Scary Go Round

""You can't be arrested for things that are too weird for there to be laws about!""

John Allison's followup to Bobbins, using most of the same characters and the same setting - only this time around Tackleford isn't just a charmingly eccentric British village, but one overrun with mad scientists, Satan worshippers, robots, elves, minotaurs and devil bears. The locals either fail to notice the madness, or take it all in their stride.

The lead is once again Shelley Winters - no, not the redoubtable Oscar-winning actress but the cute, ever-chipper redheaded sometimes-reporter who has an insatiable drive to investigate odd goings-on, to restore justice and order where she senses it is lacking, and apparently to die gruesome, though temporary, deaths. It also features Amy Chilton, Shelley's merrily self-involved co-adventurer; the misfortune-laden but unflappable Ryan Beckwith; Tim Jones, brilliant inventor and accidental mayor; sassy goth girl Esther De Groot and her naive boyfriend The Boy; Fallon Young, sexy spy of questionable competence; Rachel Dukakis-Monteforte, bitchy college student turned Satan's minion; and Raffles, the Gentleman Thief.

After a little over seven years, the comic finally came to an end on September 11, 2009, with a new series called Bad Machinery (link) following on the 21st; it takes place three years after SGR's ending.

Shelly Winters still crops up on Allison's blog and around the site, where she appears to be an actress whom Allison pays to star in his comics. It's all a little confusing.

You can read it right through this link.

"Shelley: Mr Devil, sir, in the last few months I have been strangled to death, buried, re-animated, kidnapped, was made to wear a tight goth-girl corset by my so-called friends and had to eat a lot of salt."
 * Action Girl: Fallon Young, secret agent for some British government agency, and more interested in "the ass-kicking and running around" than the reasons behind her missions.
 * Affably Evil: The League Of Enemies towards Shelley (who isn't the enemy in question), especially Dr Petrescu. Though a Card-Carrying Villain, he makes new glasses for Shelley and seems heartbroken when she escapes.
 * Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Amy's rather weak poetry becomes very popular with the inhabitants of Another Dimension.
 * All Love Is Unrequited: Initially, Amy had a secret crush on Tim and Ryan; Ryan had a kind of platonic love for Shelley. The Boy is introduced having a huge crush on Amy. (Well, he's only human.) Erin nurses a crush on The Boy, . Ryan admits to "an abiding love" for two girls "that we can never speak of", almost certainly Amy and Shelley.
 * All Just a Dream: A couple of particularly unusual tales run for a few comics before turning out to be dreams or flights of fancy by Shelley.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Satan arrives to claim Ryan's soul for bringing Shelley Back from the Dead!
 * Another Dimension: The weird alien world that Tessa and Rachel go to, to rescue Amy.
 * Arc Words: "Things are going to change."
 * Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:

"Shelly: But what would you do in a word-based emergency? Des: Like what? Shelley: Eviction notice. Death warrant. Valuable coupon that expires today."
 * Explaining to Des Fishman why he should learn to read:

"Ryan: I never looked directly at Fallon due to feelings of manly inadequacy, is all. Like she would see my weaknesses and report them to Lady Central."
 * Art Evolution: A gradual improvement and a shift from Adobe Illustrator to hand-drawn.
 * Ascended Extra: Esther. First appearing as part of the gang that thumped Amy for chatting the band they liked, she went on to be one of the core protagonists.
 * The real exemplar is Esther's friend Sarah Grote, who really just hung about in Ester's orbit until chapter 47, when she suddenly moved up to the front to cause the events of that chapter and go on to date Ryan.
 * Arguably Ryan as well, who went from a pretty minor character in Bobbins to one of the mains in its sequel.
 * As You Know: Rachel sums up the previous chapter to Tessa (who was there with her) for the benefit of readers who just joined.
 * Atlantis: Desmond Fishman suddenly thinks he came from Alantis (He's a Fish Person, it might make sense), drawing Shelley and Amy into an adventure to find it.
 * Back from the Dead: Shelley, more than once. This is partially because of her pleasing existence.
 * Betty and Veronica: Erin Winters (Betty) and Dark Esther (Veronica) for The Boy.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: Not in the comic, but now that SGR has ended, Shelley seems to have jumped over it and lives on in sketches and banners on the site, promoting SGR collections, bothering her creator to work harder and appearing in sketch-comics on his blog, where she makes a nuisance of herself while John tries to work on Bad Machinery.
 * Britain Is Only London: Entirely averted, by virtue of the author living elsewhere. Tackleford is in Yorkshire, which is Oop North. Adventures to elsewhere are set in foreign or mythical locations like Romania, Christmas Island, New York or Atlantis. The only story set the capital involves Time Travel to Victorian London.
 * B-Side Comics: Occasional side comic Scareodelia, which also featured the SGR cast, but is now defunct. (The lack of a link of the main page suggests that it's either Old Shame or a secret.)
 * Buffy-Speak: Shelly and Ryan especially, but the cast in general have some very unique ways of phrasing things.
 * Butt Monkey: Poor Carrot just can't seem to catch a break.
 * Call Back: "Abductions" has quite a storm of callbacks. The League Of Enemies comprises  way back in chapter two,   in chapter six, and   from the previous chapter. Their plan involves unleashing   in chapter 4. Also, Shelley calls on
 * Card-Carrying Villain: The League Of Enemies, who describe themselves as evil. Amid their island lair, Gibbous Moon says she's an "evil intern".
 * Casanova Wannabe: Paul Milford thinks very highly of himself despite his lack of results. And subtlety.
 * Casual Danger Dialogue: There's always time for bantering Buffy-Speak, even as something terrible bears down on the characters, or as they run away from it.
 * Celebrity Power: One of Shelley's ideas for rescuing Des from his hosts was "Enlist Bjork!" Why Bjork? Who knows?
 * Character Blog: Shelley had a Twitter for a while, (described in mock-outrage by John Allison as "the greatest betrayal of my professional career") but it was later deleted when people started sending her messages, because her creator was unnerved by the idea of replying in-character, as if roleplaying as Shelley.
 * Clark Kenting: A wig and different clothes makes Fallon completely unidentifiable to Ryan. Though to be fair to him, she is a secret agent, so maybe she's trained in disguise, and even if not:

"Well, this what you get for weeks of acting like a jerk-face jerk, Shelley. Kidnapped into space by space aliens."
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Shelly most of the time, and Ryan has his moments too.
 * Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Amy is happy to be a star poet in the alien world in "Dimensionality", and isn't at all happy that Tessa and Rachel have come to take her back home.
 * Continuity Cavalcade: This strip for the tenth anniversary of Bobbins and SGR. The second panel has a wealth of minor characters in the background.
 * Council Estate: The Swarbrick Estate, where Des ends up when he runs away and we meet Shauna Wickle, later a main character in Bad Machinery.
 * Crashing Dreams: The Boy has two, the first where he's about to referee the female cast in a game of beach volleyball, and another where's woken by Elodie, goes back to sleep and incorporates her shouting at him to wake up again.
 * Crazy Cat Lady: Erin believes her big sister Shelley will go this way.
 * Crossover: Never as the actual focus of the comic, but sometimes characters from other webcomics turn up in the background.
 * Cult: The Satan-worshipping nuns in gas masks and the Church of Wayne.
 * Cue the Flying Pigs
 * Deal with the Devil:
 * Demoted to Extra: When the focus shifts to Shelley, Ryan, Tim and (later) Amy and Fallon, original protagonists Tessa and Rachel are just serving them beer in the pub and chatting to them in epilogues.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: A few examples, such as this one from Shelley:

"Milford: Normally, I'd suggest we go and watch. But I wouldn't want either of us to spontaneously combust."
 * Description Cut: After Shelley escapes another unlikely death, Ryan tells her she's lucky "the universe isn't keeping score". Actually, it is, but the being who manages Earth has a soft spot for Shelley and her "pleasing existence."
 * Rachel is dragging Amy back to the interdimensional portal from an alien world and says of her partner: "If I know Tessa like I think I do, she'll have spotted my ruse and be getting things ready in the forest to take us home." Meanwhile, Tessa is...steaming drunk and chatting up a giant beetle.
 * Devil in Disguise: It is revealed that  is actually the devil rather than the figure that the comic had presented as such.
 * Did Not Do the Research: Bats do not eat acorns. Mind you, SGR's world is weird enough that might do so do there.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: Go to the start of the comic if you're more familiar with the later ones - or Bad Machinery, or the description at the top of the page - and between the early Adobe Illustrator art and completely different character focus, you might wonder if you're reading the same comic.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: The biker gang have no problem with doing drive-by shootings on people who crossed them, but they're very upset about being led to shoot the wrong person.
 * Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Boy, and his parents The Father and The Mother. In a slight subversion (or just an eventual Retcon), it is revealed that The Boy's real name is . After that, his parents get names too.
 * Everyone Looks Sexier If French: Elodie
 * Everything's Deader with Zombies: Shelley is resurrected as a zombie after dying. At first, she's silent and seems hollow, but her personality returns over time, until she fights the inevitable zombie urges to eat brains.
 * Everything's Worse with Bears: And even worse than that with Devil Bears, a recurring menace in the SGR-world even in Britain, which in reality has long since exterminated anything more unwelcome than horses.
 * Face Heel Turn: Several characters, most unexpectedly Most obviously, Rachel, which is particularly remarkable because she starts the comic as the central protagonist.
 * Famous-Named Foreigner: All Russians as we know are writers of blistering brilliance and anarchist prince revolutionaries
 * Fetch Quest: In the "waiting room" between life and heaven, Leppo says he will tell Shelley the way back to Earth if she gets his false teeth back.
 * Fictional Document: Occasionally, there's a newspaper article written by (or featuring) Shelley, one of Esther and Sarah's (and later Shauna and Lottie's) zines, and others such as the tabloid magazine story where Ella Wickle claimed that Des was her son.
 * Finagle's Law: Governs much of the stories.
 * Fish People: Desmond Fish-Man.
 * Fully-Absorbed Finale: Inversion! The final chapter serves basically as Fully Absorbed Pilot for Bad Machinery. See also Poorly-Disguised Pilot.
 * Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: Hulked-out Erin and Big Lindsay go to settle their differences:

"Shelley: There were a series of unfortunate events. I have decided to think local and stop acting global at all costs."
 * Good Bad Girl: Shelley, occasionally.
 * Gosh Darn It to Heck: This evolves over the series: the characters curse when provoked, but usually in creative and non-profane ways, sometimes using the word "tupping" in place of f-bombs. (It's an archaic word that means the same thing.) There's the occasional light swearing ("She's alive! She's alive and talking bollocks!") but any serious swearing is covered by censor bars until late on. Even then, the print versions still cover it up, and it's mostly exclusive to Amy.
 * Goth: Esther (mostly a Perky Goth). Tim and Ryan dress zombie-Shelley in goth clothing so her undead pallor doesn't attract attention.
 * Graduate From the Story: In the last chapter, the school-going characters (Esther, The Boy, Sarah, et al) finish school and leave for university, or start work. Shelley also leaves Tackleford for a job in London.
 * Gratuitous French: Mimi, and Elodie when she was the same age, is/was obsessed with The Smurfs. We see them both talking about Smurfs in French, but using the English name for the little blue guys, rather than the original (Belgian) French Schtroumpfs.
 * Green Eyed Red Head: Shelley Winters, of course.
 * The Grim Reaper: Natalie Durand takes the gig after she dies.
 * Hand Wave: Shelley goes to America, gets a job at The New Yorker magazine with her US counterpart Shelby Winner, and is gone for a few months. So why is she back in Tackleford?

"Ryan: I...can't make out the numbers too good. Shelley: [serious face] I see."
 * And that is all the explanation we ever get. Shelley makes few of these over time, brushing off questions about why she doesn't call on Tim or Fallon in "Super Crisis Quests" and glossing over how she travelled back to Britain from Portugal without any identification.
 * Heel Face Turn: Gibbous Moon
 * Here We Go Again: Shelley teaches Des to read, encouraging him with means both fair and devious, then discovers a similar shortfall:

"Erin: Don't stare at me Oggy! Everyone's staring at me! Oggy: Um, I'm no expert, Erin. But you look kind of like a honey trap alien queen sent to enslave the male race and put eggs in us...and most of us would be willing to let the eggs thing slide."
 * Heroes Want Redheads: Subverted; The Boy has stayed with Esther despite the affections of two different redheads, Erin and Elodie.
 * Hey, You: The Boy.
 * Hot Amazon: Erin, when she returns to school after drinking the growth formula.

"Shelley: I'm training a crow to dance and we've, like, got no chance at the regional championships if I don't finish making his tiny tap shoes."
 * I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: Shelley trips out on the hallucinogenic qualities of jam-tasting.
 * I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Shelley seeks a flimsy excuse for not socialising with the lodging house's other undead residents:

"Shauna: Microsoff Word is sposed to be the worst! Lottie: There's a paperclip what tells you how to be bad."
 * Informed Flaw: Fallon and others say that she's terrible at her spy work, but for the times she mentions it - "The Russian itinerants...I told them in no uncertain terms that a nuclear warhead is not a toy"; "Ex-CIA man? Hooks for hands? I'll be there in half an hour" - she clearly came back with both herself and the world alive and unharmed. Her mission to Romania with Tim argues otherwise, as her plan seems to be "go dancing and drinking and play Scrabble", but she's still alive and being sent on missions.
 * Intrepid Reporter: On and off, both Rachel (initially), who had to revive the student newspaper to avoid being kicked out of college, and later Shelley at the Tackleford Cormorant.
 * I Would Say If I Could Say
 * It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Tim's time travel teapot (try saying that three times fast).
 * Karma Houdini: Poh, in-canon. Even Esther is helpless before his dickishness. Until he's
 * Lampshade Hanging: Tim's girlfriend Riley points out that the time-travel teapot makes no sense whatsoever, and that The Boy's name can't really be "The Boy". She gets no answers, because in the first place the teapot does work, and in the second her half-dressed form has rendered The Boy incoherent.
 * Land of My Fathers and Their Sheep: Wales gets quite a few mentions, from Tessa and Rachel deciding they should flee to Swansea and adopt new identities and later ending up there on their slide into evil, to Tim leaving for exile there and Esther and The Boy going there to meet him (it's raining heavily for most of their time there, but that's Wales for you.)
 * Lesbian Space Vampire: Abducted by a Flying Saucer, Shelley wonders what kind of alien has abducted her, between The Greys ("with their probing ways") Reptilians planning to conquer the galaxy, or "Space Vampires of Planet Saphhus X" ("You have a...pleasing form, Earth creature.")
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: First Tessa and Rachel, and a few secondary characters. Then Ryan, Shelley, Tim and Amy join the cast with Fallon Young joins shortly after. The next major group is the schoolkids - The Boy, Esther, Sarah, Milford, Carrot, etc. - and towards the end there's the nascent Bad Machinery characters too. Then there's recurring characters who show up for a storyline and then go Out of Focus again, like Hugo, Gibbous Moon, or Natalie Durand, and minor characters like Hamilton Percy who pop up only occasionally. When salty old seadog Ernest first appears, there's a note beside the comic reading "I keep creating new characters. I just can't stop."
 * Louis Cypher:
 * Mad Scientist: Tim Jones occasionally, Dai Davies generally, Dr. Petrescu totally.
 * A Man Is Not a Virgin: Kinda. After The Boy sleeps with Esther he becomes a Man! (or rather The Man) and uses this to construct a boat. Unfortunately he uses up all his manhood doing this and reverts to "callow youth".
 * The Merch: Among other things, Ryan's expression "Tupping liberty" was put on a t-shirt, and The Boy's "Wales Is OK" t-shirt was Defictionalised. There's a whole store of books, t-shirts, prints, tea towels and tote bags keeping John Allison in tea-bags on the SGR/Bad Machinery site.
 * New Media Are Evil: As canny media-savvy kids, Shauna and Lottie blame their misbehaviour on computer games:

"Amy: What about the man whose brains Shelley ate? Tim: By some Million-to-One Chance, she ate the 90% of the brain that none of us ever uses."
 * 90% of Your Brain: Zombie Shelley succumbs to the urge to eat brains, but fortunately:

"Shelley: Oh, Des. What have I done? Des: No, that was me. The food in the green room was very rich."
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: Repeatedly averted - Shelley's mention of the Government is illustrated with Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown and Boris Johnson. (An earlier mention involved masks of Tony Blair and George W. Bush.) The President of France in the SGR-verse is... Nicolas Sarkozy, the current real life President of France!
 * Desmond Fishman's favourite cartoon show stars Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and then Canadian opposition leader Stéphane Dion.
 * Ella Wickle and Shelley appear on The Jeremy Kyle Show (His script reads "Grimace Shout Grimace".) Amy explains the show to her more genteel employee.
 * In New York, Shelley has a starstruck crush on Malcolm Gladwell, best known as author of The Tipping Point.
 * Played Straight: The father of Poh aka The Child is an Expy of Michael Jackson. Unfortunately during the run of a story arc with him in a more prominent role, the real Michael passed away.
 * Not Actually the Ultimate Question: Inverted.

"Amy: I haven't been this surprised since I discovered...something desperately unsurprising."
 * Nuns Are Spooky: The Little Sisters of Belial. Especially since they're also Gas Mask Mooks.
 * Oh Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us: In this scene, Shelley encounters obsessive fans of herself. It gets quite awkward, especially when the guy named Harry starts to read out loud Purple Prose Shelley-fanfiction. (It sounds ambiguously erotic and involves Magic: The Gathering...) Shelley later comments that she has "looked terror square in its single, milky eye!"
 * Impressively, though the Fanfic excerpt is only about twenty-five words long, it hits the notes of Purple Prose, Hotter and Sexier, and Fan Service.
 * Out of Focus: There's always at least two different groups active - Tessa and Rachel; Shelly, Amy and/or Ryan, often with Fallon; The Boy, Esther and Sarah - plus others, so some of them lose the limelight for a while. Fallon and Tim seem particularly prone to this.
 * Perky Goth: Esther
 * Planet Eris
 * Poorly-Disguised Pilot: More like Well Disguised Pilot! The final chapter serves basically as Chapter -1 for Bad Machinery. See also Fully-Absorbed Finale.
 * Put on a Bus: Given this comic, it's safe to assume that this has happened to Tim (though he does show up later to drive the girls home from their Atlantis misadventures.) Also Shelley in the end, when she leaves for London and a job at the Ministry Of History. Probably so that she didn't weigh into Bad Machinery. (This was originally intended to set up the next comic Destroy History, where Shelley would roam through time causing and fixing trouble, but by then, Allison decided to retire Shelley instead.)
 * In a more meta example, John Allison has stated that Desmond Fishman and Carrot are retired from his comics.
 * Put on a Bus to Hell: One of the most literal examples possible,.
 * When Rachel and Tessa return from a long absence, they're, who eventually throw off Rachel's bossing them around by
 * Pygmalion Plot: Sort of - In the later chapter "Chilton Takes Charge". Amy finds finds that Ryan's recent poor luck with women has led him to become a depressed drunk with an uncontrolled beard, and she knocks him back into shape and rebuilds his love-life. Three years after the end of SGR (just before Bad Machinery), they got married.
 * Really Gets Around: Amy, though it's really an Informed Attribute until "Man-o-War".
 * Recurring Extra: Rachel's childhood fear, the Krakkagar - man-sized beetles with black carapaces and red eyes, who sometimes appear in the background without explanation. Also the green fairies, some of whom move up to speaking parts.
 * Redheaded Hero: Shelley, and she has Green Eyes too. She's not really "fiery" though (unless she's really riled up) - that's more Amy or Fallon.
 * Retcon: When Esther and The Boy leave for their respective universities, she tells him "Oxford and Cambridge aren't too far apart". Later the names of the universities were blacked out, presumably so it won't limit the options of where they're going.
 * Ret-Gone: After  the people who had known her forgot about her existence.
 * Robo Ship: Envoys from Robotania, whose interests include communism and getting it on with metropolitan buses.
 * Ruritania: Parodied with Robotania, where the warbots were sent to live after the fall of the Soviet Union.
 * Sanity Slippage: Zombie-Shelley's internal dialogue as she fights her urge to eat people's brains.
 * Satan
 * Scenery Censor: Thank heavens for that clock.
 * Screening the Call:
 * Sexy Discretion Shot: Shelley is seduced by a secret agent (Not Fallon.)
 * Shaped Like Itself:

"Some people (on the internet) have written to me to say that they think today's comic is some sort of cuss to Questionable Content. With all the war in the world and the complexities of VAT on my mind, I have no time for that sort of thing. For those of you writing prac. crit. essays, it's a deeper sideswipe at the word-haemorrhaging quasi-OC/Dawsons spiel of the self-interested post-teen. Discuss."
 * She's All Grown Up: Elodie, subverted and just as quickly un-subverted by the sleight-of-hand with Mimi in this strip.
 * Also Erin, who is portrayed as attractive but not necessarily stunning, but after
 * Shout-Out: Amy challenges Shelley's rosy view of Britain's economy by telling her to look out the window. Outside is Hogath's Gin Lane.
 * A friendly jab at Questionable Content. A note beside the comic says it's not a Take That - at least, not to QC:

"Esther: Caring comes natural to me. Call me...the queen of hearts. Sarah: Give me your drink. That calls for a spit-take."
 * Another here with a display of famous robots including QCs Pintsize.
 * The toys in the charity shop include Pintsize (again), Penny Arcade's Fruit Fucker, Skull Panda from Sam and Fuzzy, and a mask of Jeffrey Rowland from Overcompensating (which John Allison occasionally appears in).
 * Amid the council staff dressed as Transformers, Robotania's ambassador "Red Robot" is borrowed from Diesel Sweeties.
 * Having quit British Intelligence and been declared a loose cannon, where did Fallon end up for a few chapters? The Village, of course.
 * Amy's familiar-looking "Love Clinic".
 * "There was nothing he couldn't explain with mashed potato!" The mashed potato is in the shape of Devil's Mountain.
 * Spit Take: Invoked:

"Amy: If you don't have a job, you watch Jeremy Kyle! Once more than one generation of your family hasn't had a job, you're allowed to go on and get shouted at."
 * The chief of police does one when Tim reassures him that logic and sense will prevail...then tells him they're looking for a zombie. (With the town being such a Weirdness Magnet, you think he'd be used to it.)
 * Spy Catsuit: Fallon Young, sometimes even when she's not on the job.
 * Stylistic Suck: Shauna and Lottie's newsletter shows they have a good grasp of desktop publishing, but not of English language and grammar.
 * Sudden Videogame Moment: Occasionally someone will get a little "+10" beside them when they win an argument, or a stream of here during sex. When a trio of Goth girls threaten Amy for chatting up their favourite band, Fighting Game-style health bars appear in the panel (also making it clear that Amy's about to take a beating.)
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: During his weird phase, Tim sent Shelley a blueprint labelled : "(In no way a) Doomsday Device - Please look after this for me."
 * Take That: This strip has Shelly winning a large stuffed doll that looks suspiciously like Jar Jar Binks. The very next strip has Shelly and Ryan lighting the doll on fire and tossing it off a bridge while holding an unrelated conversation.
 * The Jeremy Kyle Show is scorned when Shelley, Des and his "adopted" mother appear on it.

"The Boy: I think the portal just got changed from blow to suck. A subtle, cosmic pun on our situation, best enjoyed from a distance."
 * Chapter 22, The Election contains many a thinly-veiled swipe at the Conservative Party, most notably that blue-ribboned corporate candidate Bentley Quorn apparantly represents the "Evil Party".
 * Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Esther, the eldritch princess of Tackleford.
 * That Makes Me Feel Angry: "I'M FURIOUS. WHITE HOT FURY."
 * They Would Cut You Up: When Desmond Fishman runs away, Amy and Shelley don't report him missing for fear of this.
 * This Is Gonna Suck: Developments at a portal to Hell, at the climax to "Super Crisis Quests":

"Esther: Did we ever find out exactly what's wrong with Mr. Manuel?"
 * Time Machine: Tim's travel teapot Tim's travel teapot Tim's travel teapot.
 * Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Ryan eulogises Shelley this way after the first time she dies.
 * Totem Pole Trench:In this strip, two goblins disguise themselves as a human teacher, using this method.

"Fallon: You don't choose action! Action chooses you!"
 * Undead Tax Exemption: Notably averted. As a zombie, Shelley has trouble getting a job because she's legally dead. Presumably, it's sorted out later.
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Many things happen in Tackleford that you'd think people would be more worried about, or that you'd expect to be seen as more important than they are. Just as a particularly obvious example, Fallon accidently opens a window to feudal Japan and spends the next few nights fighting off attacks by ninjas. It's not the start of a story about Japan or the ninjas; just a reason why Shelley and Amy move out.
 * Weirdness Magnet: Tackleford in general. To varying degrees, Tim, Ryan, Fallon and Amy, and Shelley very much so.

"Shelley: Where unicorns prance and the river of dreams flows? Amy: You're thinking of the Heroin Lake and the Gun Tree."
 * We Need a Distraction: Multiple times.
 * What Did I Do Last Night??: Making bizarre and sinister plans is only a taster; getting in hock to the town's chip-shop owners is worrying.
 * Wrong Side of the Tracks: The Swarbrick Estate from the penultimate chapter:

"Amy: Copper Edge is nice. They rob you, then shoot you so you don't feel bad."
 * Copper Edge, where Shelley lodges as a zombie.


 * Yandere: Riley is quite jealous of other ladies who get close to Tim, and

Giant Days is a Spin-Off of SGR that follows Esther de Groot to university, and provides examples of:

"Alpha Bitch #1: Susan Ptolemy, 19, "a dangerous loose cannon who plays outside the rules." Alpha Bitch #2: Bleugh, is that from her Facebook? Alpha Bitch #3: No, it's quote from the Chief Inspector of Northamptonshire Constabulary. Alpha Bitch #2: "'...but, she gets the job done', he added reluctantly.""
 * Accidental Pervert: Ed Gemmell "And you're cupping something that doesn't belong to you."
 * Alpha Bitch: The Girl Posse who drag Esther off to the uni bar. She doesn't exactly take to them.
 * Answer Cut: Susan is not happy that someone woke her up "playing Enya at 6:45. ENYA." Daisy says nothing...standing in front of her Enya poster.
 * Awesome McCoolname: Susan Ptolemy?
 * Cowboy Cop/Private Detective: Susan Ptolemy, apparently. It seems she's a cross between Nancy Drew and Phillip Marlowe:

"Ed: Oh Christ. Everything is so SCANTY. Can't concentrate... Bag, Ed. UNDER BED. FIGHT THIS."
 * Did I Just Say That Out Loud??: Daisy realises she did, but she didn't mean to.
 * Does Not Understand Sarcasm: Daisy.
 * Discreet Drink Disposal: Esther in this strip, presumably in order not to be as sloshed as the other girls.
 * Distracted by the Sexy: Entrusted to retrieve a bag from "the secret world of women" - Esther's room - Ed struggles to keep body and mind together amid Esther's carelessly discarded clothes:

"Daisy: Nita What."
 * Establishing Character Moment: "Hi, hi, Susan Ptolemy. And I've not slept IN A WEEK."
 * Fan Service: (Of the non-sexy kind.) Invoked, at least, when this cover describes Giant Days as "The return of Esther that you very politely requested."
 * Evil Gloating: "We've got about twenty seconds before they come out of exposition mode!"
 * Flat What:

"Anna: Head girls are a special breed! Naturally selected over seven years along strict Darwinian lines! Nita: DESTINED TO RULE!"
 * The Ingenue: Daisy, home-schooled in a small village and ignorant of the ways of the world.
 * Lipstick and Load Montage: FIF! BLUST! ZIIIIIP! "One hour, thirty one minutes! A new record!"
 * Private Eye Monologue: Susan's internal narration.
 * Punched Across the Room: BIFF! KICK! BOPP!
 * Rule of Cool: Esther's gloves fall right onto her hands. This makes sense in the comic's world.
 * Serious Business: "Join the head girls' guild or DIE, Esther!"
 * Shout-Out: "Esther de Groot: ... Wouldn't join a club that would have her as a member."
 * The Social Darwinist:

"Alpha Bitch #1: You see, to be head girl of a prestigious English school..."
 * Spin-Off: What Dark Esther from SGR did when she went to university.
 * A Touch of Class, Ethnicity, and Religion: The Girl Posse that Esther meets assume that since she's not so privileged, and northern to boot, her boyfriend must have a load of tattoos, piercings and a drug habit.
 * Wham! Line: The best kind.