Grrl Power #466 – Vampal indulgences
This is Sydney’s last interruption, promise!
In that first panel Maxima’s totally giving Sydney the “We are here as representatives of blah blah” and “I will turn this car around.” and probably something about a million extra laps. It obviously doesn’t stick, which may be the biggest challenge with training Sydney. Some stuff she takes to right away, and other stuff she slips back into her old habits in the span of a sentence.
A legitimate issue with this scene is Maxima really should have stuck Sydney’s nose in the corner before now. Even if she’s not as on board with the proceedings as she appears to be, having her recruit run her usual agent of chaos act reflects poorly on her. Ingsol may only be indulging her because he believes Archon really can help them, and he also might be a tiny bit afraid of Maxima. A 700 year old vampire is pretty high up the food chain, but not liquefy a tank high. The average vampire is stronger and faster than the average human. A well trained human can probably deal with an untrained average vampire. Give a vamp a few centuries and they’re probably on par with a moderately powerful super, but in cases like that, it really comes down to training and chance and strategy. Mr. Amorphous could probably take a 2-5 century old vamp. A vamp vs. Heatwave could swing wildly in one direction or the other.
Edit: Whoops! I totally forgot Ingsol’s “accent” on this page. I’ve edited it back in, which makes his pronunciation of “Vi’s” problematic, as you can see in non-all caps comic font, it’s Vi, pronounced “Vee” which Ingy should really pronounce “Wee,” and I really wish I’d have remembered that cause it could have made for some amusing confusion on the next page but what can you do?
I found another entertaining webcomic some of you might like. It’s not really a funny one so much, but it got me to read the first chapter at least. It’s a romance comic (between two girls, but it’s not salacious or anything) and it’s got really nice art (and unfortunately an auto playing music track, but it’s low key ambient stuff you can turn off.) It’s called Always Human. So named because it’s set in a future where everyone can look however they want with simple mods, except one of the girls who can’t use them so she’s stuck looking how she looks. I’d say spoiler, but that’s set up on the first page. Here’s a link to their Patreon if you’re so inclined, since it’s kind of hard to find on their comic page.
Has anyone seen Star vs. the Forces of Evil? I haven’t heard anyone talking about it on Twitter and where ever, but it’s quite amusing. It’s like… if Sydney was a 14 year old Disney Princess / Magic Girl, with lots of humor and fighting. Lots of recognizable voice talent too, if that’s your thing. It’s a Disney cartoon so that’s not surprising really. It’s on Hulu and possibly other places. Anyway I recommend it.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. (As soon as I get up. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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Instead of changing Ingsol’s dialogue, you should just change Sydney’s. Kind of a brick joke situation!
,,, the motorfirebox, from SL6??
Someone in one of the canoes would have to be playing a banjo, otherwise it would be difficult for Sydney to say, “Paddle faster! I hear banjos.”
Ooops, that was meant to be the first reply for Black Rose’s comment, bottom of the previous comments page.
Maxima would take that banjo and smash it over Sydney’s head.
Sydney would have a dazed look as Dabbler,Gwen and Pixel have a good laugh!!!!
Did Maxima call Sydney aside for that comment in the previous comic???
No, Sydney just wanted to know where the little girls’ room was
:-D
Actually Black Rose, just check out the author’s blog above. Which clearly was in reaction to the concluding panel last week.
And having the most powerful super on Earth ticked off at her might also have made Sydney want to pee.
Yorp you have finally come out of the Werewolf closet! You do realise we will now have to call you Fuzzy Yorp from now on? :P
He only changes on nights with a full moon (or days ending in ‘Y’ :p)
no day actually ends in ‘Y’, they all end at midnight
So not on lunes, martes, miercoloes, jueves…?
I refute your accusations, that I turn into a human, when the full moon is not present!
Does that mean you’re related to Man-wolf from Dragon Ball? https://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Man-Wolf
Nope, I don’t turn into a human at the full moon either. :)
No, he turns into a toy poodle. A pink one. With a spiked collar.
OK, I admit it. There are things worse than the concept of turning into a human. And you have found one of them.
It’s all about perspective.
Indeed.
In answer to the original comment:
Yes. Sydney had started crossing over into “make fun of the physical disability” jokes which seems to have crossed the line of how much Sydney-related chaos Maxima is willing to let slide.
What physical disability? o_O
I believe Pyre is referring to Ingsol’s speech impediment.
Is that a physical disability?
Have an impediment that means can not say the word ‘one’, well, not properly anyway, no matter how hard work on it, it always comes out as sounding more like ‘wung’
Also have problems with certain other words, but it’s not a physical problem as they don’t even sound ‘correct’ thinking them
Unless Inggie’s ‘problem’ is because of his teeth, then it’s not physical, and would hardly call it a ‘disability’
I took it as being an analogy, given that it is in quotation marks. In other words Sydney was making the same kind of jokes about vampires, as others make about the physically disabled. This would include the bursting into flames in sunlight issue (which Maxima has already warned her over) as well as the previous page’s levity at the thirst-induced madness.
Or, if not intended as an analogy both the issues could be argued as being physical disabilities. Physically bursting into flames being indisputably physical in result. Whilst the madness is mental, the cause of it is the thirst. This is more tenuous though, hence why I go with the analogy.
I was referring to the thirst issue and not the accent.
I have no idea how my name switched to “I Pyre” in the last comment (Probably an errant keystroke) but I kinda like that as a name.
Pleased to meet you.
*wags tail enthusiastically*
So it’s not just waitresses?
The thirst for blood is no disability. It is the reason to live. One day someone will try to put Sydney’s mouth where it belongs, on her ass.
1) Why does her mouth belong there?
2) Just how does one do that anyway?
Sydney’s behaviour has officially stopped being amusing, and started being annoying for me.
Welcome to the wide world of ADHD. Yes, it really IS like that sometimes. There’s three major forms: Inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, and combined. Sydney has the combined form (though she generally leans more towards hyperactive-impulsive).
The impulsive part of it causes, among other things:
* Having a hard time waiting to talk or react.
* Frequently interrupt or intrude on others.
* Start conversations at inappropriate times.
All of which Sydney has exhibited. At the other end of the spectrum, they can get hyper-focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, and before they know it, five hours have passed.
She’s probably going to continue being annoying until she’s had a good night’s rest and her regular dose of meth… I mean, Adderall. Or whatever other drug she’s taking for it. (Yes, it’s true. The medication for hyperactive-impulsive ADHD is a stimulant.)
To be fair though I do have the exact same question. I might have waited to ask Maxima and not interrupt but Sydney has been encouraged (sort of) to ask questions.
What is the point of a stimulant in this case? All I can think of is to put the patient into overdrive for a quick burnout.
The current popular theory is that it’s a result of the increased dopamine that comes from taking certain stimulants letting the ADHD brain know that it can calm down and stop the wild hunt for interesting stimuli to increase dopamine levels. It was previously considered to be a result of the “paradoxical effect”, where the body happens to have a quirk that makes it react oppositely from what is normal.
Essentially, ADHD involves the brain having a higher than normal ‘stimulation threshold’; it needs more stimulation than normal brains to be satisfied with a situation. Where a normal brain might say ‘I need to track fifty things about my environment before I decide what to do with the information’, the ADHD brain says ‘RIGHT, 150 things at LEAST, before planning time!’. The wandering focus/hyperfocus element is simply a range of stimulation-seeking strategies.
Stimulant drugs provide that brain with ‘free stimulation’ (that is, stimulation that the brain did not have to actively seek), allowing it to more easily hit that threshold with regular levels of environmental stimulus. So, essentially, the ADHD drug is coming along and telling the brain ‘I am worth one hundred things, now you only need to track fifty’… which means that the same drug that would overstimulate a normal brain can calm an ADHD one by settling its drive to hunt stimulation.
I just learned that the view on the “different” ADHDs has changed over the years making limits more and more blurred: from different disorders long ago, to different forms (Subtypes) of the same disorder in the 80s, to different expressions (Presentations) of the same disorder nowadays.
Also, all this is by the American Psychological Association’s index (DSM-5), while Europe uses de World Health Organization’s index (ICD-10) where the term is Hyperkinetic disorder (HKD) and the definition differs, although is considered that both cover roughly similar disorders (lots of European articles uses the ADHD term).
The interesting part is that the European HKD’s definition is more strict that the American ADHD’s one, HKD is in fact called “severe ADHD” in many articles, which means that a great number of children that are diagnosed with, and medicated for, ADHD in USA would NOT be in Europe. Also the incidence of medications in USA has been growing in a greater way that most other countries, which expectedly raises controversy.
Interesting.
BTW, did someone know? You can give ADHD to your Sims!
https://www.thesimsresource.com/downloads/details/category/sims4-mods/title/ad(h)d-trait-v1.1/id/1329275/
I specially like “Detective career progression increases 10% faster” while “Secret Agent career progression increases 10% slower“.
It really seems to fit Syd so far :)
+1
I am sure that download will much appreciated, by readers who have the Sims. They could have Sydney wandering around their world! Well worth mentioning, as a plug for the comic, for anyone an account with them, in order to be allowed to comment.
It is worth mentioning things like that. It allows Dave to judge if he is overdoing it. There can be a fine line between daringly witty and obnoxious, especially in social settings, where manners are judged. Although where that line is positioned varies, from person to person, it is useful to get feedback on where the tipping points are, for different readers.
This has been an exposition-heavy arc so far. Which has pushed a lot onto Sydney, in order to keep gags going each week. Fortunately Dave has indicated the dynamics will be changing shortly, so there will be less need for Sydney to shoulder the comedic side of things, just by her eccentric behaviour.
Also welcome even to the world of ADD even mild with major Geek vibes thrown in. Sometimes you actually DONT know when to stop, seriously. Especially if its a subject you are really into, like and find curious. Trust me on this, this is par for the course and you actually miss the whole “I was giving you the subtle hint to stop” wah? Yeah subtle doesn’t work. My friends and some co workers even have been given permission to simply tell me to stop or shut up if I get too bad like Sydney does. Thankfully they know its a condition as it were.
As someone who has ADHD(inattentive) and grew up knowing others with it, in all forms, I’m very much aware what ADHD is like. And I also know what it’s like to “geek out” about something.
I’m still saying this gone past the point of obnoxiousness. Not just because of her behaviour(she just got told off, and is doing it again!), but because it’s no longer entertaining, and just dragging the story down, as is all the explanations.
But was it served by Alice or Flo?
Betchyer fanshy smanshy spell can’t tell you that!
Which Alice? The one from Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant Massacre”?
Uh…
the one from Mel’s Diner….
O_O’ (wasn’t that what the panel from Sydney’s imagination referencing? )
I remember that me and my bunch were fans of that show back in the day. The only thing I remember about it today though is Flo’s immortal catch phrase.
“Kiss my grits!”
Yeah, can vaguely remember that show (wasn’t it a spin-off from another show? o_O)
It was based on a movie.
Must have been thinking of something else (or maybe some other show was a spin-off from “Alice”)
Flo got popular enough to get her own spin-off, yes. It lasted for two seasons, but I don’t recall it being very successful.
On the contrary, the wikipedia article mentions that the show was fairly successful, at least with audiences. Unfortunately, it appears that the network just wouldn’t go with the Flo.
You’re quite right. Perhaps it was just the aforementioned “My Bunch” that I was remembering not caring for it?
The Alice you have to ask when you’re ten feet tall.
The ones mother gives you don’t do anything at all…
I gotta admit I do wonder one thing …
… why are the ‘apprentices’ – Sydney … oh, wait. Trolling through the archives semi-answered my own question. The aforementioned question was ‘why are the underlings, like Sydney and Scarlett, sitting at the Big Table, while there are bunches of sorts who are part of the council who aren’t?’
The ‘primaries’ – Maxima, Ingsol, etc. – get a seriously big thronelike chair, with points on the back’s sides, that sort of thing. Secondaries, like Scarlett, Sydney, and Dabbler, sit in less elaborate chairs, and DO seem to be set back somewhat from the table itself, for all that Sydney seems to always be right there up at the table.
Maybe it isn’t an indication of ranking ranking, but the ranking of their superior’s. IOW, their superiors are important enough to have their apprentices to sit at the big table.
Ack. The italicized “ranking” should be “their”.
Yup, that sounds about right
A moment in Ignoble’s mind:
In panels one and two, down in the bottom left hand corner, there is a mass of something both red and orange. When I read this page yesterday, I had no problem identifying that as a small part of the back of Scarlett’s head. Today, however, when I saw it, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that something was on fire and I couldn’t figure out why none of the characters were reacting to it.
*Sigh*
It doesn’t take me too long to figure things out, generally. What takes up all of my time is re-figuring things out . . . ☺
at least you saw the logic before it had to be pointed out to you.
She is now interrupting an important meeting, I don’t mind exposition but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the scene making sense, just have her ask Maxima quietly or something.
We do see Maxima standing just behind Sydney with her arms crossed during the apology, no doubt giving her a stern look. If she was still nearby, I agree that it might have been tactful of her to give our heroine a nudge as soon as she saw Sydney’s arm go up.
On the other hand, if she had, we might have missed out on that wonderful smile in the last panel. 😍
She at least raised her hand in a Horshack manner first, so she is learning restraint (sort of)
I do approve of having fellow readers who are appropriately concerned at rude and disruptive behaviour.
*claps paws together*
Which I am too. But I failed my resist cuteness check, with Sydney’s contrite apology and her equally cute expression, when asking the legitimate question, at the end.
Given that this meeting is clearly going to result in her, and the rest of the team, becoming drawn into aiding the Council, and potentially risking their lives, in the course of that, both we and the Council should cut her some slack. Which Ingsol is doing, fortunately, albeit whilst pushing his blood pressure dangerously high.
My best friend’s blood pressure got so high once that he had blood squirting into the back of his eyeballs! And had photos of that entered into medical textbooks. And required that the medical establishment review how they classified the highest blood pressure, as he had taken it to a level not recorded before, at least not in a patient who survived. Although he did die twice, but was revived each time. Analogue blood pressure measuring devices could not record his level, as it literally went off the scale!
I wonder if Ingsol will end up with blood squirting out of his fangs?
Guess that would answer the question: are the fangs hollow?
Don’t look at me, Yorp, I’m just the guy who had a blood pressure of 250 over 140 before they got it under control. Hint: That’s about double what normal blood pressure is supposed to be. And the weirdest thing, I was completely symptom-free.
On the plus side, whatever caused me to be symptom-free, also allowed me to completely remove caffeine from my diet (cold turkey) with no withdrawal symptoms.
251/160. So he slightly beat you on the ‘whilst contracted’, but easily wins on the ‘at rest’. Hence why his symptoms included dying.
Heh. My symptoms included “potential death” too. When you go to the dentist and the first words out of his mouth are “would you like me to call an ambulance?”, it’s time to get worried. In essence, everyone was scratching their heads trying to figure out why I hadn’t already had a major stroke, since apparently my blood pressure had been that high for several months before my dentist discovered it.
Try having pressure so low that resting can potentially kill you: numerous times have passed out when going to sleep because the heart slows down too much to keep the blood flowing
An example of what could happen when the Veil gets torn asunder: recent episode of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” had YoYo ‘outed’ as an Inhuman, and her best friend of over ten years, who was about to get married with YoYo as a bridesmaid, didn’t want to know her anymore
Now, imagine if your car-pool buddy turned out to have webbed digits and could lick their own eyeballs, or the girl you had a crush on since first grade had a tail and could fly
It would have been nice to know someone who could fly back in grade school. Getting back those errant Frisbees that landed on roofs and in trees would have been much easier.
Meant, you only found out she was able to do that much much later, like twenty or thirty years later
I feel as though that might warrant getting back in touch…
It certainly is, if it means you get your hands on tail!
If you are really lucky you could end up with kids who have tails too!
*swishes tail elegantly*
Personally, I’m more into the flight aspect but whatever floats your boat.
Oh that certainly does. However, on boats, it is of more use as a rudder.
roofs were easy, in the case of at the school, all we needed was the bike rack
Stop trying to conjure up politically incorrect mental images! :-D
Prejudice can run very deep. A form of alienation her’s when her friends abandon her.
Parents do that with their own children imagine how it is for real friends who won’t go that far in accepting you.
That was kinda the point was attempting to make: it’s easy (and possibly blasé) to say that it wouldn’t change anything, but to actually find out a friend we have had for a very long time is ‘different’ (regardless of how long they have known) will be a much different story
It’s one thing if they were like YoYo and still looked the same, but what if they were like Ben Grimm or that evil girl from the first season, the one who grew spikes all over? Or in some other way stopped looking ‘human’?
Obviously not every physical change is going to be equally well recieved but some people /are/ also a lot more open minded than others. I’m fairly certain I’d take most things well after the initial “Everything I know is a lie!” period (see Sydney’s reaction to non-lunar lycans).
You better get used to it. Everything that we think is true about the universe is nothing more than the consensus of opinion. And that changes over time. Much of what you were taught as ‘truth’ at school will turn out to be a lie, due to the ignorance of our society, by the time that you die. Except maths. Only some of that will be wrong.
In the last panel she looks too cute. Poor monsters
Where she has the exact same smile as The Grinch? (not even the first time she’s done that either…)
“Here’s a Primer. Read it.”
“Ooh. I didn’t think you would-”
“Ve don’t. I villed it into existence. And no, that’s not something wampires can do, chapter 3.”
Its like watching paint dry.
Thank you for the Always Human link. Enjoying it. Would have never found that on my own.
I would encourage others to listen to the music rather than turning it off while reading. If you can get your reading speed paced with it; it adds a nice ambience.
No ambient music for me. Although I do see the bar, with the player options, at the top, and the ‘play’ button is green. My speakers are working fine,* so I suspect I just have my options set too restrictively to allow stuff like that to work.
Maybe I will put on the Jaws music or something furry piranha related?
* Although something nibbled through my microphone cable this morning. Not to mention any piranha names.
Forgive me if I am late to the party of the obvious, but I just realized something.
I bought a lacrosse ball a few weeks ago, and I would guess it’s about the size of one of Halo’s seven orbs. I don’t have really large hands, but I did see that I could easily hold the ball between my thumb and index finger… or between the ring finger and the pinky finger.
And the ball is still small enough that I could easily hold two lacrosse balls in one hand that way: one next to the thumb, one next to the pinky finger.
To date, we’ve seen Halo hold an orb at the palm, so she’s been limited (she thinks) to only two powers at a time. But if she learned this trick…
(Quick experimentation shows it would probably be about as painful as the Vulcan Hand Salute from Star Trek: big ow at first, but with training the pain goes away.)
I know the cast page states Halo can only hold one ball per hand, but that may simply be because she hasn’t trained her hands to hold two apiece. The diameter of the orbs might not matter that much. For that matter, I’m surprised Math (or a juggler on the team) hasn’t thought of it either.
Looking at how the orbs are drawn relative to her hand in this comic, it might just be doable:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1857
She has tried that, while she can hold them between her fingers, it seems they require being cupped firmly in the palm of her hand (she even tried between her butt-cheeks)
I saw the bit where she tried her feet, forehead, and butt, but I don’t recall seeing her try to do two in one hand. It may be possible. If the backs of her hands could work as well, she could get six out of the seven going at once in that fashion. I doubt it will work because of how broken it would be, but it hasn’t been specifically ruled out in the comic yet.
Sydney is an intelligent keen gamer who has possessed the orbs for months. She will have easily held two in one hand, and tried using the orbs many times, during that period. It is only because that did not work that she resorted to the extremes of butt-cheek holding.
Basically the orbs have a ‘maximum two at a time’ limit because it makes her story more interesting. The ‘one in each hand’ aspect of it is just to make it that much harder for Sydney to use other things at the same time as her powers. For instance if she has both hands occupied, she cannot open a door. Not without using an elbow, or her mouth, for instance. Or pushing a key-pad entry system, with her pinky or nose.
There is a way she can get around this limit, which has been strongly implied in the comic, but only for the observant readers. And Halo would require a specific assistant. So her intrinsic limit remains unchanged without that help.
Fairly sure she showed she tried Spocking her balls on that same page
No, she didn’t…err… what Spocking means again?
In seriousness, she didn’t do it in that page (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/589) nor elsewhere as far as I remember. Could has been stated by Dave in a comment, though.
“Spocking” is a new term that means ‘spreading your fingers apart’
Thank you for that link, had been sure that she had shown that attempt, but obviously was wrong
people need to vote
Voting at least once a day, usually twice
Heh, anyone else getting an add for ADD/ADHD Symptom Relief? o_O
Believe this is the first time had a content-relevant add on any webic
Yup. Not the first pertinent advert here mind. I think that advertising companies probably have bots looking through for sites which mention key phrases a lot, and place customers accordingly. Thanks to the comments being on the comic, rather than in a forum, we get both high page views (from all readers) and frequency of key word hits (from commentators).
Either that or we have a fellow fan in either the advertising or pharmaceuticals industries.
:-)
It’s not the first time we have commented on AD(H)D, but first time personally seen an add for ADD :P
Mine has transformed into a ‘Not a Villain’ advert.
I bet the next time it changes it will be ‘Man of Steel, Woman of ADHD’!
Often get webic ads
When I was in Spain I swear I got a chilli themed dating site advert on the side. Not that I could read it because, you know, spanish.
*restaurant order book, in paw, pen at the ready*
So for the main a buxom redhead. And would sir like a side-order of chilli?
I got it! In the third read!
An added ADD add?
Maybe Ingsol can drop his accent as he wills. He is old after all. And yes mature vampires can move among us uninterrupted most of the time with all their predatory powers at their peak.
If Sydney were to do a radio interview, Arianna and Maxima would tell her NOT to steer herself into any corners and Maxima will say…
Maxima: Don’t make like Adrian Cronauer!!!
Sydney gulps and makes a snappy salute!
Gooooooood morning New York Vampires!
Sydney: You’re the golden woman in most need of a…
Maxima: Finish that sentence and you’re going to be doing push-ups until your arms fall off!
Ahem…dear Sydney. Let me ask you kindly, in the name of pacing and the plot….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgsEdU4l8XQ
So, you saying you don’t want to know who or what a ‘Vi’ is? o_O
Not really. And if I wanted, I’d ask it on the way home.
But currently I’m more interested in the potential sabotage of a spell, that, once broken, would unleash every monster and alien onto mankind’s consciousness, who – until now – thought them all to be fiction and fairy tales.
Seems a tad more important AND interesting. ^^
And what if Maxi doesn’t know either? o_O
Folks have got irritated with Sydney, and for good reason. However she does have a very justified reason for asking that question. If you have been following the subtext Sydney might not be going home. Rather she may be sent straight to assist in resolving the crisis with the sigil. If she is going to be putting her life on the line, it is most definitely appropriate for her to know who she will be teamed with, and their credentials.
Note that one of the reasons why folks are (justifiably) getting ticked off at Sydney, is because she is behaving in ways that a raw recruit should not (in addition to showing up both her host and her own organisation). However we should give consideration, on this point, to the fact that Halo is an important asset, both for her genre-savvy tactical capability and because she is a powerful super hero, in her own right. Sydney needs to know this.
And, as it is an ongoing situation, which may escalate unexpectedly, at any moment, she needs to know it now.
Yeah, people seem to fixate on ‘recruit’, as though she was in the regular military forces, and while ARCHON is set up with a military hierarchy and structure, it is not military, at least not traditional military
Heh, when you said Sydney might not be going home, at first thought something nasty, like she was going to be giving to The Council as a piece offering (not a typo)
But, if she is going to go straight into assistance, that would imply that Maxi knew about the damage to The Veil…
Possibly so. She was not surprised that they were waiting on a report from the mages. Given that Zephan is one of them though, we can see how she could have a bit more of a heads-up, than the delegates in the balcony boxes.
I doubt that Maxima would have had any detailed information though. Nobody did, which is why they were waiting for the mage with it to arrive.
Either way though check out how Ingsol says “… we will mostly be working with Arc-Light”. Logically that is his get-out clause, for if the big guns are required. Plus Ingsol has not been devoting so much of his time to Sydney without good cause. He is the chairman of this meeting. Yet he has clearly been briefing Archon personnel in general, and her in particular. Such as with his warnings about monsters and the dangers of vampire thirst.
He knows that there is a good chance that they will be dragged into a dangerous situation. And as the least-trained member, she is in most need of being brought up to speed.
I doubt that Sydney has failed to pick up on all this either. One of the reasons why she is more hyper than usual.
Especially after suffering from sleep deprivation and Muppet-hallucinations!
Thought she brought Sydney along, not only to reveal (in a ‘safe-ish’ environment) the existence of the Supernatural and The Veil, but to see if someone on The Council may know something about her floating septoballs, and the report had something to do with that (Zephan and Arc-Light had had spent the last couple days working on them)
But happy towait and see what DaveB has planned (doesn’t mean it’s not fun to try and figure things out ourselves )
Huh, I shoulda realized how recent this comic was.
GG though I LOVE your business villain Dues. Sorry, this probably isn’t PC at all, but I hope he takes over all of Africa.
Not really. But I doubt it, in any event, he just needed a power base. If he is after any continent, I think it will be North America.
He can’t have Antarctica though. That is mine! My penguin army will defend it with their lives!!
They have to get past the Kiwi Kommandoes first :P
bah, north america won’t be quite enough for his pride. Remember what he said? His goal was to move any country under his control to the top of any ranking, and he’s already moved congo from 186th out of 211 to somewhere in the low hundreds and was aiming to be in the 50’s within a few years. Affrica is one of those places where no matter how large or long the wars, they have never united more than 10% of the landmass. If he could unite the entire thing and make affrica one of the top 10 countries in the world, that’d be something to boast about. And with a small dash of Macro-civil engineering you could turn the Sahara into one ginormous breadbasket to compete with both china and the American Midwest.
Taking over north america though… It honestly wouldn’t be too hard. Most of America and Canada’s politicians are corrupt and it wouldn’t require too many kidnappings or blackmailings to get the two countries to vote for a unification. The biggest hurdle would be Quebec. Everything south of America and north of argentina is hopelessly corrupt and would just as easily be bought. Since this scenario wouldn’t be going for South America too, the major hurdle of Venezuela wouldn’t be an issue. Castro’s brother is pretty buddy buddy with Obama, so that wouldn’t be impossible. Before Castro they were negotiating to become a member. Plenty of central america has major emigration to the US, so making it easier for them through unification wouldn’t be too hard for this practically DC villain to pull off either.
Africa would be a lot more challenging and boast-worthy.
In our world maybe. But in the Grrlverse, it is a mostly non-industrial continent. So has very few supers. As opposed to America. Which not only has more, has also organised the bulk of the government-friendly supers into a single, powerful, well-organised organisation. Further Deus already has both emotional and economic ties with Archon.
This makes America the greater challenge, even if ignoring the whole ‘superpower’ mundane aspect. Likewise with the fact that academic studies have shown the USA to actually have a very reliable, and hard-to-pervert voting system.
Sydney’s got Grinch-mouth.
It’s terminal.
Hey Dave! A few comics ago you talked about changing your technique. You mentioned that you were making a black&white shaded drawing, and then using a color layer over top that as an overlay. Since you said you had trouble with getting the colors right, and were forced to double the color layer, I thought I should share some art tutorials with you that helped me!
The technique you described is called “Painting with Values”.
Then there’s This video! This video taught me a LOT about how to tinker with hue/saturation layers in photoshop, which is a much better way to do colors than having a doubled color layer with some change mode. He also talks about how adding in different colors will react to the same value differently, and gets into the meat and bones of playing with them. On the other hand, he doesn’t talk about the intricacies about how Values are related to your composition and how it adds to the “realism” and depth and the illusion of 3d. He just mentions that they are important and goes on to show you HOW to work in values without talking about why. Though he does give some good tips on how to use them to draw attention towards the subject of your art and away from the background.
An absolutely stunning rescue, made from a shark cage!
Just don’t buy your shark cage from Don’s Discount in future.
Stan’s Previously Owned and Gently Used Shark Cages.
You don’t know what you’d had until you’ve tried plaid!
He just wanted a little attention.
Sensible of the diver to keep moving backwards, periodically, so that the shark could continue to breathe.
Is Sydney doing the ‘kappa face’ in the last panel?
Oh, thank Jeebus Max FINALLY intervened!
2016: That time Sydney made a 30 minute meeting last an entire year by re-enacting the same dumb ADHD joke that she’s already done every third comic panel this year.
Star vs the Forces of Evil & Milo Murphys Law Are the Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls replacements. They are both amazing. :)
If Arc-Swat gets a construction division can they be called Arc-Weld?