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Re: the Steeple print issues: Issue 3 was the one with the "mini-rapture". Actually involved a Christian themed renewable energy group that had opened a wind farm in the area. It involved both the Satanists and the Christians teaming up to stop it, the Christians because of the potential unintended consequences of the whole "mini-rapture" and the Satanists because the wind turbines were designed to look like crosses. Issue 5, the last print issue, was the one with Billie and Maggie changing allegiances. In Billie's case it's because of a hexed vacuum cleaner. More specifically, when Mrs. Clovis took the Dyson vacuum cleaner to the "hipster witches" to repair it, they put a spell on it to make the next person who used it question their beliefs intending Clovis to be the target. When Billie used it to clean it caused her crisis of faith which led to her joining the Satanists. Thus none of the cast, including Billie herself, knows why she joined the Church of Satan.
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Jul 8, 2023 19:41
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I think the character description on the Steeple page sums up Billies "bad" actions prior to the comic nicely:quote:Billie is an optimistic, positive, and slightly naïve young woman. She really believes that she has been called to do good, but such has been her single-minded pursuit of this position since childhood, that she has never stopped to question whether she might have made the right decision. There is also the question of all the bad things she “accidentally” did while doing good. After a brief spell as a Church of England curate, she joined the Church of Satan. As Doomykins mentions, it's not that Billie seeks to do bad things, it's just that in the process of doing good she A) might end up doing morally questionable actions for good goals and/or B) not think about any possible unintended consequences of her goals.
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Jul 11, 2023 00:36
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So my Giant Days Library Edition arrived today. Wanted to show off and felt that this would be the best thread to do so; Big Box!   Bonus items: The Quotable Giant Days, printed Circus Windows comic, & Giant Days "Student ID Cards"!  
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Aug 21, 2023 02:32
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Rand Brittain posted:I guess this version doesn't have the strip where Rachel murders Will with her devil powers, presumably in order to explain why he never appears again. Yeah, here are the corresponding pages from the collected edition Skellington:    The collected edition also doesn't have the pages with Shelley telling Amy about the "dreams" she had in her "coma" or the one with Natalie and the demon-horse-thing.
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Dec 6, 2023 21:24
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Kazinsal posted:
The comics with Shelley and Amy in Cuba were part of Allison's Scareodeleria comics, which ran co-currently with Scary-Go-Round during the first few years, roughly from 2003 to 2005. The main point of Scareodeleria was a way for Allison to practice his pen-and-paper drawing skills while he was working on Scary-Go-Round, so he only drew about 40 pages worth of material. I think I got all of the pages via the Wayback Machine / Internet Archive, so I might post the story with Shelley and Amy in Cuba here (I also posted some of the comic in the Newspaper Comic thread while there was a break in Steeple). If you are interested I can DM a link to the full Scareodeleria collection.
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Dec 7, 2023 05:37
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So here are the Scareodeleria comics that feature Shelley and Amy on their trip to Cuba. There are 14 pages in total so I'll probably post two or three a day. Scareodeleria July 19/20, 2004  
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Dec 7, 2023 19:34
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Scareodeleria July 21-22, 2004 
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Dec 9, 2023 01:52
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Scareodeleria July 23/26, 2004 
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Dec 9, 2023 23:55
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Scareodeleria July 27-28, 2004, possible foreshadowing of Shelley's career as an author of children's picture books.  Also from John Allison's Instagram  John Allison posted:Sketch for unused 2023 story “Dead and Breakfast”
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Dec 11, 2023 00:04
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Scareodeleria July 29/30, 2004 in which we finally see the "Space Owl". Do you think Allison has a case against Duolingo for plagiarism?  Also again from Allison's Instagram.  quote:There's an awful rumour around here that the follow up to KIT + THE WOLF is going to be a Conan the Barbarian comic called CONAN AND THE BLOOD EGG featuring some of your favourite characters in new and baffling Cimmerian roles. Chances of this happening: currently >88%.
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Dec 12, 2023 00:05
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Scareodeleria August 2/5, 2004 
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Dec 12, 2023 22:42
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Scareodeleria November 15-16, 2004 (It looks like Allison took a few months before finishing this story) 
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Dec 14, 2023 00:01
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Rand Brittain posted:On review, I think the biggest problem I had with Steeple is that the supernatural elements seem to be so real and pervasive that it's weird that the characters aren't taking them more seriously. To be fair, having supernatural / paranormal elements and or threats that the general populace ignores is par the course for most of Allison's comics. The characters who are directly involved seem to take it in stride and don't want to involve outsiders, while anyone not involved thinks that the various monsters and such are just urban legends. In Steeple 5 when Maggie sees the Mermen attack the rectory, she says that she always thought they were just fairy stories, even though she had been a trainee priestess in the Church of Satan and had to have seen some preternatural things herself. The whole scenario reminds me of The Venture Bros, where you have a level of super-heroics and villainy that the general public never hears about, and those involved don't think to ask for help from mundane services (as Rusty Venture says in one episode about his arch-nemesis The Monarch "If I knew you call the police on them I would have done it years ago!"). And yes, I do have a Bad Machinery / Venture Bros fan-fiction story, if only in my head. The_Other fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Dec 15, 2023 |
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Dec 15, 2023 05:16
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Some more pictures from John Allison's Instagram: "Fishmansplaining"  Claire and a torch.  Concept sketch of Primrose from The Great British Bump Off Allison drew for Max Sarin.  Apparently it's an Isley Brothers song. Also here's a link to my collection of Allison's original Bobbins and Scareodeleria comics. Password is TheOther
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Dec 18, 2023 00:45
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Nice detail of having Lorraine hiding behind a chair in the last panel there.
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Dec 20, 2023 03:07
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So at first glance I thought they were just patterns in the bushes, but comments on the Steeple website suggest that there might be mermen hiding in the third panel.
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Dec 21, 2023 14:07
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I wonder if John Campbell is also the Jim Campbell who was the letterer for the first 5 issues of Steeple?
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Jan 5, 2024 00:38
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cptn_dr posted:A friend of mine has just binged on every volume of Giant Days, and now wants to read Bad Machinery. Our local library doesn't have all the printed Bad Machinery and also she's confined to her apartment thanks to COVID for the next week, so what's the best way to read it digitally these days? Bonus points if it includes the New Bobbins stories mentioned just upthread, but it probably won't ruin her experience if she misses them. If your friend has access to Hoopla I know the Bad Machinery series is available there in it's collected edition form. If she wants to buy the series it's also available digitally via amazon. As for New Bobbins, Allison took down the site that was hosting them, but they are available for purchase on his Gumroad store in four volumes, each costing 1 GBP ($1.27). Of course both comics can be accessed via the Wayback Machine / Internet Archive, but that can be slow to do.
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Jan 5, 2024 21:50
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Here's the rest of the poem, from New Bobbins:  cptn_dr posted:Thanks!  forgot about GoComics, even though it should have been obvious. Allison actually as a series of links to the start of the various Bad Machinery cases on his Scary Go Round index site. Saoshyant posted:"Jim" is short for "James", right? But that fellow may be John James Campbell. Or it may all just be a coincidence. Here's a picture from his instagram, spoiler'd just in case. 
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Jan 6, 2024 01:58
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amigolupus posted:Did the church get closed down offscreen because that old bat tattled on them to the Cardinal? Because I still say that Billie being hexed into joining the Church of Satan, getting out of it, feeling remorse for her actions and trying to atone for it would totally appeal to the Cardinal's Christian values. We don't know what exactly happened with Billie in-between the end of Maggie's Party and the beginning of this story. It will probably be revealed in this story. I guessing that even if the Cardinal did approve of Billie's actions, the membership of the church in Tredregyn might decreased to the point that it no longer makes sense to keep it open. Thus Billie is trying to gain converts in order to open it again.
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Jan 8, 2024 18:29
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Kazinsal posted:Scary Go Round (February 17-21, 2005) I remember reading on one of Allison's websites (it might have been his tumblr) that one of the reasons Erin kept getting Charlotte's name wrong in Bad Machinery was a sort of petty revenge for Sarah's bullying of Erin in Scary Go Round.
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Jan 19, 2024 02:05
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Kazinsal posted:Scary Go Round (April 11-13, 2005) Allison also did some pen-and-paper versions of these strips under the Scareodeleria label:   
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Feb 1, 2024 04:38
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Kazinsal posted:Scary Go Round (April 14-18, 2005) Again, Allison also did these pages in Scareoderlia:  
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Feb 2, 2024 17:51
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I wonder who Billie and Maggie see in the shop. Bob Crowley is an old Bobbinsverse character who appeared in several Scary-Go-Round stories, but he's never shown up in Steeple. I figure either a) Maggie and/or Billie had some sort of unpleasant altercation with Crowley "off-panel", or b) the store is only named after Crowley and someone else is inside, either Maggie's father or the hipster witches.
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Feb 7, 2024 03:47
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So Allison posted a corrected version of today's Steeple comic.John Allison posted:EDIT: For some reason I wrote “CROWLEY” not “WARREN” on the shop. None of my friends who see the comic early, or indeed the Patreon readers, spotted this and pointed it out! Bob Crowley is an old character from Scary Go Round. What a prize I am. This has now been corrected.
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Feb 7, 2024 16:56
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Sesh Gremlin in the back there There's also one of the witches from Steeple 4 in the lower corner: 
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Feb 12, 2024 00:42
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Yeah, so, drat. While I knew this was going to be the last Steeple story, I figured since Allison was setting up all these plot threads he might later revisit the characters under a different title. Instead he just took a chainsaw to the threads he set up. I mean, look at what he's done to the cast: Clovis is in jail awaiting trial for murder. Tom has been rendered impotent (literally), just as the rectory has been closed, a hollow victory. He might also be one of the two fatalities mentioned in third panel. If Tom wasn't killed by Brian, it's possible that Billie and Maggie tried to stop him and they were the fatalities instead. Brian has now killed two people and seriously injured several others, most of who were probably his friends and coworkers. Even when he was part of the Church of Satan, while Brian had a wild side, he was never malevolent and would feel guilty if he hurt anyone. Even if you argue that he couldn't be blamed because of his lycanthropy, I think that would only compound the guilt in his eyes. The Hipster Witches have gotten off scot-free. Finally, Penrose has a “happy” ending with Shelley, but he thinks his presence in Tredregyn was inconsequential, when in fact he was crucial in stopping the town from going to hell. Furthermore if he finds out what Shelley has been keeping from him he will have to deal with that as well. I know I'm probably overthinking this, since these are fictional characters who belong to Allison, so he can write the stories he wants about them. Still, over the years I've grown fond of them and it sucks to see their story end like this. I'm reminded about the original ending to Kevin Smith's Clerks, where Dante is killed by a random robber, and how he changed it after protests from his friends who had read the script. I wish something similar had happened here.
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Feb 15, 2024 00:34
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Kazinsal posted:The Shelley-Tim dating arc is so deep into the general Allisonverse lore I wouldn't know where to place it in the timeline. So, here's some SGR instead, because that's my role in this poo poo. Tim and Shelley didn't really start "dating" (more like Tim moved in with Shelley after his wife kicked him out and he bounced around Tackleford for a while) in New Bobbins, a strip that ran concurrently with Bad Machinery but focused on the adults of Tackleford, such as Ryan and a twenty-something Eustace Boyce (who was working with Mildred's father at the university). At the end of the series, Tim proposed to Shelley and it seemed like she accepted, but after that who knows? Obviously it didn't work out, and I think in various online posts Allison hinted that Tim might have blown himself up somehow. The New Bobbins comics are available on Allison's Gumroad store.
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Feb 15, 2024 19:29
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From Allison's Instagram
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Feb 21, 2024 04:39
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Saoshyant posted:Conan A bit late, but check out the detail of "Tom's" silhouette in the second panel.
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Feb 27, 2024 06:11
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From Allison's Instagram
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Feb 28, 2024 17:10
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Allison's Instagram John Allison posted:There’s been a lot of talk recently about a SAVAGE SWORD OF SUSAN aka “THE GIANT DAY” recently but I cannot comment upon it.
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Mar 10, 2024 23:06
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More of Allison's "The Giant Day"... John Allison posted:Astir of Koth
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Mar 12, 2024 00:07
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Kazinsal posted:Scary Go Round (October 10-12, 2005) Some early-installment weirdness with the school being named "St. Fleur's" and not Griswald's. Also Derek looks like a prototype for George Bough.
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Mar 14, 2024 18:28
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Gaz-L posted:I can't remember, didn't she leave the bank (or whatever finance adjacent thing it was)in the final issue? At the end of Giant Days Esther ends up working for the company that published Shelley's Tibkins books. According to Allison Esther later gets a job at the Ministry of History, taking over the position Shelley left. Esther was actually going to be the star of Destroy History: NEMS Part 2 before Allison scrapped it.
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Apr 2, 2024 18:39
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Kazinsal posted:Scary Go Round (January 13-17, 2005) Some more early storytelling weirdness, since this is the first and only time Esther mentions having a sibling and in all other comics she is an only child. Also, from Allison's instagram:   quote:If Solver is to return, I need new stories. In the past I have found that characters write themselves after a while, but I've never proactively tried to use this to drive the creative process. So in a first for comics, I'm just letting them get on with it. Here we see Little Claire's various notions to get the franchise back on the road. All very promising.
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Apr 5, 2024 02:21
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From Allison's Instagram quote:A sleeping giant. SOLVER will return! Also on Allison Patron he posted about some other comic properties he would like to work on; She-Hulk Death's Head II Superman Spitfire and the Troubleshooters Machine Man
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Apr 7, 2024 01:12
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Allison's Instagram: quote:Conan pt 2 is up on my Patreon at midnight tonight. Chief Shailey was a big hit in part 1 but alas you’ll have to wait for part 3 for her star turn.
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Apr 8, 2024 22:52
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Allison's Instagram: quote:Unused panel (from abandoned project ‘Yoga She Writes’) UPDATE: Just saw this on the Forward Slash Scare website. Relevant due to recent discussion re: Allison & his business/readership: quote:I’ve been asked a lot recently about signed books, so we’ve added Steeple volumes 1-3 to Topatoco – they all come with signed bookplates at no extra charge. Get them here! The_Other fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 23:46
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JA's Instagram (are people getting sick of me posting his stuff here?) quote:What… exactly… is SAVAGE SWORD OF SUSAN? The_Other fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Apr 12, 2024 02:05
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