The Great British Bump-Off #4: The Final Bake

From the day it was first announced, The Great British Bump-Off promised readers a pairing as perfect as coffee and chocolate: The Great British Bake-Off and cozy murder mysteries. Bump-Off is every bit as cozy and charming as Bake-Off–and as funny as Bake-Off before Mel and Sue left. It’s sadly less successful on the “whodunnit” front. Some key ingredients are there–like the comic’s intrepid amateur sleuth Shauna–but Bump-Off skimps on other important ingredients like clues. A good whodunnit gives the audience enough clues to feel clever with the clever detective if they solve it or to otherwise feel the writer has fairly outsmarted them. Because there are so few clues, Bump-Off’s finale doesn’t feel as satisfying as it otherwise might. 

That said, Bump-Off is still plenty of fun from start to finish. Both writer John Allison and artist Max Sarin are comedically gifted, creating the perfect cocktail of over-the-top cartooning and witty writing. It’s hard to stop smiling and laughing while reading. Although the comic’s vast cast of characters has been created as archetypal GBBO contestants/judges, Allison, Sarin, and colorist Sammy Borras manage to make every one of them delightfully distinct. The economical use of complex backgrounds also helps keep the focus squarely on the characters. Take, for example, Bump-Off’s skeletal and seemingly immortal version of Fanny Craddock (a staple of pre-Bake-Off cooking shows), who is drawn so menacingly that it becomes funny. Borras’ non-traditional color choices throughout the series, like making cartoon sounds and smells both bubblegum pink, perfectly fit the comic’s playful tone. Although Bump-Off may struggle as a mystery, there’s no denying it’s still a delight.