Where things really get set to rights (GREEN DOOR CONCLUDES)
Play that funky euphonium, Dean. Fresh fields await for all concerned.
That’s it for Solver: Green Door, which ties up Solver volume 1 (Circus Windows, Author Unknown, and this three-part series of specials).
Unfortunately, there will now be a break in service. I’d hoped to avoid a webcomic pause but writing a new four-issue print series, the ravages of Covid, plus unanticipated personal issues, ate my cherished two-month comic buffer. I tried to make some strips to fill the gap for you but wasn’t satisfied with my efforts.
Updates to my Patreon will continue in the meantime – during the break I will be posting the 12 Bobbins strips I made, and PDFs of some of the hard-to-get early Scary Go Round books and minicomics (like Ghosts & Heavy Metal Hearts & Flowers) to fill the publishing gap.
I’ve just begun work on drawing the next Solver story (as of September 10th) – all being well, I anticipate it beginning here at the end of October. Sorry for the break in programming.
The euphonium pawp! God isn’t going to like that at all.
He sounds his barbaric pawp through the green doors of the world.
The greatest harm that I have ever done the universe was in being compelled to conduct a performance of a 12-tone work for brass ensemble. Not the best thing in it was a passage for two euphonia: high, fast, legato. It sounded like party animal balloons being made, not so much without skill as without hope. My own brass symphony treats the euphonium, I dare think, a little more idiomatically.
There may be nothing sadder than a euphoniac without hope.
I love this posting more than I can say. High, fast, legato, like party animals being made.
I’m with Nomi. Is there a Reuben Award for best webcomic comment?
As the parent of a euphonium player, and a lover of esoteric music, I have to ask, what was it and by whom? He shares some of my taste and loves pawping us into surrender. (And oddly enough, I listened to and enjoyed your work about a month ago when I saw the slate article- now I’ll have to go back to listen to the symphony.)
David, I am truly sorry, but the piece is so bad, and the composer is still living, that it would be net further harm to name him and it. Our mutual friend tells me that he gave up on 12-tone and adopted a white-key style, in which his work is as profoundly uninteresting as ever. But (we must think) anyone can learn. I hope you and your son like my brass symphony. I think it is different from anything else out there.
Deep down I just knew Dean Thompson would be one of those people who puts monitors into ‘portrait’ orientation. A sociopath of the highest order.
The British incel: long, glorious locks, an obsession with talking to women about terminally boring things, and a deep sense of grievance with the world.
Exactly the kind of person you find on a web forum.
Probably makes videos in portrait mode too [shudder].
And then posts them in 16:9 aspect ratio with those weird dark shadowy sidebar things that are sort of reflecting the video. Like a MONSTER would.
Wow. Back in the day my Mom’s boss got her a special portrait oriented display, specifically so she could edit legal size documents. (8.5 x 14 inches, for my British friends.) She did these a lot.
This was in the late 1980’s on an early Macintosh.
They were excellent for page layout back before you could fit a full height page on any display.
I had to look this monitor up, it’s as good as you’d hope it would be.
https://www.cultofmac.com/469981/today-in-apple-history-remember-the-macintosh-portrait-display/
Around the turn of this century Hewlet-Packard made a rotatable 25″ monitor. I bought one way back then thinking it would be useful for comics work. I wound up just using it in landscape mode continually.
I still have it, it’s gathering dust in a closet.
When I draw on my iPad I use it predominantly in portrait mode. I miss the old 4:3 Wacom Cintiqs, a much better screen format for making comics than widescreen. The smaller widescreen tablets (12, 13, even 16 inch) seem designed to frustrate when you’re used to a bit of extra screen height working on portrait pages.
I love the fact that Dean’s monitors are in portrait orientation.
Hey, she called him Glenn!
The moment was serious. Finally!
STEEL CITY SOLVERS! What a name.
I’ve changed my mind, I want Charlotte Grote in my life, solving my problems. I used to have a vertical monitor setup like that. It’s a sign of the terminally online.
He still has that infernal euphonium!? Let’s hope his new good mood will made him good in playing it. Love to seeglenn and Lottie expressions when the phone start the vibration. This is a great new start for both! Thank you for this story, it’s not sad to wait if you know it worth ♡.
Yay! Lottie’s so shocked at the success of her plan that she completely forgot to get Glenn’s name wrong! And I love those last three panels. I have to say, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Solver. It’s been amazing, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. I still miss Steeple, though.
It took me until now to notice the background colors for those three panels.
I’ve started thinking about stories for a Steeple volume 4, Alaric. I’m hoping to work on it next year.
(By the way, I have a problem I think Lottie, Glenn, and Claire would be exceptionally well-suited to solve. Any way I can get in touch with them?)
Take your time, John. We’d rather it be good than forced!
Will this repost period include The Big Hiatus?
I like the way the colourful ending of the story contrasts with the stark monochrome of page 1. And, as others have pointed out, that Lottie finally forgets to get Glenn’s name wrong. Hopefully she can move on to other shenanigans now.
I did see the names of those comics appear and then later disappear in the “Scheduled” list on Bobbins. I totally understand and respect the choice to not post them if they’re not ready, but I am kind of relieved to find out they were not just a hallucination on my part.
In the end I made 12 of them, they’re passable – certainly not disgraceful – but they betray my lack of energy and inspiration.
Delightful final triptych
not sure how i feel about the deux ex machina to be honest
(deux for two 🙂
deus ex euphonia
I have only just now (on third or fourth reading) noticed the reflections in Dean’s specs in panel 2.
A true gamer chair.
i feel like charlotte’s body type grew more fancifully idealized – egregiously so – after john decided she was new waifu (once esther was print-only). does anyone remember what sarah looked like, or baby charlotte’s joke about “the width”? i love these comics but i wish the man could do away with the obvious imaginary girlfriend creating. erin winters being sent to hell for not being sexy enough for her author is kind of sad, let’s be honest.
I certainly remember Sarah, and also Lottie’s comments about her family’s curves, but that’s just one family. John draws a number of different body types of characters – one of the things I really like about his comics. I don’t think he seeks to denigrate characters based on what they look like, either.
Waifu? I admit I don’t really see it that way at all. One of the things I have always loved about John’s comics is that he treats his characters with respect. (Even when they are not especially likable people, like Dean) I quite like how Lottie has evolved in both appearance and personality as she has started to enter the adult world. I don’t see any overemphasis on making her sexually attractive. I mean, it’s there, but it’s not who she IS.
I believe this is the strip with the quip you are referring to: https://www.gocomics.com/bad-machinery/2017/01/08
I read that to mean Lottie was conscious of, and hoped to avoid gaining weight. She punts a box of chocolates from Colm just 13 pages later because “this is how the FAT BANSHEE gets you!” (of course, on the very next page she retrieves that “chox” box AND sneaks a cupcake, but then, self-control was not really her strong suit…)
Body image issues at such an impressionable age can have an impact long after the root issues are dispelled. I thought I was fat when I was young (I wasn’t), and I still can’t get up to my target weight, 30+ years later.
“I believe this is the strip with the quip you are referring to” Now I’m trying to remember whether the strip with the quip had the pellet that is poison or the brew that is true.
I REALLY appreciate your observations, BUH-lieve me, as someone who is often the “Feminist Killjoy” (it’s a book, check it out)of the group. That being said, I’m a woman, and I draw female characters too, and I make them sexy according to my own tastes, and if it makes sense. Does Lottie not seem like the kind of woman who would be aware of her own sexuality, and be confident enough to own it? She does to me, and I too have been reading and identifying with this character for years. I honestly wouldn’t want her any other way. In my opinion, if Lottie did let the *fat banshee* (which is a real thing, any woman will tell you) get her, that wouldn’t be her. If she hid behind bulky clothes, that wouldn’t be her, either. It wouldn’t make sense. Lottie has always been proud and comfortable in her own skin, AS WELL AS being fashion conscious. I feel you are forgetting that Lottie is — I forget exactly — but she’s like, 19. A 19 year old in London. Is there some other way she should be looking? Also, we have the CONTEXT of John’s huge body of work where he consistently treats his female characters with respect and gives them complexity and real lives and flaws and stories, in fact most of his stories REVOLVE AROUND WOMEN who have all sorts of body types. So….I think what I’m saying is, I get where you’re coming from, but nitpicking over one character and calling an artist “sad” and assigning Charlotte as his “waifu” is off base. He has had many characters that he pays as much attention to. (Shelly? Maggie? Billie?) They’re all delightfully strong and sexy in their own unique ways, just like real-life women are. Also I think that the Erin Winters story is more meant satirically, not literally.
Sheffield. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean.
Thank you, Stacy.
You’re welcome!
Thanks for a wonderful series of webcomics John. It gave me a lift seeing them several times a week. I will miss seeing them regularly but look forward to seeing them again at Halloween.
I have never heard of a euphonium. Thankfully the U.S. Navy is eager to explain and demonstrate a POMP sound effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nzWQFq6ce0
A flügelhorn is a piccolo tuba.
You’re welcome.
Play that funky euphonium, Sandboy. Play that funky euphonium right.
Look after yourself, John!
Seconded. I can’t believe how much material The Englishman puts out every year. I will literally pay to see Mr. Allison get some more help or rest if there’s a way to make that happen.
Thank you for the kind words, Katherine and Andrew. I think the main assistance I need at the moment is for someone to work out how I can fill an awkward two weeks of comics before Christmas without splitting a story over my traditional one-week break.
Guest strips?
…or even a new FEATS OF STRENGTH????
DOCTOR LADYSOUNDS! DOCTOR LADYSOUNDS!
STRONGLY SECONDED. AND THIRDED. MISS THAT DOCTOR LADYSOUNDS.
It sounds like Doctor Ladysounds is the will of the people!
(That all being said, I’d be thrilled to sponsor a Feats of Strength: Tredregyn contest at any point for those of us who just really, really need to know what Bille and Maggie and the Reverend are up to. I can’t be the only one!)
Well, if you’re not subscribed to John’s Patreon, if you do so, you will be doing exactly that!
Nice traffic lights.
Sir, I must object. That instrument is simply too large to be a euphonium.
When finding reference for drawing a euphonium I figured it to be about half as tall as an adult man. In drawing my first, i may have slightly misjudged that in my haste to get all the flanges and sprockets in the right place. But I’m sure that next time, I’ll get it right. Solver is a brass-positive comic.
If you ever want more precise measurements, mail me. I can get them for you in that newly-restored measurement system known as imperial, even.
Pawp and circumstance
Looking forward to your new four-issue print series, The Ravages of Covid.
Thanks for a great new chapter! Would you please send an email out when new stuff is starting up? I always appreciate the email notifications!
I keep forgetting about the mailing list. It will be my pleasure to do so when things restart.
Is no one in the least bit worried (or surprised) that this private sub-Reddit screen is reflecting skulls in Dean’s glasses??? Oh. Right. Reddit.
So Posie Parker/Sheffield is featured in the next Solver?
Coincidentally (or not!?) today’s word in the A.Word.A.Day email is . . . sandboy! This week’s theme is “Words to describe people” but is Anu Garg secretly telegraphing that he’s a John Allison fan?
Hi there, I’m about to announce that I’m a psycho, to everyone. But I just came to this page expecting to find the next page of THE STORY WHICH I READ LAST NIGHT IN MY DREAM. John Allison what have you done to my brain.
Cringe.
Your cringe is cringe.
So don’t leave us hanging. What was the story about?
I’m not sure but it was really good. And it was only the first page. And see, the first page is actually up now, so turns out I’m psychic.
The John Allison comic-o-tron factory method:
Row 1 – snarky exposition
Row 2 – ultra twee/absurd joke
Row 3 – super cool girl (who Allison wishes he could be) makes devious/quirky comment, typically to generic 30-something manboy (who Allison actually is)
Repeat for 20+ years