Grrl Power #115 – Reservations for two
This page was tough to write because of the set up. I don’t have an audience advocate involved. That is, everyone in the room is smart and fully informed of what the situation is, so there’s no one to ask leading questions that the others can answer without it sounding like exposition for the benefit of the readers. But I’ve been re-watching Buffy with the wife who’s never seen it and I was reminded by the great and mighty Whedon that sometimes smart people sometimes say funny, leading or irreverent things if they’ve been put wrong footed by one of the other characters or are distracted by secondary plot elements. (We just started season 4, haven’t gotten to Hush yet.)
Besides, this page has two of my favorite pictures of Sydney so far.
Also please enjoy the new Halloween themed vote incentive. The one with Dabbler is almost done but I’m not thrilled with some of the background work on it. I’ll let you guys know when it’s available on the DA page.
Edit: Updated image with 5 o’clock shadow and the cigar smoke. I always forget the smoke.
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Sydney’s expression in the last panel… masterly.
Hm… Have you considered having these fantasy sequences marked as being such, for sake of clarity; sepia tones, transparency or maybe something with the panel outlines?
I kinda like the idea of a wavy border-line, myself. It could be straight over Zeph’s head in the left side of that last panel, then wobble over the right-hand side where he’s imagining Sydney’s maniacal actions. Best of all, it’d be easy to implement on these multi-viewpoint panels: the part that’s being envisioned is the part that gets the wobbly border; you could even bring the wobbly bits “inside” the original frame, white-out the bits that overlap on the outside, and voila! Redone panels, super-easy. (Well, except for it involving several layers of computer-graphics coloring, I’m sure. But beyond that, easy enough. Just make sure to copy the sine-wave pattern-with-white-out-on-one-side into a sort of clip-art file to whip out and use in future comix, and voila! Oh, wait, I said that already…)
Yeah I was planning on making those panel borders look like thought bubbles, and then I… forgot to do that while I was setting up the panels. :P If I can figure out an easy way to do that I may go back and fix it.
Go EGS style: Rounded panel corners for fantasy panels.
i agree on the last panel very well done.. my only question is… is that suposed to be the moon or did she dispose of the body’s at a golf corse?
heh :) rereading grrlpower, it might be the seafloor on that last panel :) would indeed be pretty hard to find a body buried in the seafloor a dozen miles away from the coast :)
Oh hey, you missed the General’s five-o’-clock shadow in panel 2.
It took me a while before I realized why he was looking different…
This gets better every week. Also, Sydney (and you) deserves a brohoof.
Well, we now know Zeph is a pessimist.
I think Zeph’s seen some pretty dire stuff in his life.
“THE HARVEST BEGINS!!!”
I started last sunday and the eldrich horrors are running scared (except for the ones in government they’re running for reelection)
Vote Cthulhu! Remember a vote for Cthulhu is a vote for the Dark Old Ones!
I actually tried to vote for THE GREATER EVIL. But the voting machine would not let me do that as a “write in”. It stopped working. They had to take me to another one :0
Panel 4: “Emergency ARCHON business” Wow!!!!!!
Had to double check over a hundred comments (so I might have missed a few…. dozen….), but I notice that in Maxima;s imagination Sydney already has an H collar. Should we infer from this that Maxima gives her the code name of Halo, or is it some combination of coincidence/artistic error?
wow – good eye for detail!
I suppose Dave could just assert that since almost everybody else uses an H, it’s probably a safe default until told otherwise…
Well, in reality Max’s imagination probably isn’t detailed enough to picture all the people in the crowd much less future potential chokers, but I didn’t want to draw a blurry “imagination vision” panel. Plus it’s not like we don’t know what her hero name will eventually be – though admittedly that was probably an error on my part, I should have left that detail out when I built the page since it would have made for a fun reveal.
dave i take it more of a flash back of a flash back. SO you can draw that storline some day or not but its an open hahah
A fun reveal? You know, Max saying “It’s wired to explode if you should go rogue.” line would be nice to watch Sydney freak out.
Heh, trust a nerd to know how to dispose of a body.
Mythbusters tested burying someone in a shallow grave on their Halloween episode. Busted, it is not quick to bury someone in a shallow grave. It took Jamie a couple of hours.
Syd has a blaster orb, digging the hole would be easy. Filling it in, less so.
Another solution would be to just use the pew pew orb to vaporize the body. No holes needed!
Fire is the way to go. A pit BBQ with too much fire is quite effective.
So says the voice of experience.
Depends on your digging tools. A Backhoe would do it in minutes.
I just watched that episode. I never once believed it when a movie made it look like an easy task. I’ve dug holes before.
That’s why in the movies, the mobsters have their victims dig their own graves, or pot them under a convient building that is just about to have a cement foundation poured.
I wonder how many bodies they would find if they used echolocation methods under the foundation of all the buildings out there?
In New York, New Jersey, and Chicago probably a lot.
Uh-yup nice little stream bed and the backo digs 18 feet down. Gidder done!
Risk your life. Possibly kill. Want to survive all that, a bit of sociopathay will keep them sane.
Morbo suspects Sydney is a black widow who kills men when they point out her flat chest.
It is like a washboard. I could use it as a table. Etc.
Careful Morbo…what if you’re right?
Wasn’t Morbo standing here just before that flash of milt-colored lights?
We will miss poor Morbo but Sydney didn’t!
*Walks by with a mattock and shovel over his shoulder*
Need help with that bro?
Nope, just putting the gardening tools away. But if you could hook the hydro-seed gear to the truck it’s be appreciated.
Morbo’s species is far too resilient to fall to a puny human stripling. Especially one so flat.
*Points to the “Stripling* behind Morbo with a red orb in her hand* Might wanna duck.
COVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW! Nice use of the shield and PPO orbs. The shield really contained and channeled all that power into poor ole Morbo.
and he HAD to duck behind my wing. I will be unstable physicaly as well as mentaly now, look how scarred it is morbo.
MORBO DOES NOT CARE FOR YOUR PUNY WHINING.
Also Morbo must make note of this. Your species has puny weak easily injured wings.
If you want I can make you a nice set of Cyber Shield-wings.
She’s just composting. At night. In New Jersey.
All perfectly innocent.
Yeah, it’s a regional past time to do your composting at 3AM in New Jersey.
They have been doing it for over a century in that neck of the woods. Why do you think they call it the Garden State?
I feel like an idiot…I was jsut re-reading the series again and noticed on https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/479 how when Sid is flying upside down her hair stays in the same place. it’s not flight, it’s gravity control! she’s just shifting where and how it affects her.
Yep it was mentioned and Dave canonized it.
ALL HAIL THE GREAT DaveB! He can make ideas into cannons! :p
You knew I would do that, didn’t you adamas?
Yes, Yes I did. If not you, one of the maniacs here.
I resemble that remark!
*Holds up a picture* Yep, you certainly do.
Your favorite two are in here? I’m gonna guess frame 5 and the final frame.
Yea, I was thinking frame 4 was a oddly common pose for Sydney.
Honestly you people have no imagination her family owns a pig farm no composting needed just feed the pigs. They will eat everything clothes bones doesn’t matter metal bits they won’t do unless they can sallow it whole. So rings belts and such you take and metal down so no one knows what it was. Few weeks back more than likely had a old guy fall in with the pigs during feeding time pretty much gave up looking for him.
Diamonds are serial numbered.
Who wants to go diamond hunting over a couple hundred acres of farmland?
Makes hunting for needles in haystacks look easy.
that’s easy, the needles they use to hold haystacks together are metal rods about 6 foot long and an inch think.
“You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.”
Funny you should mention that family owns a pig farm back in Kansas as for serial numbers that is only on newer diamonds and you can always find someone to cut the stone if it is big enough.
So, a few pages ago they said two unknown powers, but wasn’t the truesight orb one of the ones they didn’t know about?
1 Flight
2 Explosion beams
3 tentacle
4 telepresence
5 force field
6 truesight
7 ???
There are only 7 orbs, right?
The Telapresence Orb also gives her Truesight.
Ah thanks, I didn’t realize those we’re the same orb
yep. and they don’t know if the other “known” orbs have other powers as well.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that the two unknown orbs are going to be “power modifiers”; one makes any other orb stronger, the other makes it weaker. That’s why they don’t work together.
To use an example I used before, if the PPO can blow a hole in a wall, the “minus” orb might be enough to destroy the lock on the door, while the “plus” orb might level the house.
THE HALO ORBS
1. “THE WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ORB”. Blue, clear. Gravity control/flight. Known power level: Allows Halo to fly, in any orientation.
2. “THE PPO” (a.k.a. “THE PEW PEW ORB”). Red, with energy streaks in it. Grants: explody beams. Known power level: Pretty powerful.
3. “THE PTO” (a.k.a. “THE PSEUDOPOD TENTACLE ORB”). Pink, with coiled tentacle in it. Please turn over to next page for detailed explanation (well, further down this page, to be more accurate). Known power level: Can toss packing foam.
4. “THE COOLEST ORB”. Tan/khaki, with inner orb. Grants: Telepresence (illusion of Halo only, plus can see, hear and talk through it, but not touch) on location of inner orb; and True Sight (seeing through illusions and invisibility) for Halo (but not via her telepresence, nor can it see through objects or mundane disguises). Known power level: Can reveal “impenetrable” succubi illusions.
5. “THE EENWEENCIBLE ORB” (a.k.a. “THE CAN’T TOUCH THIS ORB”). Purple, with white cloud inside. Grants: Force field. Known power level: Can stop penumbrate strength attack, versus Halo, under controlled conditions.
6. UNKNOWN. Green, with yellow cloud inside (showing as swirly shapes, in close up/activated, and extending beyond the surface). Glows. Grants Dave the ability to have a major story arc about its powers at a later date.
7. UNKNOWN. Brown, with white cloud inside (showing as geometric shapes, in close up/activated, and extending beyond the surface). Glows. Grants: eternal mystery; and confers inability for readers to stop following the story of Halo. Ever.
Advantages: Orbs can be controlled telekinetically, including summoning them, even when no orbs are in hand; provide huge marketing spin off potential and the orbs are tethered to Halo (uncontrollably).
Weaknesses: Mittens ; space suit/biohazard environment suit gloves ; limited to using one per free hand (exception – able to telekinesis/summon orbs without any in hand); and the orbs are tethered to Halo uncontrollably.
Advantage omitted: The orbs are undetectable other than by direct observation.
edit: replace “PTO” with “Hentai”
We don’t know if Sydney has actually used it for that.
perhaps not, but she’s seen enough to know what would happen…
not yet wait for Dabbler to start giving her ideas
6. UNKNOWN. Green, with yellow cloud inside (showing as swirly shapes, in close up/activated, and extending beyond the surface). Glows. Grants Dave the ability to have a major story arc about its powers at a later date. (if he’s not to busy)
7. UNKNOWN. Brown, with white cloud inside (showing as geometric shapes, in close up/activated, and extending beyond the surface). Glows. Grants: eternal mystery; and confers inability for readers to stop following the story of Halo. Ever. (or until Dave stops drawing them)
Advantages: Orbs can be controlled telekinetically, including summoning them, even when no orbs are in hand; provide huge marketing spin off potential and the orbs are tethered to Halo (uncontrollably). might be worth finding out if the tethering effect requires all the orbs to be in the poster tube or if each orb is tethered to her
OK found the italics on, where the italics off?
Wax on
Wax off
Wax poetic
(Just remove spaces)
No, not you, you stupid computer! The person was supposed to remove the spaces! Arg! Let’s try that again.
< (this should be a less than symbol) i &rt; (this should be a greater than symbol) – Turns on italics.
< /i &rt; – Turns off italics. In HTML, typically you start a block with a code and end the block with the same code, but with a slash in front of the code.
So let’s try that again. I know I will get it correct eventually. Once more back to the paraphrase from Karate Kid.
<i> – Wax on
</i> – Wax off
<cite> – Wax poetic
Disadvantage omitted: The orbs like to take a nap, if not used for a while.
Non-super weakness: biting sarcasm of youtube top 10 daily proportions.
Non-super weakness: biting sarcasm antics are UNSTOPPABLE!
They haven’t found any bodies because there probably isn’t enough left to identify them as bodies…
or she hasn’t hidden them on Earth. She’s obviously somewhat adept at handling her powers. Who is to say that she can’t easily just fling the remains off into space?
I’d assume the INS would notice human bodies flying by the viewports or slamming into the hull.
*ISS!
Splat!
Ew! Someone get a spacesuit and the Windex!
Might need a chisel if it’s on the dark-side, -300 and a near vacuum. Flash frozen to the glass.
Something to fear from La Migra there, Adamas? =P
****Epic Face Palm! With a “Head Desk” chaser****
That comment is going to take me to sleep this morning. That is if I can stop laughing!!!!!
Thank you Azrael44. I love this board!
It takes a fair amount of energy to accelerate anything, let alone a hundred-odd kg body, to escape velocity – you don’t want it to fall back at some future date and start raising even more questions. Deep ocean, however, is a lot easier to get to and arguably less likely to lead to accidental discovery. Or just take that energy that you were going to use as kinetic to boost the body to escape velocity, and use it as thermal to vapourise the whole thing.
The heat generated by re-entry would be enough to burn up the body – plus all ashes would be well and truly scattered – so there wouldn’t be any evidence left
That would work extremely well (apart from POSSIBLY being tracked on someone’s radar). You don’t even have to ramp up to escape velocity – just enough for a suborbital trahectory would be fine.
IIRC Radar has difficulties tracking Biological objects, or relatively small objects.
From the sounds of how things are rolling in this world, flying supers might be JUST becoming a concern for air traffic controllers and the like. So developing and equipping with radars more sensitive to “biologicals” might be a consideration.
The FAA (and equivalents thereof in other nations) could even make it a legal requirement that any super who flies above a certain height and speed has to carry a radio transponder or some such thing. Certainly, they can get sticky about the use of rockets, ultralights and/or large RC aircraft in varous situations.
Well if the supers are treated as military flights then the FCC has no control over them. Just as they don’t control any military or national security flights.
It is definitely NOT like one can say “I’m a military flight. WOOOOO!” and buzz through civil airspace whenever and however one feels like. When near populated areas and/or in civil airspace, milifary flighbts are often MORE limited in what they can do than civil flights, not less.
(If ‘Maverick’ had “buzzed the tower” in reality, he would have ended up pumping poop out of planes in Greenland faster than he could blink.)
Noting that civil ATC centres frequently include one or more military air traffic controllers specifically to handle military flights in that airspace, and they also maintain close communications with any military-controlled areas close by. There were enough tragedies and near-misses in the earlier days of aviation that military-civil coordination of air traffic is taken EXTREMELY seriously.
So, having flying supers classified as “military flights” is not going to give them catre blanche to do whatever the heck they like. Quite the opposite.
Regarding the flights of Max and ARC’s Ospreys early on, I would guess that (a) the airspace around HQ is restricted – at least below a specific altitude (Sydney can still see airliners out the window ), and (b) civil flights were probably directed out of the immediate airspace around where the ‘bank robbery’ happened. Kind of like when police divert traffic away from an area deemed ‘at risk’..
That really depends on the political clout behind ARC. The bureaucracy in most countries lags behind common sense. Typically it take some disasters to change the status quo. Something akin to Bonnie and Clyde rampaging to get the FBI working the way we see it today. Or Katrina to shake up FEMA.
If ARC are a new arm of the military, presumably they have presidential approval, or some otherwise extremely powerful political group behind them. How willing he or they are to stake their political careers by publicly supporting the experiment, remains to be seen. Whilst untried they are a gamble that can either make or break their backers. Likely one of the reasons Arianna is on the team.
Until ARC have some successes under their belts, they may not get more than nominal support. If so, their authority or influence over other organisations will be limited at the moment.
So, Zeph isn’t afraid of “studying” a succubus, but he is afraid of having a comic nerd with superpowers on the team.
no he thinks he’s “studying”
err that doesn’t make sense. lets try no he only thinks he’s “studying” her.
I wouldn’t be adverse to such a “Study” assignment myself.
may I recommend Astarotte “Lotte” Ygvar?
I can believe Maxima’s fear with her, Zeph’s fear, not so likely. Maybe.
So THAT’S how you get a professional badge!
Wouldn’t she be able to get paid for going to the conventions after her debut as a super? The merchandise and media coverage alone should be enough to guarantee her spots on speaking panels.
they wont be able to put the *BEEP* in fast enougth
They would need two Diablo players!!!!!!!
Just have the pannel be after 10PM in it’s own room, and have someone at the door checking ID’s so nobody under 18 is allowed in. They could then post it on utube at a later date with or without the bleeps.
Jennie Breeden does that at Dragon Con every year for her kilt blowing.
They’d still need a pair of Korean Starcraft gamers to be able to handle the APM necessary to filter her speech in a reasonable time to release it in less than a year.
OOOOOOOOOOH!
Mature panel: Advanced Cursing with host Halo from Archon
I was thinking the same thing; even if for some reason she wasn’t asked to come (excessive cursing at a PG panel the previous year or something), she could get in for free with her Telepresence orb. Can’t eject a hologram…
Heck, having her there via the orb might be a draw in itself: “Last year I walked right through Halo and I felt this ~chill~, y’know? I bet she’ll notice me if I do it again this year…”
Thank you, so much for another great page!
I think I got a case of strained jaw due to uncontrollable grin-and-giggle attacks from the last panel. XD
I think Zeph is just being paranoid.
as the saying goes “just because your paranoid, doesn’t mean their not out to get you”
or as Kenneth Williams once said in carry on Cleo “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!”
Heh well in his case he might be letting his imagination run away with him and his paranoia get the better of him, sides Sydney dosen’t honestly strike me as the type that will slaughter someone with her bare hands or her powers… sure she would maim and severely injure and cause all sorts of pain upon them they WISH they died but not kill em outright.
THE HALO ORBS
3. Makes pseudopod tentacle thingys. Grants: telekinesis; the ability to give the finger and allows Halo to poke villains in the eye. Please go up the page, for the rest of the list.
Halo can use the tentacle to activate the self destruct the enemy had made to erase their base.
It can probably tamper with any high tech device or “secure” area from the inside. This is why she’s afraid of ninjas; and not of giant robots destroying a stereotypical gozilla target type town while she’s in it.
That last panel make anyone else think of Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin?
Made me think of the start of New Vegas actually.
Two interesting questions just occurred to me after reading the orb lists above. #1 – Can the blasts from the PPO penetrate the barrier generated by the Shield orb, and #2 – Can Sydney project the shield so it forms around someone else?
Bodies? What bodies?
As a gamer, Sydney will have already experimented with these and others, but I imagine the reveal will take place either when the testing suggested previously by Maxima takes place, or if some action kicks off prior to that.
Even if the blasts do not, Sydney can develop a power stunt (as mentioned by Omnigal way back in #2 ) to, in rapid succession, drop force field, fire pew pew and raise shield again. Not as good as firing through it (for instance someone with Maxima’s speed could attack during the moment the shield was down, but at least it minimises the risk.
There are loads of other interactions with the balls that we will only find out with time. For instance: can the pseudopod tentacle thingy work through the force field? Can it operate from the telepresence image of Halo? If so, Halo could hide it within the telepresence image to allow her to manipulate objects with it, and thereby look like she is there in person, opening doors, picking things up and so on.
Actually, I just remembered that the tentacle can work through the force field, given that is how the packing foam was thrown at it.
*sigh* Correction to the correction.
Having now checked the page in question, the issue is still open. Either the force field may have been up, whilst the foam was being thrown (off camera, as it were). Or the foam might have been tossed, with the force field being raised quickly, before it hit. Possibly thereby being a power stunt, similar to the one I described for the P.P.O. above.
And sorry about all the posts. I am like a kid in a candy store, with a pocket full of money, now that I can finally comment on this wonderful comic!
For info, I did try clicking on the forum button (on several different occasions), to see if I could divert some of my posts there, but it does not work for me. Not that I have ever been into forums, in general. Especially not if it takes me away from the art!
Isn’t Zeph a little old and educated to be using expressions like “spaz”?
Oh so that’s what happens when you get double listed……damn now I have to reread and cross check all my notebooks.
I’ll be honest, I would NEVER want someone like Sydney on any team I serve with. Though in my experience, superhero teams never work out. Too many egos, too much suspicion, not enough action. Unless you have a single, unquestionable alpha, then everything falls apart. And public attention? Forget about it. The more attention you get, the harder it is to do anything effective in the community, and someone like Sydney (ignoring the other egos on the team) is a PR nightmare.
Intelligent – check.
Imaginative – check.
Responsible – check (she is the partner in a business, and we have no indication that her partner considers her anything other than an asset).
Goodsense of humour – check.Gets on well with colleagues – check.
Gets on well with management – check.
Ambitious – check (she tried to beat one of the foremost martial artists in the world)
Brave – check (see above)
Sociable pastimes – check (Role playing games. Although carrying public perception of geekishness, the hobby encourages problem solving, sociability, analytical thinking, empathy due to the role-playing aspect and various other useful intellectual side effects)
Atheletic pastimes – check (certified scuba diver)
Miscellaneous assets – check (takes notes, looks good in a uniform and can handle a really hot curry)
And those are just off the top of my head. I would be happy to have her, or anyone like her, on my team.
The notion of Superhero Teams never working out just has me looking broadly at the Avengers and Justice League like ‘what’s going on, guys’.
The “authority abuse” I can totally see Sydney doing.
I support the idea of rounded corners on fantasy panels! Makes it easier to tell it’s someone’s imagination, not something that’s really happening. n__n;
It would be a good solution. Simple to implement and intuitive for readers. It could even work on dual-purpose panels, like the final one. Where you see both the imaginer and the fantasy scene. In those cases half the corners would be the regular variety, whereas the others, by the imagined bit, can be rounded.
I’ve been avoiding watching Buffy for some reason, (maybe it’s been puffed up too much?) but your mention of it is the last straw. I guess I’ll watch it. I finished re-watching Eureka this week and couldn’t come up with anything to watch next anyway, Is it really that great???
Two years late, but:
WATCH EEEET
Dave, you’ve truly captured the look of terror on Zeph’s face! I don’t know how I missed that before.
I wonder what was in the time capsule?
The 8th Orb? The Octarine Orb of Time.
You are almost at 1300 pages, and this is still one of my favorites. That face on panel 5 with the abuse of power is SOOO justified.