Chapter: SOLVER

I think there have been more cheques depicted in Solver than I have had to write in the last ten years. I do own a chequebook, but don’t ask me where it is.

The dowager! Lottie has been keen to connect with dowagers in her area for a very, very long time. Below is my first sketch of this beloved and important figure. The lad with the ‘tache received a radical reworking, but Bitsy was born perfect, right on the page.

Farewell for now, Mildred. Although her part in Wobbly Head is done, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of the beloved blonde phantom.

NO PARPY???

I learned a little while ago that in South Africa a zip line is referred to as a “foefie slide” (pronounced “foofy”). Very enjoyable. But I misremembered this fact and thought that a funicular railway was called a foofy train. So from now on, that is what they are called. Get on, get on, get on, get on the foofy train (get on the foofy train).

There’s a restaurant in Skipton, North Yorks, called Calico Jacks, and I am obsessed with it though I have never dined there for fear of shattering the spell. While it is also cajun/pirate themed, it bears no relation to the imaginary Sheffield business, Calico Jaxx.

To the best of my recollection, when I was a youth, Calico Jacks housed a scooter shop selling Vespas and that.

I don’t think I need to explain who Mildred is. I could do it for new readers but I’m not sure there are any new readers. Her last appearance was in Circus Windows. There have been near misses with other Mildred projects, including such long-gestating sketchbook marginalia as “Dead & Breakfast” and “Spell Check”.

It’s all gone Barry Windsor-Smith for Glenn again. I’m not sure which of the friends is responsible for this (imaginary) happening, but it’s happened before. Yes Lottie has turned into a Jocasta style robot but also I am thinking of the villain’s sister in Superman III. There’s hardly a week when I don’t think about Superman III.

Yesterday was my birthday but today I have a gift… for you. A whole new story! And as you can see, it continues straight on from the last page of “100% Cuddles”.

If you want to read this whole chapter now in PDF format, it’s available to $3 and up subscribers on my Patreon.

Here’s the cover for a new story. This one wraps up loose threads from my 2020 Boom!Box series (with Max Sarin on art) WICKED THINGS. That book was cancelled after six issues so I never resolved the series’ central mystery arc, which felt like a big failure at the time. The collection is still in print (and on Comixology Unlimited) if you haven’t read it.

Fortunately Lottie has this new Solver series (which only I or a wrathful God can cancel), and has rebuilt her confidence, so now she can enter the dangerous and duplicitous world of WOBBLY HEAD. See you on Monday!