Grrl Power #21 – I can tell you what’s not in there. The truth.
So hey looks like plot might be getting out of neutral here. Just a little but it’s something anyway. I should probably say, if you haven’t checked out the cast page yet, and you don’t want to know the answer until it’s revealed in the comic… well, stay away from the cast page. It’s mostly information about characters that haven’t even shown up yet anyway.And in any case it’s not like you couldn’t make a fairly educated guess after reading this page anyway, at least put you in the ballpark. That’s the problem with spectator omniscience, is that you’re given such a limited slice of the characters’ lives that any line of dialogue or any character they meet has that added significance so very little can actually be surprising. “Who ever could the traitor on board the Enterprise be in Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country? Maybe it’s the only new officer introduced at the beginning of the film?” Well durr, but they still have to burn half an hour of the movie while the crew tries to figure it out.
On another note, I think the funniest answer to “What’s in the poster tube?” has to be “It’s full of posters!” especially when it’s clear you’re making shit up on the spot anyway. I mean, besides being hugely unimaginitive, why would she be carrying them around with her day after day, like what, she forgot to put them up when she got home, for however many weeks or months it’s been, so hey, why not take them back to work and carry them around for no reason?
———
By the way, what do you guys think of the Who’s Who block next to the comic? It’s a snippet of code (provided by Frumph, although integrated in to the latest version of ComicPress I believe) that reads the tags for each comic and populates the block with the appropriate bios, at least that’s how it works after I modified it’s behavior a little with some creative CSS. I did that because I know that I personally have trouble remembering other comics’ characters sometimes, especially if they don’t update often or if there’s a large cast. Also if the artist has a very uniform style for his characters or they change their appearance a lot. I mean, I love El Goonish Shive, but when any of his large cast of characters can show up with any hat, hairstyle, outfit and, let’s face it, gender, sometimes just hearing their name isn’t always enough to get the right wheels turning in my creaky grey matter. So the Who’s Who block is my solution to that problem, hopefully it will be useful as my cast grows.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
“‘Who ever could the traitor on board the Enterprise be in Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country? Maybe it’s the only new officer introduced at the beginning of the film?’ Well durr, but they still have to burn half an hour of the movie while the crew tries to figure it out.”
The traitor was originally supposed to be Saavik (from Star Trek II, III, and IV) which would have made it a little less obvious.
Yeah that would have been incredible actually, but Kirsty Alley didn’t want to reprise the role and for some reason they didn’t want to go back to the actress who played Saavik in Star Trek 3.
I do believe there’s a reason for that, although I don’t remember exactly what it was.
Leonard Nimoy commented on it in his book “I am Spock”, I believe. Very much worth reading, by the way, if you’d like a behind-the-scenes point of view of the series and movies.
Oh, btw, nice work on the comic so far, looking forward to more ;)
Just imagine someone carrying around an empty poster tube in order to creep people out…
I just wanna know…is that little bald spot on the back of Joel’s head intentional? And if so, does HE know about it?
Maybe, maybe not.SPOILERS And btw that last one turns out to be true
Ha! i love Syd’s shirt inthe last panel , and Leonis I’ll field that questin for you yes he is acutely aware of the thinning hair on the back of his head and ever y moring he prays its not really there but to his eventual dis may he finds out it is then has to live with the knowledge that he’s going to a shop that he co own with syd and is going to here about in great detail how as a last ditch effort in order to combat global warming they are going to joel’s shinny bald spot to deflect the suns rays before they reach earth but lauching him and all the bald or slightly bald people up in to orbit and installthem into a giant mirror like apparatis in order to delect the rays.
Nice thinking, girl! I think he totally believed ya! ;)
And just randomly saying, but Maxima/Halo for a GL super couple sounds interesting….Just….y’know, saying….
The last 2 panels proves me wrong about her being a flat chest girl.
She hides them well though.
Any way the poster thing reminds me of the TV show called Kong fu so I did not think much if any thing of it.
She’s actually wearing a Power Girl shirt. On the front of the store I put posters with heroes logos on them and I realized most female heroes don’t have their own logo. I guess it’s cause most comic book artists would rather use that space to draw something else in the case where they’re not sporting some guy’s logo like Batgirl or Supergirl, so I thought it’d be funny to put Power Girl‘s “logo” on one of the posters, then I thought it’d be funny to have Syd wearing that same logo on a shirt since it seems that her whole wardrobe was purchased from her own store anyway.
Oh I see know.
I never thought of Power Girl having a logo. I lust thought of her a really really cute blond in white spandex tights with a cutaway to show off her epic cleavage. I had to do a double take and a quick doublecheck of the previous panels to realize that Sydney was not so endowed with what the shirt was showing.
It’s certainly not her official logo, but I’d be surprised if I was the first person to use the contents of her keyhole top as a pseudo logo for her.
I thought it was more obvious since she isn’t “comic book endowed” in the first place, and also it’s a different skin tone, but that’s probably one of those things thats obvious to me since I was the one picking colors from the palette.
What logo is showing in the shirt she wears all the time? The one with the yellow rainbow.
It’s sort of a simplified Wonder Woman logo, though the W’s on her bustier… thing that she wears changes all the time. Again, there’s another example of a prominent superheroine (possibly the most prominent one) who doesn’t actually have a set logo. You can pretty much assume that a gold W or double W design is supposed to be her symbol, but it’s not like there’s a single, solid logo that’s absolutely hers like with Superman. Actually off the top of my head I can’t think of any superheroines that have logos. I’m sure there are tons of obscure ones out there, but all the recognizable symbols belong to guy heroes.
Oh I should have guessed that. You are right about the logo though though.
Star Sapphire, perhaps..? Okay, not really a super -heroine-, admittedly…
Okay, I love that and really want that shirt (I’m a trans girl with no chest)…
Oh and my thoughts on the profiles. I like them and yes I read elgoonish shive as well and have gotten confused on who is who and had to read back a few pages. Happens with other comics as well.
Reacently Dan has had to get a bit more creative since we now have a guy named Ellen in the cast.
That is, If he actualy lives till Friday that is. He’s pissed off Chearledra .
I adore that little profile feature on the edge. More. More creativity. MORE.
Muahahahaha… Grow… Grow, comic. GROW AND ENTERTAIN ME.
Also, Cleavage shirt is hilarious.
Um? … :s
wooooow she has a lot of excuses, and of course when she finally told the truth he did not believe her. *snicker*
I really enjoy your comic, just wish it updated more often. Of course, I’ve mostly no life outside of reading, so this site could be as long as War and Peace, and I’d still eventually wish for more frequent posts :) I love the sidebar thing though, I have problems remembering characters in comics too sometimes.
Hey – I gave a review of this on TWC – I used to mindlessly give 5/5 for someone drawing on a toilet roll in texta, but I’ve decided to go a bit hardcore with my reviewing there. I hope that you don’t’ mind my placing Grrl Power being firmly in the ‘average’ webcomic territory, but 50% of webcomics would be average anyway. 5% would be awesome, 5% would be tripe, the rest fit through the bell-curve of webcomics.
Well done and I am glad to have found your work.
Thanks for the review. I know there’s a lot of room for improvement beyond basic stuff like the update schedule. Hope you’ll stick around for it.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone in the comic notice that Sydney’s shirt changes like that? Is one of her super powers the ability to spontaneously swap outfits with nobody noticing?
Wait, those are flashbacks to previous times the question was asked aren’t they? I feel smart now…
There are a few steadfast ways to convey the passage of time in a compressed spave. Outfits, aging children and plants, and by far the most common, changing hairstyles. Seriously it’s the defacto “the is the past” trope for any TV show, but this is supposed to be only a few months worth of time I’m showing here.
Took me a second to realize the Power Girl shirt is a print. It was mainly the color that tipped me off.
Tell enough stories about what it is. Even the truth will not be belived. Which I would guess was the last panel.
Id have to agree with derrath Dave if Syd were to get into a realtinship withehr eteam mates Maxima would be and excellant choice they would compliment each other very nicely , but what suprizes me most was how most didnt knotice ti was a shirt Syd was wearing , but as to ther female log’s Wonderwman has the Golden W’s and that pretty much as goo as your goin to get i think most Heroine’s have understated logos as they dont want to draw more attention to them selves then they do for being awesomely attractive super powered people but some ment have had a lack of logo as well case adn point Wildcat trainer of the black canary other predominate heromine with logo’s of thier own would be any awesome woman on the X-men squad over half of them are women and all the women got the awesome powers like storm and jubliee or shadowcat rouge and jean grey , and mistque the list goes any one of these heroines is a match for ther male counter part and more often you’ll fine their fan base is alot strong then the males, also on a side note Dave tomarrow is my birthday
Right? Syd and Maxima would have an interesting development based on what is written down for Maxi on her profile. Even if they didn’t become a romantic couple, but one of those Hetero Sexual Lifemate tropes with possibly a hint If Its You Its Okay thrown in. *I ma gurl who loves her shipping*
And I figured that the shirt looked familiar, and not even a second later it hit me, “the Power Girl poster in the first panel!”….Yeah, it’s amazing sometimes what people miss the first time the read through something…
Derrath I could not agree with you more its like Walter Mathau and Jack Lemmon in Odd couple or grumpy old men if you not old enough to know about the odd couple I”m only lucky enough to know about it cuz my grandma watched it on nick at nite , but they weren’t homo sexual they were just best of friends that kinda hated each others guts, but Syd and Maxi would have that good dynamtic the other ovbious choice would be Maxi and Dabbs tho only if you wnted a purely sexual relationship that would be the one you would go with , but if you want special click moment where they reach and impass in there friendship where they realize they carefor eachother more then friends that leads then tenitively and slowly down the path of lovers well like we have said Look no futher then Syd and Mmaxi, and on that note im debating on whether if Maxima’s nickname should be Max or Maxi?
Mmmm not quite who would get shipped nowdays.
PS. i also notice Syd’ doesnt have a Captain America shirt how sad.
I’m a little dissappointed Sydney has her powers *already*.
I wanted to see her ‘Orgin Story’.
Something as in ‘Greatest American Hero’ except a wacky accident.
Aliens who meant to meet someone IN Sydney, but got confused.
Or…
“This is taking sooooo loooong! Just choose anyone!”
Or….
A shadowy, ill-defined figure who turns out to be her future self.
Well…. I guess we’ll see a flashback eventually.
it is never stated that she has her powers already during this flashback/origin story. the story you are reading is her origin story.
and: lol joel has a bald spot
We’ll eventually see everyone’s origins.
my orgin are humble yet tough like all great heros of yore i come from a small farming village but i am destined for great things
My submission for brother (or sister) / cousin: the gender-neutral cousiblings, or cousibs for short.
I don’t recognize the shirt Joel is wearing in the last panel, who’s insignia is that?
ThermoMan, from a British superhero SitCom called My Hero. It’s like a superhero version of Mork and Mindy.
I’m loving that I can understand most of your comic references. And then there’s the cleavage shirt… is it an Emma Frost shirt, from X-men?
It’s actually a Power Girl shirt, but it could probably be any number of heroines considering the outfits they get drawn in these days.
It’d be cool if you made, or had someone make, shirts like the ones in this comic that you could sell. I’d love to be able to give a Power Girl shirt, like that that to a few friends around Christmas or their birthdays. Also, I’m sure they’d sell well if you had a panel at a comic/sci-fi/anime convention.
Yeah I have a list of shirts I’d like to make if I get the time.
If it’s Emma Frost shouldn’t there be a bare midriff art on it too? I liked the the shirt changes in each panel as Sydney goes through her many excuses all of them silly or terrible and not convincing. And the truth being the last one and so she is saved by her poor lying ability. Good for her!
One of the things I like about “The Incredibles” is that the super women also had logos on their costumes. Ones that covered their bodies. Because if you aren’t invunerable then exposed skin is a liability. So its simply the artists giving skin to sell not to be really practical.
That particular outfit is based on Powergirl and she is essentially invulnerable, being from a Kryptonian-like people.
Kryptonians like the Tameranians who have powers an resilience beyond those of mortal humans.
Powergirls father was a very powerful wizard, They lived in ancient Atlantis, in the hollow Earth In the DC Universe, the Hollow Earth is known as Skartaris,. Through his powers as a wizard, he gave her the powers. Eventually she made her way to the surface, and became Powergirl.
I read it when it was created. I told you i’m old, 67!
It must be makeup made out of rocks from Iraq that she saw on a poster while holding her grandfather’s ashes.
The Who’s Who window gets an A+. Excellent idea, especially for new readers who can immediately pick up on the most relevant parts of the backstory.
Thanks! I get lost on a lot of other webcomics because they have a huge cast and I don’t recall who’s doing what to who.
I really love the “Who’s Who” sidebar thingy. Great idea, I wish more comics used it.
I lol’d pretty hard at Sydney’s cleavage shirt. I figured it was some superheroine, but didn’t pick up on it being Power Girl!
Being able to keep WMD’s inside a poster tube actually sounds a little kick ass.
I hope that, tomorrow morning, Sydney chooses to put on the top from the final panel.
I’m wearing that shirt right now, as I answer the door for trick or treaters. By the way, I’m a man in his 40s. Scared yet?
For some weird reason, not scared at all. Maybe scarred a little bit. But extremely amusing thought anyway, thanks.
Highlighting test comment.
DaveB’s right. “It’s full of posters!” just gets more and more funny as time goes on and I reread this again. It barely warranted a chuckle the first time I read it, but now it’s the funniest part of this whole page!
I love the Who’s Who box, I almost hate to say it, but that hooked me more than the actual first couple of pages.
Fair enough. I desperately need one when I read other comics unless I’ve been reading them for a long time.
Wait a minute. Is Syndey actually wearing a shirt with a drawn-on cleavage window and huge boobs?
Yes.
You can’t HANDLE the truth!
Well, that’s remind me that we didn’t saw Halo’s Father yet… There are some mentions of him, but not even a photo. That’s makes me curious