Grrl Power #1000 – Graduation!
Let’s celebrate arbitrary round numbers! Human nature! Woo!
Okay, seriously though, I’m kind of amazed we’re here. It’s not something I’d really given a lot of thought when I started this comic. Though I will say I thought it was at least possible, because I name my files “GP” followed by four digits, which means I’ll have to wrap up the comic before page 9,999, or else the computer will sort them weird and my OCD won’t put up with that.
I know this is almost definitely not how most military graduations go. I wasn’t sure where everyone would stand and, look, I did pull up a few on youtube, but they’re incredibly boring to watch. There was only so much marching up and down the square I was prepared to subject myself to. It only took me about 5 minutes of research to decide to skip 99% of that stuff in the comic, as it’s all very definition of stiff and formal, and there’s no room for anything humorous to happen without it coming across as disrespectful.
The other major factor here is Archon’s domestic presence and media spotlight. The fact they’re a new branch means they can streamline the pageantry and put as much emphasis as they want on the graduates themselves.
Sydney fell behind the other recruits due to her space adventures, but it was important from the public relations/perception angle that she graduate alongside everyone else, especially because she’s basically the most famous member of the team with the possible exception of Maxima. So Sydney’s been doing a little extra work here and there, getting some tutoring, etc., and has passed all her qualifications, even if some were by the skin of her teeth. (coughPTcough) Some of her written tests, like street level application of the law as it relates to supers is slightly more pending, but it’s not like she’s going to be unsupervised in the field anyway. Barring any additional encounters with wormholes.
I didn’t draw Ren and Vance, (who is still on the team even though I haven’t drawn him in like 700 pages) in the lineup, cause I was thinking like that panel cut to them as the general is reading along the list of graduates, but it just kind of looks like just the 4 girls are graduating. Oh well.
Unrelated, has anyone done a mashup of Snap’s “The Power” with Stan Bush’s “The Touch?” Cause it seems like that should exist.
Happy Thanksgiving if you’re into that stuff.
Here’s to 1,000 more pages!
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Is that a scar across the right side (our left) of Sydney’s mouth? When did that happen?
That’s a line to show her chin cause she’s biting back a big stupid grin.
If you go past 9999 pages, just handle it the way the old Pokemon games did: keep incrementing the first digit with no regard for whether it still looks like a number.
Remember, the digit after “9” is “A”. (It would be “:”, but trying to put that in a filename causes Windows to panic.)
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F is standard Hexadecimal. But could also do GPC######. Should give more than enough digits to work with, and the C (for continued) would cause it to sort after anything that is GP####. Still, If Dave is still going strong at 10k strips, I will (further) question his sanity.
Trouble with Hexadecimal is that it would require re-numbering all the existing comics. Might as well just add a fifth digit if you’re going to go that far. Brilliand’s solution offers an additional twenty-six thousand pages at a minimum (more if you start to use non-alphanumeric characters) without renumbering any existing pages.. Not nearly as many as converting to Hex would add, but with much, much less effort.
I suppose a hybrid would work. Starting with comic number 10,000, start using Hex with A000 being the first entry. But to be honest, twenty-six thousand is probably enough on its own. No need to get fancy!
Pfft. That’s hardly future-proofing anything. It would probably be just as easy to start using base 36 at that point, and add the option of 1,213,056 more rather than just a measly 24,576 more.
This probably assumes that Dave’s children, grandchildren, and possibly even great grand children include individuals who wish to continue the work. I’m not sure why I’d bother assuming that, as I have no children and won’t, so I won’t have anyone to continue enjoying grrlpower comics for me after I go.
1000 and I know almost all of them by heart… a hundred+ years from now when this comic is recognized as fine art will I qualify for a degree?
‘Trouble’ is her middle name. Right. Wondering how Sydney snuck THAT one through.
Her parents knew…
If she’s a Jr. that means her dad is also ‘Trouble is my middle name’, but did she ever mention what he was like? I’d find it absolutely hilarious if he’s the most mild-mannered, rule-abiding, banker/accountant/librarian ever with a middle name of Trouble.
I think our only points of reference on Sydney’s parents are her side of a phone call, and a discussion about her name and Juniorness.
Reading your first link, which is a comic dated 02/20/2014, I was amused to re-read the author’s blurb for “It may be a while within the comic before we actually get to meed Sydney’s folks…”
My favorite line in the comic you linked to is “Yes dad, if they make an action figure of me I’ll get a signed one for you. First edition, I promise.”
Which tells you much of what you need to know about her dad.
Grrr – *meet
First Editions aren’t as valued as they use to be, simply for the fact they mass produce the shit out of them expressly for the Collectors Market, and often they rarely last or become as popular as they hoped
Second Edition on the third flipper, it means they did become popular, and the first editions ran out so they made a second batch
Congrats on 1,000!
(I’m not much one for commenting, but I’ve been passively reading and loving Grrl Power ever since a friend recommend it back around the time of Sydney’s first day at Archon.)
I’ve been out of town and I’m just now catching up, but why am I not surprised that Sydney’s middle name is literally Trouble?
What I wish would happen, is that this was actually a joke Sydney made while filling out her paperwork, six months ago, and has completely forgotten about until right now, when she hears her “own name” being read aloud to this big audience, and cracks up snickering, interrupting the ceremony.
Congratulations Dave!
Been reading ever since since page one – still loving it.
BTW… When is Sidney going to make Corporal, like she was waaaay back in strip 4?
This actually looks a LOT like some of the smaller-class graduations I had in the Army. Not Basic, but AIT, BNCOC, and ANCOC, where my classes were more in the 10-20 people range instead of an entire battalion at a time. Quite fitting for the low number of graduates.
I thought Sydney’s name was originally given as Sydney J. Scoville, Jr. So I went back to page 1 and have been re-reading. I was wrong, every time her name was given it was just as Sydney Scoville, Jr. It was nice to be reminded of her origins, amusing to see the difference in the early pages; I have been left with questions such as how did they manage to clean up her potty mouth, and did they do a search of the area where she found the orbs, and if we will ever get any more print adventures.
How much practice do you think it took to be able to say “Xocchitl Acxotlan Xochiqetzal” properly?
I has idea.
When/if you get to 9,999 you could try to wrap up a certain thing about the story but continue on after in a sort of Volume two thing, so then you could put v2 before page numbers, and still only have the same number of digits for your page numbers.
(Yes I openly admit that I’d be really sad if you stopped at 9,999 just because OCD.)
(I love this comic to death and I’m proud of it.)
(On that bote thanks for making it it’s been so fun and fantastic to read. And more awesome thing that I’m to bad with words to really convey.)
(But yes thank you.)
(Yes I openly admit that I’d be really sad if you stopped at 9,999 just because OCD.)
(I love this comic to death and am proud of it.)
(On that note thanks for making it it’s been so fun and fantastic to read. And more awesome thing that I’m too bad with words to really convey.)
(But yes thank you.)
It’s not a matter of IF going to base 36, it’s HOW to implement it. My Suggestion would be, after #9999 would come #A000-A999, the latter three digits still counting in decimal, #B000-B999, etc. If still continued after #Z999, go to #AA00-AA99, AB00-AB99, AC00-99, etc, incrementing the numbers AS NUMBERS ONLY and the letters AS LETTERS ONLY (so as not to re-use previously used issue numbers). After #AZ99, #BA00. And so forth up to #ZZ99. If STILL GOING, next is #AAA0-9, following the rules as established (AAB0-AAZ9, ABA0-ABZ9 … ZZZ9. At this point, you have ZZZA-ZZZZ to wrap up the comic and bring it to its grand finale. And it will all alphabetize correctly under almost any file system (Windows or Linux)
If nobody suggested it yet: there is a program called renamer I think and it can easily add a digit in the middle of a filenames for thousands of files in a folder. One has just to figure out how to input the syntax correctly but it was rather intuitive for me.
Aaah! So cute!