Cover it in leaves and branches
Ahhh… a Mystery Machine! Back in the Scary Go Round days, people used to use Scooby Doo as a kind of shorthand for what the series was like. I was never a great fan of the series so this would chafe me. As a result I defined the series against the dog/snack/van/fairground owner genre whenever I could.
—
Last week I accepted the role of Shaggy in a new Scooby Doo stage adaptation in the West End of London*.
*Untrue
Glenn seems to be developing some immunity to Lottie’s barbs. Good for him!
ZOINKS.
You don’t like Scooby Doo, but how do you feel about The Odd Couple?
Germ… Good one Lottie♡. What I love about Glenn is how much he change from a page to another. In the previous he was desperate, nhow he looks really confident and he knows what he’s doing
Ygln is a man of many parts, many moods.
Yes, but *which* Scooby-Doo? If it was Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated, well, that would be rather nice to hear.
not only the best scooby doo, one of the best series of all time
Well, yes, but you have to ease people into understanding that. Take it in stages, as it were. 🙂
Tell you what, Grog. You can be a building guardian and Lottie can park the Mystery Machine in your parking lot.
It’s genius, I tell you!
What is the prevalence of the van lifestyle in the UK? It’s a thing in the US and people seem to do it without getting towed.
I can’t speak for Sheffield but it is a noticeable phenomenon in Bristol.
Part of it is replaced by boat lifestyle.
Glem is inventing the squat.
More like property owners are finding a way to get a small income from otherwise empty property and prevent/i> squatting, while they wait for planning permission, architectural work to be done, or the market to turn, so they can redevelop it.
😬
Yeah, I wish some of our neighbors here would do this. Sadly I think the properties are now too far gone to be worth taking over.
Sorry about your tag situation, using html tags in any textarea is never recommended, it’s always been a fiasco that none of the king’s horses or men can fix.
I should know better than to try it on a site with no preview and no edit button.
I suppose be thankful all subsequent comments aren’t also affected?
She could pull up by the curb, she could make it on the road. She could stop in any street, invite in people that she meets. Out in the woods, or in the city, it’d all be the same to Lottie, when she’s driving free.
Glam is looking clear-eyed and in command there in panel four
I think Glam is one of those people who’s totally in his element in an office setting. Everywhere else, he’s a wreck.
£67,000 seems a bit pricy for a “Mystery Machine.” I got my current vehicle brand new 10 years ago for about 20% of that. Of course, I skimped on the options, so maybe the options on the MM cost more than my entire car did?
Inflation has been pretty brutal in the last 10 years, plus aggressive value-adding of ” ” ” safety ” ” ” features like a full onboard computer that lets you post to twitter with voice commands.
The closest feature I have to that is an AM/FM radio with up to 12 presets, each. My biggest considerations, as someone who drives a lot were a) long-term reliability, b) fuel economy, c) manual transmission. In retrospect, that third consideration has probably saved me a lot of repair-related headaches. If A/C were not standard, it would have been a distant fourth on my list.
Judging by a quick look prices on a leading UK car sales site, £67k is in the ballpark, as an asking price, for a brand new motorhome. If she shops around she should be able to find something used for under £10k.
My second goof of the day; that was a reply to Nimz, just above.
It’s funny that I likened Lottie to Sherlock Holmes a few strips ago, as she now seems to be going full Elementary.
The hotel is part of the Trusthouse Forte group, which in the so-called real world rebranded to “Forte” in the early 1990s and was swallowed up by Granada in a bitterly-contested hostile takeover in 1996.
A few years ago I referred to “Trusthouse Forte” to someone who was probably not out of nappies when the chain began to vanish, and I crumbled into dust instantly. Ever since, I’ve described myself as retreating to “the Trusthouse Forte of the mind” when I fail to acknowledge the passing of time.
“What’s your forte?” “Trusthouse”. Which sounds like a terrible positive-vibes-only dance genre from the mid 90s.
As someone who stayed in many a THF and Posthouse property as a little ‘un, thank you. The memory lingers, as does the taste of the awful Little Chef breakfasts. I may have even met Baron Forte once.
anything is possible in a nice van
EVERYBODY OUT! HIGH SCHOOL IS OVER!
I still use Scooby-Doo as shorthand for Bad Machinery… it’s no disrespect to do that, but does help ‘frame’ it. Actually, I normally say it’s a bit like SD, but set in the North, but very English and very funny. is that OK? :o)
No Phil it is not but I am never going to catch you in the act so just go on with your hippie snack dog explanations and I will remain blissful in my ignorance.
I find the Scooby-Doo comparisons are pretty unavoidable. If you don’t bring it up, whoever you’re pushing the comics on will, and then you have to go through all the ways it’s a woefully inadequate description anyway. Might as well be proactive about it.
“Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Scooby-Doo.”
It’s exactly the same, only completely different.
Bad Machinery is infinitely superior to “advanced Scooby-Doo substitute.”
I stopped trying to explain webcomics to my friends a long time ago.
The thing is, BM is very much an example of the trope of mystery-solving teens (though an extra-good example and perhaps subverting the trope), but when I think of that trope, Scooby Doo is not what normally leaps to mind – I think of literary examples like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and their many imitators.
Bad Machinery definitely had a Nancy Drew / Hardy Boys vibe to it, it’s a very good genre and can be played entirely straight with no consequences
I usually go with The X-Files if it was written by Alan Bennett for most of John A’s work. Doesn’t really fit with Giant Days though.
I’m manfully trying – but sadly failing – to identify the Sheffield building depicted in Panel 1. It has a look of the Crown Courts about it, but i can’t place it, my knowledge of my home city aside.
Also, Bole Hill is where my best mate lives – i continue to find the use of actual recognisable Sheffield landmarks to be a source of some bizarre amusement and pride. Reminds me of watching “The Full Monty” in many ways!
Actually – having just completed typing, it occurs to me it could well be what used to be the Hilton adjacent to Victoria Quay?
I note, however, that the use of THF as the hotel brand very much dates said property, and thus comic, to between 1979 and 2001…
John loves to keep brands and institutions that have passed into history in our world alive in his stories. Rumbelows is another example.
Amstrad, of course, is a thriving purveyor of consumer goods in John Allison’s Britane.
Okay, I went to the link, and I didn’t see any reference to Rumbelows at first (though looking again I do see it now), but I did see the mention in John’s notes that he had neglected in the last page of the story to reveal John Cloake’s ultimate fate, and the invitation to ask him about it on April the 8th. Looking at the comments to the post from April 8, I don’t see that anyone actually did ask him, and I don’t recall the matter ever having been resolved.
Did we, in fact, ever learn the ultimate fate of John Cloake? It’s not that I’m really terribly invested in the life of John Cloake; actually until seeing that page again I’d kind of forgotten that he’d existed. But now having seen the question raised, I’m kind of curious about the answer.
And never mind I am very dumb. Just after posting that I found the post where John Cloake’s fate was revealed, and in fact remembered having seen that page before, so not only am I unable to find things online, but I am also unable to remember what I have already seen. Oops.
Using THF is my own personal mischief – that building was a Premier Inn, I think, but maybe not a Sheffield one (though in some cases it may be hard to tell)
Does Lottie even drive?
No. But she’s willing to take instruction. (cf: today’s comic, panel 2)
She could learn from Mildew! I’m sure there’s a car they could nick somewhere around.
I hope we don’t get too far into the Scooby-Doo weeds. Another webcomic I read (“Puck”) just finished a lonnnnnng episode in which their characters drove to a Scooby-Doo convention in costume. Very funny, and it still sticks in me head.
The air-quotes/scare-quotes gesture Lottie is making in the final panel are a very nice detail.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this in the comments:
https://www.netflix.com/title/80133117
Now that I look again, it seems Lottie is actually making the near-universal gesture for “something very small.”
Is this the beginning of another Batman crossover? Dilapidated house as Batcave. Origin story of Batglyn.
Or maybe he’s the Glenn Lantern of Earth.
A couple years ago I created a vair elaborate spreadsheet of different meddling kids crime solving media for a certain large streaming service. I put Bad Machinery in there somewhere close to Buffy. I’ve totally forgotten why they needed such a thing.
i live in a van and i solve mysteries all the time. just yesterday i solved the mystery of i emptied my blackwater tank
Excellent news about you landing the role, John! Can I take it then that Scary Go Ruh-roh is finally happening?
Bad Mystery Machinery!
Scoobins!
Giant Dog
Doostroy History!
Which is the more terrible branding: Jobby, or “Lets Amazing”?
I did house sitting for a few years, no rent, see the world, snuggle with dogs in front of the occasional roaring fire, get bitten by the occasional snake.