Our largesse
I think there have been more cheques depicted in Solver than I have had to write in the last ten years. I do own a chequebook, but don’t ask me where it is.
Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
I think there have been more cheques depicted in Solver than I have had to write in the last ten years. I do own a chequebook, but don’t ask me where it is.
£1250.00 could buy a decent birthday bash for Glirmn and still leave a few bob for food, etc
I look forward to the shambles I fully expect it to become
For the briefest moment I thought Claire was doing Aquaman cosplay and I was Very Confused.
Also, Lottie’s wink, sublime, full marks.
Orange top and green bottom makes me think of another lady of infinite mystery.
I mean, Aquaman can control sea life, and Claire used to be able to control Desmond Fishman. So, despite the elemental inconsistency involved, there is some similarity.
Yeah, “Water” isn’t exactly the element that I associate with Little Claire…
Claire has the supernatural ability of conjuring water anywhere, that is, if the firefighters can get there in time.
Ah, Bitsy! I think she has an eye for our Ygln! At least in a candy-sort of way.
Five or six years ago, I noticed that my checkbook was almost out of checks. There were maybe 5 left. In all these years, I never got around to ordering more, and today I’m STILL almost out of checks. I expect to remain almost out of checks for the foreseeable future, and I am OK with that.
Years ago I needed my checkbook and I couldn’t find it, so I went into the box containing the next set of checks and used the top one. And then I later needed to write another check, and couldn’t find either, so went and found the box and started yet another set of checks.
My banking software almost resigned in confusion at the wildly non-consecutive check numbers I forced upon it
In the not-too-distant future, people will still have “checking” accounts, but nobody will remember why they are called that.
Like phones!
And the terms “dial” and “ring”.
And why the ‘Save’ icon is a square with a circle inside it.
That’s obviously a vending machine. Makes perfect sense.
I have only ever owned one chequebook which was exclusively devoted to paying the property management company I was renting from who (despite it being the early 2000s) seemed to believe that electronic transactions were the work of the devil. They refused any form of payment apart from cheque or cash, although I did consider offering them produce, livestock or shares in a canal company.
I find panel 1 interesting, as I realize that I have never seen a British cheque. They are laid out differently from U.S. ones, and are apparently larger.
Also, excellent villainous vibes given off by the nephew in panel 2.
Coises! Furled again!
In reality the size and content of the cheque is nearly irrelevant. In a previous life I used to generate cheques for dividend payments and apart from the MICR line at the bottom and the box holding the payment amount on the right hand side, basically everything else could be arbitrary.
I once even had to create cheques where the signature was literally a clip-art of the word “Signature” written in cursive. I had to confirm that was precisely what the client wanted three times over.
The best cheques are the ones presented by pools or lottery companies which are the size of a tennis court and delivered in the bucket of a JCB or written on the side of a cow. All cheques should be like that. It makes perfect sense.
I lived in England for a year and never felt comfortable filling in my weirdly formatted checks. I quickly adapted to cards. Returning to US checks, i found i was no longer comfortable filling those checks.
The format here is UK standard, but I think that the size is slightly exaggerated for visual effect.
I thought the dowager would bank with Coutts bank (famously our late Queen’s bank of choice) and I reckoned the cheques would be momentous and enormous.
Are you begging for a Nigel Farage related reply?
I would never stoop so low as to oblige.
Glenn Durgan Ltd? That’s a boring name for a solving company.
The official name of a company is rarely the name they’re trading under. Small companies are almost always named after an owner. It requires more paperwork and fees and obligations to have a custom-named corporation, and there’s no point until you’ve got multiple shareholders and stuff.
It’s why you’ll often see “Glenn Durgan Ltd Trading As SOLVERS” or the like on shop windows where they’re displaying their licensing information. (at least in my neck of the woods)
Solvers have an office in your neck of the woods? Are you in Netheredge?
Also, it’s much funnier for Lottie to misspeak his name constantly when it’s literally the name of her company
Steel City Solvers is the name they use, I seem to remember.
Coutts! The classiest bank!
Lottie’s waited all her life to be able to say “Tell them DISCRETION is our watchword” to a dowager while sitting in that exact pose with that exact expression.
If I do a nine-panel grid I like to put something important in the middle.
And in that exact outfit! She clearly put a lot of thought and effort into the outfit, and it is a FLAWLESS match for this setting. It’s appropriately conservative and old fashioned (almost to the point of being archaic, which is good here), but it also manages to incorporate pink and lavender, which seem to be Bitsy’s favorite colors.
I may need to re read the wrestling story, as I hadn’t realized it was the dowager case. But it is a neat reveal and I like the idea of Lottie having this rich old benefactor who uses her wealth for good means while still lounging around with corgies. Though i’m also waiting this whole arc for the tense shoe to drop: when is this going to connect back to Wicked Things?
I am glad that bit of continuity is being cleared up, but i’m also glad this.. ended up being the book instead. Wicked things was a fine cozy mystery and max sarin, as always, was fantastic on art. I do miss having a john allison ongoing to follow every month and i’m dismayed boom and dark horse both failed to see what they had.. but Solver is just better, combining the tried and trued formula from the old scary go round days of “A sad man in a rut in his life, an energetic busybody and their slightly more worldly friend friend (about the only thing Amy and Clarie seem to share in common but hey) solve stuff” with the polish John’s gained as he’s went and the great characters Lottie and Claire were already. It just hits in the same way the best of scary go round, bad machinery, and especially giant days hit, while still being something fresh and exciting about “what do you do when the future you assumed you’d have is gone and your left twisting in the wind”.
Lottie is still in an unstable state having a new buisness venture but no real plans beyond “Do what I do best in a way that gets me not framed for murder this time” but in her aimlessness is helping others find their way as John’s pointed out: Getting Glem out of careers, Claire out of a major she neve rwanted and Dean back on the dating scene and into her weird team as their guy in the chair. The Oracle to their Birds of Prey but sweatier and more condescending.
Solver feels like it reinergized john and his love of his own shared unvierse: While he wasn’t shy about adding steeple to it, it’s clear he needed that slight distance it provided to figure out , ironically enough what he wanted to do next with Lottie and the result.. just makes me happy.
Continues on page 7.
> i’m dismayed boom and dark horse both failed to see what they had..
It’s not really their fault – nobody can afford to keep printing a book when the public isn’t buying it. Everyone involved has given it a red hot go multiple times.
Yes, I can’t blame the publishers – the collapse of continuing monthly indie books in the direct market of comic shops and the demise of Comixology are what did for me. I should have one last series coming out from Dark Horse next year.
Something I’ve been wondering about, John: Since you aren’t allowed to use the Steeple characters anymore (as I understand it), and since Shelly is now tied to a Steeple character — at least, in the present — does that limit your ability to use Shelly going forward?
I can use the Steeple characters however I want! It’s just not financially sensible to continue the series.
Oh!! I thought there was some contractual nonsense at play there. That is a HUGE relief.
So it is therefore feasible that we’ll one day learn what actually happened with all the loose Steeple ends, even if it’s not in a Steeple comic?
One day, maybe!
I’ve been hoping we might see some of them turn up elsewhere. They certainly seem like they have problems that need to be Solved, and we know Billie, at least, has Lottie’s contact info…
Shelley knows about their problems, and she seems better equipped to solve most of them. Except Mrs Clovis being in jail, that one seems like it would be right up Lottie’s alley…
Then my apologizes. It’s not their faults. Just like comixology collapse ate my copies of the first 5 scary go round. I’m just bummed and I’m more used to that big two. I forget boom and dark horse are smaller ops and likely struggling. Giant days came at just the right time I suppose. At least it and most of your library is available..
Bitsy in panel 4, everyone. There’s a ton more to this woman than bonbons and fluffy dogs.
Also, that nephew’s venture was doomed to failure, as anyone who’s ever tried to wrestle a forest can attest.
who wood do a thing like that anyway?
I understand his desire to branch out, but the root of the issue is that he didn’t know when to leaf well alone.
They’re barking up the wrong tree.
Well he was clearly a sap
Well, yes… but I admire the optimism. Oak springs eternal.
I dunno – he looks like the kind who would pine for a return to the Old Days…
So apparently Lottie beat the Bully so hard that he quit wrestling entirely. I guess for some guys having your butt kicked by a girl a quarter your size can do that.
I just had to go back and re-read that now that we have the reveal of the Bully without his mask.
I’m sad that we didn’t get to see the Kitty Hawk in action.
Fantastic body language for the Dowager in these panels!
Nice to see how this lovable older lady likes Glenn for his good nature and gentle aspect. Claire is always happy to talk about him. Love the nephew’s mustaches, he seems strong and confident. Let’s hope he will continue to follow his dream.
I can imagine Lottie as a dowager in her later years.
She may well come into some dow as she ages
There have been more cheques depicted on this one page than I have written in my entire life.
I really like this woman.
That is all.
Not too long from now, Bitsy will shuffle off her mortal coil and leave her estate to Glenn. Then, Lottie will HAVE to get his name right.
Ouch. I worry that £1250 split between the three of them is really not going to go very far. If this is the level of payment they’ve been getting for each case, it’s no wonder that they’re financially stressed.
You’d think they’d also get paid for their expenses, too.
I’m thinking that The Dowager might become a bit like Charlie in Charlies Angels except of course we never meet Charlie. Contacting them via an APP to be up-to-date and sending them off to exotic places like Preston or Rotherham. Glenn would be Bosley and then we’d need another angel, Mildred perhaps or Shauna. On the other hand, thinking about it, it’s not at all like Charlies Angels, so just forget it.
The forest wrestling club didn’t seem like such a bad setup? Surely it’ll be self supporting given the enthusiasm of it’s participants. As potential elder abuse goes this is pretty inconsequential.
Perhaps the enthusiasm of the participants was artificially enhanced by the liberal application of Other People’s Money
I haven’t owned a chequebook in over twenty years. It went out with my fax machine, Apple IIc, polio, and falcon.
I still have my falcon, refuse to upgrade to a smart kestrel
I make out checks so rarely, I have get help from the internet whenever I do. Also envelopes.
Faced with the prospect of addressing an envelope recently, I did find myself questioning which was the proper location for the return address and which the target address. Which was silly because I regularly get both junk mail and legitimate bills delivered to my mailbox replete with proper examples of how to address an envelope.
Anyway, I solve the dilemma for now by not bothering to do anything with the envelope.
I hope Inland Revenue won’t mind too much.
I opened a bank account for my first job (at a bank, as it happens) over twenty years ago. I still have checks from the first (and, naturally, only) box they issued me.
It’s even stranger to think that I’ve followed SGR etc. for a quarter century.
It’s funny to hear how many people don’t use checks. I generally use a lot simply because the alternative is something like auto-pay, or there is some convenience charge for paying over the phone by card (sometimes by credit card, which makes no sense for bills.)
I do not however keep track of my checking account balance by writing in the balance sheet, since there’s no point in that if you have a check card.
That check has some very generous space for writing the amount — vey jelly.
Coutts is a bank used exclusively by poshos, they probably assume that their cheques will be used to pay for things like yachts or TV networks and format them accordingly.
Yeah, same! I write checks fairly often and just ordered a new box of blanks.
Haven’t written cheques in the last 25 years or more…
But I do recall writing extra text on them in the hope of embarrassing people I knew with such phrases as (The sum of:) “Fifty Dollars and fifty cents and not once cent more, not even if they beg”
I also remember a scam in the US where a company advertised some amazing product in magazines and after receiving orders for the item would write back and apologise saying the item was out of stock, with a cheque for the full refund – but the cheque was printed with the company name along the lines of “Anal Toys and Penis Enlargement Devices Ltd”
They made money from the reluctance for anyone to deposit their refund cheque at their local bank, but were ultimately convicted of fraud because they didn’t actually have any of the items they advertised for sale
Usually, John’s ear is faultless. But, “my blue-blooded connections”… I’ll sit this one out.