Grrl Power #172 – One and done
Max and Arianna have the same message but entirely different deliveries. Arianna wants people to feel safe with supers around, Max wants criminally minded supers to be afraid of Archon and her in particular. Both are saying “Hey, you’ve nothing to worry about.” Arianna is doing what she can to preempt any public fear based outcry, and Maxima is trying to play up the fear of any potential adversaries, public backlash be damned.
Oh if the minicomic doesn’t quite make sense to you, I’m sure one of the long time readers will explain it down in the comments. :)
Thank you guys for the continued donations. I’ll get a dedicated button up today, <subliminal> and remind you that if you’re going to be doing any Christmas shopping at Amazon, the referral link to the side helps out without costing you anything extra.</subliminal>. (By the way there seems to be something wrong with the recurring donation function, they all seem to immediately fail. Probably something I did wrong with the set up. I’ll have to look into that.
As a way of saying thanks for all the support, I’m going to post the next comic on Thursday, and probably another one next Thursday, but I’ll decide that by next Monday’s comic. Better to under-promise and all that. The timing of all this is fortunate, as the next few pages will probably benefit from a quicker than usual read through. Not to give anything away but some fairly important stuff happens in the next dozen or so pages, I hope you guys will enjoy it.
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…does it make me a villain if my first thought was “How would I go about defeating Maxima?”(while stroking my goatee)
Yes. But you’re not a real threat unless you have an on-demand thunder & lighting machine, or have a light over your desk that shines down on your face yet keeps your eyes hidden in the shadows of your brow. Or if you were stroking a cat who was in turn stroking your goatee, that may also count towards you being a viable threat.
well shoot, by your standards i’m an evil mastermind then :P
I got everything but the lightning machine, and my cat, while supervision cat like, he refuses to stroke my beard,
hmm if by your standards I fail at being a true supervision, I could be the front of a shadow origination who secretly has plans of his own.
my best friend has promised me that if I ever became a supervillian, he’d either be the hero or the dragon
(if you don’t know what I mean check out TV tropes, warning, will ruin your life)
Well, it’s just good tactical sense. If you’re not going to use it, you still have a better idea what to watch out for from others. However, her powerset is clearly varied and I very much doubt she has demonstrated all of it. It is extraordinarily difficult to strategize around a wildcard of that power level.
Sindri!!!! Chaos filth! Perish under my power axe! For The EMPEROR!
Giant robots, steal her dna to make clone, double agent, iron man esque suit….
Nah! It’s a perfectly understandable and natural response!
Nobody likes bullies or the threat of violence! So anytime one sees unchecked power, the natural sequelae is to consider ways of mitigation or counteraction!
I believe Archon has something to put Max down, if the need arises.
If Max knows that is another matter.
is it a guy in a spandex bat themed fursuit?
Is it a guy dress like a mixture of Cobra Commander and Carmen Sandiego?
They have Dabbler at the very least. She is implied to have fought Maxima to a draw already and has the widely varied skill set that would allow for a tailor-made response targeting whatever few weaknesses Maxima might have. You get the Batman vs. Superman setup where preparation and versitility face off against ultimate super-power (yes the personalities don’t exactly match up at all, but you get the point). Dabbler would have to get enough advanced warning to glamour herself and sneak away to set things up, but assuming she isn’t completely incompetent, I’d wager she has a better chance than any mundane countermeasure the military is likely to cook up.
Something like the Looker Gun could do it I think. Unless she had her dark glasses on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMfiXZOlJy4
(The classic weakness for Bricks is mental attacks or magic)
She was at least somewhat resistant to the lust aura Dabbler gave off, allowing her to tell her off rather than stare (but that in part might be due to repeated exposure). I’m going to assume that she is at least somewhat resistant to exotic attacks.
Easy answer. Max is a headstrong and independent person. Judging from what I have seen, it would be easy enough to create a huge rift between her and ARC(Take advantage of values dissonance). From there you don’t have to worry, because ARC and Max are both very much occupied.
Oh, sure… You expect us to believe that it was your goatee you were stroking?
hrmm… show off :D
Love the explosive energy orb graphics.
This comic has a pro finish.
have you considered earning a wage on other comics ?
(not suggesting you neglect this one)
I never have. I’ve heard working for the major publishers can be really shitty, depending on the editor you’re working with. I don’t really know that I’d want to work on something I didn’t own or control.
was that a normal strength attack?
drawing on reserves?
maxed out?
please inform us.
also can you specify if this attack falls under “energy beams” or if the maxima bio is incomplete ?
I suspect that Dave won’t tell us; a decision I’d agree with.
Though I just realized how she could be theoretically be “beaten” and by a non-powered person at that.
Though it’d be too dark in tone for this comic.
Idle speculation: If I were a villian trying to kill Maxima, my first attempt would be to try a large sealed container completely filled with molten metal (or something similar to that, perhaps molten lava for the extra exotic factor). Basically to force her to use all of her power for defense, thus leaving nothing for actually breaking out. This would eventually result in suffication. The tricky part would be trapping her fast enough.
I’m assuming that based on her character description that she needs to breathe air. Poison gas or nerve toxin would be next. But those both lack style. :-)
She still has basic super strenght even if maxing out something else. I believe DaveB said that they drain to 2star if she maxes out something else to 5
I admit I was assuming that she could transfer all of her energy to just one power. I’m not really certain how much that would change things. At any rate, I still think that it would work. Might have to budget for a thicker container though…
Supercool the molten material with liquid nitrogen immediately following immersion, similar to the Han Solo carbonite capture.
Yea SPECULATION TIEM!!
Powers that can kill Maxima:
Remote heat manipulation-this is kind of unfair-remove heat from her to the point that muscle contraction and cell metabolism cannot take place. Restore heat to individual areas to they die of frostbite and/or lack of oxygen.
Remote electricity manipulation- block brain function and screw up cel function.
Remote sodium, calcium, chlorine, or (any one of lots of other chemicals) manipulation- prevent cell function.
Ability to apply unconditional love toward the user to another person-(or anything that manipulates minds) I confess that if one can do this, one pretty much wins one-on-one with anyone.
Ability to teleport stuff-assuming Max and her extreme speed and reflexes don’t see it coming- move a part of her body away
Ability to alter the direction and speed of anything upon contact- similar. calling oneself Accelerator is optional.
Any matter conversion ability- if you have to actually make contact, then less likely to be successful.
Those wide range powers like “can manipulate x” and such, with x being: gasses, liquids,solids, stuff beginning with the letter “c,” and so on. Lots of stuff in bodies, can make a wall inside lungs to cause suffocation or just do direct internal damage.
Ability to “find” anything and have it appear in your hand-I totally got that one from somewhere else too.
Ability to inflect death.
Please note I said villian, not super villian. I was coming at this from the non-powered angle. It’s more fun that way.
As a non-super villain, your best option for defeating supers will ALWAYS be hiring/creating supervillains to do it for you. However, that’s basically just an argument of supervillain methods again, so let’s pretend that’s not allowed.
Poison is a good choice. Slipping it into her food, making her breathe it as a gas, etc. Though since she’s with a group, you have to figure it’d be hard to do this stealthily enough for nobody to notice (not to mention having to get it past all the security and scanners so that she actually ends up poisoned)
Disease is probably a better choice, since it would basically work the same way, only you have options so that if it’s found out, you aren’t necessarily caught, or even indicated as hostile.
If you could manage it when her defensive powers are “down”, a high powered sniper rifle from a far enough distance might do the trick, as long as she wasn’t aware of it.
Basically, any method that would have a chance to work would probably be based on either superpowers(or magic/technology to the same effect as superpowers) or on catching her unaware, or tricking her or forcing her hand. If you managed to get her to drown herself good for you, I guess, but trickery or forcing her hand is unlikely, since she has solid military training as well as a team backing her up- including smarter members to help her make the right decisions when faced with trickery.
So you’d either need better black ops than Arc Dark, or supers of your own.
More to the point, one needs some VERY precise intel on Max’s (or any other super’s) limitations before trying to kill them. Guess or plan wrong, and you probably WON’T get a second chance.
You may end up in the same position as numerous baddies in the old George Reeves as Superman TV episodes – shooting away just so you can watch your bullets ricochet all over the place..
Thinking now of that scene from ‘Blazing Saddles’, where the Sheriff picks up a gun before going to face Mongo – and is quickly told “Oh, don’t use a gun – you’ll only make him mad….“.
Halo: Really, you stupid $#|+? I have my force-field up and you try taking a shot at me? Just how stupid are you really? Here, let me show you how you take somebody out. [ Red orb appears in her hand. ] It’s clobbering time!
Make sure she’s the only super availlable and have her face off against a nuke?
She’d have to grab it and take it away and then she’d find out it’s superglued to her
(don’t forget the fooling timer that’s actually like more than ten seconds fast).
Or use several methods at once to slowly poison her.
Maybe one or two differently obvious ways to hide the very special way that actually does the trick.
I’m pritty sure this plasma bomb explosion is similar to a nuke, and she’s not shielded and pritty close to it already
Do Not Judge (and really do not attempt)
First, lure her to a location. – Relatives make good bait.
Second, do so when the team is busy with decoy situation. – Random bombings, poison in major metro water supplies, robberies of many store types, kidnappings, and bomb threats to government and educational grounds.
Third, prepare location. – Industrial complex with altered plumbing to rain down hydrochloric acid. Line walls and drop ceiling with extensive amounts of magnesium shavings to trigger chain reaction from white-phosphorous grenades. Liquid nitrogen from rooftop storage containers set to drain after thermal hit. Timed after nitrogen explosive rounds from 20mm Vulcan auto-cannons. Extreme volume discordant sonic barrage from multiple angels. Multiple high watt lasers from all angles adjusted to her eye, hair, skin, lip colors to burn what ever possible. Finished with a cool breeze of ricin poison.
Four, all to be remotely triggered because if she lives through that I am not explaining why I didn’t just say “please”.
Budget busted, target noticed my unfriendly overture?
Don’t forget to conceal all of those elaborate preparations.
Not just against any likely super-senses, but also against more mundane forms of detection (and, given that ARC is military-based, probably things like satellites and UAVs as well).
Looking at this, I kinda feel like that first panel without the text would make a pretty freakin’ awesome wallpaper. I guess through reading it all, I didn’t realize that Maxima was actually pretty photogenic.
What is not photogenic about a golden elf with purple hair?
Maxima on that last panel reminded me of the corinthean.
The question of course is, just WHAT did she and Syndey practice “off screen”?
But yeah, its a nice touch showing her basically melting a tank. Forget putting holes through it or kicking it like its a hackey sack. That’s a demonstration of Raw Power.
They tested if her forcefield can survive the explosion that follows the plasma bomb
I was just reading Peggy’s bio and it says she and Maxima were in injured in Iraq. What could have hurt Maxima?!
one of the supers that are no longer breathing.
Hopefully.
And even then, we wouldn’t want him/her come back.
Or… do we?…
Given everything, I suspect if that super is alive, they are probably trying to avoid ever getting Max’s attention. So I doubt we will ever see them.
Pretty sure it was likely a “you should see the other guy” exchange.
She didn’t always have those powers
So, she joined the army, was sent to Iraq, before she completed high school? Or did you forget she was still a young teen when she blasted a hole through the side of the house and singed her bratty-brothers arm?
Powers can develop over time, so she could have been a low-to-medium powered super at one point instead of a bad-ass. Though I find it more likely that it was a fight with a super of comparable power to herself.
Not as a newborn, that is right. However, we already saw her as a golden teenager, and i don´t think children are allowed to participate in iraqi wars. (At least not american ones)
I earlier speculated that she was hit by an anti-aircraft missile, which knocked her out of the sky and into a mosque (two back-stories items covered by one incident). My second scenario was her taking a tank shell to the gut, which threw her into the self-same destroyed mosque. DaveB has not said officially what is even capable of injuring Max to the point of being put in a hospital to recover, let alone what actually did it.
If she wasn’t paying attention the explosion could have atleast knocked her into the mosque without personal injury
….. Assuming her power levels at the time were comparable with what we see now.
Just a thought, but I think there might be another drawback to this blast.
If you look closely, even before it detonates, it extrudes enough heat to melt metal at a distance
Even a miss, or being near it, would be deadly.
It’s not a t a distance, it is melting into the tank (either it’s on a timer, or Maxi can remote-detonate {remo-tonate(tm)} it)
Jea, but still.
Sometimes being too strong IS a drawback. I´m pretty sure Max could never use those Particle based poweres in a populated area.
No, Look closer, the “Plasma Grenade” was far smaller than the hole it melted in, just being that close to the blast would melt steel.
If Maxima can ‘max’ out any stat, does that include WIS(wisdom)?
With all her actions weave seen her do and all the words she’s said. It certainly seems like that is the one Stat she is unable to “Max.”
If it meant losing invincibility and becoming vulnerable in order to warp her mind to become unrecognizable, maybe she just doesn’t LIKE to do it?
Max’s comments seem a bit lacking in introspection, not to mention tact. It’s like begging karma for a “Summon bigger fish” moment.
I believe her comments could be summed up more succintly as “Come get some.” :-)
Or, “You´re welcome to try”.
You could put it that way but if i was Karma I´d be sitting back in my chair now raising one eyebrow and going: “Oh really?”
Assuming that there are supervillains or other globally powerful nasties out there who happen to be suffering from an ego problem, then Maxima’s comments may well provoke them into taking action. Although the main aim of her statements are as a deterrent, bringing a major enemy out into the open would be a significant result from minimal effort.
I believe it’s most likely Come and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough
PointsCookies for whoever gets the referenceWhat, do you think she’s Nutt-y?
She is a violent Superman! O.O
No, a Super Tarkin: rule through fear of force (but have the abilities to back it up/enforce it if anyone is stupid/cocky enough to still challenge you)
Nah, she’s superman if he had some real training other then punshing people
As if your put any pages up I’ve not liked…. the only thing better so far, has been mroe then a Monday post! thanks! and faster reading as it is being created is nice too!
Wow, look at the damage… What is the EPA gonna say about that? Who’s going to fix the environment back to the pre-super-show-off condition? Meh…Well, at least it wasn’t NYC after the ‘Avengers’.
Poor NYC has suffered way more than enough over the years.
“Gotham” and “Metropolis” have had some pretty serious damage over the years.
I’m sure eccentric philanthropist Bruce Wayne has spent a lot of money on civic maintenance works, though superman tends to cause more collateral damage.
Why do you think Lex Luthor routinely literally owns like 4/5th of Metropolis?
NYC has suffered enough, could the major fights/explosions take place in Miami or Orlando this time? Possibly Chicago.
But, my favorite choice is Seattle.
Or maybe Detroit? I’ll bet the avengers and all of the other superhero-ish could have a free for all in that city and no own would really notice… The rent’s cheap there too.
Bah. Guyver had it best. And not the Chest Breaker. Although that could be incredibly funny…BNo, I’m thinking of the Shadow Guyver’s favorite attack…The Black Hole Cannon. Nothing like quantum singularity in the palms of your hands…
The Colonel acts cocky… but one bad chef (and some undercooked meat) can ruin anyone’s day. It really ruined mine this past weekend…
Also, I’m new to the comments, but I’ve been reading for a long time. And I’ve always wanted to say: your dear Sydney could easily be a great-granddaughter to a certain Fullmetal Alchemist… so many traits shared between the two characters.
So much to love about the first panel (the hair, didn’t know she had a center-parting before; the smile, the way it kinda curls on the right; the light coming from the power ball-thingy; her well-manicured hand), as others have already mentioned: that totally deserves to posterized (even t-shirted), demotivated
Panel 3 is totally screaming (to me anyway): Ozzy(ette) Osbourne!! (this also deserves to be artworked-ed, make some money off of that lovely golden elf of distruction!)
Also loving how Maxi says “We‘re more powerful.” rather than just “I‘m more powerful.”, acknowledging/stating that she is part of a team
I loved Ozzy’s WoW ad! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT8maUTzE48
She was impressed with Sydney’s powers and they are a broader range of strong and very useful powers.
Is that Pinkey or Peggy correcting Suzie’s verbal spelling? Probably Pinkey since she hasn’t made it to “Who’s Who” status yet
Suzie? Next time, use “liquidise” :D
Just had an interesting though.. Sydney can travel 400 mph+, and she, without her orbs in hand is a mere mortal…
She needs to fly with her shield on, less a errant duck wipe her out…
Bird strikes take down planes, Sydney would no chance without her shield orb
DaveB has indicated that the flight orb provides some protection for slower speed flight, although top speed would require Forb protection, as you indicate. Presumably if it protects versus wind buffetting and the like then there will be limited bird strike protection as a side effect. But you make a very valid point, as it is only minor protection. The other major hazard is power lines. Thin enough that they are easy to miss if focussing on ground-based targets, yet deadly strong and electrified to boot. As many birds of prey find out with fatal result.
Touching a single line without touching anything else wouldn’t have any effect though. The electricity has no reason to take a detour through your body and back into the cable again.
Now if you touched 2 wires, or 1 wire and the tower, or the ground, than you’d have a problem
Well, touching a single high voltage line is dangerous if you touch it uninsulated. The difference in voltage potential in 1m (due to line resistance) is sufficient to kill an human. (Which is why the workers on this kind of high voltage lines use a suit entirely covered in silver, to carry the electrical charge without it passing through their bodies)
So…mega power AND a big chest. Lina Inverse is green right now. :P
Lina has, potentially, universe destroying spells. What we’ve seen of Maxima so far isn’t nearly on that level. Mind you she’d still be green with envy about the physical traits, but that’s not exactly a difficult emotion to evoke from her.
She’d probably like Sydney though.
I’m now wondering how far down the line we see the obligatory Mind-Control or Power-Stealing story Arc, where someone takes mental control of Maxima or Steals all her Powers and the rest of the team has to neutralize Her/Him.
Already done, along with the magical transformation trap – all in issue 127
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/533
Okay so, two things. They may or may not have been mentioned before, one Sydney becomes a corporal. It says near the beginning, maxima calls Sydney corporal. Second, Sydney isn’t wearing her neck thing on the same page, has she up not put it on, or has something happened it it?
That’s in the past. Also it’s the start of the comic, so DaveB hadn’t thought up the neck thing yet
It’s the future-past, and it’s possible Sydney simply doesn’t wear the choker when she is ‘off-the-clock’
Re: Max’s love life.
The problem is first whatever Max’s sexuality there has to be a match normal human or super. Finding Max a date that isn’t the gender she’s attracted to is less than useless.
Second problem is if any hanky and or panky take place either max has to remain in complete control if the date is a mere mortal (See “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”), or the date has to be a super with high levels of damage-resistance. The first means that Max could never “let go” in a moment of ecstasy, the second means the dating pool is not going to be very deep. Shallow dating pools inevitably result in sub-optimal matches. Either way I don’t see a happy romantic future for Max.
The only solution I can see is if she is polyamorous then she can get different needs satisfied by different people without killing anyone accidentally, or feeling “stuck” with someone that can withstand her during sex but not really compatible outside the bedroom. But again, poly people are sort of like superheroes, finding one in the wild is really hard, finding enough to keep every one happy and sane when one is Max? That would be even more difficult than running ARCHON.
Achilles is pretty much it for guys. Too bad he’s kind of an idiot.
Solutions: Outercourse and adoption!
I see two candidates for Maxima’s reproductive partners: Achilles or Hiro. Of the pair, I think she respects Hiro more. Also, I think he would have a better chance dealing with a potentially bullet-proof hymen. However, both men have the same problem with regards to dating Maxima: Having a romantic relationship with a subordinate. Very no-no in the military. She is going to have to find somebody outside her chain of command.
I bet she’s gonna regret that bravado at some point in the future. An immutable rule of the universe is that there is always someone better than you out there. Best not poke the hornet’s nest and give that guy/gal ideas.
Yeah, but again, she is not talking about herself but the entire Archon team
The odds of someone/thing being better than Maxi is high but possible, someone/thing being better than everyone at Archon?
What is…
What in the world did you just throw at that tank?
So, I see panel three and all I can think of is “Holy shit, Alucard had a golden twin sister?”
as far as i know, both liquefied and liquified are correct spelling
So, I’m not that person who goes looking for grammatical errors and misspellings to point out. However, I do believe I just happened upon one you may wish to know about.
First panel, “made you feel like you’re most powerful person on Earth” should read “made you feel like you’re the most powerful person on Earth.” Again, not lookin for it, just happened to notice on my second read through.
I’m enjoying your comic very much. Keep up the great work!!
Yeah this page had a few errors on it. They’re fixed now.
Oooooohhhhh……
The mini-comic’s a reference to https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/234
Just a fluke I found that.
Oooh, I see a physics time set of questions… How much energy does it take to melt a tank? What’s the smallest mass of material that might hold that energy without vaporizing? And the trollish bit in me wants to ask: Did she induce fusion in the iron to produce the final explosion? (Last answer: No. Brownie points for knowing why).
I’d hope she didn’t induce fusion, or the press would be developing radiation poisoning in a few frames.
I think you CAN fuse iron btw. The reason stars can’t is just because it requires energy to fuse iron, instead of releasing it, so that marks the end of a star’s life. But if you add enough energy, I think you can fuse anything.
Fusing iron is an energy sink, which is why iron kills stars, but its a necessary process to get any heavier elements.
It’s an idea that’s been put forward before for how the Death Star produced enough energy to destroy a planet ‘induce fusion in the planets core’. Usually by people trolling those who don’t accept the idea that a ship, no matter how big, could destroy a plant in seconds.
I’m reasonably sure that you’d need several hundred pounds of matter to hold the heat necessary to melt a tank, but the physics is beyond me (I know it exists… Somewhere). Which would make that tank killing shot mostly energy (oh, there may be some mass in there somewhere, like say plasma-based mirrors reflecting light energy or some such….)
https://youtu.be/Gxm_qpKh7Jw?t=17s Saw that blast, instantly pictured this sound.
Did that cement truck, fart?!?!?!? o_O
As a person who has many American friends, and whom even quite likes the collected group of Americans, for all that they have many glaring faults when they act in committee . . . it is always distressing and saddening to see one of them write, and others mindlessly applaud, something like this comic.
This image you have of yourselves, as somehow arbiters of what is right or wrong, and the egotistical threat displays you fall back on ( and nothing parses the truth of a societies feelings better than humourous entertainments they like) , well, it is going to get you rubbed out one day, I think.
Her threat is not backed by any sort of International law, it amounts to mere “Might equals right” and in that game, you would have to win every time, and only a very simplistic people could fool themselves that you could guarantee to do that for many years. Plus, such an indiscriminate threat?, it makes even your friends nervous, because it looks like the behaviour of either naive children, or insane people.
I WISH my friends would grow up.
I strongly recommend you go back to comic #143 and read up to about comic #148.
ARCHON operates within the law. It’s not a case of “might equals right”, it’s a case of “breaking the law equals wrong”, and in extraordinary circumstances where standard law enforcement cannot deal with a situation, ARCHON can help.
Maxima is just reinforcing that just because somebody has super powers, doesn’t mean that they’re immune, and that nobody can stop them if they break the law.
Actually she’s threatning the people who DO think that might equals right.
She’s saying that ‘if you go supervillain, we’ll come for you’
Being a supervillain generally results in you doing illigal things
Antmac, your self-righteous little riff only proves that you haven’t read the comic.
“…That your power gives you primacy to hurt or rule over others. Well I promise you… We’re more powerful.”
Well, I just fell in love with Maxima.
NEW PROFILE PIC!
Poor tank. It got Licky fried*
*references!!!
I so love Maxima in the first panel. She both scares me and turns me on, in a good way. She’s really shaping up to be one of my favorites, though, deep down, I think I’m still a Dabbler man.
Also, this whole page, especially panel one, are extremely top notch work. Some of te best webcomic art I’ve seen ever.
Thanks!
how is max able to make the plasma bomb and partial beam?
With her super-powers (is the easy answer).
The more involved one being that she uses her personal force field (which normally protects her at an atomic level, rather than in a shell, like Sydney’s). So, whether she is aware of doing it or not, she is likely manipulating her basic blasting power using that.
Either confining it, into a narrow beam, by focussing it with the force field. Or poring the energy into a contained force field, and letting it build up, until she releases it all. Well, that is my personal take on it, anyhow.
“she uses her personal force field” should have had the following afterwards: “… to create all her other power stunts”.
This was explained in Dabbler’s Corner, on talking about the science of Maxima’s abilities.
Just puzzled – liquified and liquefied are both valid spellings, it just depends upon whether you are typing English or its American derivative.
I don’t get the joke.
That’s totally an in joke for long time readers. Early in the comic’s run I went and printed a bunch of promo-post cards for the comic to hand out at conventions, but I made them entirely in photoshop, which doesn’t have a spellcheck. I got 5000 printed (cause it was like $20 more expensive than getting 1000) and when I got the box back, someone pointed out I had rather egregiously misspelled “lawyer.” So I fixed it and got them reprinted, and someone suggested I had misspelled liquify. In fact inline spellcheck in chrome suggests “liquefy” instead of “liquify” but but since both spellings are basically considered ok, I didn’t bother with the reprint.
Here’s the original print: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/4x6W_side2.jpg
They are pronounced exactly the same. So the gag is that it would be impossible to tell how they were spelt.
Which, incidentally, is what gives us the clue that it is directed to us, the readership. Rather than being a genuine conversation which they held.