Well, I've got the feeling that we've reached the end of the 'Introducing The New Big Thing' arc. Basically, it was a compressed version of the introduction of Claire, reducing it to less than 20 strips rather than the hundreds of strips it took to introduce a certain redhead.
I've got a feeling that we're going to be seeing a lot more of them in the future. They might even end up as a main cast member's significant other/very best friend and a member of the main cast, at least for a while. Jeph thinks they're cute, has made it clear that he likes writing them. I just wish that he wasn't being so clumsy about it!
Now, don't get me wrong. I've said before that QC has more in common with 'continuing' comedies and dramas like soap operas than most other web-comics. Because of this, the 'main cast' is always changing and the focus is slowly drifting across new characters as the writer runs out of material for the old ones (who metamorphose into secondary or even supporting roles). Because of this, the introduction of new characters who will take on major roles is inevitable.
I just want to emphasise something: I don't dislike or hate Tilly. If anything, I'm generally indifferent to them. Jeph has really failed in this arc to make me care about them and be interested in their arc in the way I am about, for example, Faye, Bubbles, Marten, Claire and even May and Momo. To me, they'll always be more a foil than a character in their own right so I guess that I've just got to shrug this one off and hope we move onto something interesting next week.
I'm glad that I was right on the nose about the 'Taffy' thing. Either Beatrice, like Veronica, is one of those people who, if she says something in that voice, other people tend to follow along. Or, and this is more likely, Hannelore was tired and a bit out-of-sorts when she spoke to first Tilly and then her mother and she got what the two of them said mixed up in her head.