Bad Machinery

Bad Machinery is another webcomic, one that I admit has been on my reading list for a while but didn't get around to reading until it was actually assigned. (Sad, right?) The story centers around a group of British, middle school-aged children who do middle school adventure type things, including solving mysteries! This scores big points with me, personally, because I really miss those types of stories from my childhood. As an added plus, some of these mysteries involve fantastical creatures like selkies, spirits, and aliens.

The humor is great, very British on a few levels, but also very modern--perfect for my generation. Reading from beginning to end (end meaning the most recent page), Charlotte quickly became my favorite character, boisterous and silly, quick to judge, usually smiling, and always full of ideas...mostly bad ideas. The adults, also, are full of interesting personality quirks. For example, the teacher Mr. Beckwith must remind himself that he is an adult and does his best to create a "teacherly" look for his class because that's the way school is supposed to be. His wife, meanwhile, is quite bohemian and dislikes formality when relating to children.

At first, the British slang is a little hard to get used to, but with time I learned the language. I feel like these kinds of posts are meant to go deeper into the meaning of stories, and I'm having trouble doing that with this story since it tends to be fairly surface-level humor. Not that there's not depth to it, it's just more middle schooly. Overall, this comic is extremely enjoyable, and I'd recommend it to anyone with a love of silliness.