Grrl Power #482 – Panty RAID 0
So I actually had to ask around on twitter if it’s possible to wear a thong without having a wedgie. I mean, aren’t thongs worn “up in there?” Well, apparently they’re not supposed to be? (At least to the one source who responded to such a weird question.) Which is contrary to literally every picture and video I’ve seen them in. I’m told that’s the “just for show” position, and normally they are crack-extraterritorial as opposed to substrata. It seems to me to keep them entirely external you’d have to run around with your butt clenched up all day, but women do all kinds of uncomfortable stuff for fashion and beauty so what do I know? (Yes, I know men can wear thongs too, but let’s be realistic, men don’t really have to worry about hiding their panty line, so this is largely a lady thing. Please feel free to discuss thong etiquette in the comments. I’m curious if Krona’s prank is redundant or not.
One last reminder about the Amazon referral link. I won’t be a pest about it, and a lot of you guys are already using it, which I super appreciate. But if you’re a last minute shopper like me, then… hey, there’s a link for you! And if you think Amazon is a megacorp that will eventually essentially (essentually!) be the equivalent of Weyland Yutani in 100 years (or 10), then you are not alone – BUT! Shopping through that link will funnel between 5.5 to 7% of their profits to me. So you can stick it to the man while supporting you favorite comic. Or one of your favorite… top 10 anyway, I’m guessing.
Be sure to check out Wearing the Cape: Team-Ups & Crossovers. Sydney’s first Crossover! I’ve made a dedicated blog post for it, please comment there.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $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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Sydney doesn’t like Pixel but she likes Krona? Whadda hypocrite.
I get the feeling that Krona is very different from Sydney, where as Pixel happens to be too much like Sydney for Sydney to like, at least right away. You will notice that she didn’t write Pixel’s name on “The List” so there is still a chance that they could be friends.
They met unter very different circumstances. here sydneys first exposure to krona was her doing something very cool that immediately triggered syd’s “wow awesome, I want that on our team” reaction.
her exposure to pixel however was in a teammeeting without her exhibiting any overtly “cool” abilities and “threatening” sydneys role as the small tomboyisch person on the team. hence the aversion.
her reactions to both of them could very vell change should she witness them in other situations and get to know them better.
Also Pixels first comment to Sydney was “Ok, they told me you were weird, but seriously”, which is hardly going to win her any points. But for all that Pixel did NOT get entered into “the list”, so yeah there is hope.
Mind you. I find I don’t like Pixel very much as well, and it’s not just because she’s a mix between Gadget from Rescue Rangers and Rita from Wonderella. There’s just something about the character that screams “superfluous”. YMMV of course.
Pixel made that comment after Sydney started measuring her up
Pixelicious isn’t the resident ‘Gadget’, that one works with Dabbles in ARC-tech
Well butter me on both sides and call me Frank! I just checked and you are correct, I was confusing Digit with Pixel. Which almost makes Pixel MORE redundant, as this means despite being in about 4 pages, she’s only had two lines and no character development at all. Maybe when DaveB stops madly inventing new characters for the comic he’ll work on giving her a personality, but until then, she’s pretty redundant.
I have no memory of Pixel, and I do not know how to effectively search the archives when I know neither the title nor the date. Can someone give me a link to something relating to Pixel?
Go back a couple pages, she showed up again at the same time as Ellie
Pixel first appears here as well as the next comic. She then re-appears in the bubble bus comic and the next one. She’s pretty easy to miss.
Sydney is easy to miss as well, when she manages to keep her mouth shut and tucks her balls away :P
That…sounded dirty.
I searched ” ‘Grrl Power’ Pixel character” on a search engine and the first result was the page she was introduced.
Umm is it just me or Krona banner based on the Konami Code ↑↑↓↓←→←→AB START
Is not just you. Has been mentioned quite a few times.
In fact, it has been mentioned several times on every comment page for every comic page it has appeared in
70 years from now (once the first week of the comic is done) someone will trawl the archives and comment on the Konami code…..
Do you really think it’ll get through a week in comic book time THAT fast? How optimistic!
We’re on day 4, so it’s possible…maybe,,,
Oh noe! A Bubba was here before me!
…Gunn normally wears granny panties?
…that’s cool.
Well, if she’s as old as some people here suspect — and had produced at least one child before she became a vampire — she might really be a great-great-(several more ‘great’s)-granny….
i’m not entirely sure why so many people seem to think that Krona has a good view of Gunn’s underwear (assuming she’s wearing any) consider the angles.
if the was to look up her (i’m guessing knee length) skirt she’d have to practically have her head under it or a great deal lower.
judging by the perspective however, her hands seem to be behind Gunn’s ankles. which means her head is nowhere near aforementioned ankles. thus disappointingly no dice
Krona can hack reality. If you told me that in the last panel she was looking directly at Gunn’s face, I’d have to say “can’t rule it out”. So the possibility that she’s somehow looking through Gunn’s dress is quite reasonable (though, why remains a subject of contention).
Because she’s looking up at a woman standing above her wearing a skirt, and talking about her underwear? That’s a very good argument for saying she’s got a view. Why bother trying to say different? Does it matter?
Gunnie could be wearing jeans, and Kronachrome’s comment would not change
Except she uses a more generic “undies” rather than specifically mentioning “grannie panties”. Her decision isn’t necessarily based on what she sees (we only know what they are because of DaveB‘s comment), butt… I mean “but” on the likelihood that whatever type of underwear she is wearing, they probably aren’t thongs and if they were changed to thongs, they would probably give her “an insane wedgie”.
In “The Gamer” -webcomic, the main character has the ability to translate real-life concepts into game values (Level, Hit Points, Mana Points, inventory items, etc.).
It looks like Krona has some kind of Gamer ability, but instead of just playing the game, she has access to the Cheat Engine. That is, she edits the values within the game system.
“Gunhilor’s equipped items… underwear… change that value ‘panties, cotton, Size 8 Medium’ to ‘v-string thongs, spandex, Size 2 Extra-petite’.”
The text at the bottom suggest more of an ability to swap things out than to just change things. Kinda like Trafalgar Law’s OpOp Fruit powers but no need for an “Operationg room”
… I adore Krona already.
Hmm. I wonder if an “insane wedgie” is a little better than the fabled “atomic wedgie,” or even worse. In this case, it’s a mute point, I guess, when you consider what Krona’s powers are . . . ☺
I suppose you could try a little self-experimentation if you’re really interested in knowing. =OP
I guess that is the most scientific and accurate way to test this. Hang on a sec . . .
YYYEEEOOOUUUCCCHHH!!!
Okay, turns out I’m not so curious that I want to ever try that again.
*Limps away awkwardly*
Krona has an incredible power, but describes herself as not being very brave. Certainly, when she gets annoyed with Gunnhildr she does not complain out loud but instead plots a petty bit of revenge. With nothing more than this to go on, I would judge her to be the shy, quiet type – an introvert who feels a bit awkward in most social situations.
I will now sit back and wait for DaveB to prove me wrong. 😉
Re: Thongs – Two notes: I am a dude, and I wear them. I started wearing them for freedom of movement under martial arts gear because jock straps are extremely uncomfortable, compression shorts are really expensive, and boxers don’t offer support. Joe Boxer makes pretty comfortable dudethongs, and you can get them at KMart dirt cheap.
A) Thong goes between the cheeks, but not *IN* the butt (not like some of you have proposed doing to Dabbler.) If you’ve gotten to that level, something has gone horribly wrong and you should probably wash them.
B) They feel snug, but not wedgie-like, and it is VERY possible to hike them up too far and make the creases of your legs (and other bits,) very uncomfortable. The Maxima/Harem ultra-wedgie is pretty much exactly what it feels like when you do get a thong wedgie.
I’m taking any and all questions. I’m an open book. AMA.
So I take it they also work for marital arts gear? =OP
Given that I’m twice divorced, maybe not so much.
thanks to her shield i foresee many more of her super powered comrades using halo as the thing to throw super powered criminals at since sure the municiple government might pay for collapsed pipes if you slam someone into the ground but if you mash them against halo’s shield well worst is a annoyed halo (and that’s probably even less costly)
Trouble is that the shield may resist knockback, but it is not immune to it. We have seen Vehemence tugging it, via the lighthook. Which means that squishy Sydney could be flung around inside it, if it is knocked too violently. And the impact of super-launched super-tough projectiles could well do that.
No, the shield wasn’t moved because of Kevin’s tug-of-war with Sydney, the shield moved because Sydney moved
Fair point it may well have happened that way. Which would be more comforting, for our primary protagonist. Plus we did not see it shifting from either of Maxima’s energy attacks.
Isn’t that code supposed to be “left right left right” not “left left right right”?
Good point. Yes.
That is the Konami code. But this is the F**K Konami code. ;-)
Yeah I messed it up on this page, I’ll have to fix it when I get a chance.
Just, think, in a few hours there’ll be a whole new episode to argue about….
We don’t realy argue do we? Personaly I prefer to talk nonsense and make bad jokes related to the new episodes.
Well, it’s polite arguing (yes, it is possible to have a polite and civil disagreement on the interwebs)
nobody nows what’s going to happen next, but we make wild guesses anyway….
Next page we’re gonna get the very first glimpse of the Konami Code on Krona’s banner!
Okay, DaveB…? Love the art and the comic, but you really need to take some time with character DEVELOPMENT. We have HOW many ARC-Swat members in Maxima’s team? And how much do we know about ANY of them? Except Sydney.
So why are we getting at least a dozen new characters that nobody will remember other than as `that one character that one time did that one thing’, with hosts of new spiffy powers? Why do we not see `our’ team in action? There’s a phrase, a bit of a truism: less is more.
The more characters you introduce, the less incentive we have to *care* about any of them. There is *nothing* these new characters offer that could not have been done by Halo, Dabbler, and Maxima. We…or at least I…want to see Sydney growing and developing as a hero as she goes on adventures with Max and Dabbler and Hiro and Harem and Anvil and Heatwave….you know, ARC-Swat? Sydney sitting in her bubble squeeing while a dozen *new* supers save the day, with Maxima…somehow…foiled by rubble and Dabbler off-panel? Yes, yes, interesting powers, etc and so forth…so what? Why should we *care*?
Possible/probably dialogue for a strip in the future…Maxima:”Oh, Sydney, I have bad news…Anvil accidentally ate your lunch and now she’s dead. Funeral is tomorrow.”
Sydney: “Anvil…who was that again? Oh, no, not The Shirtless Guy!”
Max: “No…Hiro is fine. You remember Anvil, don’t you? Very tall, dark skinned, huge…tracts of land?”
Sydney: “Wait…the were-bunny is DEAD?!?”
Max: “No, Sydney, *Anvil*. ANVIL is dead.”
Sydney: “Did I ever meet her?”
And so on. Too many characters, not enough depth for us to care whether they ever show up in the comic again. You can ditch Anvil, Heatwave, pretty much every ARC-Swat member except Sydney and possibly Maxima…and odds are, NOBODY WOULD NOTICE.
So, my advice as a long time reader of comics both web and physical…cut back on the Cool Hero Of The Moment and focus on ARC-Swat. Maxima, Dabbler, and Sydney should have been the focus of this battle…these new characters are nothing but distractions. I don’t want to be mean, but you aren’t Marvel or DC, with a stable of writers and artists able to launch new titles and supergroups as the focus groups dictate. Marvel can have a bunch of kids show up in an X-Men comic and have The New Mutants out the next month as an ongoing title. Then launch X-Force and however many other X-titles there are now.
Quick, without looking at the archives or cast page, how many people can name three members of Sydney’s `recruit class’? Five of the Council members (more of them because they’re the current arc)?
Too much of a good thing is too much, DaveB. We’re headed for a cast of hundreds already, and most of them utterly forgettable. That’s not a good thing.
For one thing, she hasn’t been part of ARCSwat that long, and this IS an adventure she’s having with Dabbler and Maxima. This part’s more about world-building and establishing hierarchies and whatnot. And this gives Dave access to characters he may need later. Think of this as the definitions section of a legal paper or science paper.
That all being said, you do have a point. I’d have failed your challenge if I had to try to remember their names. If I was to describe based on attributes, I’d only remember 2 of her recruit class by powers. But that’s more due to the fact that I can barely remember what I did yesterday. My short-term to long-term memory transfer’s HIGHLY corruptible. Part of the reason I’ll need to study and keep up on calculus for the rest of my life.
This isn’t an adventure Sydney is having with Dabbler and Maxima. This is the introduction of a dozen characters only the serious anal-retentive fans will remember two weeks from now. Max and Dabbler have been off-panel for how long? Sydney only in the background? Max could have done the intro during the walk into the place…”Council, blah-blah-blah, coordination…oh, crap, they’re being attacked! Dabbler, you get that guy. Sydney, bubble up and lighthook the spare, I have the two on the right…” There ya go, ARC-Swat saves the day, Sydney learns something about teamwork, and maybe meets the were-dire-wolf at the end for the squee factor. He mentions the problem with the shield, and there’s ARC-Swat set for a new adventure…maybe ONE new character added as a liaison, who get *some* screen-time to develop and become `real’ so when s/he shows up two arcs down the road with a request for help or a warning, we know who s/he is other than `that one character who did that one thing that one time’…
You need a good foundation for world-building. You don’t build *anything* by having dump trucks fly by and throw crap off the back…except a mess. We have the materials for a good solid foundation…ARC-Swat…but we can’t do anything with it because that dump truck put the WiFi network gear on top of the electrical cable which we can’t run because the girders for the framework are somewhere under the office furniture and who knows WHERE the plumbing fixtures are…
Honestly? I’m not even concerned with keeping track of any of the characters except Sydney (and Max, because I love her like lemonade) because there’s no reason to. They’ll get a couple panels and be gone. And even Sydney, annoying as she has been this arc, is now background comic relief; no better than a laugh track. This is sad, because we know DaveB is better than this.
That’s a valid point, and I’ve been feeling it myself a bit lately. I enjoy these fun interactions Sydney has with new characters, but most tend to be hit and run. Many of them will show up later in this story, but the size of their roles will be minimal as I’m not a fast enough artist for a lot of side stories, and arguably I’m not a fast enough artist to even introduce this many new characters.
From a storytelling standpoint, I wanted this arc to show Sydney there’s a much broader world out there, which is why I wanted the large hall full of all kinds of creatures. From an editing standpoint, her and the team meeting with a smaller emergency council, with maybe just Gregor, Ingsol, Gault, and maybe two others at most would have been better, and the whole thing would have been about 10-12 pages. But then the council might have felt more like a tiny cabal rather than a supernatural UN. Maybe the middle ground is to show the full council chamber but rush through the meeting so Sydney doesn’t get nearly as much meet and greet time.
Hmm, then she still could have met some of the other characters as the plot unfolded further… Well, it’s definitely something to think about as I continue this arc and plan future ones. I do think its safe to say this will be the last big meet and greet for Sydney. Not that she won’t meet new people obviously, but she won’t spend 30 pages or whatever doing it.
Thanks for the reply, DaveB, and speaking only for myself, I don’t really care how *fast* an artist you are, as long as you remain an awesome one. Quality over quantity, which fits the general tone of this particular post/topic/rant/whatever-the-proper-term-is…
As for showing Sydney there’s a much larger world…yeah, kinda think she’s gonna get agoraphobia. Pretty sure that’s the one where she’s afraid to go outside.
She learned how to really fly, met genuine superheroes, *joined* a superhero team, had a major super-battle, *and* got introduced to `boot camp’. I gotta think her world has expanded pretty darn far in less than a week. Give the girl time to get comfortable with dog-paddling in the deep end before tossing her off the side of a trans-Atlantic cruise ship!
That’s just my opinion, for what it’s worth…exactly between `diddly’ and `squat’. Should be obvious I’m a fan of the comic and here for the long haul. Love the art, love the characters (especially Max and yes, I’m biased), the world, the…you get the idea. You done did a Good Thing here, DaveB.
If anything, I’d tend the other way. Once we tell Sydney (and therefore the reader) that there is this huge and massively varied population behind the Veil, it would undermine that revelation to focus on only two or three characters chosen from the best-known types. Even more so if we then have the existing primary cast steal all the work. The Veiled have survived for centuries (millennia?) without needing Supers to fight their battles for them, and that is not going to change with one press conference.
The tertiary characters can sink back into the background once Sydney’s no longer interacting with them, and let the existing primary and secondary characters of ArcSWAT take front of stage again, but a world this big does not revolve around half a dozen relative newcomers.
Whether the setting needs to include the Veiled is a separate and legitimate question. It does draw it further away from the ‘our world with supers’ pitch, and arguably reduces rather than enhances the potential power of ArcSWAT by providing others equally capable of doing many of the same jobs. But if we are to have them, this is the time to introduce them – when Sydney is being given her orientation of what to expect, so that she isn’t avoidably deep-ended by using the Truesight to look for X and finding Choirus instead, and before the coincidence of not unmasking Veiled like that stacks too high for suspension of disbelief.
Incidentally, the challenge? In the class you have Varia of the gestalt powers, Vance of possibly spiders, Ren of not-really-bullet-time, and (a) Harem of auditing punishment; if there are any others, I don’t think they’ve been introduced. Within the Council you have Gregor the were-dire-wolf, Ingsol the vampire and apparent Chair for the day, Choirus the big beastie who may or may not have had a more precise on-screen description, Icon the autonomous armour construct, Decollette the succubus, and several others who’ve not had much screen time. I’m not counting Clover and Kat, on the assumption that they’re present as assistants to Gregor rather than in their own right.
You got the left right left right wrong on today’s drawing. It was right yesterday. You have left left right right today.
Psst, Dave, panels 1 and 2, is the lighthook orb in Sydney’s right hand or left?
Oh, uh… hmm, looks like it switched. Oops.
Not really a biggie. Folks swap things over, from one hand to the other, all the time. Plus Sydney likes playing with her orbs, so frequently, that she probably does that without thinking about it.
If you aren’t used to wearing t-backs, then it’ll feel a bit like a wedgie, as you imagine it does. But like any other underwear type, if you wear it long enough to get used to it, they’ll feel more comfortable than any underwear type you’ve become unaccustomed to wearing.
If someone applied an actual wedgie to them, there’s less fabric to wedge, and it’s more likely to break as it stretches.