A major character dies
Earlier in the story Claire was wearing a blazer, but in the club scene she has a leather jacket. There’s a fun game you can play in the prior pages where it is possible to work out who she got it from. I say fun, it’s barely fun. As for Lottie’s outfit, I just think she keeps it in her “go bag” for any time she might have to go full vamp. That dress was £4 on Vinted.
Interpol Lottie and Claire are dangerous characters, aren’t they? We’d better hope that door never swings open again.
Nooooo! Not Bobby!
Beat me to it.
Bobby’s final problem.
And he didn’t even get to see Reichenbach Falls!
As falls Reichenbach, so falls Reichenbach Falls!
SIR.
Poor Robert Problems. Promoted to a major character only to be killed. What problems await him in the afterlife?
Bobby would make for a good poltergeist.
On another note, I kind of miss Erin Winters’ time as Mordawaa, Queen of Hell.
At least Glenn doesn’t get involved in a scheme to wreck ships with a fake lighthouse, in order to steal their cargo.
What sort of Moony-eyed fool would get dragged into a plot like that?
Someone who you’d think would be Ernest in their attempts at fortune
The postal service isn’t what it used to be.
I don’t know who’s cuter, mussed-hair Claire or brooding blue-collar Glenn
Given she was talking about dark paths, I thought Claire’s hair looked a little devilish.
The raw chicken was so expired, it caused his chest to burst
Bobby was done in by Sal Monella.
Dangerous… to our free time were they to appear in a bingeable series! Agents Grote and Little! Glenn would be … their Skinner?
I dunno, I really can’t picture “GLENN’S FIST!”
Maybe Glenn, Dean, and Bobby can be their Lone Gunmen. Nero can be Krychek.
Poor Bobby didn’t take Lottie’s raw chicken lessons to heart, did he?
Oh wait, I didn’t see the gunshot wound. What was Bobby doing at The Hague anyway?
Wrong place, wrong time. As Claire says, classic Bobby Problems.
Omitted scene: Lottie’s final raw chicken lesson. “Avoid The Hague like the plague of thawing and refreezing open packages of raw chicken.” He thought she only said that to make it more memorable as a rhyme, so he didn’t take the lesson to heart and ended up in the crossfire of the shootout as a result.
(Probably not what actually happened, even in Claire’s hyperbolic hyperventilations, but I wanted to see if I could semi-plausibly connect your two comments)
Interpol give badges for being ‘Hot’ and ‘Sexy’ now?
No wonder there’s collateral damage with unrelated students being shot in cases of mistaken identity!
What did you expect from.Paul Banks?
Well Chun Li from Street Fighter is an Interpol agent so that tracks.
I guess this means Des is safe (for now).
Nice to know contraband.biz.nl isn’t a valid url
There was a band in the ’80s called Contraband made up of members of other high profile groups, but I’d hesitate to call them a supergroup because (imo) they sucked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2dp-UAY7HE
(A jam session turned into a covers band is not always a great move)
The drummer was Bobby Blotzer and now I’m wondering what Bobby Problems’ last name is. Is there a link?
No, probably not – but I do enjoy making tenuous connections…
Bobby Problems’ actual last name was revealed in the second panel of this page: https://badmachinery.com/comic/2026-02-25/
Clearly a disguise!
Who is this mysterious leather coated individual in the corner of panel 1 on this page:
https://badmachinery.com/comic/2026-03-13/
What sordid affairs transpired between this page and the next? Will he return or has yet another of Claire’s fans been burned?
Don’t overlook mohawk guy as an option
It’s a conundrum. Claire’s still wearing the blazer — black, like the leather jacket, but longer — as recently as 2026-03-25. When next we see her, 2026-04-01, she has the leather jacket. While she could have gotten it earlier and just not worn it until now, the Complot de Karting performance has all the earmarks of a spur of the moment plan and it seems more likely to me she’d have acquired it at the last moment. But not so last moment as between panels 3 and 4 of the latter page, despite the person in panel 3 who looks like he’d own a leather jacket (and is perhaps wearing one actually, hard to say). No, I think we have to conclude she obtained it from the individual in the lower right corner of the last panel of 2026-03-25.
I will say that the greaser-looking guy — a demographic well-known for leather-jacket-wearing — on the right side of panel two here is wearing what appears to be Claire’s erstwhile blazer: https://badmachinery.com/comic/2026-04-01/
I’m not buying it. It’s barely past his waist. Claire’s blazer is cut longer.
I don’t know- Claire’s not exactly the tallest person around. I imagine her blazer would look shorter on someone else.
But if his torso’s that much longer, then the leather jacket wouldn’t fit. It ends just below Claire’s waist, so would barely reach his navel.
No, I agree with Alaric. The lounging fellow with the pompadour was persuaded to switch jackets to support the performance. Claire’s blazer is indeed a bit too small for him — there’s no evidence it would actually button closed.
But if it’s Claire’s blazer and is too small for him, then the leather jacket she’s wearing — which is short — would be ridiculously short on him. The scenario just doesn’t make sense.
As was noted earlier (not by me) it looks as if David Lynch is enjoying a cross-sea jaunt on this very vessel but, for some reason, appears to be wearing a blazer rather than his leather jacket. Coincidence?
Bobby Problems is a minor character at best.
A minor character doesn’t get a cover appearance like this one: https://badmachinery.com/comic/2026-01-02/
He’s a major character in Lottie’s heart.
Bobby’s only in the B plot. How can he qualify as a major character? Because the writer said so, of course. 🙂
Everyone’s reading this wrong. It’s not John who’s calling Bobby a major character- it’s Claire. All it means is that CLAIRE thinks of Bobby as a major character. Which is, itself, interesting- you’d expect Lottie to consider him that, but not Claire. Given that final panel, perhaps Claire thinks of him as a major character because she knows Lottie thinks of him that way (the ultimate problem that needs solving would OF COURSE be a major character to Lottie).
Interpol Claire is quite debonaire.
…and Hot! It even says so on her badge!
Whew!
I have no clue of what’s the truc Glenn is holding in the third panel, but John has my trust in his research on Overlooked Everyday and Technical Objects.
I think it’s one of those… THINGS. You know, to do STUFF with.
Ah, the Thingstuffer, a classic gateway drug to life-of-crime-ism. You know you’re too far gone when it becomes the STUFF you do THINGS with.
Did you go to Georgia Tech? ‘Cause one of my friends from there uses that “thing to do stuff with” phrasing all the time!
No, I didn’t. I just came up with that “thing to do stuff with” as a reply to the previous comment- it’s not something I generally go around saying.
From context, I think he’s adjusting a tensioned steel cable used to secure a shipping container. Whether that’s to facilitate the container’s safe transport, or to facilitate criminal activity is unclear.
Mr. Target: I came here to say this.
Turnbuckle
Agent Lottie sure puts the “sexy” in the sexy! And the “vest” OUT of InVESTigation!
She could read me my rights anytime…im not quite entirely sure what that actually means but she does look quite fetching
I think Lottie takes the “ve” out of “INveSTIGATION”.
Nicely played!
Love how Claire’s worries for Glenn let her see the weirdest future scenarios ever. She also seems to think Lottie will be able to convince Bobby she’s not a compulsive liar and become a major character in her life… she ship them!
Would Glenn really last 108 days on the lam?
This is as great a panel as you have ever drawn John 🤩
Fully agree. This whole story is Top Tier Allison.
That Panel 3 really is amazing. An entire graphic novel, distilled down to a single panel. And Claire telling the story in the upper left of the panel absolutely blows me away.
“We’d better hope that door never swings open again.”
I assure you, I will hope no such thing.
If they’re anti terrorism can I be uncle terrorism?
Bobby Problems. Robert Cop. Never in the same room.
Just saying.
This page had so MUCH going on!
– So many pins to keep Lottie magnificent hairdo (that rivals the one of the late Amy Winehouse).
– Glompt dark descent, that leaves him at large from the law, and also more rugged and meatier (yummy!) in just 108 days.
– Agents Hot and Sexy
– Bobby promoted to major character (and a closing to all his problems).
– Claire hyperventilating, again!
This is one of the best pages in all Solver history.
I’m very fond of the bobby pins just spilling out of Lottie’ hair as she undoes her updo. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s just a nice touch of realism. Like, yes she has amazing voluminous anime hair that I can only envy, so of COURSE she’ll need a whole pack of pins to to keep it up.
Does this mean the seedy semi-aquatic nightclub was real?
Were you reading the last two pages as being part of Glenn’s hallucination from three pages ago?
Always a possibility
with Glammt lack of acquaintance
with a proper live on the seas.
The unmistakable tower of the Peace Palace in The Hague surely merits a comment too, the Palace being the seat of the International Court of Justice, after all. A hint that this story will blow up into a conflict of international proportions?