The sun is over the yard arm
It’s great to see Lottie and Shauna back together, just like old times. I’m getting nostalgic. This is a holiday surprise the way you like ’em.
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It’s great to see Lottie and Shauna back together, just like old times. I’m getting nostalgic. This is a holiday surprise the way you like ’em.
This is a true story. I don’t think any of us have forgotten Shauna’s team-up with Blossom to demolish the judo champion Tania and her crew.
I vaguely remember this. Is there a link?
“The Case of the Missing Piece”.
I did not know which beer had a magnet for symbol: a google search for “magnet beer” revealed, alas, that it is Magnet beer. Who would have thought.
I was just about to go “John Smith’s”… but then I googled Magnet Beer and it turns out that’s the name of one of John Smith’s Brewery’s beers. I didn’t know that.
I also learned that Fosters, which is what I guess the F is for, is brewed at John Smith’s brewery.
I’m still geeking out about Shauna making an appearance. I suspect I will be long after this story ends.
ahHA, Reverend Penrose was her replacement Shauna.
They are so perfect together. They can make a lot of mischief together, but I have complete confidence in their ability to get each other out of whatever trouble they find.
Absolutely agreed.
First those lads get pickled, then they get Wickled.
I wish I could like this comment twice.
I liked it again for you!
Haha, awesome.
HOORAY! Lottie and Shauna against the universe! I kinda want to knows what happened after Shauna 17th birthday party and if she’s still friends with Blossom.
I like Shauna’s outfit. Something of a 70s menswear vibe happening, but not in a totally dressed like a 1979s man kind of a way.
Great to see these two together again, even if only for the length of a train delay (well, I say “only”…)
I also want to know if anything of not happened at that birthday party, or if it’s just sort of coincidentally the last time they saw each other for a while.
I’m trying to figure out the layout of Tackleford station now too, entirely unnecessarily.
*1970s man
*anything of note
…it was 2am
Retro Annie Hall. My wife wore such an outfit in our going away picture from our wedding in 1978.
Both of these pages finishes in wonderfully mischievous form (with the characters nicely swapped from one to the next). Just what we crave from these two!
TBH this may be more fanservice than is strictly healthy, like eating jam out of the communal cup. Delish!
And who do we see in the bar, why its the Mystery Boys!
Well ok probably not but one can hope…
I’d love to see the mystery boys pop up again. I wonder if Jack has started anymore fashion wars…
Through a series of increasingly elaborate and improbably appearances, every member of the primary Bad Machinery cast is reunited culminating in a fight against a Legion of Evil-esque gathering of their entire rogues gallery.
Also I wonder how Shauna’s baby brother is doing.
Yeah, he’s got to be what now? About the same age as Shauna and Lottie back when Bad Machinery began?
Maybe a bit older. And perhaps he is doing work experience with the Royal Mail.
And a spot of smuggling.
And that’s how Gibbous Moon makes her triumphant return!
He and Sonny’s sister are likely classmates.
Dusk at Cubist Castle! I haven’t played that in, I think the technical term is “yonks”, which is of course a shame.
I strongly suspect that whenever I get a chance to see that new Elephant 6 documentary that’s starting to make the rounds I will absolutely binge myself on all those bands once more
So glad to see this duo together again. A prime example of the more things changing, the more they remain the same.
Phew. I was worried the words “We should go for a beer together and catch up” would mean “We’ll go our separate ways and never see each other again.”
For me it is Shauna in the last panel but also, and perhaps even more so, Lottie in the first panel.
All this nostalgia – it brings up a question I’ve long wondered about. Are you ever going to reprint the Wen-Tack Tunnel story [I don’t know what else to call it] or even acknowledge its existence? It seems to have become the ‘lost story’ bridging the gap between Bad Machinery and Solver [sort of] and any tale starring Mildred [as this one did] surely deserves a wider audience. At least I’d like to think so.
It’s available to download on my Patreon but I’m not putting it back up anywhere as a webcomic, it doesn’t have a home. For those interested, here’s the pdf: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3xvi4ba2p7twb42/wentack.pdf?dl=0
You, sir, are a legend.
Just read through this again again, and enjoyed it as usual, thanks John. Would have liked to see more of Georgia and her dad, I think they had potential.
I like to think those kids have become the new Tackleford Mystery Kids, and are out there solving mysteries, as we speak.
It would have been much better if I hadn’t been working on two other series at the same time – there are plenty of good ideas that don’t go anywhere. I was completely burned out, a shame.
GREAT ideas.
“MY SON HAS BEEN IN BATTLE” is still one of my favorite Bobbinsverse strips of all time.
You can almost hear the click of these two mischief-engines synching their gears as perfectly as they used to.
I cannot *stress* enough just how happy these last two strips have made me & how much I apparently needed this!
Seconded.
Which one is Lottie, the “truck freak” or the “crazy ass”?
I … don’t know how to answer that.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/%D0%B4%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3-apyr
Truck Freak – Shauna
Crazy Ass – Lottie
Дpyг – Claire
The Fighter – Mildred
Oh my god, she IS a rock hard fighter!!! Ah, Shauna!
It’s Shauna’s reckless, completely ill-advised, yet profoundly good-hearted streak of foolish bravery that has always made her my favorite Mystery Girl.
Living in the projects can do that to you and I feel I can relate!
As a long-time deployer of “The sun is over the yard arm”, when it comes to acceptable drinking hours (inherited from my dad), I am DELIGHTED to see that Lottie thinks the same way.
A slippery slope that might attract Sesh Gremlins, as Billie has shown in the past!
Sesh Gremlins have a much simpler rule for determining whether a given time is or isn’t an appropriate time for drinking. The rule is:
YES.
…and they connect as if not a day has passed since they saw each other the last time!
True BFFs!! 🙂
Thank you for making this available. And I’m sorry that you believe this is one if your lesser efforts. There are so many brilliant bits to be found here – from Zebus having Conan for a Dad to Linton being an uncomfortable mentor to Mildred setting up forces that quickly got away from her and then backfired – this was a most enjoyable story. We are our own harshest critics, though. If you felt you were approaching burnout at the time, well… you know better than anyone what works in your fictional universe and what doesn’t. For the record, however. I have to say that you’ve reached the creative point in your career where even a ‘lesser effort’ like Wen-Tack is still far above most others best work.
They did previously make it to the pub together in Space is the Place, didn’t they?
Just checked, and while they did, continuity is maintained – wine alone was consumed, no beers. https://www.gocomics.com/bad-machinery/2019/02/27
Ah. Train station pubs. I don’t think this is the inexplicable booze hall I used to go to that felt like the last vestige of old Penn Station when I lived in the neighborhood. But this new jack recently featured joint got some love in the New York Times a few days ago. If it is paywalled I have a limited number of gift views to hand out if you are really that curious. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/dining/new-yorks-hottest-club-is-the-penn-station-bar.html
That headline alone…
Contact lenses?
’Tis the season for train station boozers. The New York Times just had this piece about one in Penn Station. Strangely not the crusty old one I went to there when that was my neighborhood. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/dining/new-yorks-hottest-club-is-the-penn-station-bar.html