Grrl Power #1278 – Alpha sucker punch
In reality, I don’t actually know how much of a speed advantage the smaller guy has in a fight. Overall mass is probably more of a factor. A chonky 5′ fighter vs a 6′ 4″ lanky dude? I suppose fighting style is a factor as well.
The thing is, given the square cube law, there’s probably more of a difference between a 5′ 10″ lean muscled guy and a bunch of beefcakes topping 7′ than there is between a 5′ and 6′ fighter, so speed could actually become a significant factor at some point.
Drawing this page taught me a few things, 1) Drawing a shitload of speedlines isn’t necessarily faster than drawing proper backgrounds. 2) That for as long as I’ve been doing this comic, I’m still not very good at drawing action scenes. There’s a lot more of an art to speed lines than I really appreciate until I start trying to lay them in. I think the ones on this page are too… thick? Dense? 3) Flipping through One-Punch Man for action scene references will make anyone feel inadequate about their ability to draw action scenes. The fact that there are dedicated background artists and there’s probably a guy just for speed lines and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a guy whose job is just drawing rubble doesn’t change the fact that I want my action scenes to look better. I recognize there’s another huge difference between my comic and something like OPM, in that shonen type manga tend to put out roughly two pages a day. At that rate, they can spend 8 pages on one guy sword slashing another dude to bits, where if I tried that the scene would take a month. That doesn’t mean I can’t still do a cool action set piece, but in practical terms it probably means my action scenes will be a little more terse.
That said, I’m going to try and improve my action skills over the next few pages, though I am limited by the fact that no one is going to chop a city block in half during this fight, or shatter the entire base, or do anything that would register above an 8.5 on the Richter Scale.
Oh, and I think this will be explained a few pages in, but they decided to go full contact because between the med-bay on Cora’s ship and Doc Chevy, anything short of a torn brain or a missing eyeball can be fixed up in fairly short order.
The new one is almost ready! Just have to finish up some clothes so… soon?
The new vote incentive is up!
Oh no! Superheroines in a deathtrap! Well… a tickle trap. Okay, not trapped, trapped, but… look, three of the girls are getting tickled. Actually, in a way, seven girls are getting tickled since the other four Harems will feel this as well, but technically it’s only the three shown in the picture since Harem insists there’s only one of her – it’s just confusing since she can be in 5 places at once.
As you can probably imagine, Patreon shows what happens if they laugh, and also has a comic revealing who is behind this nefarious situation.
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This should be good. Cora’s crew learning Maxima wasn’t joking when she explained to Sydney that “trying to differentiate between his abilities and someone with actual super powers is a futile exercise”.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-97-this-is-the-martial-artists-version-of-pulling-on-her-pigtails/
to be fair i consider one punch man to be the absolute pinacle of action in comic/manga form, i dont think i have ever seen a series that can depict movement with still images the way one punch man does so everyone would feel inadequate next to that
a recommendation i can give on the art as someone who has studied Murata’s style is to not use that many speed lines on the background, use them on the body parts that are moving, draw the background regularly and just add some speed lines and blur to it but the hands and feet need to be more distorted and have thicker speed lines to show the speed of the movement
dont fear making the limbs disappear or having it just being speed lines or having them just being seen like a blur
some fights from the manga i recomend for martial arts fights is definetly any that involves Garou or Bang, garou vs death gatling’s group and then Garou vs Genos are two excelent examples, Garou vs Royal ripper and bug god is another as is Garou vs darkshine
monster Garou vs Bang is also amazing, i also recommend Suiryu vs monster Choze is another one of the great ones in my opinion, i usually use those when im practicing drawing fight scenes with more martial arts moves
I think a good alternative take for this page would have been to cut out the “In the world of kung fu..” panel, and gone with “There’s only three of you!” at the end.
*Axe Gang Theme Song Playing*
Maybe we can finally find out why Math has a “power 3 energy blast” skill on his about page. Can he fire Hadokens or something?
I always figured he had something akin to the Breaking Point technique from Ranma. Can hit something with enough precise force that it’s just as effective as if an actual projectile or energy blast had hit it.
https://ranma.fandom.com/wiki/Bakusai_Tenketsu
The energy blast icon denotes a ranged attack. Enhanced melee attacks would be the fist icon, which Math has 5 stars in.
I myself am more partial to Kachū Tenshin Amaguriken, the “taking roasting chestnuts out of the fire” technique. And since Math goes for speed, I would guess, he would aggree.
That’s a rather Joukyuu Kunitoshi face Math is sporting in the last panel.
So, in real life, speed isn’t much of a factor in making up a size difference. It can make a difference when it comes to two fighters of the same size, but if the two fighters are at a significant size difference, the bigger person gets an advantage in bulk, power, and reach. A speed difference at normal human levels is never going to be enough to make up for that. Not only because the faster fighter won’t be THAT much faster, but also because the faster fighter would still have normal human levels of stamina too. Meaning… They won’t REMAIN fast. They’ll slow down from all that bobbing and weaving tiring them out, and as soon as the bigger fighter is able to catch them, they will go down in only a couple solid hits.
If you’re really really fast, your best bet is to use that speed to just plain run away rather than actually fight someone who is bigger than you.
True. But this is Math who has literally been described using the phrase “trying to differentiate between his abilities and someone with actual super powers is a futile exercise”.
“normal human levels” rarely, if ever applies to anything regarding Math.
Well yeah, in the comic they have superhuman speed so speed advantage can actually lead to the whole “zipping behind you and hitting your weak spot” thing. I was commenting on the topic brought up in the commentary where they mentioned they don’t know how much a difference speed makes in real life.
I was going to type something like this myself. As a larger person myself, and as someone who got into a fair deal of fights, size matters a lot. Like more-than-people-think a lot. Theres a lot of math involved, but the gist is that a bigger body can produce more force than a smaller one. That force can be delivered (via fist/foot/etc) at a far more efficient manner that anything smaller. Given that a non-super (boring) human is roughly equal with everyone else in terms of force generation, that gap that a larger person can produce, ends up being HUGE.
Same thing works on the receiving end. A smaller person wont hit as hard as the larger one, and to make maters worse for the smaller one, the larger one has more mater to distribute the force though. In video game terms its like reducing your opponents damage, while buffing your defense. And its always on if they are smaller than you.
So to sum it up, a larger person has a permanent buff that makes them hit harder vs smaller opponents as well as debuffing their defense thats always active.
Okay, but that implies Math can register BELOW 8 on the Richter scale. It’s a good thing the base has extreme dampeners built in.
well there WAS that one scene from The Expendables where Jet Lee and Dolf Lundgren square off…speed vs mass
I know in _Game of Death_ (1978), Bruce Lee (5’8″) fought against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (7’2″). Lee, of course, won that fight (the script said so :-) ). Still, it might be a good reference for that kind of fight (it’s been too long since I’ve seen it).
So, it’s mostly pop culture and rock-paper-scissors video game ideology that implies speed beats power, but there is actually something to be said for speed, but obliquely. See, speed implies mastery.
Training for speed in and of itself does nothing but just makes you sloppy, but faster. And tired. When you train, you train slowly, with an emphasis on technique. You train with weights, to build muscle, and resistance, to train resilience in your body. Speed is a natural consequence of this. Technique ALWAYS comes first. It’s not just moving fast, but moving ACCURATELY and with keen bodily and spatial awareness. Your processing of situations and decision-making in combat get faster the more you train, which also brings speed. You get to know your body, you get to know how others move their bodies, you start to learn how to get the most effect out of the least motion so you save your stamina while the other person tuckers themselves out. You start to use one of the superpowers of the human brain — pattern recognition — to recognize others’ movements and react to them almost instinctively. It’s like your brain goes “oh, we’ve been in this situation before, so I can just initiate this subroutine and free up processing power for any variations or other things coming our way, I got you, body!” It’s really surprising how subconscious a lot of positioning becomes. :D
Other folks have brought up the reach, weight, and power advantages a larger fighter has. That’s not to say a smaller, faster fighter can’t triumph. They just need to be smart about it. Know how to estimate their range vs. their opponent’s, find blind spots, use their knowledge of bodily mechanics to their advantage. And most importantly? They need to exercise their speedy superpower; their ability to PICK THEIR FIGHTS. Knowing when to cut and run is absolutely a survival trait. X3 Hopefully this makes sense!
TL;DR — “speed is king” not because of speed itself, but because of all the training and mastery you’ve done to EARN that speed. It’s as much about brain speed as it is about bodily speed, and recognizing patterns in yourself and others quickly.
you are right that mass slows a fighter down, and strength only matters if you land a blow, or catch your opponent. The real advantage Cora’s men have is reach; limb length matters more in a fight than physical strength. Skill can beat reach, but you need a lot more skill to beat reach than you do to beat strength, everything else equal. Of course Math is a named central character, and Cora’s men are meerly talented mercenaries, not supers, so Math might get hit once or twice for story, but he’s going to clean the room unless they are so much more durable that Math’s blows have no effect. I like that Math studued their bioscans for vulnerable spots before the fight, though.
You need a certain mass (muscles) to gain speed. The main reason why many bodybuilders are slow is, because their sport does not incentivise training for speed. Try to find just one slow heavyweight boxer.
So Math has good taste in martial arts films. I like him.. a bit more.
Good trick – forcing him to bend over backwards means he has to relax his abdomen, which means that his torso is now the weakest he can be.
Then he used the inertia of his kick to rotate his body once more, wind up and put everything into a haymaker to the gut.
It’s most likely a knock out/disabling hit, but one that will leave him in an exposed position against the other three.
On the other hand, he now broke the encirclement and has a way to retreat from attacks.
Math being the fastest is not always a good thing *wink wink*
First: Jack Kirby.
Second: yes the speed lines are too thick, but that doesn’t matter. However, I would suggest using the secondary, background lines to add to the direction of flow of the action more.
I mean…. If action scenes are your problem I suggest looking at God of Highschool. Its nothing but martial arts combat and supernatural shenanigans.
Yes Kung Fu Hustle is the bomb
It’s speed, stamina and endurance that determines the winner in any kind of fight. If they can’t hit you, they can’t hurt you. How long you can fight at that kind of speed will determine if you can outlast their endurance. If you don’t have the stamina to outpace their endurance you better hope you have enough yourself for any kind of hits they throw your way once you start slowing down because you are tired.
There are rules in the gym, criminals don’t follow any of them and it’s a lot different from sparring for fun when you know that if you lose you probably aren’t getting up again. If you have to go to court for ‘excess force’ at least you got to go, better than having your sidearm used to kill a bunch of innocents when the bad guy takes it. That farce with the 6’7″ cracked up thug in the US was a political farce that should have been thrown out of court within the first five minutes, not the one that was supposedly held down by pressing on his neck when the Officer’s pantleg wasn’t even creased , but the one that tried to take an Officers weapon and got shot for his troubles. You get paid to protect society, not act as a punching bag for everyone with a bad temper.
When it comes to conveying speed in comics, I always think about the motorball part of Battle Angel Alita by Kishiro. And when it comes to fight choreography, Deunan’s fight against several dudes from book four of Appleseed near the end of the story is the winner through the decades.
Another thing about speed: how long does the depicted action take and how long does it take to say something? Both have to match if showing speed is the goal.
For some reason the orange guy looks like a Gumby version of the Hulk to me.
In my experience with armed martial arts – wherein it can be assumed that any reasonable blow will either be debilitating (getting cut even a little bit sucks) or ineffective (because armour works) – speed is the most important thing by far. Strength only matters in that it affects your ability to move the weapon quickly.
However, *reach* is an important component of speed. Let us not forget that speed is *distance* over time. Having a longer reach means the distance you need to travel is smaller and thus, functionally, your strike is faster.
Bigger people tend to have longer arms. Stronger people can move a heavier and/or more awkward weapon faster. So a big, strong person can hold a longer weapon at the end of their longer arms and have several inches reach advantage. As a 5’9 person, using a sword proportionate to my frame, sparring against a 6’3 person holding a sword proportionate to their frame, I was usually at a 6″ reach disadvantage, and that is *very* hard to overcome.
Or, in short, there’s a reason “a good big person will beat a good small person every time” is a maxim. Assuming similar skill level, size wins.
People frequently forget that with strength also comes power, and assume all muscle is slow because body-builders.
Body-builders don’t train to fight, but anyone can tell you that a big, strong man trained to fight and moving a longsword around like a willow wand is HILARIOUSLY dangerous. Weight classes exist for reasons.
i rarely comment, but i just wanted to say i found the speed lines interesting and engaging. i understand not loving an attempt, but i did find this to be an effective way to visually demonstrate the shift to a much faster frame-of-reference than normal.
I’d suggest looking at JJK for simple fight scene help as well.
… as long as you are within the same weight class. Obviously.
“The stronger swordsman does not necessarily win. It is speed! Speed of hand! Speed of mind.” -Priest, Count of Monte Cristo
Honestly y’all, I’m surprised no one’s said this already. I thought we were all nerds.
When trying to draw for speed, Carmine Infantino often adjusted the panel boxes on the page to make it look more like speed, rather than worrying about speed lines (which he did as well). Still, you do create a feeling of speed and motion with the kick “spikes” in the panels. Great work.