I’ll be you
Well, that’s Charlotte drowned, then. Hopefully Beate will be a great replacement as central character.
Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
Well, that’s Charlotte drowned, then. Hopefully Beate will be a great replacement as central character.
I guess murder doesn’t equate to having a bad personality
(There’s hope for me yet!)
Expecially if you refuse to admit you really have a bad personality
Isn’t it de rigeur for a bad personality to deny being one and instead blame it on everyone else?
Eventually, you come to believe that it’s a curse, and that the best thing for you might be the monastic lifestyle. Bees, you know. Wonderful creatures.
I’m hoping the Purple Puffer doubles as a floatation device
It unfolds into a small inflatable boat.
It’s big enough to have a media room, a small jacuzzi and a globe bar.
I used to volunteer in a maritime library, so I can state with authority that a yacht is a boat large enough to have a friend over for drinks on. Making Lottie’s puffer canonically a yacht.
I’m pretty sure it contains a SCUBA system, and Sandra is already waiting underwater in her wetsuit with extra SCUBA gear to guide Lottie and the others ashore in a spot where Beate’s evil shell cannot see
I don’t believe I’m overthinking this at all…
Showboating Charlotte Underwater Breathing Apparatus?
*Apparatus System
It’s the showboating that always gets Lottie in trouble.
Speaking of which I am expecting Bitsy and co to turn up in a RIB any moment now…
Obviously I read forward a little way, because one cannot simply stop at *one*, and – I didn’t realise IRON SOD had been a feature of our Mr. Allison’s fictional universe for that long.
Speaking of showboating, back when we were guessing who the Doppelgröte could be, Gary’s motorbike was said to be the closest guess, iirc… and without the tablecloth girl’s intervention, Gary’s showboating would have been his demise…
😱
“Oop”
Lottie… I knew that her way of dancing around the enemies to taunt them would one day be the end of her. But it was a glorious dance!
I’m calling it right now. Lottie will be rescued by the very seagull who splooted on her on the first page of 100% Cuddles. Thus bringing an end to the enmity ‘tween solver and bird. https://badmachinery.com/comic/2024-06-17/
This would be poetic and entertaining, but seriously how do you tell them damn seagulls apart? Could be any random rescuer.
I suppose this had to happen. Lottie has walked the danger path too long to not get splooshed now and then!
Good thing for Beate that Lottie doesn’t know how to swim, huh
I should have known all of Lottie’s intentional rule breaking at the pool would come back to bite her.
If only Lottie were friends with some form of Swimming Queen…
DON’T TIT ABOUT ON DAMS
“See Claire? There’s a warning now because of me.”
Dam right!
Ope…
Frank Grimes style rivalry
Frank Grimes Jr style revenge
Technically, a dam-related killing was a Sideshow Bob attempt (or, really, his brother’s…)
Does this reservoir count as a swimming pool? Because if so she’s been banned from it, and someone will be along to haul her up and kick her out any moment now!
Was she? I thought she was kicked out of the pool before she could actually get herself banned from all of them.
Later in the same story, she mentioned that she was now banned from every swimming pool in Britain. Presumably it was sufficient to merely break most of the rules.
Lottie displayed a “pattern of behavior” , so the authorities switched to “preventative” mode.
I think the fact that she openly complained that she hadn’t done smoking yet when apprehended might have contributed to the decision.
I’m pretty sure Prance, Prance, Caper & Showboat represented my cousin in court last year.
Aren’t they an estate agents in Islington?
Nah, they’re an architectural firm. The partners used to be in a band together.
Noooooo Lottie!!! John how could you????
Seems like Beate is being unfair. Lottie had a video ready to perform her “self-cancel”, and might have posted it if someone hadn’t shoved her in the water. And now Skelottie is going to dump her friends in too? Insult to injury, madam, poor showing.
It’s this sort of behavior that gives evil a bad name.
I’m predicting Claire may even stop being polite.
“It’s this sort of behavior that gives evil a bad name.” – I love you! (Platonically.)
Geez, what’s the world coming to when you can’t trust a psychotic doppelganger’s word?
To be fair, if no one sees Lottie’s friends getting tossed into the reservoir, the psychotic doppelgänger hasn’t broken her word. Technically.
Looks like my fear that EvilLottie would kill the hostages anyway is proving out.
“Infernal nincompoop gremlin” is an excellent insult.
Or passphrase
It is not, however, a what3words. ///internal.incoming.gremlin, its best match, is on the shores of the Amazon. Foreshadowing Lottie’s rescue by Wonder Woman, perhaps?
Earlier today, when I was re-reading the previous page, it struck me how outright detestable Beate is. Confronted by a realization that she fell short of Lottie’s detective ability, instead of applying herself to improving herself where she could, she simply decides to get rid of her rival via criminal means. Never mind the narcissism that presumed that Beate would be top-of-mind to Lottie, when she had really not given Lottie any reason to think of her at all. And the fact that she’s now about to push the others in anyways tells me what good her promise of a deal was going to be.
Beate is a nastly little squat who I hope catches one of Sandra’s arrows from ear-to-ear.
Beate isn’t; Skellottie is. Beate had delusions of superiority, maybe, but it’s Skellottie who’s done the dirty work. And while we haven’t found out yet exactly what Skellottie is, it seems likely she truly is separate from, and not controlled by, Beate.
The story can’t truly be over until the callipygous young detective says, “J’Accuse!”
Some of them won’t be surprise at the denouement when Skellottie is unmasked to reveal, “Old Man Jenkins!”
Or in this case, “j-bbl-acc-cough-bbbllbb-use-bblbbll”
I see them as having more of a Gollum / Smeagol relationship, being fractured parts of the same person. But I am open to being wrong. Maybe Skelottie is a literal demon from hell. She’s certainly mean enough.
Agreed. My empathy for Beate departed early on in the flashback. She decided who she wanted to be long before Lottie and Claire ever set foot in that Bavarian ski resort.
Not the first time the ending of a Charlotte Grote story involved a dangerously large body of water
I’m kind of hoping that this returns to the Bad Machinery tradition of ending cases with Lottie in a small boat. Unfortunately, Sonny and Mildred aren’t available for the full traditional ending (it happened twice, that’s a tradition!), but maybe Claire and Glenn can make do. And Wobbly Head Reservoir will have to stand in for the Tack.
I recall this incident with Toby (and Lottie being the one to toss the oars). Which was the other small boat ending with Sonny and Mildew?
Incidentally, I did not recall what Lottie said in that link about her “techniques”… I wonder if that statement is still true? o:
“Fire Inside” also ended with Lottie, Sonny, and Mildew in a small boat. And, of course, “Severed Alliance” had Lottie and Shauna in the boat.
The Boy and Esther’s caravan was also turned into a boat if I recall correctly, back back in the way back
Ronny B.’s van got transformed into a submarine.
My hope is that Mildred, Linton and Shauna will make a surprise appearance and work alongside the amazing dowager and her archer assistant.
I, for one, am glad that Lotte is upholding Paula Poundstone fashion thought.
Indeed. She went out on a high note.
As a Minnesotan, I’m hoping Lottie is quoting The Replacements on purpose.
Would be nice to have her as a fellow ‘Mats fan.
Should have aimed for the head, Sandra
Just when all hope seems lost, Lottie will be rescued by a mysterious fishman. It’s one of those Des ex machina endings.
Hey! Don’t spoil the ending for others!!!
Two pages earlier than I predicted. Now I’m wondering who will go “ploop” on Friday. Wednesday’s title is the German equivalent of eeny-meeny-miney-mo, which is probably Beate deciding who will go in first. I hope Sandra comes along in a boat soon.
I’m pinning my hopes on Dean. I mean, he isn’t complaining at the moment, which must surely mean that he’s doing something important and serious.
I predict she will get out of this in one of 3 ways.
1) Her dormant superpowers will awaken.
2) Become a mystery solving ghost.
3) At the bottom of the pool is a box placed by her in advance containing a canister of nitrous oxide, which she will use to propel herself back up and sort out Bette once and for all.
She will simply float to the surface because she’s unsinkable.
There is a resemblance between her and…whatever that ship was. The Verybiganic?
Or she wakes up in the shower… it was all a dream!
The Unsinkable Molybdenum!
I wouldn’t put it past you, Mr. Allison.
I remember, a long time ago, the shock of a certain Winters girl being murdered and she STAYED dead… for a while.
Yes, I’ve been a long time.
It’s always been this excellent.
Lottie is drowndead
The good news is, Lottie gets to be the next Mordawwa.
I’m pretty sure that role is reserved for Claire, Queen of Hellfire.
I wouldn’t say being mentally ill gives one a bad personality per se…
Being unable to control your envy would, though.
I still pity her, though. I think this one could be redeemed.
At least Lottie changed out of her Louboutins!
I wonder what Lottie planted on or took from Beate when capering about behind her, because it occurs to me that her hijinks would have made a perfect cover for doing so undetected