Very bijou! (SOLVER AUTUMN SPECIAL CONCLUDES)
And here we have it, the final part of the Autumn Special! Further episodes of Solver will not be special. They will just be normal. There will be another 22-page chapter – “Green Door”, before I have to take a short break from webcomics in mid-September to write a new print series (TBA).
Obviously we all scanned the QR code but has anyone called the number?
This one’s a digit short, so shouldn’t connect to any actual phone.
Right number of digits for an American phone number, but no area code begins with 0.
The 0 begins all British STD (area) codes. It functions like the 1- that traditionally precedes NANP area codes for long-distance calls. All mobile (cell) phones have 07- numbers. Geographically coded landlines are 01- or 02-; Sheffield is 0114-. Local landline numbers can generally be called as a 6, 7 or 8-digit number with no leading 0. A full phone number is (usually) 11 digits including the leading 0.
I’d say I’m confused, but I don’t know what the methodology behind an NA based phone number aside from the leading 3 numbers being the Area code which generally corresponds to a geographic region, but has become more muddled in recent years as folks with cell phones occasionally keep mobile numbers from their previous region when they move. Either way, the leading 3 area code has a greater potential for expanding the number of area codes. As I understand. The US and Canada are bigger than people realize a lot of the time.
Actually I looked it up, the reason the Area Code is so important in the NANP is that the 3-digit prefix is only unique on a regional level and the following 7 digits are unique to the that regional area with the first 3 of it as a central office code and the last four as a station number. Older system, likely based upon landline telephone switching. Necessary because North America is FRIGGIN HUGE.
Can’t say that I scanned the QR code, but my headcanon is that this one is a working QR code that leads you to visiting this very page.
Scan the QR code.
I scanned it and at first glance thought the list included “intercanine community strife”, which would have been a storyline I’d like to read.
Never have scanned a QR code before and don’t intend to start now, despite my curiosity. I have general antipathy toward QR codes due to their non-human-readable nature: my standard assumption is that the ubiquitous QR codes are all rickroll links.
A very wise attitude, though I scanned the QR code and didn’t regret it.
QR codes are the least of our worries.
Indeed. I was worried about bungling up the hovertext formatting on “rickroll links” and forgot to append the “d:” I put in an earlier draft. d:
(alas, it doesn’t look like a link, or the joke would have been more readily noticeable and would have functioned better)
“No disintegrations.”
EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING! And not just because I’m a star wars obsessive. Okay, entirely because I’m a star wars obsessive. Are you too? Or is it just that middle-of-the-road now? I’m not sure if I’m pleased or displeased that I’m less freakish than usual. Nice nod, anyway.
I’m not sure I’d call myself “obsessive”. And certainly not “most obsessive.”
“As you wish.”
(Vader was amazed to discover that when Boba Fett said “As you wish”, what he meant was, “I love you.”)
That’s… adorable.
All plug sockets in comics are drawn on (head explodes)
I feel as if an opportunity has been missed to install working plug sockets but of a type no one could possibly use. The Bryant US Perpendicular or Spanish Eunea 3013-B for instance.
The store could just offer up a Tesla coil for patrons to use. It would go nicely with that Edison bulb…
I thought that was illuminated fly paper.
Or, of course, Walsall Gauge – just like BS 1363 but with each pin turned through 90°.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets#UK_Walsall_Gauge_plug
Thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole. Sheesh. I knew there were different standards, but I had no idea how many there were.
You can never have too many universal standards.
https://xkcd.com/927/
A solid choice!
I’m partial to how happy the Danish DK 2-1a looks, myself.
It is no small part of why we are so happy as a nation
Good thing Lottie is writing that they are not hitman. She avoided thousands of very weird calls
I’m sure they’ll still get plenty of weird calls.
“So, I understand you do *not* perform assassinations.” (slides over folder) “This is a gentleman I definitely do not want you to assassinate.” (slides over briefcase) “And here is the first half of a large sum of money that is certainly not payment for his assassination.”
I’m going to ignore the message between the lines and just carry on imagining situations where Lottie would need to be paid a lot of money to not assassinate someone.
My “not involved in assassinations” flyer has people asking me a lot of questions already answered by my flyer.
We call my cat the CBO because he’s the Chief Bossy Officer of my business…
The chubbio. I am now imagining a chubby round cat.
You are not wrong…
“Chief bollocking officer” if I may be so bold as to intercede. I have been using this phrase since hearing it in 2000, it appears but once in a Google search. I didn’t originate it but I consider myself its curator.
Ah, the inconvenience store.
The “Sorry “ written after the “No Assassinations” is so Claire, and so John as well.
When did Lottie start using black nail polish? Did Derek and Clive insist on it, to be at one with the store ambience?
Also I note that oboe lessons were so popular that all of the little tear-off phone numbers have been taken…
Since the beginning of Solver, at least. John just doesn’t draw close-ups of hands very often, which is about the only time he bothers rendering nails.
It doesn’t look like there were any in the first place, so I’m assuming that the posting is in fact the oboe lesson in and of itself. Oboe Lesson #1: This is what an oboe looks like.
Or maybe Oboe Lesson is a band.
There was only one lesson, and it’s already been taken.
It appears to be a pink oboe. You may take that to be a sly reference of some sort; that is entirely a matter for you.
Can’t figure out how to actually access the advertised oboe lessons? That sounds like a PROBLEM that needs to be SOLVED!
I originally read Lottie’s answer in panel 6 without the second comma — “not for customers who do not deserve it”. I like it far better with the comma.
Perpetual sense of ennui? Never with Mr Allison at the helm. Though re the aforemention’s ‘short break in Sept’, may have to get Lottie and Clare to check the ‘Contractual shenanigans’…
Ha! My computer has LTE. I don’t even need wifi!
“Green Door”? So a crossover with Immortal Hulk? Cool cool.
A crossover with Shakin’ Stevens more like
Crossover with Kevin Turvey.
I was concerned it might be after Artie Mitchell.
I have misplaced some bone marrow (not mine). Can Charlotte help?
I look forward to learning what sort of problems afflict the sort of people who frequent hipster coffee shops.
Oboe lessons? As we all know, an oboe is an ill wind no one blows good. Perhaps this relates to the first problem that gets solved?
Does anyone else find panel 5 Lottie kind of… terrifying?
Dear Steel City Solvers: I would like to report a perpetual sense of ennui. I fear that it may progress to neurasthenia.
Hey, I’m from USA’s Steel City (aka Pittsburgh, PA). Where’s the UK’s Steel City? Tackleford?
Sheffield, now in South Yorkshire, traditionally in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
Yorkshire moves around?
Yorkshire was traditionally divided into three Ridings (North [miles upon miles of nowt], West [all the big cities except Hull] and East [Hull and not much else]). Then there was a local government rationalisation in the 1970s and they messed around with lots of it and inter alia invented South Yorkshire to encompass the Sheffield area, not to be confused with South Riding, which is a novel by Winifred Holtby (about Hull).
Hull should feature more prominently in Mr A’s oeuvre, but probably, like most people, he has never been there. But I digress.
Sheffield, the location of SOLVER and GIANT DAYS
I for one, am happy to revisit Sheffield.
They haven’t been in Tackleford since the June 15 page. I feel like John has been slowly easing out of Tackleford being the center of his fictional universe. Of course, many of the important characters (including Lottie and Claire) still have close ties to Tackleford. https://badmachinery.com/comic/sex-cults-svengalis/
ANYTHING equestrian. They are ladies, after all.
As a small town solicitor, I must say that there is no amount of money in the world that makes solving sibling issues worthwhile.
This coffee shop is akin to Coffee of Doom in the excellent webcomic Questionable Content. Their baristas have honed insult service to a fine edge; even the names of their specials throw down a gauntlet. Though they seem to have mellowed in recent months.
Yeah, i got a “Coffee of Doom” vibe from this place, too. (Didn’t Coffee of Doom, or a reasonable simulacrum thereof, actually appear in some old Scary God Round comics? Or am I misremembering?)
When I squint at that QR I see a dragon’s head.
No “XYZ”? And it’s even in a coffee bar.. I’m 90% sure this is coincidence, I don’t think Lottie (or you) is familiar with the works of Tsukasa Hojo. But there’s a very clever assistant out there who might have questions..
I’m just adding this here for posterity. I think Glunn is really Nemulon and Lottie is being screened for involvement in the Department of History. We shall see.