Those arms in the lower panels belong to Shelley Winters, Erin’s older sister and Amy’s best friend. This is the closest she gets to an actual appearance in the published version of Bad Machinery. She had a single-panel appearance in the original Web version of “Severed Alliance”, but that strip was cut for the version that appears here. There were also two apocryphal storylines where she had more significant parts, but they don’t appear here.
We saw Shelley’s Maserati back on the first page of “Modern Men”, and she has a couple of tiny background cameos here and there, in pictures or on video chat on Lottie’s phone. But otherwise, she’s conspicuously absent from Bad Machinery, which is kind of weird, because she’s arguably the main character of the entire Tackleford universe, and several of the regular Bad Machinery characters, including Amy, Ryan, and Lottie, have close ties to her.
She was, as we see here, maid of honor at Amy and Ryan’s wedding, and she’s godmother to their son Walt — who was almost born in the passenger seat of her Maserati, in the New Bobbins storylines between “Forked Road” and “Modern Men”. Lottie has been her “intern” since Scary Go Round days. Back at the beginning of “Fire Inside”, what Lottie didn’t tell the others was that she wrote “Energy Crow” while on a writer’s retreat with Shelley, where she also solved an actual murder (in the side story “Murder She Writes”).
Shauna, on the other hand, holds a grudge against Shelley, due to the events of “The Estate”, where she and Lottie first appeared.
Shelley was at this time very pregnant, and there was a long New Bobbins storyline, “Hard Yards”, that ran parallel to the last several Bad Machinery cases, that covered the term of Shelley’s pregnancy and various shenanigans revolving around her and it. Basically everybody was involved, including the mystery kids, and Claire got promoted to full mystery girl.
Also, that’s Len Pickering, Amy’s father, in the middle panel of the bottom row. We met Len briefly at Kropotkin’s party way back in “The Case of the Team Spirit”. He was greyer-haired and beardier then.
Back in Bobbins, Len was editor of a Tackleford events magazine called City Limit, and most of the main Bobbins cast worked for him, including Shelley. Amy worked as receptionist at City Limit, after being exiled from London to Tackleford by her mother, which is where she and Shelley met.
I don’t think we ever got to hear Ryan’s side of the wedding story. Right back at the beginning of Team Spirit, he got as far as “well my girlfriend and I got married you know and—” before Bough interrupted him. (May 15, 2020)
John Campbell 16 days ago
Those arms in the lower panels belong to Shelley Winters, Erin’s older sister and Amy’s best friend. This is the closest she gets to an actual appearance in the published version of Bad Machinery. She had a single-panel appearance in the original Web version of “Severed Alliance”, but that strip was cut for the version that appears here. There were also two apocryphal storylines where she had more significant parts, but they don’t appear here.
We saw Shelley’s Maserati back on the first page of “Modern Men”, and she has a couple of tiny background cameos here and there, in pictures or on video chat on Lottie’s phone. But otherwise, she’s conspicuously absent from Bad Machinery, which is kind of weird, because she’s arguably the main character of the entire Tackleford universe, and several of the regular Bad Machinery characters, including Amy, Ryan, and Lottie, have close ties to her.
She was, as we see here, maid of honor at Amy and Ryan’s wedding, and she’s godmother to their son Walt — who was almost born in the passenger seat of her Maserati, in the New Bobbins storylines between “Forked Road” and “Modern Men”. Lottie has been her “intern” since Scary Go Round days. Back at the beginning of “Fire Inside”, what Lottie didn’t tell the others was that she wrote “Energy Crow” while on a writer’s retreat with Shelley, where she also solved an actual murder (in the side story “Murder She Writes”).
Shauna, on the other hand, holds a grudge against Shelley, due to the events of “The Estate”, where she and Lottie first appeared.
Shelley was at this time very pregnant, and there was a long New Bobbins storyline, “Hard Yards”, that ran parallel to the last several Bad Machinery cases, that covered the term of Shelley’s pregnancy and various shenanigans revolving around her and it. Basically everybody was involved, including the mystery kids, and Claire got promoted to full mystery girl.
John Campbell 16 days ago
Also, that’s Len Pickering, Amy’s father, in the middle panel of the bottom row. We met Len briefly at Kropotkin’s party way back in “The Case of the Team Spirit”. He was greyer-haired and beardier then.
Back in Bobbins, Len was editor of a Tackleford events magazine called City Limit, and most of the main Bobbins cast worked for him, including Shelley. Amy worked as receptionist at City Limit, after being exiled from London to Tackleford by her mother, which is where she and Shelley met.
Mr. Organization 16 days ago
That’s a great maid of honor. Well done!
66steve 16 days ago
Once again, thank you so much Mr. John Campbell.You reignite my memories of the stories with your wikipaedic knowledge.
And so much better to read than f00ls whipping dead tired tropes.
66steve 16 days ago
“TAKE HER MAIDENHEAD!” Is one of the most Shelley quotes of all of the Bobbinsverse.
Whatever happened to common sense? 16 days ago
Amy is a bad influence. Shauna should stay away from her.
Rob Brewer 16 days ago
I don’t think we ever got to hear Ryan’s side of the wedding story. Right back at the beginning of Team Spirit, he got as far as “well my girlfriend and I got married you know and—” before Bough interrupted him. (May 15, 2020)
6turtle9 16 days ago
Well, at least Shelley didn’t cross the threshold with them; so there’s that.