Big day today
Oh no, oh dear. Finally, an audience with the doppelgänger in her nightmare universe. She seems nice!
Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
Oh no, oh dear. Finally, an audience with the doppelgänger in her nightmare universe. She seems nice!
Is that a sticking plaster on her leg, or a nicotine patch?
I’m not sure if a pyschopath appears more or less disturbing when their room is in a mess. There’s something unsettling about a crazed mind that keeps everything straight, tidy and clean whereas someone whose house is in a similar state of disarray to my own makes me think they’re just misunderstood rather than beyond-help-cray-cray
I love that the villain’s lair is in black and white, coloured only faintly by the photograph
I also have to admit to being confused when I first looked at panel 3; it took me a long moment to realise we were seeing dopple-g’s wig from behind in the foreground, and not an extra pair of hands behaving lewdly!
Blame it on my recent lack of sleep…
The half-drunken bottle of vodka on the windows is a nice touch too.
It might be a Chekhov’s Band-Aid.
Real Lottie lands the killing blow via a poke to the plaster. The real question is: what was under there?
Cut herself shaving.
I didn’t realizing i was seeing both the foregrounded back-of-head AND the flowy black dress until this comment observed it and collapsed the superposition. now how’s gonna clean up all this quantum decoherence
It’s not a sticking plaster, it’s her charging port.
Hmm… One of the rival “mystery kids” from, er, not-Shelbyeville?
This is actually a pretty plausible idea. The Wendlefield mystery kids appeared in one of the Bad Machinery comics, but I forgot where. Danny also appears in Wen-Tack, but he’s not the right personality, size, shape or color, even with plastic surgery. One of the others might be her.
Or maybe: Poh from the very last Scary Go Round. Lottie was really mean to him, and the foreshadowing on things going to change hasn’t yet materialized. But not much of a match apart from that.
Miflin discussed the Wendlefield mystery kids during the climactic confrontation in “Severed Alliance”. Danny Plum then made a brief appearance in person in “Wen-Tack”, after Zebus defeated possibly the entire adolescent population of Wendlefield in battle. Despite Miflin’s antagonism, Danny himself didn’t seem to have anything against the Tackleford mystery kids, even actively helping out Mildew, Linton, and the Action Group.
Of the others, two, including their petite white girl, were devoured by the Great Manifestation, and the survivors were a tall black girl, an Asian boy, and a dog, so it seems unlikely that any of them could pull off a convincing Lottie disguise.
We don’t actually know enough about them to rule out the possibility that the dog’s a master of disguise, though.
I would be delighted to see a return of Zebus, Warrior Child, but I doubt it’s in the cards.
My unlikely dream is a remake of “Blood Egg” with Zebus in the title role.
A chilling detail I didn’t notice the first time I read this was all the shoddy murder boards. BC has been stalking EVERYONE in her life.
What’s scarier though…is that she played Lottie. The internet antics and coffee drama were a lure. The real plan was to kill her friends. The only reason she never went after lottie’s family is she wanted to hurt her as bad as possible. Any of her targets would’ve hurt, but Claire destroys her with guilt. The aftermath doesn’t matter. All bc wants us Lottie destroyed and that may make her the most terrifying villian Allison’s ever gone up with.
Do you think dedicated Bobbinsverse fans will be able to track down Bad Charlotte’s true identity based on her pattern of speech here (this will age poorly if she’s someone we’ve never seen before)
Any Bobbins verse linguistic experts out there? With a PhD in Bobbins verse characters?
Mug in bottom right… Easter Bell?
I don’t think that drawing on the mug is the Easter Bell, but if it was it would be more evidence for my joke-theory about Evil Lottie being the Wendigo.
She can’t be the Wendigo, because she’s not speaking in Blackletter and rhyme.
BAD CHARLOTTE wha– bu– how did I nev– so obvious and yet so perfect
I think it’s the Bullet Proof Roastery logo, which ties in with BC’s obsessive stalker behaviour patterns.
https://badmachinery.com/comic/2022-04-08/
Oh yes, totally this
Did we ever learn what became of The Child aka Poh?
That’s who I was thinking of! Yes, Poh was definitely one of my candidates; Shauna and Lottie’s first true nemesis.
On the other hand, maybe not. That could end up in some REALLY dicy territory bordering on transphobia.
I don’t think Bad Charlotte could be Poh, but it’s possible she’s connected to him somehow. It would be an appropriate level of flashback for such a major villain. I can’t think of very many other people that might hate charlotte this thoroughly. On the other hand, Poh is getting to be a pretty deeeeep cut now, we’re going to pre-bad-machinery days there.
Oh dang, I wish I’d thought of that. The Child was a total villain, wasn’t he? I wouldn’t put it past him either, it’s like Hush turning into Bruce Wayne. If there’s another character we’ve seen before who’s a better fit, I’m lost for who it might be.
The villainess, unless a cryptid, needs to have a body type reasonably similar to Lottie’s to make this work, so it seems unlikely.
Dr. Phibes, was it really you all along? How… abominable!
The lack of color, the jagged, oddly-shaped panels… it’s like we’re inside the disturbed mind of EviLottie. Are there clues to her identity here? I’m probably reading too much into the unhinged ranting of a lunatic here, but… She seems talking as if she blames Lottie for “removing her safety net”, as she plans to do to Lottie. That last panel seems to imply that she’s older than Lottie and Claire. Can anyone make out the word. or name, or whatever it is, on the upper right side in the first panel, above “what is going on”?
It looks kind of like…”Corn?”
The question mark seems significant. It implies that it’s a component of Evilottie’s plan that she hasn’t entirely figured out for herself yet. It means there are answers that she doesn’t have yet. Her plan’s not perfect…and she KNOWS that. And now, so do we.
I think the question mark goes with the “What is going on”, even though it’s above it.
That doesn’t change anything that I said, though. There’s something that she doesn’t know. And sometimes, what you don’t know can indeed hurt you. 🙂
“Cornw-“, I believe. I’m guessing the photos are Billie and Maggie.
Except I don’t think Lottie spent enough time in Cornwall to make any real enemies there.
“Parents”, “Lover”, “D-Slide”, “Solvers”, “Mystery Frens”, “Corn”-wall… it’s not Lottie’s enemies that the Grotesque dopplegänger has up on the wall. It’s her friends and associates.
Who is/was Lottie’s lover? I’m not recalling.
Him from D-Slide.
Nero, from D-Slide. Seriously, there was a whole two-issue storyline about this.
As time goes on, this starts to feel more and more like Gavin and Stacy.
We don’t know how long Evillottie has been stalking her. She could well know about the visit to Cornwall.
I was think it was Carny. Like the Carnival with the clowns. Or maybe the fair with the magic pencil.
That could be, but the incident with the clowns I’m pretty sure happened well after the Miyamoto Case.
But that could still be what the pictures are. After all, D-Slide are up there, and they didn’t exist until after the Miyamoto Case.
She uses the term ‘security blanket’ though. Maybe it really is the selkie? She’s the one who lost her own ‘security blanket’, after all.
It can’t be that because the “security blanket” she’s referring to in Lottie’s case is Claire, so we could assume this doppleganger lost someone she felt dearly too a long time ago
What about Blossom Cooper? She sort of “won” Shauna from Lottie, but I don’t know if she’s in Shauna’s life anymore. Maybe Blossom and Shauna drifted apart and Blossom blames Lottie in some crazy way. A big stretch I realize, but this one is a stumper.
One day the fate of Blossom Cooper will be revealed.
Let’s hope it will be a glorious fate. Full of satisfactions, love and peace.
I don’t think there’s enough plastic surgery in the world for Blossom to cosplay Lottie. She’d have to go as two Lotties in a trenchcoat.
“Sheffield” is in big letters. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but Lottie hasn’t been a proper university student yet, has she?
I’m pretty sure the “SHEFFIELD” on the top is just one of John’s “stage directions” or whatever you call them, like when he puts “Later that day” into the art. It’s telling us that we’ve switched back to Sheffield, which is where Lottie’s been living recently, and where we already know her evil doppelganger is currently active.
All the Solvers live in Sheffield, though Claire is the only one who’s attending the university.
“The incident with the clowns”
Ooh that’s gone in the wrong place.
What a despicable character! Whatever Evilottie is planning to do to poor Claire, let’s hope it fails. Claire is more resourceful than she thinks and she can count on Glenn’s help.
Let’s hope she hasn’t caught onto Real Lottie’s ruse. Any details pertaining to it could offer Claire a vital giveaway.
Yeah I wouldn’t want to be that soaked in flammable vodka around her
Sounds like she’s planning to drop something on Claire’s head.
Let’s hope Claire will be able to drop something highly inflammable on her instead.
No… I think it has to be that Lottie figures out how to stop Eittol. She needs to regain her faith in her detectivity!
I am truly stumped about Evilottie. This brings me back all the way to the hype around Star Wars: The Force Awakens when I was sure that Kyle Ren had to be the embittered orphan son of Porkins.
She’s there spouting evil plans, and that’s a disguise she puts on to imitate Lottie. I can understand why Claire is her target, but Claire SHOULD be suitably suspicious as should all the rest of her friends and associates.
Doppelgröte’s next plan seems to involve having something fall on Claire’s head, in which case there’s no reason to show her face (at least until after the deed is done).
And now I’m imagining Doppelgröte pushing a flowerpot off an eighth storey windowsill while Claire walks underneath.
(Maybe Doppelgröte in the doom balloon would be more on brand?)
Yes. Although in the Wile E. Coyote universe it would be a safe or piano!
Or a large boulder, dropped from a cliff.
Which never really works anyway, no matter how determined Coyote is!
It usually ends up landing on the coyote.
Should mentor Shelley be up there somewhere?
Might be behind the thought/speech bubbles.
If so it would be an amusing nod to Shelley being “sir not appearing in this film” for Bad Machinery, even if she *has* appeared in *this* film.
Is she right good laugh or what?…. Nevermind, we’ll understand when we’re older. By a day or so.
I read the whole chapter on patreon, and I still don’t know. It could be weeks, Yury. WEEKS.
Evil Lottie is certainly giving me heavy Pretty Little Liar “A” vibes.
I love how the skeleton suit looks like a body draped across the chair. 😱
Oh man is that one photo in the bottom right that guy with the bowl cut and thick brows? Uhhhh I think from the space camp arc? (Really it could be anyone idk)
Time travel thing? She keeps talking about “a young person” and “when you’re older,” plus there’s still whatever stuck Jack in the ’90s lurking about. Evil future Lottie trying to make herself the perfect mystery solver hero via tragedy, Hunter Zolomon-style? Bitsy the dowager is also future Lottie, putting things into place? Dunno, but I’m in.
I don’t think Future Lottie would need those surveillance photos.
Dang, that’s a really good point. Well, then it’s clearly… Tim.
I think I found where the Claire surveillance photo was from though: https://badmachinery.com/comic/2022-04-29/
Don’t judge. I work from home and had a slow day.
Looks like Wayne Construction are doing the building work. Perhaps some further aspects from the Bat-like Man have also bled into the Bobbinsverse?
The girls with their faces toward the camera all have the wrong shape to their faces, but… the redhead in the green hat?
Oooh, that’s unsettling.
And probably right. I remember the Case of the Unwelcome Visitor where the kids from the estate pointed right at the Smiler at the beginning, the next comic showed who was standing there and it was staged so well WE ALL MISSED IT. John is a sneaky one.
From the page titles (which, granted, can be misleading), it appears she’s going to lower the boom on Claire in the next page.
Well They seem perfectly rational and sane.
I wonder how long Evil Lottie has been in the works, because I know find my self scrolling the archives and judging every back ground character to Less Evil Lottie, which basically means I am spending way to much time judging cartoon characters hip to hair ratio.
This mystery is worse then trying to figure out the meaning of The Numbers.
She’s been in the works at least since Wicked Things, since Miyamoto’s last words were “There are two of them.” And Wicked Things was before all the Solver stories, and before Circus Windows. Whether John’s kept the same idea of exactly who she is, and why she’s doing what she’s doing, through all this time, we have no way of knowing (unless he tells us).
I’d assume John’s had the same idea for the killer’s identity since Wicked Things but it has been almost five years, so anything could change.
Also interested in seeing how the “two of them” bit is going to be explained.
That’s already been explained, to a point. Two Lotties.
Oh god if that’s what he meant then it all makes sense. I didn’t really connect those elements until now.
I just thought about how he meant there were two killers, not two Lotties. Now it’s all coming together.
Magus Tom. I have no basis for this unshakeable belief
That was in fact my first thought. But wouldn’t work, because Tom has no tits, and he’s much taller than Lottie.
Surgery can fix most of those differences.
Maybe not the height.
Dorf solved that problem decades ago.
The first time there was a jewel heist mentioned was the last strip before this one, and there’s a page (the only thing taped to the wall that isn’t a picture) that mentions a jewel heist in this strip. I wonder what BC’s connection was to the heist.
Or perhaps, just to Miyamoto, whose assistant saw Lottie as a dangerous crazed fan who must be kept away from the master detective who instead saw her as a potential heir to his legacy…if we can trust Maki’s story and that she wasn’t just making a cover for herself as the jealous detective’s assistant worried of being replaced by Charlotte?
So this might actually have more to do with Miyamoto than Charlotte and replacing her was just a means to some end (that is now a loose end/vendetta possibly because things didn’t go Bad Charlotte’s way at some point previously?)
We’ll presumably find out eventually but its worth considering.
I’ve been thinking about this. Maki does physically resemble Lottie, in height and figure, more than anyone else who’s been mentioned. The trouble is, she was the only one who spoke Japanese who was present when Miyamoto cleared Lottie. If she was actually the one who framed Lottie, why would she have told the truth about his final words? Why not claim that he’d definitively fingered Lottie, instead?
In panel 2, we can see that the doppelgänger has a well-developed Hitchhiker’s Thumb.
Probably all you archive-trawlers take this as obvious, but the photo of Claire looks like it’s from this scene: https://badmachinery.com/comic/2022-04-29/
If the Antigrote’s photo of Claire is from a scene where Lottie was present, that’s probably an indication that it was taken while stalking Lottie.
From the angle and close-up-ness, it’s even vaguely possible that it was taken using Lottie’s phone when she holds it up in the third panel. In which case we could add “Can Hack Phones And Make Them Take Pictures” to the list of this mysterious being’s attributes.
Morganthal noticed the same page about two days before you did, if you go up the comments a bit. Good find, nonetheless.
Based on the contextual cues (e.g. mood, facial expressions, hand placement), I suspect the Doppelgröte’s picture of Claire was taken shortly after the final panel. Plus, I think that’s Lottie’s purple puffer jacket in the foreground.