Friday Flashback: Rec. #138: Bad Machinery

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: John Allison's Bad Machinery web comics are a series of stories about sleuthing British youths. So far, we've had a haunted football club, an exotic animal collector, and a serial barn arsonist. If you know me at all, you probably know that I'm a sucker for good dialogue, and this Mr. Allison delivers in spades. The fact that the characters behind the dialogue are also robustly and believably written gives Bad Machinery double bonus points, with extra gold stars.

Comparable to: Jason Taylor, David Mitchell's stand-in in Black Swan Green, would fit in quite well with this group.

Representative quote: "Christ on the proverbial flipping bike!"

Bonus representative quote: "Can you do the kiss of life? I've not even tried the kiss of you're pretty good lookin' yet."

You might not like it if: You think that all British schoolchildren do magic (or ought to).

How to get it: Now is a good time to begin Bad Machinery because a fourth story, "The Case of the Lonely One," has just started! This is the main link to the current posts. This is the archive of previous stories. Also, John Allison has a shop, with many delightful shirts and bags and aprons and whatnot. And he posts much art to Flickr. And he is a prolific tweeter (@badmachinery).

Connections to previous Wreckage: Companion in spirit, David Mitchell's Black Swan Green was Rec. #72. Companion in the web comics community, Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant was Rec. #95.

[Originally posted 6/6/11.]

Updates: We're now in the middle of the fifth story, "The Case of the Fire Inside." You can start reading it here.

And! The biggest update of all! Bad Machinery is going to be published as a series of books from Oni Press, starting in 2013. Whoooo wants to pre-order them for me now?