The ponchos were my idea
That’s right, underwater diagetic captions, that’s the stuff, you don’t get that in [cruelly insert name of other comic here but John do remember to punch up not down so you don’t get cancelled].
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Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
I always hoped that Beate would end up on the team. Although a makeover might be in order.
This “wobbly head” is clearly inferior to my nearest reservoir, which has a zipwire
This was not meant to be a reply?
Nothing says “gritty rural noir crime story” like a reservoir. Except an old quarry with a lake at the bottom and a rusty fence. Deep, dark, possibly bottomless.
Filled with old smashed cars and toxic industrial waste.
And the body of someone missing for decades in the trunk of one of the cars.
While vile creatures swim (& hiss) in the water.
The trouble with quarries is that you run the risk of Secret Sentai showing up, due to that being their natural habitat.
Sure, as long as you get around the maybe/probably/yes murdering the greatest detective part.
Eh? All in the past right?
I think the chances of Beate joining Team Lottie after this incident are slim to none.
“I’m sorry, but I told you – you can’t get Beate without getting… the other one.”
I don’t think it’s the right moment for talk about the shameful theft in the same place where three people risk being horribly killed. Beate has finally managed to anger Skelottie and make her say too much. Maybe if Claire knows who she is, she will also know how to fight her.
I so adore the captions. Bravo John!
Beate still lives, her true heart beats on.
Now if only she can defeat Beate Noir.
IIRC the thermos was only for Skelottie’s benefit, so it doesn’t count?
That’s exactly why it counts for Skelottie.
I wish our U.S. reservoirs had their names floating in the water like that.
Ours do have the names underwater in the indigenous Maori language (te reo)
but it is an aural language so you just have to listen very carefully!
“AND IT WAS MY IDEA TO SHARE THE PLOT”
I find it… calming… that Evilottie restored little Claire’s transmissive optical devices to improve her visual perception
It implies her intention is only to threaten, and that she fully expects to win and not have to follow through
Claire can now recognize the bobble!
Bobbly Head
I missed that! You might have something! That monster has turned Beate’s bobble into a psychological weapon!!
Oh I don’t know, this could be plain sadism – you can’t properly appreciate the trip if you can’t see where you’re going.
I think that once Evillottie gets confirmation that Lottie has “self cancelled” (and I have no idea how that would work) she will attempt to kill Claire, Glenn and Dean anyway. She can’t leave witnesses. She’s already committed murder once, so… threshold crossed.
Yeah, I’m a pessimist about these things.
Garfield. We don’t get underwater diegetic captions in Garfield.
…yet
The real question is, if we DID get underwater diegetic captions in Garfield, would it be an improvement?
Only if we finally get an explanation of what happened to Lyman.
“HeRe Lie LyMAn’s REmaiNs”
He’s replaced Erin and The Boy at #8, The Street.
Doonesbury could do with a waterlogged “Walden Pond” caption or two.
It’s “Walden Puddle”, so that would have to be some very small print.
“Puddle.” Goddammit, yes. (slinks away in shame)
No need for shame. It’s just that I’m that old, and have a head stuffed with mostly useless trivia.
What kind of name is Wobbly Head Reservoir? Was the guy who created it named Wobbly? Or is the water restless and wobbly? Or is it just because it’s in Scotland and they can name it whatever they want and don’t have to explain anything to anyone?
I was trying to figure out whether it was an actual place, like Tackleford or Tredregyn, or fictional, like Sheffield or Nefyn, but my searches keep getting buried in results about fishing lures and stuff from Google AI that I think is entirely made up and/or possibly stolen from here.
I think they should have a quiz the AI must pass to prove it’s not completely bonkers, or just promoting an agenda to change everything so you doubt your memory.
I feel we need the superhuman skills of geogessr champion Trevor Rainbolt in order to solve this.
Incidentally, Trevor is someone I feel would fit in extremely well in a possible future case, perhaps as a thinly veiled tackleverse version such as Lovelace
They were on the A57 in Hope Valley which puts them west of Sheffield – and there are several reservoirs there. Like John Campbell, I couldn’t see that any one of those is named Wobbly Head, but I choose to believe that one of them is.
It could be “head” as in headland. Like Beachy Head.
That’s been my assumption so far.
I wondered if it would be based on a place like Ladybower Reservoir in the Hope Valley with those simultaneously fascinating-yet-terrifying bell-mouth spillways. Lake Berryessa in the US is similar.
There is a Deanhead reservoir, near Huddersfield, which submerged the village of Dean Head. I assume it was at the head of a valley. “Wobbly” is pure Bobbinsverse, surely.
-But probably at the head of a river or stream where it spills out? Names for places often go back hundreds of years, into history and superstitious lore, until nobody knows anymore.
-Made up on the spot would explain everything even better.
I’d like to believe that it’s at the head of the River Wobbly. Mostly because I’d like to believe that there is a River Wobbly.
There’s a Piddle in Dorset, so anything’s possible.
I read that as “Death’s Head”, which would be an ominous name for a reservoir, yes?
Yes! Filled with dare-devils eager to shoot those rapids and brag about it!
In hydroelectric circles the term “head” refers to the amount of vertical drop a water source has. Or in simple terms, the height of the water level to the bottom where they tap off the water for the turbines. In a drinking water reservoir it determines water pressure, which is usually limited in other ways.
We’re trying to avoid submerging Dean’s head.
If you self-cancel, apparently you get to live in a forest. Could be worse!
I’d quite fancy that meself, as long as it had a well stocked off-licence within staggering distance.
“I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves”
When I woke up this morning I had no idea I’d be quoting Anne Sexton in the comments section, but there you go.
I’d imagine it would be a staggering distance to the nearest off-licence.
I believe SkeLottie was actually thinking of *wilderness*, with all the associations that entails, but her English vocabulary let her down.
This is almost as bad as when Dean’s MMO wedding was sabotaged
Almost
I’m still trying to work out if The Beano would be a downwards or upwards punch.
I was being heavily ironic, I never knock other people’s work.
Yes, never a good thing to do, if nothing else the paperwork is dreadful – accident reports, insurance claims, angry supermarket managers…
Only improve them! But the lawyers never understand…
Well, not being able to immediately name a punch up candidate might be seen as a statement in itself. I kid, I kid.
I guess the barbarian would be punching up, if only due to height and litigousness.
Getting fine ponchos for someone you are about to push into a reservoir is like giving someone you are about to behead a fine silk top hat.
Incidentally why is it a -top- hat? It’s a hat: of course it goes on top. You wouldn’t wear it on your bottom.
She mentioned they were fine *foil* ponchos, so they’ll be cheap and probably the least ‘fine’ when it comes to poncho quality
And top hats (stovepipe silks) were named because of their height, not their positioning – which is why a low-hat is a pair of cymbals in a drum kits at around ankle height… and also a soft, peaked cap
See, -that’s- why I come here. A sublime blend of amusement and education.
Does punching Luann count as up or down?
A down! Definitely a down!!! Poor sweet Luann.
Now there’s two of them.
I love it…
Claire is about to be drowned in a reservoir, and the “dithgrathe” that outrages her is “ableist appropriation!” Now *that* is wutcha call perspective!
Also, we see another, less ethereal post-ski accident rendering of Beate… without seeing her face. Interesting.
In the previous issue’s flashback scenes, we (almost) never saw the face of Beate’s skeletal, immaterial companion. Now, it seems that, in a sense, the two have switched places.
Before she “switched places” with Beate, Skellottie did have a “sort of” face, as seen here…
https://badmachinery.com/comic/ill-be-with-you-all-the-way/
And discussed here…
https://badmachinery.com/comic/theyll-probably-die-quite-soon/
But Skellottie never planted her “face” into a mountainside as Beate did. So now that they’ve changed places, I’m wondering if Beate is wearing her post-accident but non-Lottie mashed-up face. Iow, a horrible lump of goo.
Yes, that was why I put in that (almost).
I wasn’t contradicting you.
Sorry if it read that way.
Her face doesn’t really look too mashed-up here – not much to see there, but at least Beate is wearing glasses, so she presumably has a nose, at least. https://badmachinery.com/comic/fort-william-in-scotland/
They’re both Beate so her face will be however she sees her non-evil self
Most likely as the original Beate before the accident
They may have a whole reservoir of wobbly heads, but Bealotte’s head is the wobbliest of all.
Is the debate between internal personalities in German or English?
Yes, it’s in German
or English…
Going by the lack of angle brackets (as seen here, for instance), the current argument is definitely in German or English.
I believe you mean German XOR English…
(This is why I like pointing out that the New Hampshire licence plate should be “Live Free XOR Die” – no messing around, granite folk)
Don’t you need an semi-colon after that?