Page 45 Review by Jonathan
For and introduction to and overview of this exceptional series, please click on the cover to Volume 2. Thanks!
"Well now, you have a good day at school."
"Aw Mum, don't cry."
"Snif, I can't help it, sorry love."
"Bye then."
"Aren't you going to give your mummy a kiss?"
"But..."
"Do those boys not have mothers too? Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, my little baby boy!"
"Linton, you really ought to catch the kisses your mum is blowing. They're for you, it's only right."
Yes! John Allison's web-comic magnum opus BAD MACHINERY is being recollected in pocket-friendly, small-hands editions but in the same glorious widescreen technicolour!
If I had to name one person in comics whose art style is the very definition of illustration, I personally would immediately say John. To see his work laid out like this really is like watching an exquisitely produced animation, his linework is so consistent and the colours so eye-strainingly vibrant.
It's also clear John really does have a love for sleuthery, mysteries and general all around weirdness, as seen in his SCARY GO ROUND material, and his shorts featuring the slightly ditzy children's author and part-time detective Shelley Winters, THAT! and MURDER SHE WRITES. Fans of that last work will be delighted to learn, if they didn't know already, that Charlotte the tween sleuth is one of the six young stars of the show here, as the boys and girls of Tackleford form their very own Blyton-esque numerical investigative unit to find out who or what is behind the apparent curse on the mega-rich owner of local football club Tackleford FC. Results haven't been going well recently and the one boy who is actually bothered about football is concerned that their benevolent oligarch will up sticks and leave. I needn't add that all is not as it seems, I'm sure! It did amuse me greatly too that I didn't guess who the ultimate culprit was! I also suspect Surreal may well be John's middle name, as along with his brilliant art, this type of off-the-wall humorous fiction really has become his trademark.
John writes his stories with such apparent carefree glee and obviously understands the inner workings of the juvenile mind because, over and above the chortling, fruitloopy storylines, it's the interaction between all the kids that make this such a total hoot. It really does take me back to the more inane aspects of schoolyard humour, and the dashes of ribald cruelty too, which I had mostly forgotten about. For me John's star has been steadily rising, and I do hope, and think, this could be the work that really breaks him through to a considerably wider audience.
[Editor's note: Allison's EXPECTING TO FLY #1 of 2 went on to become our biggest-selling comic of 2015; his BOBBINS our biggest-selling comic of 2016. And it only came out that October!]
