Candy fug
Disposable vapes. There’s a thing it doesn’t make sense that “they” haven’t banned in the UK yet. Smoking devices marketed to children, made of plastic, which now litter the hedgerows of this island nation alongside torn up Lotto scratchcards and the last Lilt cans.
I did not even know that disposable vapes existed, but I suppose it isn’t surprising.
I assume she picked up the habit from Nero and the boys, unless she was stealthily vaping off-panel in the past.
Now I know about their existence, I wonder if it wasn’t a core reason for Brexit.
When I was in inpatient mental health care last year, a lot of my fellow residents were there recovering from substance abuse problems. They used disposable vapes as a substitute or surrogate and in my inexpert opinion, they are far better than the substances they were really craving.
THAT SAID, I mostly agree with John A. I think they should be controlled far more than they are now. California banned the non-tobacco kinds, but I think they should be treated more like nicotine patches or possibly even prescription drugs. For that matter, I wish cigarettes were prescription only too, but that’s asking far too much I’m sure.
The problem isn’t (so much) the ‘vape’ bit as the ‘disposable’ bit. If you’ve made a disposable vape you have 90% of the work to make a non-disposable one done, and the disposable vapes appeared _after_ the non-disposable kind. It’s almost enough to make you believe in Captain Planet villains that purposely make things more wasteful and littering.
Really hoping this storyline ends with Charlotte learning something from this ill-advised doubling-down, and not some deus ex machina victory for the author’s Mary Sue
I’m not sure you know what a Mary Sue is, but even if you did, what a shockingly rude comment to leave on someone’s work.
Hard agree.
Lottie is many things but a Mary Sue she is definitely not. She screws up as often as she saves the day, and even in moments that were technically victories for her (I.e. Wicked Things Vol. 1) they’ve taken a mental toll on her.
Zero media literacy. Come back when you have a thought of your own.
I smell a troll.
And a very successful one at that.
You’ve not read much Allison nor Charlotte specifically have you? Or have you just not read much at all? What an atrociously infantile spew.
Was this comment meant for some other comic that happens to have a character named “Charlotte” and only accidentally posted here? Because otherwise, I don’t see where you are getting that. John Allison has some of the strongest character writing in the comics world.
You have not read many stories featuring Lottie, apparently.
idk, but isn’t Charlotte the heroine (if that’s a thing anymore) of the ‘solver’ series? Or are protagonists not allowed to even scrape through anymore?
What a world
Mittens, i sense that I have in some way offended you with my work, but as always, the remedy in that case is not to read it. If you’re feeling bad in some other way, reach out with an email.
And if anyone wants to see what it looks like when I ACTUALLY write (arguably) American comics’ most egregious Mary Sue, you have scant weeks to wait. I really put my shoulder to the job.
A new Aunt May comic?! At last, the long wait is over!
IS IT BATMAN?!?!?
I’m so excited
aaaa
John, that’s seriously classy of you to invite Mittens to share whatever issues they’re having with you. It’s nice to see a comic artist who really cares about his readers.
Oh, I am definitely looking forward to your take on Luke Skywalker
This is just hilariously wrong apart from anything else, because of how tongue in cheek the whole storyline is. How can you have a Mary Sue when the whole premise of a thing is gentle mockery? Did the humour not land?
Oh neat! The Mittens chess bot left chess.com to branch out into trolling! Glad you’re not completely gone, Mittens. 🙂
NO NO NO NO. Nero must have completely scrambled her brain if Charlotte is *ugh* vaping! What would Susan say??
My previously high opinion of Nero has lowered some due to his Unhealthy Influence.
Lottie hitting the vape is an ill omen indeed.
Something wicked this way sucks.
Poor Lottie. She’s pretty close to her lowest point right now, isn’t she?
I suppose Lottie IS engaged in Solving. It’s just a different conundrum.
Poor Lottie, she looks so miserable. Glenn looks at her with pity and Claire suffers to see her like this. But she still hasn’t given up the hope of making it. Her determination in her close up is strong and makes her look really beautiful. But that sweet, pink smoke…
sense the vibe change that just happened with the whole trio together in their coats. you are *meant* to be at the estates of literary dowagers, lottie, not here on the steps in front of a secondary school. i mean we all slum it sometimes but i bet the dowager would let you smoke an actual cigarette if you wanted
Claire pretty well sums it up in panel 2.
I took a disposable vape apart and found that it used a lithium polymer battery. That is almost criminally negligent design…putting a rechargeable lithium battery in something destined for a landfill.
I’m somewhat ambivalent towards the whole vaping thing, but that’s just awful. I am dumbfounded by awful overload.
LiPo cells are pretty much entirely benign as far as waste goes. The old primary cells with heavy metals (mercury and cadmium) in them – now those were particularly nasty.
I’m more concerned about the single use plastic in those things.
Single use lithium batteries are no cause for joy either. That stuff’s going to become a limiting resource in the near future.
Just start strip-mining the landfills, then
Landfill mining is definitely the coming thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill_mining#:~:text=Waste%20contains%20many%20resources%20with,which%20the%20metal%20is%20derived.
so I guess disposable vapes are like the most declasse form of the already declasse “nicotine smoke substance” (the good old leaf.)
If the smoke however is genuinely pink, I would be worried about the chemical content…
If she gives up after one show, she’s not gonna succeed. So, Lottie isn’t wrong, she’s just taking a risk.
Performance arts are a hard row to hoe, folks!
I suspect in this situation, the smoke merely smells of pink, which is generally my second-hand experience of most flavoured vapes…
The “something like cotton candy tastes as a smell” is my general experience as well…
Or… something like… bubble gum?
Which is also a term for a certain kind of pop music targeted toward ‘tweens?
To be honest I do think the vapes have different… flavors. That is to say, they are flavors and not scents. Yet, like the most egregious forms of flavored tobacco, they ARE scents.
Needless to say, they smell mostly like something really sweet burning, and sometimes a little bit like whatever else
Why is it that smoking a cigarette can look really cool depending on who’s smoking it but smoking a vape never looks cool. It always looks like someone is sucking a dummy(pacifier).
Also, the ideal cigarette substitute are those sweets the sweet shops used to sell when I was a kid. A little white stick with a red end. So when you got bored of looking cool you could just eat it.
I’m still on twenty sweet cigarettes a day.
Because movies. And old.
“Stark Strike” candy “cigarettes”! ( A play on Lucky Strike cigs.)
I loved them, but they were always hard to find.
Coming soon: Lottie and the Popcorn Lung Mystery (it’s not really a mystery)
The Mystery of the Pink Fug.
I never vaped, but I picked up a discarded vape on my walk (yes, I pick up trash). This one looked fresh and still had some left, so I tried one puff.
Ack! Artificial melon. I wouldn’t have sucked on that as a kid when the only way you could get that flavor was in bad candy.
Possibly the most insidious (but probably inadvertent) pro-smoking propaganda was the 60s Japanese anime “8 Man” (known in the USA as Tobor the 8th Man). He’s a Robocop-like robot-with-a-human-mind who “recharges” his energy by smoking “special” cigarettes. Fortunately, though I watched this show as a lad, I was smart enough to figure out I’m not a robot so smoking wouldn’t give me energy.
Smoking does give you energy, though! Probably not real superpowers… just don’t try to do anything aerobic while doing it, usually ends up badly.
I’m not much of a fan of putting the smoke directly in your lungs, this seems like a 20th century fascination
There’s a prehistoric monster
It came from outer space
Created by the Martians to destroy the human race
The FBI is helpless
It’s 20 stories tall
What can we do, who can we call?
🙁
Disposable vape, more like despondantly vape. That last panel has such a sadness to it.
Charlotte wondering if something *caught fire*….
And this is how I learn what those plastic things I see everywhere are.
Thanks John, you entertain *and* educate.
I found one at the side of my driveway yesterday; didn’t know what it was.
Now I know.
…and knowing is half the battle.
Not knowing is the other half.
I’m very glad that this page isn’t the end of the story.
Will the Literary Dowager become part of the story I wonder?
Also, “Dowager” – good word.
Seems you won’t be seeing the Lilt cans in such great numbers going forward:
“In February 2023, rumoured to be in a long term decline due to poor sponsorship arrangements during the 1990s, it was announced that the Lilt brand would be discontinued, with the drink being fully absorbed into the Fanta brand as ‘Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit’. The rebranded drink became available from 14 February.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilt#History