Ene-mene-miste
Well, that’s Beate drowned then. Hopefully whoever’s in that car that drove Lottie to the reservoir is the new central character of Solver. Unless this is about to become the Dean Thompson comic (if he ever speaks again).
Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
The Lottie Memorial Solvers: Claire, Glurm and Dean
Deliberately behaving badly in honour of Charlotte Grote (RIP)
Oh, c’mon people – we all know there’s some super clever way that Lottie escapes
And she just might drag a sodden and confused Beate out with her…
Nope. I was wrong about accusing Beate. It was Skellottie who was the arsehole.
Beate had already decided to take up a life of crime the day she arrived at that Bavarian ski resort, and of her own free will rescinded Claire’s offer of friendship. She was going to be an asshole with or without Skellottie’s help.
“Life of crime”? I missed that somehow. And snubbing Claire is not morally equivalent to cold blooded murder.
Yeah, no, I just re-read that issue, and all Beate intended at the ski resort was to catch the jewel thieves.
The Claire snubbing was indeed her choice, but made at the urging of Skellottie, and she seemed remorseful about it immediately after.
Eh… Beate was about to accept Claire’s offer of friendship until the Doppelgröte insisted that Claire was an enemy. And Lottie was a lot meaner to Claire in the early Bad Machinery days than turning down hot chocolate and destruction of nihilists.
Lottie needed to get Lemmed into character growth, so maybe this is Beate’s Lemming moment.
Lemming moment.
Sheer brilliance. Now, anyone got some paper towels? I need to wipe all this coffee off the windscreen.
Hopefully, Sandra is already scuba-ing down to pick up Lottie as Bitsy is calling the bobbies.
Not yet, but Sandra will be the “ploop” on Friday’s page!
Who in this universe do we know who can drive? Mildred! Mildred is in the car!
Erin Winters can drive! Maybe she followed Linton’s advice and bought this Bentley with her insurance payout when Phyllis expired.
That’s not how insurance works!
Aw man, I think my hymn for Phyllis was lost when GoComics purged the comments.
Gareth!
I am quite certain that the ever-capable Sandra drove Lottie & Bitsy there.
Seems logical. Bitsy did tell Sandra to “go warm up the Bentley”.
Note the registration plate number: BX54 LRV. Plainly this stands for Bitsy and X-54 Lottie Rescue Vehicle — X-54 being, of course, the code name for Sandra, of His Majesty’s Secret Service.
I can’t believe John made it so obvious!
i want a Dean Thompson comic since his first apparition in Giant Days, but not if this means losing Lottie! Happy to see that Beate finally was able to doing something for stop her evil sister. I wonder who is still alive.
Maybe this was the Dean Thompson comic all along, and we’re only just now realizing it.
Turnabout is fair play. https://badmachinery.com/comic/ill-be-with-you-all-the-way/
Solver turned into Drowners so gradually, I barely noticed.
At this rate Shauna’s going to be the only one left.
The advantage of being the only one with years of training in swimming
They were just watching from the car? Maybe Lottie told them she could handle this situation, but it looks like Beate just did. (And they’re still just watching from the car?)
Alright, maybe they just called the local Law-Enforcement who might be at the dam in a half-hour. That’s doing something, but certainly not stopping this mess from happening.
There’s nothing to make us think they’re still in the car. In fact I believe they’ve been getting busy in some ingenious way while Charlotte was distracting SkeLottie.
I also suspect that whatever plan they have involves Lottie’s shoes in some way. There has to be a reason she changed her shoes, and the ones she’s currently wearing are very distinctive.
I don’t think those are shoes…
It looks to me like Lottie was wearing a wetsuit under her clothes.
It occurred to me (when I was away from any internet access–yes, that’s still possible) that Lottie might have been wearing her designer heels when she hit the water. I’m glad to see that’s not so.
Nothing EXCEPT what could be at least one face behind the car window…
Picturing Bitsy and Sandra in wetsuits and scuba gear. Standard issue for Sandra, something VERY chic and classy for Bitsy.
Isn’t “Writhe, Struggle, Plead” a breakup song by …Fiona Apple?
Paula Cole maybe?
They’re a law firm, two doors along from Prance, Prance, Caper and Showboat.
Flicking back and forth between yesterday’s page and today’s, I’m guessing that the diabolical genius Johnny A has actually planned this out and lined it up so that in print form these two pages would be facing, the rim of the reservoir dam making one continuous line, and all of these sound effects forming a chain. (“He’s only gone and done it again”.)
Yesterday’s already put me in mind of Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew – and today’s completes the set,
Tom, you are not wrong here
PUSH * SPLOSH * PUSH
also lines up quite neatly.
Yes, Lottie and her doppleganger have definitely both drowned. There is no precedent whatsoever of anyone surviving when a detective and their archnemesis both fall into a body of water from very high up.
Could John have been planning a baritsu-barista pun all along?
Is that based on Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty’s final battle at that waterfall in Switzerland?
No, it was Poirot and Toriop, and their dramatic plunge into Lake Blegium
Good thing you didn’t say “Belgium”!
Well, there IS, but it was a work of fiction (like this one)
Wait, what??
Bitsy and Sandra to the rescue!! Cue the William Tell Overture!!
Now begins the Dean Thompson Mime Time: Webcomic Without Words. Only diagetic captions and sound effects. The humour is so fire that you’ll laugh even if you’re as dead as Charlotte Grote and Beate Doppelgröte!
What will Sexy Wario think about this
(For reference)
https://badmachinery.com/comic/vapedragnz/
And then Lottie found that knife thing that Jack dropped in the river five-or-whatever-years-prior, and the lingering mystery was finally solved.
That period shouldn’t have followed that question mark in panel 3. Glum was apparently overcome by someone pushing herself into a dam.
Sandra in the car with a crossbow, swim queen Shauna below in scuba gear saves both Grote A and Grote Beate. With Beate’s makeup washed off there’s a classic “I don’t know which one to shoot” moment (which makes no sense at all because they’re wearing different clothes but I’m spitballing here) and that tattoo Lottie got in Scotland (which I’m guessing is of a literal Chekov’s gun) is the identifying factor. Case closed, justice served, they all go out for ice cream and get ready for “The Case of Really, Really Apologizing to Dean.”
Next Monday’s page will definitely be about the tattoo! (And here I had been thinking it was about parking on the roadside vs in the dam.)
Love the idea of the tattoo being Chekhov’s gun.
Maybe her tattoo is a MacGuffin
For those who are wondering, the choosing rhyme is pronounced AY-nuh MAY-nuh MIST-uh. It continues, “Es rappelt in der Kiste (It’s rattling in the chest (the box kind, not a thorax)). Ene-mene-meck (nonsense words), und du bist weg (and you are gone).”
Twelve syllables, so if Skelottie went left to right, starting with Dean, Claire was going to be the first to go.
Death’s showing off his new car.
Death must have arrived early. https://badmachinery.com/comic/expressing-strong-views-yes/
He did that in Terry Pratchett books. “DON’T RUSH:I BROUGHT A BOOK.”
Ene mene miste
This is why you don’t ski off-piste
So, in the 2nd panel we finally see Beate’s disembodied face, and it looks just fine.
Although her nose appears to be smaller than it did pre-accident.
Do I need to order one of those hamper thingies?
I am disappointed that none of them even considered the possibility that she was just murdered by her own ghost.
Or would that be suicided by her own ghost? and will there now be two ghost, or is this a two-face situation?
If this was Scary Go Round that would be the very first thing the characters assume