Bad Machinery Vol. 1 The Case of the Team Spirit, Pocket Edition
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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.)<br /><br />
The Case of the Team Spirit introduces readers to Jack, Linton, Sonny, Shauna, Charlotte, and Mildred: six kids navigating the treacherous waters of school and adolescence while also exploring the strange mysteries that abound in their peculiar English town of Tackleford.
Jack, Linton, and Sonny look for cures to their football club's unexplainable woes, while Shauna, Charlotte, and Mildred try to find a way for compassion and justice to triumph in the face of die-hard sports fanaticism. But all of them should probably be more concerned with keeping on the good side of their history teacher, Mr. Bough. That is, if he has a good side...