Grrl Power #1022 – Pressed to impress
This page was supposed to show Deus working out alongside a bunch of soldiers, and I kind of started to do that there in panel 3, but in my head, there was like a line twenty deep behind him and ten lines next to them. I realized I wouldn’t have time to draw all that but I was hoping to make it look a little more like he was being a man of the people. (Whether that was just PR theater or a genuine thing would of course be left unsaid.) My initial vision also had them all standing in a flat field using kind of beat up looking weights, but that was just my brain being like “All I really know about Africa is that it’s a destitute dustbowl and the north part has pyramids and the south part had apartheid and also that’s where District 9 took place man can you believe that movie only came out in 2009 it seems like it’s so much older than that and it’s crazy Sharlto Copley had basically never acted before and he fucking nailed it” so I had to revise that image in my head. Also, Galytn and Mozambique are closer to the equator than Texas, and there’s no way I would touch metal weights that had been laying out in the Texas sun, so I added the tent/pavilion thing.
In my 30’s, I was a pretty regular gym rat. I lacked the mass of someone who’d been doing it since they were 14 – if you look at the dudes who become Mr. Olympias or at least WWE crash test dummies or jacked actors (jackedors, as I call them) they’re all huge by they time they’re 17 or 18 – BUT, I did get my military press up to about 225. (That’s the bar plus two 45 lb plates on each side.) I never liked doing deadlifts though, because I was pretty terrified of messing up my back, so I never would have been able to clean* the weight like Deus is doing here. I used a rack with all the safety catches but still managed to fuck up my shoulders. *By ‘clean’ I mean hopping the weight from the ground to the shoulders. It’s half of the clean and jerk, an exercise clearly named before modern slang made giggling mandatory when talking about this.
All that to say I figure someone who’s got that teenage foundational bulk could handle 315 lb military press. (Bar plus 3 plates per side) Of course, even if he’s pushing the Olympic record, it would be a weird way to try and impress someone who had military pressed and then military thrown a tank a hundred yards. Maxima might intellectually recognize the effort as impressive, but to her, 315 pounds is like an empty dixie cup.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update: It’s done!
Seriously. It’s done! 210K words of weapon building, dinosaur fighting, harem satisfying, lumberjacking, moderate diplomacing, bad guy chopping action. Also some humor.
January’s vote incentive is going to hang in there just a few more days. Should have the next one ready for Monday’s comic.
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Dabbler’s unknown ancestry clearly includes something which allows her to feed off infuric energy. She gets way too happy whenever Maxima is infuriated.
so a pixie or sprite then.
Sexual frustration is still a kind of sexual energy. I assume it would be like eating a Big Mac when you wanted steak and a salad.
Now you have me imagining succubi edging people and engaging in kinky orgasm denial to age the tantric energy and get drunk off of it like a fine wine.
I imagine the final release is going to taste pretty good, like a piece of beef that has been left to simmer for hours until it melts on the tongue.
And now we know why No-nut November exists….
Because it leads to Overflow December?
And Thanksgiving babies. ;) (Unless you’re Canadian)
Come on Max, you’ve been hanging with supers for years but you should still know it takes mortals an hour or more a day to maintain that kind of physique. He obviously works it into his daytime routine, so if he does an hour in an 8-hour office shift, you’ve got a 15% chance of catching him in the gym.
Apparently he lifts in either dress pants or pleated sweats though, so there’s still plenty of opportunity to question his thought process here.
I refuse to believe there is any such thing as pleated sweats.
i mean, Deus is both rich, and self-absorbed enough to have them made, custom order.
Stalwart’s swim trunks have pleats. I’m sure that if he has sweatpants, they’re pleated.
Dangit I didnt see that torabi beat me to this until I had already posted it.
Stalwart’s trunks also have pleats in them.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-537-cake-exchange/
(panel 5)
Stalwart seems to be the Compleat Gentilman. Strong, well mannered (this includes smart clothing), looks after himself, considerate of others… What more could a girl want? And would no doubt be a total asset to any celebration of good fortune. I have no doubt Stalwart has at least a couple of work clothes sets in his wardrobe, complete with steel-cap work boots.
Overalls with pleats, surely.
Steel boot caps are a bad idea, generally. Prone to break your toes, or to permanently deform and crush your toes.
Neither of those problems are generally going to be a concern for Stalwart, though.
As a blue-collar worker, I have indeed seen feet damaged by steel-cap boots. In almost every case, they were badly fitted, which one would have thought impossible in Oz, which uses the UK sizing system, far superior to the US sizing system. Many of the damages were caused by el cheapo boots, in the sub Au$80 class: good footwear should set you back around Au$200+.
I’ve also seen feet damaged by failure to lace up properly, as well as poor style choices: any workboot worthy of the name should have at least seven lace holes, so the top of the boot covers the ankles. The lacing should use all seven holes, and be drawn very snugly around the ankle. Some boots go to eight or nine lace holes, a bit over the top IMHO, but whatever turns a person on, I guess.
I’ve also seen the catastrophe caused by idiots unlacing boots following ankle injuries. NEVER do this, regardless of how the victim is whingeing and bitching. The restraint captured by the boot will absolutely prevent further injury as bones etc try to relocate themselves. Leave the boot on the foot until AT LEAST an Ambo takes over. They have the knowlege and equipment which you don’t.
Has the steel cap actually damaged the toes? Yes. There is a limit to the mass-bearing capacity on any such device, usually running around 200J (147.5 Foot/pounds) drop force or 15kN (3,372.134 pound-force) of rolling objects.
As well, there have been several incidences involving a 200 liter drum falling back down onto a foot so the raised lip falls behind the toecap and partially severs the toes. This is ALWAYS down to poor materials-handling techniques.
Having said all of the above, PROVIDED YOU ARE WEARING THE APPROVED SAFETY CLOTHING (Personal Protective Equipment), then you WILL be covered by Workers’ Comp… At least in Oz, UK and the EU. Dunno ’bout the USA but.
If I’ve rained on your parade, tough. Boots are like hard-hats: they are a proven safety device since easily the Hoover Dam. Just use them and be grateful.
Oh, and the better boots (Au$180+++) are supremely comfortable and will last at least 2 seasons. Plus the cost is tax-deductible in Oz, UK and the EU. Dunno ’bout the USA but. I wear them recreationally, because good shoes with the same wear/tear and life span cost twice/three times as much.
It’s a good idea to wear protective footwear. I don’t think “you had it laced wrong” is a very satisfactory counter to having your toes cut off by supposed toe protection. I think we should at least try to do better.
I’d prefer to nix the steel and get something else. Kevlar perhaps. My army boots (no, I’m not in the military) do have reinforced toes, but no metal. This pair I bought in 2005. Not daily use, though.
On another note, the local health & safety noticed all-wooden clogs weren’t certified, so a certification examination was done. Turns out they’re safer than steel capped boots in some ways.
“you had it laced wrong” won’t (by itself) lead to toe amputation. However, it DOES lead to ankle injury. It’s like if you fasten your belt with a simple one-over loose knot: there is a certainty it will lose its grip at the most embarrassing moment. Bad fitment and poor quality are still the leading contenders in foot damage, followed by materials handling technique.
Many (of the better) brands offer composite toe caps. They were viewed with grave (!) suspicion for some years, but eventually gained favour, and they do (because they’re required to) offer the same protection. I’d be surprised to see ANY military boots use metal with magnetic properties — there is a term for this, I’ll remember it after I’ve posted — in any part of the boot, including the sole plate.
I had heard about clogs, but OTOH when you’re looking at puddles deeper than the lowest part of the foot opening… Not that all boots are waterproof, many are only water-resistant.
Why doesn’t this composition font properly kern between “c” and “l”? That is 4 times I’ve had to pull out of a Stuka dive thinking I made a typo :[
The point is (and this is just reiterating what you said, not correcting you), it’s better to have well-fitting steel-capped boots than not
Yes, there is a chance for toes getting amputated, but then again, if the weight of whatever fell on your foot did that, think about what it would have done without the steel-cap!
It’s kinda like back in the 80’s when they started doing the cycle-helmets-are-compulsory thing: it won’t protect your head if you get run over by a semi (nothing will), but it will help if you fall off your bike (one of the nicknames for them were ‘skid-lids’), and it won’t do shit if you carry it on your handlebars (like many idiots did)
… I could imagine pleated sweats as basically Hakama. :D. I mean they do exactly the same job, they provide ample room and comfort for exercise.
An hour? Try two and a half, and a controllled diet, and careful steroid use with a doctors help. You can get up their for a short time with less work that than, but bodybuilders have a boom/bust cycle for a reason, and keeping that up all the time is… an investment to say the least.
Idk if I can trust the word of someone that doesn’t know the difference between their and there.
He probably just elided the noun… I’m still wondering “you can get up their what?”
Idk if I can trust the motives of someone that gets hung up on grammatical errors. Especially if it turns out the grammatical error comes from having English as a “not first and very weak” language.
Ahnold & friends used to lift for 5-6 hours every day back in the glory days, but most modern bodybuilders actually keep it to an hour or so a few times a week, to give the muscles time to grow. (source) Differing approaches and schools of thought, of course.
Unless someone’s using performance hormones etc, then yeah it can be 2-3 hr/day plus a lot more calories and extremely careful diet management. But I think Deus has better (more profitable) things to do with his time so I’d imagine he’s got a trainer that’s optimized his routine for the highest ROI on his time.
If you synthetically push steroid levels up, natural production (primarily in the testes, hence the name testosterone, but also in the adrenal glands) drops as the body attempts to compensate. I’m quite certain neither Deus nor his feminine fan club would appreciate the consequences.
to be honest if he’s not a super, then he’s not as strong as he looks. He has that body builder physique which while not as bad as some of the supers look is not particularly healthy *there is a reason gorillas don’t have six pack abs*.
No, he’s not a strength-super. As I mentioned in passing on page 1, just check the stress on his face in panel 3.
There is a probability he has inherited a really good physique, and just needs to look after it — which he would do automatically as it carries an air of ability and access, which leads to doing profitable business.
He’s doing a clean and press with 315 pounds. That’s more than half the world record. He’s pretty strong.
yeah..I am speaking from a real world perspective on his build, weight lifter vs body builder debate type stuff and the difference in their actual strength vs done for the looks. which was my point that gorblimey missed as well…also there are different levels of super strength regardless, but that wasn’t my point.
I was poking this bear,
https://i0.wp.com/www.mariliacoutinho.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Strongman-vs-Bodybuilder.jpg
THAT is a bloody good illustration of the difference.
Deus looks like he has an entry wound for an alien symbiote.
…but OF COURSE the human brain controls it back with its impulse to convert money and power into as much quality sex as possible!!
Krang (TNMT) would approve.
“… entry wound for an alien symbiote.”
I have been cogitating on that. It is… likely. And would explain much. A person should be extremely careful opening unknown geodes, you never know what might spring out!
I wonder… Do geode-beings attract each other? As in, sense the proximity of a kindred symbiont?
Hah! Dabbler’s face in that last panel is AWESOME!
She’s got the look of a nine year old that just heard someone say “cookie”
Ah max, such a Tsun Tsun. Deus really is the true protagonist.
As a South African, your mention of the commonplace perspective of Africa made me laugh. Also District 9 was a brilliant film. That said, the hulk rampage scene in Avengers 2 was filmed in roughly my home city. South Africa is actually used in a surprising number of movies as a location. Dredd for example. But Mozambique is a bit less dust bowl and a bit more tropical. At least when you’re near the sea, I didn’t travel far inland when I last visited. Though I can tell you, the beaches in summer get so hot your feet make squeak noises when you walk on it, its blistering if you arent used to it (calloused up the wazoo)
Zeus is throwing some weights around to try to impress a woman who did this https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-767-maxima-effort/ and has Hiro on her squad? Really?
Zeus? Yeah, totally. I mean, he was supposed to be the King of all the Greek gods, but shit man, do you see the depth of personal insecurity? God-tier INSECURITY, in case someone stronger would take it away from him :(
But Deus? He’s a master of chiacking, but he won’t push it too far because he knows Maxi is, well, defenseless. So, just enough to keep her off-balance. He has no insecurity, because he always does his homework, and accepts that the Universe has SOOOO MAAAANY ways to trip him up so it’s not worth wasting time worrying about things he can’t “fix”.
OMG Ha ha! that is an amazing opening one liner for Deus to use!! hehehe
DaveB I tip my hat at your remarkable wit and clever writing. I have been reading this comic for many years and I just wanted to say. Dude, I love your comic, the story, the world building, and the highly intelligent way you (and any team or friends who help you) present this content! I love it so so much. I just wanted to say thank you.
Hmm, Arianna said that some members might visit various talk shows to increase Archon’s public image and exposure.
Sean: Hey, what’s going on everybody? For First We Feast, I’m Sean Evans and you’re watching Hot Ones. It’s the show with hot questions and even hotter wings. Today we are joined by Sydney Scoville Jr. and Arianna Mitchell of Archon. Private Scoville known as the Mighty Halo, is a field agent for Archon, and Ms. Mitchell is Archon’s chief legal council and public relations person. Welcome to the show.
Sean: Our understanding is that Private Scoville is vegetarian, so today we have vegan wings for all of us, but the sauces are the same ones we normally use. [ Swipes his hand by the 10 bottles on display ]
Sydney: [ quietly ] Baby food, baby food, baby food. [ Regular volume ] Actually, this blueberry one has pretty good flavour, but it still isn’t that hot. [ back to muttering ] baby food, baby food. I don’t know this one yet. Da Bomb? Yeah, it has a bit of heat, but that is all it really has going for it. It really doesn’t bring any flavour to the party. Hmm, I haven’t tried these yet. Oh, does this one really have Apollo peppers in it? Cool!
Sean: So, Private Scoville, I guess you appropriate some hot food. What about you, Ms. Mitchell? How well do you handle some heat?
Arianna: Around Archon, Sydney has a reputation for wanting to eat really spicy food. My tolerance is much more moderate.
I like the idea of Sydney being unimpressed by Deus’ bod because she’s been spoiled and now considers him Insufficiently Fluffy.
Not unlike seeing some featherless dinosaurs now after seeing how they look with feathers, now they just look like plucked chickens.
Take a dekko at https://duckduckgo.com/?t=palemoon&q=hairless+primates&iax=images&ia=images to see how our lessers stack up.
And yes, I have noted how the super-strong weightlifters actually have a paunch! But I reckon they’re about as soft as steel…
the dinosaur situation is even worse as due to soft tissue not fossilizing very well that we end up with no fat bodies, dewlaps, short trunks, or other such features.
imagine what something two hundred million years in the future might imagine a daschund, rabbit, or elephant to look like if they have nothing in their time to compare the skeletons to with the same features.
funniest one is realizing there is a Devonian animal whose skull looks like a hippo’s skull but we picture it has having protruding tusks and cheek spikes and not the big fat face of a hippo.
Speaking of the elephant: that was where the myth about the Cyclops came from
that is not proven and is contested. given Greeks knew what an elephant was and there are no local sources coming to this conclusion as it was proposed by an Austrian in 1914.
Some illustrators for dinosaur material have started adding soft-tissue structures and vivid coloring and patterns, because we just don’t know and why not make them look amazing instead of like plain-ol’ earth-tone lizards? One of them famously draws them in poses like sleeping or scratching their tails, because they weren’t always eating or in attack poses.
“deus urusei no baka” other dimension max quite likely.
Heh. I just LOVE Dabbler’s expression in the last panel.
I have re-read the page several times over the past few days, Dabbler’s look in the last panel always give me a chuckle.
Maxima: “Out of ALL the things you might attempt to impress me with… did you really think feats of strength were the right go-to?” (Casually lifts Deus’ barbell with one index finger. Pauses, then reaches for his belt and casually lifts DEUS with the other index finger.)
Deus: “I now employ my super diplomacy powers to say, that I am very impressed, and appropriately humbled by your own feat of strength. I acknowledge why so many little girls back home look up to you as a role model… and how equally impressed I am at your RESTRAINT in choosing to lift me up, rather than fling me over your shoulder… particularly because the cliff edge is behind you!”
Sydney: “Dang! Those ARE some impressive diplomacy powers!”
Ha, love it. Except I doubt Max is going to get her hands anywhere near his belt, especially with Dabbler nearby.
It shall now be my headcanon that all guys lifting weights at the gym are trying to turn eachother on.
Trust me on this, they’re not. Much the opposite, because “Suspicious minds…” We prefer to turn the girls on, but forget they generally have more and better muscles than we do… :(
That whole thing with Deus? I kind of feel like Max walked right into that one – that whatever she said, or didn’t say, Deus had a comeback ready.
“Nah, too lean- there’s no endurance to you.” Come on Max, you should know the best geek anti-flirt tactics.
It’s a *lot* more impressive for a normal human (if that’s the case) that he’s able to exposit while pressing those 3 plates.
Normally you want to shut up while doing a set. At least I do.