Born in a hidden village deep within the British Alps, John Allison came into this world a respectable baby with style and taste. Having been exposed to American comics at an early age, he spent decades honing his keen mind and his massive body in order to burn out this colonial cultural infection. One of the longest continuously publishing independent web-based cartoonists, John has plied his trade since the late nineties moving from Bobbins to Scary Go Round to Bad Machinery, developing the deeply weird world of Tackleford long after many of his fellow artists were ground into dust and bones by Time Itself. He has only once shed a single tear, but you only meet Sergio Aragon's for the first time once. John resides in Letchworth Garden City, England, and is known to his fellow villagers only as He Who Has Conquered.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED) - Allison is a triple threat: he plots
deftly, draws confidently, and writes dead-on adolescent dialogue.
Set in a grammar school in a British working-class community, this
first book in his Bad Machinery series--originally published as a
webcomic--has three earnest boys wing against three sharp-tongued
girls to solve mysteries. The framing story concerns a Russian
owner of a U.K. football (soccer) team trying to bully an elderly
homeowner to sell her house; as the title hints, supernatural
elements surface, too. There's plenty of cynical commentary about
British consumer culture, and the students' sardonic banter
provides a constant obbligato. About her mother's boyfriend's
Velvet Underground albums, Shauna yawns, "It's nice that you gave
some money to people just playing music for the first time."
Allison's adults are sympathetically drawn, too--even the
archvillain has a human side. A wry glossary "defines" British
terms ("Nuffink: The way you say 'nothing' if you were dragged up
rather than brought up"), but can't begin to illuminate the arcane
mysteries of the British football-industrial complex; readers are
on their own there. Dark, fast-paced, and riotously funny
entertainment. Ages 10-up. (Mar.)
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