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Delightfully bizarre and fun, John Allison has entertained me with his work since 2009 with Bad Machinery. He's been around longer with Scary Go Round / Bobbins, which I didn't follow, and he's still out there doing web comics and published work every day, with Giant Days (together with Max Sarin and a few other people) possibly being his most popular work to date. There used to be a thread around here ages ago. It's been archived or whatever and no one made a new one since. It's here now. I've been loving Steeple a lot and we just had a story of how Maggie got her bike back after a large altercation between two different Satanic sects:  And from the top of my head, here's some of the more important titles: Scary Go Round / Bobbins  Follow Shelley Winters and her pals in their adventures in the strange British town of Tackleford. It's a very looong series. Bad Machinery  The "sequel" to the above, following a new generation of kids who solve Scooby Doo-like mysteries. Kids grow fast, though, so you will see them all the way from age 10 (some even earlier during Scary Go Round) in school, all the way up to driving cars and holding jobs as young adults. Giant Days  This one is about Esther de Groot (from Scary Go Round) and her days in college, plus her pals. It's delightful and you should check out the collected volumes if you haven't yet. By Night  A new setting for a short, twelve issue story. Two estranged friends get sent accidentally to another world just as they meet again, and decide to make a documentary about it. Steeple  A saintly curate and a priestess of the Church of Satan become best friends to the point of up switching roles eventually. Mermonsters keep invading and the local Reverend battles night after night to keep the town safe, or so he believes. There's also a reformed werewolf. He's the best. Buy John Allison's stuff or sign up for the Patreon (£3 gives you access to every web comic in full before it's made public): Patreon - Comixology Books - Gumroad Books
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Feb 11, 2022 04:29
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A new Giant Days story just started. "I’ve wanted to do one for a while, but I only had one worked-out story that I hadn’t used in my story pile. It takes place in the ladies’ second year of university, when they all live together in Crookes. It was intended for a special, but never got anywhere at the time." It seems to feature some dude who dresses up as a giant bat to beat up thieves and his buttler? Hell if I know how that's not going to be a legal quagmire, but I'm sure he knows what he's doing (hopefully). I'll post the first four pages made available so far and whatever comes after:     
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Feb 11, 2022 04:43
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So, JA actually did an interview explaining how we got to this "crossover" and his thoughts on how to deal if a legal situation arises. Basically, it was a story conceived about the time Lumberjanes/Gotham Academy had a crossover, but the call to DC for this one never got through. He figures that nobody will give a poo poo because it's a non-profit webcomic and mentions artists at conventions drawing Batman. In my opinion, the best analogy would have been John Byrne who's spent the last few years drawing and writing X-Men fanfiction (yes, it's a thing, look it up at your own peril) and no lawyer has bothered him yet. Ultimately, it's also drawn in memory of Darwyn Cooke and that's a neat thing to do. Oh, and the solution in case a legal dispute does arise is to redraw the bat guy as a Garfield themed super hero named Whiskers, so picture the below a bit differently and you got it.  Rand Brittain posted:Da-na-na-na da-na-na-na da-na-na-na da-na-na-na Esther! 
Saoshyant fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Feb 13, 2022 |
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Feb 13, 2022 14:25
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Oh dear, someone's into big, rich, bad boys:
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Feb 14, 2022 11:31
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Feb 15, 2022 11:36
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Strange Cares posted:Is there any way to still read Scary Go Round? I got on the John Allison Train around volume 4 of Giant Days and I can't figure out where to find the old comic online. They have been taken offline a long while ago. You can buy them through the Gumroad store (they are cheap) or in alternative may be available for rental from digital libraries. PS: that Gumroad thing has awful usability and you need to click the Load More button a couple of times to see everything.
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Feb 15, 2022 17:45
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Feb 16, 2022 11:21
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 John A. posted:I was very very excited about designing the British Batmobile. It’s a carbon fibre Vauxhall Astra. Practical and fuel efficient. Fits in a standard parking space unlike a bloody Chelsea tractor.
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Feb 17, 2022 11:51
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Feb 21, 2022 11:01
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Pistol_Pete posted:Has any fan ever drawn up a chart of the gigantic list of characters and how they all relate to each other? I feel something like that belongs in this thread. Likely not, but funny enough this post reminded me of John A. years ago claiming he would never write other Scary Go Round/Bobbin's stories set in the past because he couldn't recall every character, their history, relationships, etc. Things got messy to say the least. quote:I don't have an editor to straighten things out. I have a fallible human memory of nearly 5000 pages of comics, with no master document detailing the relationships between various characters. There's no wiki to keep things straight. Frequently, I can't remember minor characters' names at all. (...) Bringing back Bobbins was one of the most fundamentally idiotic things I have ever done and worst of all, I did it because the idea was funny to me.
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Feb 21, 2022 23:35
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Feb 22, 2022 11:19
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 How many villains can you identify from Esther's imagination?
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Feb 23, 2022 11:46
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:Would spatula-face be Bane? Cheese grater(?) fellow is potentially Movie Bane, yeah.
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Feb 23, 2022 14:40
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Gaz-L posted:The really confusingly meta part is I think this is when Esther worked at the comic shop in continuity. Actually, that was a later development when these three weren't living in the same house anymore. Esther was in that shared house with Ed, Dean, and a few other people. Either way, it's not like she was paying attention to anything going on in that comic shop. Gaz-L posted:Also, apparently it is canon that Gotham is in Jersey! Can you think of anywhere else as "embarrassingly lawless"?
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Feb 23, 2022 15:14
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 John A posted:I spent a long time designing that WPBSA logo. The real one looked like clip art. My new one is almost pagan in its power.
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Feb 24, 2022 11:34
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Feb 28, 2022 10:57
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 John A posted:Daisy, as regular Giant Days readers may know, is a master of the game of pool. This may have been a “sop” on my part to US audiences but then again it may not. In any case, here, undiluted by regional marketing concerns, is her snooker prowess.
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Mar 1, 2022 12:15
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Mar 2, 2022 10:24
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Mar 3, 2022 11:46
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Mar 7, 2022 04:18
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 John A posted:Bruce Wayne vs Susan is, I would say, the main event of this story. It’s the face-off that comics has been waiting for. Very much the De Niro/Pacino meeting in Michael Mann’s Heat.
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Mar 8, 2022 11:46
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 Bets on Susan having left her notebook open on purpose? John A posted:I don’t know what it says about the Dark Knight that he employs a stealthy mini-drone to scan Susan’s notes when he could just have looked at them with his eyes.
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Mar 9, 2022 11:46
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CoolCab posted:why is batman trying to be a middle aged english guy Easy explanation: Bruce Wayne is a known social chameleon, so it would be in character to assume certain British mannerisms in these circumstances.
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Mar 9, 2022 15:10
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Mar 10, 2022 12:17
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 John A posted:Sheffield’s sport paper, which came out on a Saturday afternoon after the football had finished, was really called the Green ‘Un. It ceased publication in 2013, after more than 100 years.
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Mar 14, 2022 11:12
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 John A posted:Imagine sitting down in the audience for a major event next to someone with a Garf tattoo. You might have made a friend for life.
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Mar 15, 2022 04:02
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Mar 16, 2022 11:23
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Mar 17, 2022 02:03
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Numero6 posted:Hope we'll have one crossover with Charlotte. You mean a crossover with other properties like super heroes or a crossover with other Allison-verse characters? If it's the latter, Lottie has already been in both Steeple and Giant Days.
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Mar 17, 2022 16:50
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Mar 21, 2022 01:09
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 John A posted:Batman, like many others before him, is struggling with the rules and logic of the Scary Go Round Cinematic Universe. For all his muscle and amazing tool belt, he’s not getting much purchase on 147.
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Mar 22, 2022 02:35
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 John A posted:That’s right, the grappling hook from the 1989 Batman movie. You recognised it correctly. Give yourself a pat on the back.
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Mar 23, 2022 02:43
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Mar 24, 2022 04:13
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 John A posted:Daisy has been particularly inscrutable in this story. It’s clear that she has an agenda, but she’s telling no one. It’s up to you, the reader, to extrapolate.
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Mar 28, 2022 01:20
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Mar 29, 2022 02:18
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Powerful Katrinka posted:Is that it? The drunk guy was the vandal 147? I hope there's more, this is kind of disappointing The story isn't over yet, but this should be all we'll see about 147. This is primarily a Giant Days story. They don't get more "exciting" than that. It's just a fun time of wacky stuff, word play, and the cast solving the plot in their own way. To summarize: 147 isn't just a "drunk guy". He's introduced as Kenny O'Shea, two times World Snooker Champion, who decided to revolutionize the sport by bringing in Snooker Plus rules. Except, one day he got shut down hard, all his sponsors threw him out, and he basically lost everything. Fittingly, as most Batman villains work, this is revealed to have been caused by Batman/Bruce Wayne indirectly, as one of his companies shut down the plan after Kenny had invested all his money on it. And just as Batman is doing what Batman always does -- beating up his villains and locking them up to make the problem worse -- Daisy saves Kenny by making him really, really loving drunk enough to fool Batman. She always knew who 147 was and that's been hinted throughout the story.
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Mar 29, 2022 22:49
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Mar 30, 2022 02:51
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 John A posted:I hope you’ve enjoyed this unsanctioned crossover, that broke all the rules while remaining 100% within the navigation beacons. Will Batman return? Yes he will, in the dozen or so titles that bear either his name or the name of one of his associates. Thank goodness his shoulders are broad, for they carry the expectations of at least a couple of hundred thousand faithful.
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Mar 31, 2022 02:35
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 John A posted:A new story starts on Monday, the SOLVER 2022 SPRING SPECIAL. I had a big Charlotte story worked out called The Great British Bump-Off, but I got cold feet about it. It was too long and complicated to serialise on the web, so it has been kicked into the longest available grass.
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Apr 3, 2022 18:11
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 John A posted:A new story begins! Fortified by her adventures amongst clowns and the Cornish, Charlotte Grote is back to a level of pep and vitality that we haven’t seen in several years. This surely bodes well for the coming tale.
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Apr 4, 2022 01:44
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