And I wanted it
Beate is deeply confused about her relationship with Claire. But we can all agree, with no room for confusion, that the Alpine Des Fishman doll is very choice.
Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
Beate is deeply confused about her relationship with Claire. But we can all agree, with no room for confusion, that the Alpine Des Fishman doll is very choice.
What we need is a tussle in which only one Lottie emerges from the reservoir and we don’t know which one.
I mean what did she go to all the trouble of getting a tattoo for if that doesn’t happen
The hair might be a giveaway too
Ah, but what if that’s *also* a wig?
Big climactic moment: Pulling away wig after wig and then discovering there’s nothing underneath…
I love everything about this page!
The beaten down Beate in panel 5 is extraordinarily good
Oh oh. Look who showed up! And Beate is still in there somewhere, so Skellottie isn’t completely irrational, just mostly, stubbornly, irrational. Maybe they can still have cocoa?
Skellottie chose the path of Bovril; she can never cross back to cocoa!
The slight sepia for the flashback panels! Perfection
As the kiwis are wont to say – “choice!”
I haven’t heard that since the ’90s
So what you’re saying is to get ready for a line of Desmond Fishman doll cameos throughout the series. One for every country, like Barbie!
I was reading the beginning again had wondered who Mutti and Vati were. At first, I thought close school friends who couldn’t make the trip, but now I’m wondering… foster/adoptive parents? But if Beate comes from money, then I can even go far to think very invested personal bodyguards.
That’s what German children call their mothers and fathers.
I looked it up and learned that “Mutti” and “Vati” are an affectionate terms for “mother” and “father” in German. The egg on my face is quite runny.
Embarrassment omelets are delicious. I’ve had many. 😀
As the Wolfenstein games taught us. Some of the guards would yell “Mutti!”. And they say games aren’t educational.
You are one of today’s lucky 10 000. https://xkcd.com/1053/
All these years with no SGR makeship.com merch.
All those Des plushies we’ve been denied.
The Alpine Des toy has a pull string, which causes him to yodel.
Want! WANT!
Since Des doesn’t know how to yodel, though, it’s just ten seconds of agonized screeching.
HEY! Des can yodel!
I guess it’s just the basic life skills he’s deficient on, then.
What, yodeling is a basic life skill.
Isn’t “HEY! Des can yodel!” the title of his yodelling album?
Maybe you get a random selection of songs from The Sound of Music sung in Des’ unique style, including:
The Lonely Fishman
Des-Re-Mi
Drive Up Every Mountain
Idle Why’s
Nightmare fuel.
Releasing fish breath?
Don’t we all, though?
Ah! Lottie’s got the drop on her!
I love how throughout all of this we can tell just how delusional Beate is to think she can still be Claire’s friend during her second attempt to murder her.
Claire doesn’t know that yet, and she’s still trying to be nice about the 1st attempt, not to irritate her thoughtless hostess!
Claire is using her superpower! (the one that doesn’t involve fire, at least)
I’d recognize that purple puffer coat anywhere
Is it wrong to want that Alpine Des doll for real? (Ah, who am I kidding, nothing about Desmond could ever be wrong.)
I’m pretty sure everything about Desmond is wrong, and that’s what I like about him.
Question; Is Alpine Des the same as Regular Des or is he perhaps a cousin?
Maybe the Alpine version has thicker scales for warmth?
(Nope, don’t even think about the false logic there)
Perhaps blonde hair?
A suggestively large horn?
I think Alpine Desmond is from a Freshwater Fishman, while Regular Desmond is a Saltwater Fishman.
Yes Claire! Keep her talking!
And the Alpine Des Fishman doll is the best of all Des Fishmen.
I’m beginning to see a whole line of Fishman merch here – cowboy Des, cossak Des, maybe a Kiwi Des for Glerm…
We have one of those already, it’s called a tuatara.
I think you need to apologize to all the tuataras (or however you pluralize it) for that one. As the only surviving rhynchocephalians, they deserve some respect.
Wait, are there other places for one’s rhyncho than on a cepha?
Tuataras are noticeably more considerate and caring than Des…
To be fair, Lottie sometimes torments people a bit. Just ask “Glem”.
But that’s a friendly way to torment them. Warm and funny.
As an only child from money, Beate might not be adept at understanding this distinction
Bitsy may have been on a winner- Beate’s plan seems to be coming apart like a damp paper bag.
“A good, kind egg… that I shall BEATE!”
Beate’s a good egg, too. Just a little… cracked.
I think that the correct eggy term is “addled”.
(I’m not proud of relying on a mispronunciation of “Beate” to make that one work.)
A kinder egg
Or as we remember, a completely unmarked egg…
Surprise!
An athletic Beate vs Lottie, not noted for fighting skills or physical prowess.
Sandra with a quiver of hunting points may put the advantage to Lottie.
I draw your attention to Lotties’ proven skills in the squared circle!
https://badmachinery.com/comic/2024-07-30/
But Beate also has a low center of gravity, this removing the Lotster’s primary advantage
And Lottie isn’t in her panda costume and makeup!
Also, with all that water there, I worry about SEAGULLS.
Poor Claire, she seems deeply disturbed by being hugged by the crazy murderer who kidnapped her. But that hug proves that Beate can still use her body at least a little, even if the last panel is definitely Skelottie vs. Lottie.
Because of the way my cursor landed on the image as I scrolled down, the alt text appeared and serendipitously turned Charlotte’s line into “Is this yours? If I were you, and I wanted it, I’d give it a rinse.”
“It’s ok, the Alpine Des Fishman doll can’t hurt you.”
The Alpine Des Fishman doll:
But if she didn’t drop those roof slates, we wouldn’t have a repeat of the “famous” Bobbinsverse exclamation of shock known as “BAWWWWK!”
What happened to Skelottie’s bobbly hat? I guess it must have been displaced when she hugged Claire? Otherwise I don’t see how the wind could have caught hold of the wig.
Also, good addresses for hampers are welcomed.
I mean, John is a famous person. You could probably just write “John Allison, Yorkshire”, and it would get there.
My grandfather once received a letter that was addressed only to “Big John, Vermont”.
Did he stand 6’6″ on the ground?
Of course not! He was 5’4″!
I thought that was Gloria?
Kind of broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip?
Did everybody know you didn’t give him any lip?
It could have been hand delivered
Or maybe Vermont only had a population of 200 people back then?
Is there a card for “sorry for dropping roof tiles on you”? Maybe it’s only sold at the darker, sinister Hallmark. Or, as I call it, …
…the Darkmark!
Currently accepting applications.
The Dimly-Lit Hallmark.
Hallmurk?
That particular card is made of slate instead of paper.
It’s delivered in an unusually heavy envelope.
…at speed
…from above!
There are plenty of “Sorry…” cards, but you’d probably need to add the “for dropping roof tiles on you” part yourself.
Lottie can understand the situation with the hostages, but she has no idea why this other girl has done this. Claire is the only one who knows about Beate.
I wonder, I wonder….if Bitsy’s tackroom stash contains a fly fishing rod? Just a thought.
I’m oddly disappointed that she didn’t really commit and dye her hair. Not sure I really believe her tales of woe and madness now.
Perhaps she tried but her hair type just wasn’t up to the challenge.
Possibly it has been useful for her to not resemble Lottie so much all the time? The better to go around without being noticed by her targets.
Well now I need to reread the whole thing and look for Beate in the background.
“Gotcha Hair Beate!” “Nein, it is Fräulein”
Well played!
This should have been Frau. It just goes to show how terrible my knowledge of German is (a language I never learned), I didn’t know the diminutive had gone out of use around the time of decimalization. I blame old war movies.
It took me a remarkably long time to get that
(In my defense, I’m on the opposite side of the world so I don’t hear/read a lot of German)
As fiery as she is (in more ways than one), Claire is always ready to forgive and forget. Especially if the offense is “character forming”.
https://scarygoround.com/badmachinery/index.html?pg=489#showComic
A lederhosen-clad Swiss Desmond yodeler? Wutta hoot! Does he dance?
Only to Polka and Om-Pa music, played at beer-fests.
I a, Stil confused on a couple of points (well, on many points in life, but let’s leave it at that): First, I don’t really understand who talked Beate into going down the deadly slope in the first place. Her inner demon? Second, while Beate explains her appearance satisfactorily (for a comic), how does she so quickly get rid of her German accent AND imitate Lottie’s voice so effectively that she can even fool Lottie’s friends. That is an extremely difficult accomplishment.
Should have edited the comment. It should read: I am still confused…
She fooled Lottie’s employers, and she fooled Dean. Not her closest friends, and not the Dowager either.
1) We still don’t really know who or what Beate’s “friend” is. She may simply be Beate’s evil or self-destructive side, or she may be a second personality, or a hallucination, or a genuine supernatural being. She appeared at various points during the flashback. I suspect we’ll learn more by the time this story is finished. Or maybe John wants to keep it ambiguous.
2) The flashback took place three years ago, so Beate did have at least a couple of years to work on this. She was already working on being a detective three years ago, so she may well have developed some impersonation skills as part of her self-training. We don’t actually know how heavy her accent was- plenty of continental Europeans speak very good English. Even so, there have been occasional slips in her dialog that seem to imply a bit of a subtle accent, at least. It’s clear that making her voice sound like Lottie’s isn’t easy for her- that’s why she has the weird squiggly speech balloons when she’s trying to sound like Lottie, and even then, even Dean noticed that there was something strange about her voice.
Skellottie is perhaps just a manifestation of the evil sentience in her wig — as in the greatly-titled Twilight Zone episode “Hell Toupee”.
ᵗʰᵃᵗ’ˢ ᵃˡˡ ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ
Interesting that–without the Charlotte wig, but still with the makeup, Beate looks sort of like the Joker.
SSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH! The copyright police might be listening!