Grrl Power #663 – Executive class
I wasn’t sure what to have Vale watching there on the screen for a while, I went back and forth between something metal like the club scene from Blade 2 or Hellraiser, but that felt a little predictable. Of course, having her watching a cutesy cartoon is nearly as predictable as it’s a straight reversal of the trope. Maybe I should have had her watching something super brain dead like The Bachelorette or a daytime soap, but then a lot of you would have been all “anyone know what she’s watching?”
If you’ve never heard of a solar updraft tower, they’re a pretty cool ideal. I have a wikipedia link there for you, but the short version is, build a hollow tower, the taller the better, like 500-1000 meters, and since the upper atmosphere is always cooler than the lower atmosphere, even at night, wind travels up the tower, since heat rises. Put some wind turbines in there, and you have constant power. To make it more efficient, put a huge greenhouse at the base to really collect the hot air, and we’re talking about something in the order of 1/10th of the Hoover Dam’s output.
You can even use some of the greenhouse space as an actual greenhouse, of course, you’d have to shield most of the plants from the constant wind, so you lose efficiency there.
The point is, I wonder what Deus is planning on doing with the Skybreaker and a ton of power?
Edit: Wow, I had no idea Teen Titans Go was so reviled. Maybe I’ll swap the screen out with something else. On the other hand, she is a bad guy(?).
The vote incentive is updated! I have another mock cover I painted, but I’ll give you guys a break from that stuff and put up a portrait of Max. Mostly just painting practice. I think it turned out pretty good, but it’s still not… there. But it’s an improvement, and that’s the important part. For some reason I like drawing Max wearing t-shirts she would probably never actually wear. Maybe on laundry day, but never around the base or the press.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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.
I love Vale’s cloak…! What can you say about the rest of her outfit???
That it’s Elisa Cameron-esque.
Cloaks need to make a serious comeback in fashion. They’re so practical and adaptable you can get them to fit any weather or temperature.
Vale enjoys Teen Titans Go… this pleases me.
Pretty easy to tell what Deus has planned, he’s taken the Portal sword to a third world nation, where he’ll be able to open a portal to Sciona’s home world. allowing him to do 2 things.
1. Rescue Sydney, Arcon’s greatest asset, and indebting Arcon, Maxima, and Sydney to him, for saving Sydney.
2. permanent personal access to a destroyed world, allowing him and his company an untapped source of resources, that nobody else will actually complain about him exploiting.
with the effort of saving one person, he’ll have indebted a military organization that is already a client of his, and will be able to claim an entire planet for mining rights.
as for Teen titans go, the people with taste don’t like it because it’s the redheaded stepchild of the original show that was much better.
You mean people who hate children… gotcha
No, just people who hate you. Savvy?
TTG is an amazing show and Teen Titans! wasn’t as good as you remember.
While TTG is pretty good it’s unbalanced. They don’t feel like a team of like minded super hero teen who have fun between crisises, they fell like a vaudeville with five person passing around the straight man role. If the shows where limonade TT would be homemade 10% lemon 10% sugar and TTG the powdered stuff you buy in store, different kind of tastes.
I watch TTG when it’s on and there’s nothing more interesting to do but I don’t follow it. Teen Titans I did.
I would have found it more palatable it they actually built the show as them goofing off and letting out steam between hinted but never shown crisises with an actual team dynamic going on.
Now that is the sort of brilliant planning that put Deus where he is today. The only thing he’d have to explain is how he a) knew of the Skybreaker’s existence, and b) how he acquired it from under Archon’s noses.
Do we know if the Skybreaker only links to Sciona’s world? Because I was under the impression it could link to anywhere and Sciona had to direct it to her world.
That was my impression as well. Most of that complex blood sigil she created on the floor was apparently meant to make sure the wormhole opened to her homeworld. When it starts closing Dabbler blames it on the sigil being destroyed by the fallout from Squidwards first attack.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2905
I was going to make this same comment,’
considering the brane ripper its self when first used open up a tentacle mass world, I’d say aside from some boost or longer handle stuff, the blood sigils acted more like the star gate address for it, and without some secondary control for all we know its a random dimensional portal generator.
He could double his efficiency, apparently, by skipping the greenhouse and using a… I think they call it “transpired solar collector” apparently. He’s ditching efficiency for keeping the Greenhouse space. There’s more to it.
At least the skybreaker doesn’t create tornadoes, or it would be called the Windbreaker, amirite?
Two words. Pea Hue. That pun turns me green.
Funny you should mention that… some proposals suggest getting rid of the tower and its inherent structural limitations by using a stabilized vortex, possibly kilometers high.
If a supervillain built that over the obligatory tank full of sharks you could end up with a sharknado!
Vale watching a show often critically reviled for being a brain dead reboot of a beloved children’s show? That was so unpredictable, I’d say keep it.
As someone who is so old they remember people hating what you are all calling “the original” for being a mindless anime expressions over using comedy wasteland (their words), of the original Teen Titans cartoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zszIXGW6a0s
Every new version of something is hated by those that came before…although granted Go does make the mistake of using the same line up with the same costumes, so I can see some anger there from being too similar but younger demographic.
I didn’t say that the early ‘00s series didn’t have plenty of flaws, or wasn’t railed against by fans of the source material for a different art style and tone from its source material. I just heard of people being bothered by various aspects of the writing, and characterization in TTG for more than just being “aimed at a younger demographic.”
The only aspect of my personal opinion present in my comment is on Vale enjoying the series. When it comes to media that exists purely for entertainment, I do not believe in judging others for what they enjoy, even if it’s looked on negatively by other people.
She should be looking at Steven Universe, LOL. Any part where Peridot says “Clod” is good. (-;
Honestly TTG is perfectly fine. It’s actually pretty darn hilarious sometimes. People just want their single serving of well rounded Teen Titans back instead of a super silly children’s show and an edgy AF teen drama.
Yes.
Thank you.
Exactly. I enjoyed them both. TTG probably isn’t as good, but it’s not really the same thing either.
Ooh, solar-powered death ray … err … glider launching facility.
Giant moon lasers – the ultimate in subtle messaging.
I figured he was just going to used the portals to siphon energy off of somewhere(star/planet/whatever), giving him cheap nigh limitless energy. The location of the portal could otherwise be arbitrary, this way he could plausibly justify where the energy comes from.
Well since the towers will provide cheap unlimited energy, since they are built, I can’t really see the point. Also, tapping a star directly would be ruinous to, um, probably the entire earth. Stars are HOT.
However…
creating a portal to, say, the moon or mars (inside an airlock chamber), would be the cheapest way to get stuff into space ever! Charge half what Space-X does and it would be entirely profit, since his overhead would be next to nothing.
Cut away from the battle at the beginning of the Okolepukahanaia’na Wave for Teen Titans GO?! Was I a bad audience? Forgot to eat my vegetables?
JK. I don’t get as hurt over TTG cause I read what everyone said and, while I usually like to see for myself cause my taste is often different from reviewers, I decided to leave it alone. So now I can happily say that I have never seen this travesty.
I’m fine with teen titans Go, but if you do decide to swap out screens, I think a super dated and possibly obscure science fiction like Red Dwarf or Babylon 5(if you want to get snarky) would be a highly entertaining alternative. For Babylon 5- I would recommend any screen from the first season where G’kar is complaining is pretty appropriate, (especially the one where he’s waving around the lacy red panties ;) if you know what I mean.
I wouldn’t consider Red Dwarf obscure. I think it’s one of the funniest things that’s ever been on TV. Actually, if you recall, Sydney calls her Comm-Orbs hologram projector the “Light Bee” after Rimmer.
The Arnold Rimmer Song
You’ll thank me later.
No… I don’t think I will…
In fact, quite the opposite: I’ll “darn” you today!!
Darn You!
Darn you to heck.
– Phil The Prince of Insufficient Light
It depends on the location. Red Dwarf has less exposure here, than say the black & white original first season of Doctor Who. I still see a lot of people around who have no clue about either, but express a fondness for Lexx, Farscape, and argue about the merits of Mutant X over the X-Men movies…
You want obscure Sci Fi show, how about LEXX?
Not obscure either, well, maybe, can remember seeing a behind-the-scenes shoot of Kai’s death before seeing the actual show (miss the days of having German TV over here, was just one channel being broadcast on a local area network at the opposite end of the earth from Germany :P )
You want obscure sci-fi… Otherworld.
I will see that and raise you Moon 44.
Oh, going films are we?
I will see that and raise you Ikarie XB-1
space 1999.
Is that a mirror around the bottom on the tower? At first I thought the glass was just glinting in the sun but it’s casting a pretty solid shadow. Pretty sure glass or the ilk over a black floor would be what you want, with the floor made out of something with a high thermal capacity or even just water-filled, so it stays warm despite the wind all night, not that the later would be visible at a glance like this.
Maybe you were thinking of solar power towers that use mirrors to focus sunlight on a centeral tower where the heat is used to boil water and drive a steam turbine?
As explained (on pages other than this one, so can see why you missed them), that is a giant greenhouse to trap noxious gasses (the air SmugD blows has to go somewhere other than up peoples’ butts) which then travels up the funnel creating energy
It’s supposed to be glass, not a mirror. That would defeat the purpose of having it there, as its supposed to pool heat to be channeled up through the tower. But the way I drew it, it does totally look like mirrors. :/
I figured it was a massive solar panel array.
Or a solar reflector array, before the mirrors get adjusted. That might work better than a green house, if you put the total might of the sun into the base…
I saw it as diamond Dues being rich and all why not the opulence.
So, there’s a bit of an error in order there. Wouldn’t they build the tower BEFORE building the greenhouse building? The new one being constructed in the background should not have the glass just beneath the in-construction tower.
1) It hinders passage to the machinery necessary to put together the tower
2) You have a huge glass window. What if the guy up overhead drops a …I don’t know… two pounds bolt down there? Goodbye glass!
Yes.
I guess they will have to figure a way to open up a passage to the updraft tower that does not pass over the glass. And maybe put up a sign saying “don’t drop stuff”?
Yeah, you’re right. Though it maybe depends on how the tower is being built. If you’re using standard cranes, absolutely.
I could defend it by saying that since the tower is hollow, they have a spiral ramp on the inside they can truck supplies up and build it from the inside, but yeah basically I didn’t think about that when I drew the second tower. :)
Easy answer: Constructor the Superpowered Builder! No construction job too big or small for the Great Constructor!!
I think I need sleep…
His (or her) first name has to be Bo :D
Just switch it out for Teen Titans original. Problem solved.
No. Vale is an asshole. That she likes the bad version fits her.
So the 1967 show?
Or do you mean that early 2000’s show that was hated on by everyone not a kid for over-using anime style expressions, *that did get okay after a few seasons*, but wasn’t regarded as a classic until the people who watched it as kids got older.
*Sudden hrrified realization!*
Given the time frame of WHEN the series is set… This can only mean Deus Industries made TEEN TITANS GO!, and she’s watching the test reels!
DEUS, YOU MONSTER!
This…might qualify as Fridge Brilliance XD
Alternate reality earth so presumably whatever evil caused Teen Titans Go was accelerated in this alternate earth.
It’s a Shortstack. From a Sixties (IIRC) SF story in which a guy named Short builds the first one.
There was a series of humorous stories about this inventor, who is brilliant but unfocused and keeps inventing things like a high-temperature superconductor (that is, it won’t work in an air conditioned room) by accident.
You know, a high temperature super conductor like that (works only above ~72 F) would be incredibly useful, because it could generate it’s own heat at perfect efficiency (assuming it just had regular resistance below temperature, rather than doing something else, like exploding)
Hate to tell you this, but you need to read the science news from India. Look for “room temperature superconductor gold silver nano particles”. No independent confirmation as yet.
The omens aren’t good for that “discovery”. There are some highly worrying aspects to the data (correlated noise is amazingly high up the WTF stakes if true) that are making it look more like someone was lazy and stupid instead of finding anything real.
I thought it sounded like an Arthur Clarke sort of thing, but it was not. :j
Possibly you are referring to “Shortstack” (Leigh Richmond and Walt Richmond)?
It was the only one I could find in wikipedia, part of the Elsewhere and Elsewhen collection.
Intriguing. Now I have a hankering to go find a copy…
That or go reread all of Clarke’s short stories. He wrote some great ones…
Never watched TTG. Watched the original Teen Titans though… From what I understand, the two shows are written for different demographics. But the original started attracting the opposite demographic and simply wasn’t making money because of that… among other things. Kinda why the ending wasn’t as good as it could have been.
I probably will not watch TTG anyways. I’m not fond of a lot of the “newer” cartoons. Well, I haven’t really turned on a TV to actually watch TV in like a decade or so.
I always found it strange, I despise sponge bob. But it seems like a lot of people I know who moved from other states (Mainly Utah) LOVE it…
You either like it, love it, or gotta trash it. And always remember: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dtYeH6Wmk
Wait, isn’t the whole point of a solar updraft tower that the sun is heating a medium that then warms up the air which can only escape through the tower?
You have what looks like mirrors reflecting the sunlight nowhere in particular, and a gap between the collector array and the tower.
The ‘medium’ is ‘air’, which is heated in the greenhouses (those are not mirrors), DaveB even mentioned all that in his blurb
PS: I want Vale in this outfit more often/devianart.
I’d love a blown up version of panel 2.
Is…is that a stripper pole in the plane?
Definitely! Thanks for pointing that out – I hadn’t noticed.
I like how there are chairs pre-set just for pole-dance watching. :)
Only the best luxury jets come with stripper poles. Tony Stark and Deus just managed to buy the same model jet.
Buy? no. Tony BUILT it. Deus did, however, probably buy one from Stark
Heinlein wrote a short story about the thermal updraft idea, can’t remember the name of it (50 years ago), or the collection it was in.
I don’t think so.
I’ve read just about everything by Heinlein I could get my hands on and don’t remember anything like that. A refresher scan of his bibliography also yields nothing relevant.
However, about 6 posts up, Stickmaker mentions a short story about a guy named Short who makes a thermal updraft plant and remembered it was called “Shortstack”. I tracked down a reference on wikipedia and linked it in my reply to that, but it was not by Heinlein.
I’ve been playing catch-up on this comic for over a year now and I’m still stuck back in September 2016 because I’ve been reading all the comments. Now I accidentally jump forward to the current comic and WHAT THE HELL??? Oh god, NO! DaveB, why???
Where are the outlines around the characters? Where are the sharp, distinct shadows? Why do the panels touch the edge of the page? This looks more like a painting than a comic. It doesn’t even slightly resemble how Grrl Power looked in all the previous years of content. I barely recognize these characters. It’s such a turn off when comics drastically and completely change their art style, especially when the original was so lovable and endearing. This is the same reason I had to abandon Questionable Content a few years back. Oh the agony!
Now I’m afraid to go back and continue reading from 2016 because I know the awful truth about what I have to look forward to. Oh how I wish that I could go back and never have accidentally looked at the current comic! How can I continue after seeing what I’ve seen today?
It’s called improving his artistic ability.
It’s also called “being a troll”
It’s also called personal preference. I am very much invested in following this story, so I have to wave a pass at the art style, even though I much prefer the black outlines and sharp shadows and colours, I can also appreciate that DaveB is wanting to grow and push himself as an artist.
For someone who is not invested in the story, this can be an issue.
I do wonder though… is the current art style faster, slower or the same to produce a page? I remember there was the time the art style changed to a more painterly look (when fighting the robot I think) and DaveB commented that it was an experiment in time saving (since there are no heavy black lines to draw), which failed due to his inexperience, but the principle seemed right and he’s stuck with it since.
You make a good point. I guess I overreacted. It was just traumatic suddenly seeing this drastically different style. I do still wish I had come upon it gradually like everyone else instead of accidentally jumping into it from DaveB’s 2016 art style.
If you look at my past posts you’ll see that I’m not a troll, although I can see the argument for the specific post above.
Have trouble remembering, so only judge by what is ‘now’
Apologize for calling you a ‘troll’, just your post didn’t seem serious, and have had a bad history with people posting similar comments, expecting the creator of a free comic to cater to them
Again, apologies for lumping you in with them
Butt yeah, can understand how ‘jarring’ it would be jumping straight from 2016 art to current without the transitioning
Art changes and evolves, or at least it should. There are some things I like about the old art better, and there are some things I like about the new art better. It doesn’t help that I like so many different comic art styles. Fred Perry, Masamune Shirow, Adam Warren, Art Adams, Adam Hughes, Takeshi Obata, Masahiko Nakahira, Johji Manabe, etc, but lately I’ve really been enjoying more painterly work, like Stjepan Šejić, Sakimichan, and tons of others. I also really like the Pixar/Fortnight/Overwatch style that straddles cartoony and realism.
Somewhere in the middle of all that is my own art style and I’m still trying to improve and refine. All while keeping the comic on schedule. It’ll keep changing and maybe it will swing back to a more cartoony style.
My original vision for the comic was something like Mega Dragon and Tiger, those Chinese(?) mangas where it’s comic book standard art most of the time, but every once in a while there’s an awesome painted piece, usually a splash page or used for emphasis. The trouble is being good enough to pull that off.
Considering your vote incentives (especially the last two Tamer mock ups), I would have to say that you are more than good enough to pull it off.
There are things you can do and there are things you can do really fast.
Thank you for responding! Well I do hope your artwork turns toward a more cartoony style, but maybe I’ll form a different opinion by the time I get here again via my slow crawl forward through the comics and comments from 2016
Just be careful not to look at the next page or most of the comments on this one if you want to avoid spoilers.
I can understand why people have differing opinions, especially since the comic contains so many elements that are associated with, and enhanced by, certain art styles. This style makes it trickier to work in some things like super-exaggerated expressions, but can increase the impact of others, like what Sydney’s gotten into.
Panel 2 here has got to be one of my favorites in the whole series, and I don’t think it would have the same impact in a more cartoony style.
I noticed the style transition over time and only very occasionally found myself wishing for the older style. However, I’m now sure I like your current artwork best of all, Dave. Artwork aside, the real key is the great story, and it’s seriously entertaining. Imagining Deus’ voice saying “Wait… Did you just make a joke?” is priceless!
For what it’s worth, I don’t perceive Vale as a “bad guy” at all.
I just wish the ongoing episode pace could approach the speed at which I read the entire history when I first found your site. Thanks for all you do, Dave.
fun theory:
Use the portal cutter to open a portal to a world of raging hell fire, use that to power a geothermal plant disguised as a different kind of power plant,
and if the devil of that world has a problem with it, well that’s why you send scouts to make sure you have supers that can kick that devil’s ass. Just go after red horns in business suit hells and avoid the ones with Disgaea level nut-jobs and Deus should be fine.
Deus wouldn’t want to, or need to, kick the local Devil’s behind. You don’t fight close relatives, you work with them. The Devil can’t be any further a relation than second cousin.
In case you don’t know about Teen Titans go:
It’s arguably decent in terms of TOTALLY brainless entertainment, however it has displaced, killed, or forced a dumbing down of dozens of other shows on the same channel — and it’s commercial success caused it to be a GOD TIER trendsetter that made some other shows or channels stop trying to do non-totally-brainless cartoons.
Teen Titans go is a reboot, which makes a POINT to annoy the fans of the old version of the show(which had decent plot, character development, continuity, world building, etc), to the point of parodying Teen Titan Go itself has no plot to speak of, no depth, and doesn’t take a brain to watch (the fans of the new show don’t mind starting to watch mid-episode, since in-episode continuity isn’t beneficial to COMPLETELY brainless entertainment, as opposed to how MOSTLY brainless cheap cartoons with zero plot planning time tend to be)
So basically why is it hated? It caused over a hundred shows to die or become dumbed down, or not have their pilot financed — a trend as disturbing as the Star Wars new movies being SJW-poisoned, or Star Trek movies sucking bad and dying financially from the fact they’re not owned by the same company anymore — but also still are — which will probably cause the entire Star Trek franchise to go into and remain in darkness. If only Teen Titans could do the same…
That thermal updraft tower reminds me of the time I spent assembling and calibrating DI8 industrial draught gauges for chimneys. Totally outdated technology now, of course.
I wonder if the greenhouses of the thermal updraft towers could be used to evaporate sea-water. The salt could be sold and the clean water carried up by the wind could be either collected when it condensates on the twoer walls (can then be used to water those greenhouses used for plant cultivation) and might produce some extra rain-clouds, if those towers are built in arid regions.
On the other hand it would likley drive the maintenance costs up though, since salt and water would be a corrosive mixture to most metal components of the wind generators.
Well if you read the Wikipedia link that DaveB placed in his author’s comments, you would have seen that one method for maintaining thermal energy during night time is to have pools of salt water in the collector area. If you had shallow pools you could get a lot of salt when they eventually evaporated (and then you’d simply collect the salt and then refill them), and the evaporated water could be induced to precipitate out as the air rose through the tower and cooled, allowing for the capture of salt-free water.
Well considering what they are currently doing with carbon fibre I bet that is what the turbine vanes will be made with. Just like the ‘glass’ will be polycarbonate or similar and much tougher than glass
I just realised that we’ve likely had a time skip.
Unless some funky powers were used then between getting from the battle site to an airport, flying all the way to Africa, exiting and travel to this corner of the country, it’s likely been about 24 hours.
So Sydney is either really hyped up on her stash of drugs to keep her awake and going, or she’s holed up somewhere relatively safe to sleep a spell… I guess she could decide to risk just a few hours and have her phone’s alarm wake her.
area of a chimney = 0.3xHorsepower required / Height of the chimney
Hmmm, Vale yawned. So much for the theories about her being some kind of eldritch horror. Those don’t typically get tired, or yawn.
I was thinking that, too. Though whatever lives *inside* her body seems to be plenty eldritch and horrible. The fact that it seems that her body isn’t *just* a shell to hold the — whatever it is — makes the entire arrangement a *whole* lot more interesting. It kinda puts me in mind of Tina from “Wapsi Square”, too.
Just one question DaveB that jet has a pool, but is it in the library?
OK, we’ve now got total confirmation pinky and the brain are 100% utter Evil. She’s enjoying TTG.
Did you mean Gallatin Field Airport outside of Yellowstone?
Galtyn is the fictional country that Deus practically owns.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1956
My second guess! But the research project would work for Yellowstone, and the similar name sounds.
So I know less than I should!
Oh, that’s a greenhouse at the base. I thought it was a heliostat array intended to create the updraft by heating the tower itself.
Yes TeenTitansGo is a BAD cartoon. Robin has also been made too young and silly in the occasional Batman and Robin cartoon. Teen Titans that it was based on, already pushed the silliness to 10. TeenTitansGo would have made great 20 second filler at the end of a Teen Titans episode.
Grrlpower is great , and doesn’t do silly too much or too little.
“Maybe I should have had her watching something super brain dead”
Don’t worry, you did!