think of Genie Babes, don’t think of Genie Banes” While opening/rubbing the bottle, and we all know how that would end.
As for genie freedom. There is none. The genies you are thinking lacking a master and going free, are Lords, which may as well be Haji’s private circle, Haji’s own Harem who lives in his palace, same for his guards and soldiers, Asha, who got an special deal with Haji himself, and a handful of outcasts, that being punished for different reasons, the ones with most freedom being the ones living as mortals, like Rouyaa, but whatever punishment you get, is something up to Haji. Natalie, if opening the bottle and taking Jean’s place now, would jut be tie to the regular rules of staying inside the bottle, until a proper Master appear, and from there, either ask to stay with that master, or back to her bottle to wait for the next one.
@Carlos: Yes, and in spades. Bottle genies pretty much exist to serve Masters. Aracelli, who’s been a bottle genie all her life, is pretty much compelled to need and to love a Master. Jeanie, converted from a rather self-centered human, has been having trouble adapting, but I think her blissed out response to Natalie’s hug shows she, too, is succumbing to her genie nature. And about time.
Neil is/was an engineer. Went to Cal Tech. Can’t be stupid.
King Solomon (or whomever sealed the genies in bottles) never anticipated things like
https://www.amazon.com/Oster-Cordless-Electric-Bottle-Opener/dp/B003YFI0O6
I’m sure Neil could modify one to trigger on a timer. Who or what is “master” if no one (human) opens the bottle?
Just trying to stretch the limits of the strip’s “logic”. ^_^
Returning to another subject, I just read a story about a guy who robbed a bank decades ago, built himself a new life, and told no one about his past (not even the girl he married and his kids) until he was on his deathbed. Two years after the robbery, he walked into a Social Security office, gave them a false name and age and requested a card. So it’s possible. Probably harder these days, but identity theft is still with us and all too common. Neil had his wallet and could have lived on ATM withdrawals for awhile. Who was going to complain?
Are you saying that Teen Natalie could have used Adult Neil’s ATM card to withdraw funds from deposits made years later? I don’t think so…
This begs the question of whats going on in Melvin’s corner of the world. Kind of hoping for this to become the status quo.
Stop wondering. A new Melvin was posted today with a link to this comic.
I’m a little confused on how she got from not buying the bottle to not friends any more
It is a bit of a jump. I’m guessing that it reflects Jeanie and Jean’s emotional dependence on Neil’s friendship, which apparently extends back at least until prom night.
As Natalie explains in panel 3 when you don’t ignore any parentheses high school Neil just like before went to. CalTech and then moved down to Florida just like before. Natalie followed Neil to Cocoa Beach. But when Natalie realized that “you(Jean) and Neil” weren’t going to buy the bottle, she bought it herself.
Maybe tomorrow we will find out why Natalie was so sure Neil
or Jean would buy the bottle. I’m putting my cookies on either. Natalie explaining what the relationship between Neil and Jean is or showing us the new present-day Neil.
All true–and yet still doesn’t explain Jeanie’s “not friends” assumption. As you say, a lot happened “just like before”, and it sounds like Jean and Neil were still associated, at least up to the point where Natalie realized neither of them would buy the bottle. Something changed, and we don’t yet know what it was, or how it affected things between Neil and Jean.
@50srefugee, I think there still on friendly terms with each other, but, I don’t think is as close as it use to be. It was Jean that found the Genie Bottle and was fondling it and he became Jeanie. Also remember why Jean wanted the bottle originally, so he could do Barbra Eden, which kind of got swashed by what Jeanie did to him on Prom Night. Neil was never interested in that bottle in the first place and would have look passed it as something get or even pick it up to look at it even.
So, that even of Jean becoming Jeanie never would have happened.
@Larry: The bottle was supposed to be a gift for Belle. Jean was fantasizing about Barbara Eden when he opened it (page 1). It is explained on Jean’s cast page. “On a trip to find a gift for his girlfriend, Jean found an empty Genie bottle. Upon picking up this bottle, Jean became the bottle’s new Genie-powered occupant.”
mike: Good catch. Belle’s lucky Jean triggered the bottle before giving it to her, or she’d’ve ended up as Jean’s genie. I don’t imagine that would have ended well for either of them.
Yes, I agree with you.
Is Belle still Jean Girlfriend?
Is Jean still interested in doing Barbra Eden after what Jeanie did to him?
Which were the two reason that Jean was interested in the Genie Bottle in the first place.
My question is: Is either reason that Jean was interested in the Genie still valid? Don’t know!
All in all, it can be an interesting future now since Neil knows all about how it was to grow-up female from teen to adult.
This, big time THIS. Even if the timeline is healed in such a manner that Natalie once again becomes Neil, I hope Neil remembers having grown up as Natalie. I’m more than a little sorry that we’re only going to get the briefest summary of Natalie’s experiences.
If you turn Natalie back into Neil, then what are you going to do with the other Neil that Natalie been talking about all this time?
While we are on the subject, what are we going to do with the other Jean that didn’t become Jeanie and what are we going to be doing with our Jean that did come Jeanie? Do we trick or try to convince Jean to become Jeanie?
> we’re only going to get the briefest summary of Natalie’s experiences.
You should read the new Patreon bonus page that takes place immediately after this one, if you want to learn more about Natalie’s experiences. It’ll be linked in the description of tonight’s page, though it’s only available to Patrons for the next month. Then it’ll go free-to-view.
They got married? Well, that would explain why they’re not friends anymore…
>smirks< Now, now. Be nice.
If they are gay. Neil and Jean are both men now as far as we know. My choices for a wife for Neil now would be Zoey or Belle
There not Gay, but, I am curios in if something happen between Neil and Zoey and if Belle is still Jean girlfriend. It would have to be Zoey by default, because, Neil has never met Belle yet and only meet Belle because she is Jean girlfriend, which means, that Neil didn’t have that hot steamy night with Belle masquerading as Jean.
When Jeanie was poofed back into her bottle it turned teen Jean into girl Jean.
We now seem to have a serious hiccup in the timeline that indicates a possible alternate universe (which fits a radial time-travel model as opposed to a linear one).
As explained by Natalie, Neil continued with his education and settled in Coco Beach working as an engineer for a NASA contractor. So far there’s no change. It is not stated whether or not Jean followed suit, but let’s suppose (for the sake of argument) that he did because despite all, Neil seems to be his only friend. Something caused Jean to NOT purchase the bottle for Belle and I surmise that something is Zoey, and Neil was too busy with his girlfriend to go present shopping that day. Jean skipped the shopping trip or purchased something else and Natalie grabbed the bottle and put it on the shelf. Obviously, some time has passed since that fateful day and Natalie had to wait another year or so before the anniversary of their botched burger run and Jeanie’s unexpected return (the exact date of which Natalie probably forgot, judging by her surprise).
Natalie following Neil to Coco Beach does not affect the timeline, but here’s the hiccup… JEAN DID NOT OPEN THE BOTTLE AND COULD NOT BECOME JEANIE! Everything following that point in a linear timeline, up until now, should have changed, having not happened at all. Because Jeanie and Natalie still exist supports the alternate timeline theory.
Now, some things may have remained unaltered. Araceli might still be Caley’s genie, Rodge would still be Neil’s coworker (and have the hots for Natalie who he may have bumped into at the post office) and Kazom would still be sleeping in Melvin’s bedroom. Any other thoughts?
Araceli either, because, she was a replacement Genie for Neil when Neil complained that he could not be without his Genie Jeanie. That when Guano poof Araceli into the picture, which also would not have happened either.
However Caley is still Rodge Nice and she still has the hots for Neil, that would not have changed.
Even with Natalie trying to keep a low profile, there only so much stuff that she can do to keep from corrupting the time any more than it has already been corrupted.
But, just about everything else didn’t happen.
I was searching for this quote to add to my summary: Everything that follows is a result of what you see here. I, Robot (2004)
If Jean doesn’t open the bottle, there’s nothing to see here.
Yup!