Maverick, charismatic individuals
Since his earliest appearances in Giant Days, Dean has lived under the shadow of legal action. So I like to think that as long as he’s been in Sheffield, he’s had a lawyer he calls on. Ideally, one very near to the university, for convenience back in the day. So I put Mr Khan’s office right over Scott’s Pantry, where I used to get my sandwiches back in 1995. It’s still there. The sandwiches, however… long digested.
No stranger to the courtroom, Dean Thompson.
Based on the evident firmness of his handshake, Mr Khan is not an opponent to take lightly.
So the mystery lawyer ended up being ominous after all…and dean sadly went nuclear.
I give John props…I didn’t think he could make me disappointed in dean Thompson. I assumed the man had already hit rock bottom. Suing 20 somethings instead of being emotionally honest was the old dean. The new dean was only slightly better but he was improving.
Ominous
…called it!
True, he was very slightly better.
However, I still believe that he can find a better path again.
To me, the more curious question is how hard the Solvers are going to have to put the boot in to convince Dean Thompson that friendship is the wiser course.
Or at least less painful.
I agree …as for how I don’t know. They did screw up real bad. The team needs a neutral mediator. My guesses for a fixer are Mildred as she’s showing up soon or the nuclear option.
The eater of worlds. The surgeon supreme. Susan Ptolemy. She knows dean, Lottie knows her but the relationship is loose enough on both sides that she can be objective. As long as her fangs stayed sharp enough. I just don’t think John will make it that easy.
I think Dean is lonely and left out and missing all of the good pre-reservoir times. Since he is not the kind of person to get things rolling face-to-face, the best way is through an intermediary and a litigation system. Time with Claire and Glenn in court is better than no time at all…
I find a few of the responses to these comics read page by page so EXTREME. It’s like someone interrupting me halfway through an unfinished sentence to give a paragraph of response. I don’t write them to be read this way any more – I haven’t for a long time. Scenes and situations play out over 22/24/32 pages. So to read the comments, as the author, is a very strange sensation these days. Not that I want to spoil anyone’s fun or leave questions unanswered (I take this seriously) but I may have to duck out of the comments for another spell for the good of my mind.
Maybe you should read the comments in one go too!
I’ll check out the sarnie shop next time I’m in Sheffield (which may not be until 2027 as I live in Australia now)
I enjoy reading webcomics page by page, I’m on the patreon but I avoid reading stuff there because it just doesn’t feel right.
Webcomics should be read both ways – first dripped page by page on a semi-weekly basis and then in large gulps during archive dives.
If live comments are a source of angst, contemplate the existential horror of someone leaving a comment on a 20 year old comic they read and react to as new.
We could look at it as two simultaneous works, right? One created by the author, the other speculated into being here (and then erased three times a week). The author being dead once the work is released, his ghost occasionally appears here, appalled at the ongoing ephemeral version. That’s three narratives!
“My feeling is that the reader performs most of the act of writing. A book spends a very short time being written into existence; it spends the rest of its life being read into existence. That’s why I find in many current uses of the term “active reading” such a deeply ironic tautology. Reading was always “active”; the text itself always demanded the reader’s interaction if the fiction was to be brought forth. There was always a game being played, between writers and readers (for that matter between oral storytellers & listeners), who knew they were gaming a system, & who were delighted to engage each other on those terms.”
Michael John Harrison, “on worldbuilding” (notes)
Those of us who are members of the Patreon have had the chance to read the whole thing already, but we’ve been urged not to do any spoilers, so we’re left commenting day by day just like the masses.
It’s not the frequency of the comments, or a purity test of “true fans”, its just the tenor of some of the comments that I find jarring, and as the author of the strip, i may be in a category of one.
I’m sorry if i’ve in any way contributed ot that. Your work really is the highlight of my week. If you need some time out I understand.
Dean is justified in bringing legal action. Claire and Glenn deliberately put him in a dangerous situation that almost killed him. https://badmachinery.com/comic/a-wider-strategy/
Urf, why is Dean such a toilet
“I believe I am cursed with a bad personality.”
-Dean Thompson
I love the way this page emerges from the previous page (if that’s the way to put it), a mere detail on the previous page opening up to be the first panel of this page. A segue of sorts. Absolutely brilliant.
Weird to see Dean so vindictive. However, there is a huge possibility that this could backfire on him in the most spectacular way. Suing neighbors never ends well.
Wouldn’t be the first time. He held on tight to his grudge against Esther after she well meaningfuly scuttled his relationship and never let go. He even tried to set it up so their roommates would fight over her, that plotline simply fell off.
Hes always been an angry hate filled man, and never grew past college because he never felt he had to. The Solver Squad started nudging him out of his shell, he recognized he needed help, but their betrayal has caused him to weld his shell shut and put on spikes
To be fair, they did almost get him killed.
That assumes that they did something they could reasonably be expected to know was wrong at the time. Not telling him was because 1) they hoped to keep him out of it (for his safety) and 2) they hoped to keep him out of it (for their safety).
It’s not their fault Beate was two steps ahead of them. It’s John’s. 😀
They got him mixed up with someone they knew was a dangerous killer (at least potentially) without his knowledge to capture that person. They absolutely knew it was dangerous, or, by any reasonable criteria, they should have.
And that would have been fine if they had actually kept him out of it. But they didn’t; they deliberately invited a murderer into his home, and not only didn’t warn him, but actively helped mislead him as to her true identity.
I know we all love Claire and don’t love Dean, but, seriously, this one is on Claire.
I’m glad someone said it. Lottie was busy with her love interests and solving the case and while Glenn went along with it he was never comfortable with it. It’s the rare time in solver Claire’s screwed up..might be her first here.
Relevant link. https://badmachinery.com/comic/2025-01-31/
It’s 100% Lottie’s fault for being impersonated by a killer. She must not be allowed to solve Problems’ problems, so help me Khan!
Seriously, though, Claire and Golf conspired to bring a dangerous person to Dean’s home under the pretense that it was someone else. And for all Dean knows, Lottie was likely in on it, too.
Lottie was deliberately incommunicado and out of the county at the time, and had no idea what they were doing or what was going on in her absence.
We, of course, know that, but a) would Dean have asked about Lottie’s involvement? and b) would Dean believe them, post-reservoir, if they offered that information?
Mr Khan reminds me of Zohran Mamdani. A dangerously charismatic (laudatory) individual himself!
I was going to say Khan reminds me of Sacha Dawan, who played The Master to Jodi Whitaker’s 13th Doctor in Doctor Who.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!
Too late. Hit that one in the last strip.
Damn my eyes!
It says something when Dean can’t withstand a lawyer’s grip.
The grip of the last lawyer I had cause to shake hands with would be best described as “overly moisturized”. If he had attempted to play gripsies with me, I think his hand would have just squirted out of my grasp. Possibly this is some sort of natural defense mechanism.
Khan vs. Sandra? A possible heavyweight bout may be on tap!
It’s an avalanche of bad decisions, I wonder who is going to be the saint Bernard with the little barrel of brandy. I’d torture this metaphor some more but it’s 4.30am, I’ve just got in from work and I am asleep, please forgive me.
Time to dust off that law degree, Shelly!
*Shelley (dangit!)
Misspelling Shelley seems to be a common trope of comment sections for these strips.
Scott’s Pantry on Glossop Road sounds very Pratchett-y, somehow.
Looking at Google Maps to see the real-world Scott’s Pantry, I notice a few blocks away that University Square is actually a circle. Doesn’t this university teach basic shapes? (OK, I know that Times Square is more of a triangle, so New York might not be much better. Piccadilly Circus is the right shape, though the name makes one expect some clowns.)
Re-reading “Wobbly Head”, I note that this is not the first time we’ve heard that “where there’s blame, there’s a claim” line.