Grrl Power #1106 – Club Sexplosion?
Detla has applied to be on the team, but hasn’t completed all the basic training and courses needed for field duty. She’s going along but will remain onboard the Osprey for security once the team disembarks, along with Peggy and her copilot. After all, they’re dealing with an opposing force of supers, so someone flying aboard the Osprey and attacking two distracted pilots isn’t out of the question.
The trope of young people being mystified by anything that existed even slightly before they were borne is funny if played right, but I think it’s a tough sell. “What’s a magazine/record/newspaper/typewriter?” Yeah, hah hah. I’ve never seen a telegraph machine in person, but I know what they are. Now, for pop-culture references, those have a shorter shelf life, to be sure. If not for the poorly received Johnny Depp Lone Ranger movie, it’s likely that anyone under the age of 16 might not actually have ever heard of the Lone Ranger. Same thing with Zorro, or The Three Musketeers (who, as an aside, were mostly known for their sword fighting skills, not their preference for muskets.) Also, massive stars from back in the day rarely have much longevity. I’d bet real money the average high-schooler today has no idea who George Burns, Don Knots, or Bob Hope are.
Still, if you had to come up with a quick example of “someone who wears a mask” on Family Feud, I think the polls would favor burglars/bank robbers, superheroes, surgeons… firefighters? I don’t know, probably Zorro or the Lone Ranger might make the list back in the Dawson days, but, eh, maybe still today with 30-40-something parents and maybe a grandparent on the team. Fencers? (The ones with the swords, not people who install fences.) Maybe Beekeepers? I dunno if that mesh hat thing is a mask technically. Still, Mr. Amorphous doesn’t cite “superheroes” because he’s standing in a sky bus full of them and no one but the non-super powered alien chick is wearing a mask.
The November Vote Incentive is up!
I went a little simpler with the art this time, which is to say I didn’t add like 9 passes of lighting and detail work. I wasn’t trying to chintz out on the time input or anything, I’d been browsing around ArtStation since I like torturing myself with all the amazing art there, and found a few people who do nice clean styles that are more Arcane (the League of Legends Netflix show) than Love, Death and Robots, and by LD&R I mean the ones that are like “Look at how realistic our skin textures are!” and not the ones that are more Pixar-y or just like 2D cell art or whatever.
Enjoy variant outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. 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.
HI-YO, SILVER, AWAY!
“Hi-ho, Goldie, Away!” Mind you, no body is going to be riding her.
Oh Max has stated she’s not against having “a little fun” she’s just sick of guys that just want to add her to their bragging rights. Plus with her abilities, she’s wanting someone she doesn’t have to worry about killing them at the best moment. I’ve been with ladies that jerk, twitch, claw, squeeze, and so on during orgasm. So unless she becomes completely passive during the supreme moment, you’re either dead or badly injured.
Even if you stick to positions where they guy is behind so she can’t bite and scratch or grab-and-crush, there’s still a good chance of her shattering your pelvis when she pushes back to meet you
Death by Snu-Snu.
She might pinch it off too.
That was the first concern that came to my mind.
Hi-yo,Tin-foil,Away!!
I’ve been a daffy fan for years. He makes teh best sherif ever.
She’s the one who will be doing the riding
I used to dress up as the Lone Ranger almost every Carnaval (I’m Portuguese, ok?) when I was a kid and now I feel extremely old.
For me it was Halloween, so unless you’re 61 like me don’t you dare think of yourself as extremely old.
And “Hi-Yo Silver!” my fellow ranger.
High-Five! 61 here too
I keep wondering who the old dude in the mirror is.
Is it your dad?
There is a greater risk these days of someone saying “Who?”
To be fair the whole “Do you know this pop-culture reference” is always going to be a moot point. Unless it’s something as Global as Mickey Mouse, there are a Planet’s worth of references that are obviously not going to go across every culture. Especially if it’s not a level of personal preference.
I don’t know alot of modern pop-culture not because I don’t care about it. But because thanks to the internet a new one is born every day. Like the time I woke up and heard “Ninja leaves Twitch” and my response is “Who’s That?”.
You can be the biggest name in the world and still be a nobody to someone. (good lesson in humility)
yup
Had that same reaction when the interwebs seemed flooded with the “Dream Facereveal” thingie.
“Dream? Who? Oh, some Minecraft Streamer? Never heard of them.”
At least I’m on the younger end of ‘old’, so I’ve got plenty of modern pop-references left to miss.
I’m just glad that I grew up with computers, and even got a box full of ‘3d printed save icons’, unlike the older generation who get worried whenever something innocuous pops up on the monitor.
I remember frequenting IRC and other chatrooms during the mid/late-90s, and being regularly looked upon with disdain, just for not getting the North America pop culture references that everyone else (who were invariably North American) were making.
Then again, a lot of the same people couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of that they were conversing with someone who didn’t live in North America, either.
The Three Musketeers is a very good novel in the public domain, so it gets adapted fairly regularly – most recently an excellent BBC series in 2014, and a silly steampunk movie in 2011. I’m not sure why you mentioned them though, as they almost never wear masks!
probably the fact they were called Musketeers but mostly used swords.
Then again if it takes you 3-5 minutes to reload a musket in good conditions you probably rely more on your sword skills.
I wonder if the pistol versions were also called Muskets too or just the long guns were. most of the recent movies i don’t recall them carrying rifle type guns
Muskets were the long-guns
Reload time on a musket was about 3-4 times per minute, not 3-4 minutes per reload.
If you’re _good_.
My absolute best was 3 volleys in a minute, and I’ve only managed it a couple of times.
Yeah the Musketeers were that good, they were the Elite Forces of their day, and usually bodyguards of royalty or similar
with no one trying to kill you while your reloading.
Given that at the time of the story, muskets were matchlocks (with a smoldering cord for ignition rather than a flint striking steel), then 1 shot a minute is rather good. Wheellocks would be a bit faster.
My best with a Jaeger rifle is 2.5 shots a minute, that went down fast as it fouled with powder residue.
Well, gotta agree: I’m 63, (I literally got an autographed photo of Captain Video on my birthday as a child.) with a 14 year old son, and most of my cultural references go right over his head. And it’s mutual.
But he’s aware of Bob Hope and Don Knots, because we watch a lot of classic movies and Mayberry reruns.
Apparently I was on captain kangaroo show as a very young kid. They bribed me with ham sandwiches to behave and look cute. Got an entire bottle of rootbeer while there. I doubt my belch made the cut on live audience shot though.
I just had my 71St birthday on Sunday, I watched The Lone Ranger, on tv! 1960’s
Off topic here, but what ever happened with Marble Maiden (#366), or the Russian gangster (#367)?
Still being tracked, and awaiting trial
My favorite story of this type is when I ask kids, “What does Soundwave turn into?”
The answer I get the most is “a small blue box”.
Dismaying: https://youtu.be/Uk_vV-JRZ6E
I have derived a fair amount of amusement from handing my nieces and nephews a gameboy color loaded and ready to play with pokémon red during their pokémon is cool phase. It’s most funny when it’s in response to the phrase “I’m bored”.
Still not over the time in 2012 someone in this comment section asked “who’s the yellow rat?” (Of course, now it’s been nearly as long since then as between then and the initial wave…)
“Who doesn’t know who the Lone Ranger is?” In fairness, everyone. Isn’t that the point of the mask?
The father of the Green Hornet knew who the Lone Ranger was.
His uncle.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/657538-evey-who-are-you-v-who-who-is-but
Dang it, why did it post that as a reply? Sometimes I hate these comments.
I know Zorro and The Three Musketeers, but not The Lone Ranger. Also I have no idea who George Burns, Don Knots, or Bob Hope are. But maybe that’s because I am German. Asterix is an old French franchise I know about, but that one is still ongoing (though the original writer has passed), so it doesn’t really count as a dated reference I guess. I bet everyone knows Jackie Chan, but what about those old Italian Terence Hill & Bud Spencer movies?
I guess if I had been in that guy’s shoes, then instead of Lone Ranger I would’ve made a reference to the Power Rangers because they have super powers and are fully masked.
George Burns, Don Knots, and Bob Hope are distinctly American (or at least English-speaking-world) examples. I’m not sure I’d expect a German to know who they were even if they were the right age to remember those guys in their primes.
As for The Lone Ranger, he’s kinda a semi-legendary character, definitely up there with Zorro in terms of popularity in his day. But, as is the case with many heroes from old westerns, he’s also a pretty problematic character to modern sensibilities. Aside from the one Johnny Depp movie Dave mentioned (which was problematic for a LOT of reasons – starting with Johnny Depp playing a insultingly stereotypical American Indian) I don’t know of any other media that’s even mentioned him since the turn of the century.
He was a cowboy hero, wore a mask, used only silver bullets, had an American Indian trusty side-kick, rode an all white horse (the name of I’ve forgotten) saving the day from bandits and the like. Very old , late ’50s to early ’60s, pre-color broadcast.
The silver bullets, were NOT for shooting, it was his “calling card”.
Actually, if I remember the story right, they were also for shooting, but that was very rare. It would happen at most once in an episode, and frequently only once in a season. The idea was somehow his silver bullets were super-precise, so he never missed. I recall seeing at least a couple of shows debunk that claim. Guns can be designed for high accuracy, and that can require special ammo. But no bullet is accurate in the guns they used in those shows and movies.
*Disclaimer* I did not see the recent remake. I only learned about it today by reading today’s author comments. I therefore do not know if the remake used historically accurate guns or if they opted to give him an anachronistically accurate gun.
Mythbusters tested silver bullets in their wild west episode. https://mythresults.com/episode79
They found it was less accurate and penetrated less deeply than a lead bullet.
It was also harder to cast and WAY more expensive than lead.
But… it might be handy to have if you are going after werewolves.
Better to just silverplate lead. Keep the density and ductility of the lead, while adding the special toxicity of silver.
I haven’t yet seen a myth busters werewolf episode…
that’s ’cause the werewolves hired some zombies to eat the video cassettes
Also, to be clear, on the rare occasion he did fire his gun, it was never at a person or creature. It was usually at a rope near a person, but sometimes it was at a lantern. At least once, it was at rope that was holding a lantern (as a method to give overhead lighting in a barn in a wild west where electricity had not apparently made its way out west much at all and certainly not to farm outbuildings).
I remember thse Terrence Hill and bud Spencer movies. The team up movies were a lot better than their solos. And their solos were a lot better than the team up movies of Thomas Gottschalk and Mike Krueger, which still were quite good, especially Die Einsteiger and Piratensender Powerplay.
And to really show my age, I loved the Graff Bobby movies (with Peter Alexander) and the Pater Braun (Heinz Roehmann) movies.
Spencer and Hill are legends, even their non-western movies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkgTWLBpgg)
Wasn’t Depp playing Tonto as a medicine-man type? And the original Tonto didn’t look anything like a Native American of that time: short hair and Western-style clothes
Power Rangers aren’t wearing masks, they are wearing motorcycle helmets, TMNT wear masks
He looked like a native American who wasn’t dressing up for tourists, actually. It was pretty common for Indians at the time to have worn Western clothing, particularly if they weren’t living on a reservation.
The Depp Tonto works better if you start by assuming he’s neither altogether sane, nor neurotypical.
And I do _not_ mean, “oh, he’s just not operating in your White, Western Patriarchy paradigm.”
I mean Depp’s Tonto works better as a character if he is a generally isolated loner from any society, including his own native tribe, because he isn’t sufficiently grounded in reality, doesn’t process information in a sufficiently relatable manner, and basically makes literally all “normal people” too uncomfortable & anxious to tolerate his presence for longer than a few minutes at a time.
Yeah, wasn’t that supposed to be the reason for why Tonto hooked up with the Ranger? He was, at the least, estranged from his tribe? Can’t remember if he was banished or simply on a quest or journey or something that took him away from the tribe
George Burns, Don Knotts, and Bob Hope were comedians from vaudeville who also starred in radio, television, and big screen productions. Bob Hope is most well known for his generosity in appearing in most if not all conflicts with the USO.
The Lone Ranger was a Texas Ranger who was betrayed and left for dead (1870’s or so). He fought crime wearing a mask so no one would know he was still alive. He had a Native American sidekick (Tonto) who had saved his life and resigned himself to following him around so he didn’t get killed. He rode an all white horse (Silver) which is a bad choice for someone trying to be inconspicuous on the trail.
I thought Don Knotts was the leader of the Apple Dumpling Gang (of desperados) in the old west.
Thanks for the explanations, everyone! :-)
It has especially interesting to read that the Lone Ranger never shot people or animals, because I thought that not actually using your weapon against living beings was for shows targeted at children only, like He-Man. It is really fascinating to see how the heroes manage to defeat the villains without actually using their weapons on them.
At that time most in shows about the “Old West” of U.S.A. the hero would shoot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand (see Roy Rogers). If you can find it, Mike Royko (a columnist for some Chicago newspaper) wrote about how he was pleasantly surprised when John Wayne’s characters would shoot the bad guys dead.
Probably one of the best scenes of any Western is in “True Grit” at the last fight when Marshall Cogburn (John Wayne) tells Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) he’s going to bring him in to Fort Smith to be hanged or will shoot him for resisting arrest.
Pepper: “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.”
Cogburn: “Fill yer hand you sonovabitch.” (sic, but that’s the way it needs to be said)
Telekinetic control over seltzer… wow that’s one obscure My Hero Academia Reference.
Able to do fancy tricks in high-class bars and mixers… “Quick! Spritzer! drown her!” yeah no…
Maxima did admit once that she was a bit of a nerd, when Sydney made a point of noticing that Maxima knew that Gandalf was a Maiar. Good to see that she is keeping her nerd cred up to date.
Maxima knows what Ioun Stones are. That is some Deep Geek.
It is only a matter of time before Sydney drags her into starting a monthly Celebrity D&D (or pick your TTRPG) Web Show.
…Dave, you should talk to the Vox guys about a crossover.
Zorro had a reboot about 20 some years ago (Antonio Banderas), so they may have seen that movie … or at least the clip of the dance scene or the sword fight.
A lot of the pop culture references from my youth are simply waiting for a studio or network to go back to the well, dust it off, and run it out again. Let’s face it, who thought we’d see The Munsters being done?
To be honest, I am no longer surprised about anything getting a reboot, no matter the franchise. The only thing that can surprise me is if such a reboot is actually well done and not a cheap gash grab with standard dialogue and/or a woke fest.
Yeah…the Munsters reboot. I was expecting better from Rob Zombie. They guy doing Grandpa was pretty spot on and Sherry Moon Zombie was okay as Lilly but his version of Herman was just a dick. Two things that made the original show work for me as an adult were, despite Herman’s appearance, he was an everyman in a world that didn’t know what to make of him and the chemistry between Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis. As a kid I just liked it as something weird. There are probably a lot of franchises whose time has passed. Now I’m wondering if Yellowstone isn’t a reboot of The Real McCoys.
I came here to ask who the woman with the P90 is but then when I looked back up the Who’s Who was there (it’s Seneca).
But it’s only there when the page is using the permanent link, like when viewing comments or the archive, and not in the normal “today” link.
The home page is always like that.
Yeah, she changed her hair colour (seems to be popular with the ladies)
And yeah, Who’s Who only shows up when viewing comments
What threw me off was the goggles. I was so focused on that, thinking like “that’s clearly not Krona, is it whatshername from the lab? I don’t think so? She’s not ARCSWAT.”
She’s also not allowed out of the lab :P
Speaking of Seneca, does anybody know what her power is, (aside from always having a snack) or if she even has one?
She’s like Peggy, and the other Space Marines: just very good at doing what she does (decimating candy supplies everywhere she goes :P )
She’s one of the “so awesome that special forces wasn’t a sufficient challenge” types. You may recall she set the course record while knifing several of the targets, and Peggy commented that doing so probably slowed her down… AS SHE SET THE COURSE RECORD. AND BEAT PEGGY.
So yeah, I’m guessing she’s the bestest CQB (close quarter battle) person in whichever hemisphere of the earth she happens to be standing in at the moment.
She’s not a super. Arc is made up of a diverse variety of skilled and/or empowered individuals, to avoid a monoculture.
Togusa in GitS is another good example of this.
Togusa is the _best_ example.
The Major was absolutely correct.
“Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness.”
If one is familiar with Batman I think he should be at least superficially familiar with Zorro (i.e know who he is). isn’t it canonically the film he went to see with his parents that famous night?
At least in those versions I remember. I will admit that I’m aware some of the reboots made changes I was rather astonished by, and I do not know the full list of what every reboot changed nor necessarily even the full list of reboots, so I can conceive of a version which didn’t mention what they were going to watch or changed what they were going to watch.
I made a reference to records when my kids were like 10 and 12 (a couple years ago) and had to explain it to them. They also once found a typewriter in Goodwill and wanted me to buy the “cool antique computer” for them until I told them it wasn’t a computer. They’d heard stories about the Commodore 64 and thought that’s what it was.
If you’ve ever ridden sandy the horse at a Meijer grocery store you’ve already heard the theme from the line ranger
Flight of the Bumble Bee (no, not the yellow robot car)
Damn! What a maroon!! It was Billy Tell Overthere
…
You mean The William Tell Overture?
…that was some Ted level Duck Vagina, Guest.
Sadly all anyone seems to know is the main theme of the Overture, but the full piece is very good. And some other great pieces in the full opera – Rossini is one of my favorite composers.
Oh, and that one comment about Lone Ranger was a joke about how Rossini must have been a fan of the show to make a cover of the theme…
Ironically, there was a UK tv series of William Tell that aired around the same time that the Lone Ranger was shown here, and to avoid confusion, they had to use the Prelude, rather than the Finale, as the theme music.
Yups, “Crossbow”, if you mean the one that came out in the 80’s, loved that show (always wanted a crossbow after seeing it :) )
Sorry, no.
I’m referring to the UK 1958 tv series, The Adventures of William Tell, which starred William Russell before he was the First Doctor’s companion, Ian Chesterton.
Oh :(
William Russell was in Sir Lancelot.
Conrad Phillips was in William Tell.
Always get them mixed up for some reason.
Was meant as a joke, tend to forget some people take everything from me as full serious
Found a version of the full overture, but there was only one comment about Lone Ranger, most comments were about how it was used as the final warning bell for schools to hurry kids to their next class (some even commented how they didn’t know the name, but searched for ‘song that sounds like fast horses’… )
If it helps, I can’t take you seriously at all.
Easy mistake to make, the Green Hornet was related to the Lone Ranger, after all.
In the year 2021? Everyone.
I just realized I hadn’t recognized Heatwave until I saw the refence to the cast page because her features are much softer now. I prefer her new design.
In the year of 2021? The answer would be everyone.
Everyone under a certain age.
The were a couple Lone Ranger projects (like a Cartoon show) back in the 80’s, but since then only Depp’s badly casted flop and a TV project that only got a pilot TV movie.
I was born at the end of the 70’s, I remember a lot of references back in the 80’s, but it dwindled after. More new shows, less re-runs of old classics.
Hey Dave, have you ever considered putting up an official Wiki for the comic? I’m pretty sure that if you did there’d be a small army of volunteers to fill it out for you, so the work would just be the initial set-up and picking a few mods. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining a cast page or anything like that.
if we did someone would have to keep track of all the ninja squads sent.
Fandom wikis don’t need the Author to start them. For example: https://girlgenius.fandom.com/wiki/Girl_Genius_Wiki
A movie of Lone Ranger did just come out nine years ago.
After the time this webic is set (2011)
Haven’t they been using modern tech?
Define ‘modern’
In the first few pages, Sydney was seen driving a jeep with 2011 tags in the window, and then she started talking about what happened prior to that
It’s like the Tim Burton Batman.
Ahistorical & timeless.
Yeah, that ^
Remember Valeur watching Teen Titans on the jet? Even though that show hadn’t been made at the time this webic is set
I watched the old re-runs on TV in the 80s, then we had the whole “The Lone Rangers… The Lone Rangers? You can’t plural Lone Ranger.” from Airheads (underrated gem of a movie), and then we had that debacle of a film starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer.
So Max, everyone.
That is a surprising number of non-speaking characters in the Who’s Who. Trying something new?
There was a Lone Ranger film nearly ten years ago, Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp in the main roles. So, not necessarily that old. Could feasibly be at the older end of teenagehood.
But, that would have been released after this webic
Really Maxi? You never ask a gentleman for their age!
I’m just bummed that the back of Duke Nuke’m’s head didn’t make the Who’s Who and…
He wears glasses?!
Mirrored sunglasses
The Lone ranger? What about Zorro?
“2 bits, 5 bits, 6 bits a peso! All for Zorro, stand up and say so!”
Zorro kept much more in the public eye, plenty of series and projects.
Masked champion of Justice Spanish Noble Swordsman is just so much batter for international appeal. Swashbuckling makes for good action scenes as well.
Sex Club ? Any where in California you can find groups wearing “anti-covid” designer masks , so I will focus of the whole Human Shield concept Villians use to stop incoming fire.
You always put you base under a real popular spot so that the Government Forces don’t use orbital strikes or even a single rocket (Iranaian Al Quds General Sulemani) on your people.
This comic is in a COVID-free world of the mid 2010s, so no designer masks. But I have a use for my masks again now that my wife is in a skilled nursing facility to care for her after she stopped eating after catching C-19 beginning of the summer this year. She’s lost a lot of weight and strength and eventually got to the point she couldn’t get off the couch to use the potty so she had to go to the hospital and then to skilled nursing.
Long story short I can’t get in to see her without a mask because of lingering COVID, RSV, flu, and a plethora of airborne-spread diseases that attack old people in nursing homes.
So I’m just trying to figure out how this can possibly go. And the scenarios seem relatively few.
Scenario 1: Ascenders are Idiots
They didn’t know that their raid would call down the Wrath of Maxima and/or they figured they could remain hidden.
They’re screwed, they’re screwed, they’re so screwed.
Scenario 2: Misdirect!
Geotag is wrong, hacked, corrupted, whatever. Heroes arrive at the wrong location.
Scenario 3: It’s a Trap!
Ascenders have something big in the back. There aren’t many things that they could expect to stand up against ARC-SWAT.
-Mind/body controller? Definitely dangerous, though unless they can get Max, she can basically counter any damage they can do by physically killing the controller (if present), and rapidly evacuating the controlled. Worst-case scenario, they get Max; if they don’t, worst-case scenario is that ARC-SWAT teammates injure each other while mind-controlled.
-Powerful enemy? We’ve seen a screen full of potential threats, way back. Could be anything from one of Dabbler’s old foes, to another super, to another enemy of the Council, to an advanced alien race, to an extraplanar being like the ones that corrupted the demons. Threat is highly variable, but would be hard to seriously threaten the team.
-Powerful spell/artifact? Could replicate anything from mind control to hero powers. Same idea as powerful enemy, really.
-Manipulation of the superion field? Could power up villains and depower heroes. Would explain why the bad guys wanted a list of all the supers. Very difficult, but very high danger level, especially given that the most powerful non-super available is currently trying to recharge.
-Something simple, e.g. a bomb? Wouldn’t do crap to the tougher heroes, but would be a PR nightmare, and could kill or badly injure a lot of the squishier characters.
Pretty sure the person who sent the image was Chimyriad (sp?), the ARC-SWAT shapeshifter, and it was done specifically to bring the cavalry.
But it was sent from Goon Squad’s phone, which might have been set up in advance to put incorrect geotags on photos, particularly while inside the base.
They would need to know about Chimmy, and sacrifice two high ranking members
Is that a new character in panel 1, blond hair and red shirt?
And I’m guessing that’s Jiggawatt in panel 5 with a new hair color and do.
Goose
Who’s the blond guy in the red shirt? Wearing glasses into superpowered combat seems like a bad idea. Supporting evidence: Halo does it.
Given he’s wearing a red shirt, maybe he won’t last long enough for us to find out (speaking of dated pop culture references)
It’s Goose, and those are mirrored sunglasses
Lone Ranger? And other recent heroes, like Captain Z-Ro and Captain Video (watched when they first came out).
Then there was the acquaintance who tried to teach her adult grandchild how to use a real telephone, complete with rotary dial and handset. Epic fail. He could not grok it.
What about Captain Nintendo?
I mean telekinetic control over seltzer could be absurd depending on the scope of the power and the cleverness of the user. Similar scale as Magneto or bigger? They’re dominating even a battlefield full of supers.
If you can quickly evaporate a bunch of water, a clever such telekinetic would use the seltzer as a “grip” for other tools. Swarm of hiltless knives with seltzer water inside? Enormous hollow shields with seltzer inside? Huge swarms of knives and manipulators, whose only engineering modification is a small hollow space to put some water inside?
And how precise and how much feedback do they get from their telekinetic control? Can they flood an entire battlefield with near-microscopic amounts offloating seltzer droplets to know everything going on?
The person might not even need to show up at all, they could just stand at the far limits of their range and pilot around a human-shaped mass of seltzer water and pretend that’s totes their real body please don’t kill it or I’ll be totes defeated.
Even if you can quickly evaporate a bunch of water*
Pop culture references decay.
Working in a music store, one of my co-workers was raving about this Paul McCartney guy’s band, “Wings”.
I suggested he should check out his earlier stuff.
I kid you not.
“Oh, was he in some other band before this?”
I think it’s telling of how outsized the impact of the Boomers was on US & global culture, that four musicians from an industrial backwater in the English countryside managed to essentially conquer the world…and now that that generation is (_finally_) beginning to (_slowly_) exit the stage, people are reacting with things like, “How can you not know who The Beatles are?!”
There is a season to all things, and all things must, inevitably, die.
_All_ of them.
…you had Joy, you had Fun, you had Seasons in the Sun,
But the Wine and the Song, like the Seasons, are all Gone…
Obligatory (and seasonal) XKCD – https://xkcd.com/988/
In fairness, the best Xmas music was made between 1930 & 1959.
It is one of the _rare_ moments when I am content to sink into a blissful haze of ahistorical & timeless nostalgia.
Basically, we should honor the height of American aesthetic achievement every year from November through New Years by recreating that period, in Arts, Fashion, and where practical, technology aesthetics. A tribute to The Ancestors.
Then we get up with a splitting headache on Jan 2nd &resume the horror of modern America.
Ugh, I remember when everyone wanted that played at their funeral and a few who got their wish.
For me, it’ll be ‘Something to remind you,’ by Staind.
https://youtu.be/HW5EqDoWekg
for me, I just want the band to wait until people start to leave and play ‘the cat came back’
is such a good thing that people don’t see great musicians/bands/music anymore.
You’re not old unless you’re told to Google something and you ask, “What does Barney Google have to do with it?”
My one issue with the art in this comic is that Maxima seems to have dropped about 20 pounds of muscle mass. I know black is slimming, but she is almost painfully thin.
Hey Dave, what’ll it take to get you to complete and update the cast list? Does Seneca have powers? Will a bribe do it? Put a $ figure up and we could take up a collection.
Seneca’s powers are reverse Diabetes.
More money, and more hours in the day, and more money
I regularly teach kids who do not know how to tell time from a non-digital clock. These are high-school kids.
Proper prior practical planning per preparation peaks performance preventing pandemonium.
Hah hah. How many times I’ve mentioned a pop reference from my youth, started to explain it, and then been told “Yeah, I’ve seen that on Nick at Night.” I don’t know if NaN itself is still a thing, but the point is that my cohort (Boomer) may be the first where the majority of its culture has been preserved intact. Well, not quite (there are still missing Dr. Who episodes, if I’m not mistaken, and let’s not even TALK about certain movies that Disney keeps hoping we’ll forget about) but I mean it as a generality, not an absolute. An argument could be made for my parents’ cohort (The Silent Generation), most of the influential movies are still available and many of the radio shows. Even if not preserved, they’re generally known about. (The Lone Ranger was quite the popular radio show. Long before Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels made it popular on TV.) Much of their history was recorded, and I mean directly on film or audio, not just written down. So they’ve not been preserved as thoroughly, but there’s still quite a lot of their culture around and still active.
It’s true a lot of the technology is opaque to younger generations. Where the culture was preserved, the technology was just outright replaced. I watched some old (my generation) movies with my daughter (Millennial) recently, and gave her a copy of a TV show that was popular when she was around 6. Poor girl — I’ve made her watch a bunch of stuff so she understood the jokes and references from more modern media (I was on the edge of my seat in the movie theater in 1968, but 2001 is a really boring movie in retrospect) but at least she knows the context. Meantime, when is the last time she actually dialed a phone? (Never, I think.) Does she know why a Bic pen goes with an audio cassette tape? No, and she’ll never have to, because those things are completely useless now. And if she wants to listen to Green-Eyed Lady, she can just do a search for it on Pandora, no need to dig through my tape collection. Even I don’t usually bother playing my MP3s any more… easier to find Machine Head on Pandora and just play it. Usually.
As for cursive — heck, I’ve been printing and typing for so many years that I’ve forgotten how to write in cursive. I can read it, of course, and I can scribble my signature, but jeez. Not going to twit younger generations for not knowing how to do something I can’t be bothered to use myself.
Sorry for the rambling, you got me started… the technology simply falls by the wayside because it’s useless now. The culture gets preserved because there’s still interest. People still like to watch old TV shows and movies. So don’t be surprised if some kid who can’t read an analog clock knows all about The Munsters or Dukes of Hazzard.