John Allison, I think I love you.

After Allison ended his quirky horror webcomic Scary Go Round, he picked up with a successor series Bad Machinery. This is actually the second time Allison has done this (Scary Go Round itself was a successor series to Allison's earlier webcomic Bobbins). Successor series are a handy notion; you get to draw in new readers with a fresh cast of characters while reserving the right to bring back your old favorites any time you please. And plenty of Scary Go Round regulars have popped up in Bad Machinery, now the quasi-responsible adults to Bad Machinery's mystery-solving tweens.

The official Bad Machinery storyline is on hiatus for the rest of the year, but readers get to spend November and December with a new story, "Murder She Writes," starring Scary Go Round's Shelley Winters. Today, we learned the identity of Shelley's intern and de facto sidekick for the inevitable coming shenanigans: Charlotte Grote, loud-mouthed grammar schooler and possibly the best thing about Bad Machinery. Our last Bad Machinery story was dreadfully light on Lottie (like much of the cast, she spent most of the arc brainwashed), so it's grand that we'll be getting some Shelley-Lottie quality time -- with a side of murder.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to order me up a Lottie drawing as a Christmas present, I wouldn't object.

Murder She Writes [Scary Go Round]