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!
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Yup. Still working on it.
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I wonder if Sid realizes that by join a military/paramilitary organization will put her fully under the UCMJ of that organization. There is a UCMJ for them never doubt. You cannot have a official organization like that without one or the civilian powers will go crazy about stopping them.
That was made very clear to her early on by Maxima, but as we’ve seen the enforcement is very lax and a lot of leeway is given.
So I’m guessing the first two figures up on the dais are Ren and the guy who may or may not be several thousand spiders.
Vance.
whose actual power we still don’t know, he’s had less *screen time* over all than maybe even *Not* Duke Nukem
So you are saying that you doubt that he is several thousand spiders? *Gasp*
Well since we never see him fight I am guess his power is either at the F or D class range, so near useless in a direct fight, or is tactical power (translation, perfect pattern, detect energy signature, ect…); or else is some overly dangerous power (not necessarily high class but of a type that is hard to use in direct combat or show off without endangering others like omni-directional shock waves, drain essence *like a radius version where when used just automatically sucks the vitality of everything alive into himself in a set distance*, spew toxic miasma, acid body sweat, ect…
Dave? Not sure you’re going to be doing the comic for 93 more years.
Though one can hope!
Congrats Sydney!
Don’t know about DaveB or anyone else, but personally plan on being here for issue 10000 (and beyond) :D
Wait, when was it shown Jabbs can fly?
She can’t, but Max allows for slacks on the ladies.
Thank you for clearing that up :D
Not a matter of Max allowing it, it matters if the regulations around uniforms allows it. Just checked the way back machine and skirts are optional not required. All that matters is they are all in the correct uniform which is their version of the dress uniform. So yes beck when the strip started women didn’t need to wear the skirt with their dress uniform.
I feel like it was implied that Max was heavily involved in the formation of ARCHON as a military branch, and had some say in those regulations, though I can’t find a specific source.
Lite err Lieutenant Colonels while they think they may rule the world have very little say over regulation. That is for ranks much higher then theirs and they would simply grab the nearest set of already written regulation and just apply it. Since they tend to pretty much be universal for uniforms with minor changes for certain gear depending on branch.
Faulk would have more say over it then Max, and he would grab the Air Force manual for it and just apply that. Again they both know it and it allowed for this level of flexibility back with the story started. All Max would of had to say to them is wear what you like as long as it is within the regs. Military really likes it’s regs they are a well polished red tape that slows the whole mess to a 2 centimeter crawl. No realty Generals get real pissy when someone screws with the regs.
Normal Lite Colonels would have no say, but we are talking about Maxi here, and would not be surprised if the entire Archon was built around her
So yeah, she gets to have a say on a lot of the regulations
I’m guessing there would basically be no ARCHON without her, and if they wanted her cooperation, they had to meet her halfway. The military may be very hierarchical, but rank doesn’t convey absolute authority, and given Maxima’s power, very few people have any authority over her that she doesn’t voluntarily grant them.
Just so you know, women’s dress uniforms have allowed slacks for a long while, hon.
You did nothing wrong.
Some of us are curious about Halo’s tie, though…
Why? Sydney is wearing a tie because she’s wearing slacks (unless you meant if she’s using some stupid complicated knot, she’s not)
Maybe the wings mean something different in Archon? Inaugural class maybe? As a (theoretical) pilot in a different branch who put in years to earn wings with mechanical planes, I’d be ticked if people with natural flying powers got them just for winning the super lottery.
I have an American qualification badge that is roughly the same shape and it isn’t ‘wings’ as such, that looks more like the laurel wreath styled device found on many of them and on ours as well except ours don’t spread out as much and are generally wrapped tighter around the central device.
To me, their badges are just for being qualified as ‘supers’ with no particular flight ability required.
Those ones that could fly , it would be wise for them to have training in navigation , regulation and aviation principals , so a pilots license so that they know the rules and can share the sky without bumping into restricted space or aircraft . Requirement? Do they count as ultralight aircraft? Some of these people have too much horsepower and maximum speed to qualify as ultralight aircraft. I would train them as pilots for everyone elses safety.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s á Warfare pin, of some sort.
Was actually thinking of female fliers wearing slacks to prevent revealage
It’s been established many comics ago when Hiro asked, that male self-propelled fliers are not allowed to wear kilts. The you-must-wear-slacks-ifyafly is not specific to gender.
No it wasn’t, he was simply told to wear underwear, just like the females
Well, supers that can fly have to have transponders and probably have to learn all the other regs for flying.
The transponder is built into their collars
I don’t think those are pilots’ wings. They are anyway not the same shape as air force wings.
At a squint I think those wings are the same shape as the wings on the airborne paratroopers’ badges – only there’s no superimposed parachute. Which is, I guess, more a statement about what they can do than about what honors they’ve earned.
It brings up a point though; if they haven’t been through some equivalent of paratrooper training, there’s large bits of it (about operating behind enemy lines, about stealth extractions, about signals and communications, about first aid for falling injuries, and etc and etc and etc) that flying recruits darn well ought to get during training.
Did you see her go up the wall on the obstacle course? Of course, that was all athletic ability, not true flight. I can only think of a few actual flyers in Archon:
1. Maxima
2. Hiro
3. Heatwave
4. Halo
5. Varia holding on to Halo’s flight orb
Did I miss anyone?
Varia doesn’t actually gain flight ability when holding Halo’s flight orb. She has to be holding Halo as well, in order to make the flight orb work for her. At least in theory, based on how we saw that the orbs started going around both of them, not just Sydney, when she touched Sydney (which is something no one in the grrlpower universe noticed, just we the audience notice it).
Aye. We’ve actually still not seen how Varia interacts with Sidney. The closest we’ve come is us audience people pointing out that the orbs went around both of them, which has some implications, but in universe no-one seemed to twig and it’s not been revisited yet. The smart money is probably on that, but Dave may still surprise us.
Assuming that the subtle effect means that when the orbs consider Varia to be another part of Sydney, that means that at some point in the future the team can figure out that the two of them can use three orbs simultaneously. Four might be too hard to pull off
Probably four orbs at once, actually. Have Sydney ride piggyback so that both of them have their hands free.
Hior lock arms with her maybe?
At the very least they would be able to do 3 orbs which would make them useful for transport of a lot of people over vast distances without the air getting ‘whiffy.’
Also would be good for aerial combat if varia holds the shield orb while sydney uses the ppo and flight orb.
I’m still hoping that the orbs do an entirely different set of things when held by Varia’s hands than they do when held by Sydney’s. Like, Syd’s pew-pew orb enables Varia to dig tunnels, and Syd’s Tentacle orb gives Varia super strength, and so on.
Buuut, that’s probably not what Dave has planned.
Dabbler probably can too, if she really wants.
I don’t know whether you’d call what Jiggawatt does flying but she can definitely move through the sky
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-228-1-56×1020-electrons-walk-into-a-bar/
I think if Dabbler could fly, she would have done so when running from the Cthulu-sized monster on Alar.
Jiggawatt I believe.
Wings generally mean p0aratrooper training. And withe het ability that would be easy. Flying Squirrel technique GO!
It could be interpreted as an “Air Assault” Badge.
That is the Badge received when a soldier qualifies to jump out of helicopters. The Osprey is a type of helicopter after all.
Yes, I think my brothers and sisters who have received these badges are crazy. But they are the good kind of crazy that I want defending me.
Jabberwokky may not be able to fly, but think about the kicks and flips leaps and midair splits inherent in her literal cartoon-style martial arts. If the objective has anything to do with preventing people from getting unintended panty shots, the slacks are a better choice. If she hadn’t opted for slacks for her Class-A uniform, I think Max might have insisted.
Also, the slacks-vs-skirts option is nowadays technically up to the service member, with the approval of the company commander. Although I haven’t heard of any men taking the option for a skirt and any such choice might fail to get the approval of most company commanders.
Shouldn’t a couple of them have a different, or additional, ribbon? Sydney and Azarin were both present for, and participated in, on the correct side, the fight at the steakhouse.
Yeah, while Jabbs was, technically, there, she was on the wrong side at the time
Congratulations DaveB! It’s been a wild ride! Thank you for years, and years, and years of hard work and dedication to bringing this amazing world to life!
Congrats, Sydney!
The next month’s vote incentive should be a self-portrait of DaveB taking a bow, with a big fat “Congratulations on your 1000th Comic” banner. Maybe with some of the gals in the background. Nude versions optional. :D
But I don’t wanna see Dave nude.
Don’t download that image if you don’t want to see Dave nude.
Been here from the start and it’s been one hellufa ride. Grats all around on the big 1K mark and Sydney’s graduation.
Trouble is literally her middle name? You could’ve almost predicted that.
Her father just became the ultimate joke hero to dads everywhere.
Why? Just because he named his daughter using his own full name? As since she’s Sydney Trouble Scoville Jr, that means he’s Sydney Trouble Scoville Sr. If they had a different middle name, she wouldn’t be Jr.
“Junior is used to distinguish a son/daughter with the same name as his/her father. The following conditions apply: The Junior must be a son/daughter of the father, not a grandson/granddaughter. The names must be exactly the same, including the middle name.”
So the person who started that would be a paternal grandparent.
There’s the formal rule, and the practical rule.
I’ve been called a junior and my father senior to distinguish us, but my full name includes the middle name that my father adopted rather than was given. My ancestral culture is one of those that believes a child should never be named after someone living — gods forfend that death gets confused and carries off the wrong one — and officially adding the middle name placated relatives who still followed that practice.
So I wouldn’t jump to conclusions about her father’s middle name.
We’ve discussed Sydney’s first name in the past, of course. Uncommon for an American lady of her generation, but not quite rare.
I can’t remember who it is right now, but there is a country music singer who is a junior, but he is named after his uncle. However, if it says junior on the birth certificate they are supposed to have the exact same name regardless of the actual relationship. Also, there is the situation where someone asks to speak to “Mr. Smith” and one has to ask “Senior or Junior” to determine whether they are asking for the father or son even though they don’t have the same first name.
And then there’s the complication when the parents insist on using Junior or Senior as if it were a name…
Like Briscoe County Jr.?
Or Henry Jones Junior
“My name is Indiana!”
“We named the DOG Indiana!”
“You’re named after the dog?! HAHAHA”
“I had a lot of good memories about that dog.”
Her middle name is sooooooooooooooo exceedingly appropriate. And congrats on reaching 1000.
In the extremely unlikely event that I ever have children of my own, I am naming them “[firstname] Trouble Danger [surname]”.
I have a nephew (once removed) whose legal middle name on the birth certificate is “Awesome”, which his mother acquiesced to over a variety of other options like “Aragorn” and “Skywalker”.
Is sydney’s mouth taped shut? i cannot seem to make out what that line is
She has no lips, and that is her making sure she keeps them tightly closed
That’s just Sydney suppressing a shit-eating grin.
A milestone is a milestone, I’ve been reading since the bank, and this is one of the few web comics i still read now that i was reading then.
Wooh hoo! Bookies the country over are going bust, on Sydney graduating!
wait so she’s not playing the transformers the movie song the touch where weird al sings you’ve got the touch you’ve got the power
That’s a Stan Bush song.
Weird Al did Dare To Be Stupid on the movie’s soundtrack
Ah, the Junkbots…
Congrats to you and Sydney!
Do you actually have OCD?
I’ll take that as a “no.”
“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.”
It’s a fairly straightforward matter to write a script to rename files from GP####[Other stuff] to GP#####[Other stuff].
What OS do you use? In bash (a common Linux command line), it’d be….
cd [directory in question]
for file in *
do
newfile=$(echo “$file” | sed ‘s/^GP/GP0/g’)
mv “$file” “$newfile”
done
In Linux Bash, that’ll insert a 0 after a starting GP for every file in the directory (including directory names, if applicable)
Ok, I admit I was only thinking DOS commands to .exe this.
Well, yes, but meanwhile I prefer using mmv, Like so:
cd [directory in question]
mmv -r “GP*” “GP0#1”
Done. Less fun that doing it by hand, maybe.
I actually have a program designed to rename series of files that’s pretty comprehensive. I was mostly joking about it taking something like 80 years to draw another 9K pages.
Or, open a directory in emacs, do a standard search and replace, GP -> GP0, save, and exit.
RE: your computer sorting issue, you could always name the files GQ0001 and so on.
I didn’t know Xochiqetzal was a surname. Kind of a ballsy move on the part of whoever picked it for the family.
Having been on literally hundreds of ‘Grip and Grin’ ceremonies both as student and Instructor, the majority were informal, held in the classroom or in an auditorium such as this with minimal Pomp and Circumstance.
A few were larger marchpast and review ceremonies which are much more formal with dignitaries and inspections, usually a band, and everyone in their ‘best bib and tucker’; but for a half dozen graduates into a very small organization that tries to be more clandestine in its’ activities, press conferences notwithstanding, this looks about right.
‘Dress of the Day’ could be slacks or skirts as preferred for women in this sort of setting.
On a formal outdoor parade one or the other would probably be specified but not guaranteed today.
Arcswat and the rest exist in a completely different universe from this one so what they wear or don’t wear is sort of open to conjecture and can’t really be compared or forced to follow current US dress regs.
Besides, who’s going to try to wrangle slacks onto a super that doesn’t really want to wear them ?
To be fair, it would have taken fewer pages to get here without all the exposition dumps but we all appreciate your love of world building.
I’d argue it would have taken longer because then the same information would be spread out across other pages to ensure the data for the specific moment comes out, and its not really that much when you binge it.
Congratulations on 12 Years (!) of consistently good work.
Go back and look at those early panels and compare today, folks.
Everything has come a long way!
its probly been said… but that stripe in most US military forces means an E-2. private first class. straight private is an empty sleeve.
Nothing much to say here but congrats on 1000 pages of a quality comic.
Ok.. I need to know. Exactly how does one pronounce Xochitl Acxotlan Xochiqetzal?
Having trouble finding the middle name, but according to sources scattered across the Net Of A Thousand Lies, American pronunciation of the first and last might roughly be “sow·cheel zaak-ih-kwehtzahl” (where the z is on the edge of being a j or ch, very lightly voiced, and the aa is on the edge of being an o).
“I think I heard them calling her So Chill. I wonder why.”
With difficulty. And/or according to her example. Certainly if it was a name I had to announce, I’d be checking with her beforehand rather than relying on sight-reading
After all that training,Sydney ends up on KP duty…….
Her middle name is literally “Trouble”?
That’s probably been established before, but yeah, I don’t remember seeing it if so. Certainly fits.
Sounds like her father’s idea. He sounded like the more wacky one of her parents from the phone call in the restaurant, while her mom is the more boring and practical one. :) sort of like how I got into comics because my father was an attorney for one of the people who worked on Batman at DC Comics, and would constantly get me dc comics snd artwork.
While my mother is a teacher who tricked me into reading books like beowulf, the niebelungenlied, la morte d’arthur, steven hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time,’ sir gawain and the green knight, Gaia Theory, and the completed works of shakespeare by the sixth grade. She said that it was illegal for me to go into 7th grade if I didnt read them and I was fooled into believing it because I was very anxious to get out of elementary school finally. Also I was apparently very gullible.
I am guessing her middle name choices were probably was a tossup between trouble and danger. Just so she could say “Trouble’s my middle name” in a cool action star way.
Back in the olden days I wore an Air Force Aircraft and Munitions Maintenance Badge. I was a 7-Level so there was a star on top of the badge. Army guy gave me a ration of shit because he thought I was wearing jump wings.
@DaveB, when you get to comic 10,000, you can use Hexadecimal to extend the life of the comic, and keep your OCD in check. So, GP9998[other stuff], GP9999[other stuff], GPA000[other stuff], GPA001[other stuff], etc. Potentially up to GPFFFF[yada yada]. This sorts properly, so smooth sailing up to around page 16000. Good times.
Thinking back on these 1000 pages, I remember back when we convinced DaveB to adopt Patreon. Glad we managed that.
Me too!
Okay, somehow ai missed that Sydney’s moddle name is Trouble
Wait wait wait. Sydney’s middle name is TROUBLE?!?! And don’t try and tell me that’s a nickname either, everyone else gets their real names and there’s no quotation marks there, her name is Sydney Trouble Scoville Jr, a name nearly as cool a Dennis Danger Dynamite and which only really loses out because it lack alert alliterative appeal.
I like that Halo went from puking on the practice field to developing enough wind to talk some shit during the run. too many series on TV and in comics are static, very little net change. that this one has quite a bit of net change from physical development, power development, personal development to alien invasion pleases me.
Dave, if you are going to add a leading 0 do it now while there is 1/10 the work to do. That will make it much easier if you end up having to do in manually.
I guess the training they underwent was something like Air Force basic lite and not ROK Marine considering the amount of discipline they actually had to endure. when you think about it though, you can’t go all R. Lee Emory Platoon on guys that can destroy a city if they flip.
You can, if you are an Anvil
Is that a booger hanging out of Sydney’s right nostril?
Ahh, the red and gold National Defense Service medal… will probably stop awarding it soon since we’re no longer in Afghanistan. I always looked young when in uniform but immediately got nick-named Grandpa when someone noticed I had a bronze star on my NDS because I had two.
(one from Desert Storm, one post 9/11)
OHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I just realized.
Are we FINALLY going to meet Sydney’s parents? Is Sydney Scoville Sr. just as crazy as his daughter? Is he going to embarrass her by asking for autographs, then in a heartwarming and touching moment ask Sydney for hers? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
He must be in the audience right now. There is NO possible way he would miss is daughter being (among) the first to graduate Superhero School.
I believe we’ve actually seen Sydney Trouble Scoville Sr. before, when Sydney Jr. was talking about her having SCUBA training.
The instructor? He wasn’t old enough!
Says who?
Besides – his manner says he’s pretty familiar with Sydney.
Older brother maybe, certainly not father
Scuba certifying isn’t a single session, plenty of time to ‘get familiar’ with Sydney
I think that was just commenter speculation. I am imagining Sydney Sr. being in his 50’s and being a bit of an idealized nerd/geek.
I have absolutely no idea who Azarin is. But given that there is exactly one black head in the audience, I’m guessing that person is there for her.
I puzzled over that earlier, and deduced that it’s Jiggawatt. Maybe not that big of a puzzle, considering she’s listed on the sidebar, and in both sets of tags for the comic, but it still took some puzzling.
I’m looking forward to Sydney interacting with a new class of cadets that also get called in for active duty and major battles before they’ve even been signed up for 24 hours.