Grrl Power #1206 – Demon days of… whatever season it is
Sorry about the word bubble octopus there in the first panel. Please no one tell Scott McCloud, or I’m certain I will be added to his List, and he and his presumed gang of comic luminaries will track me down at a comic convention and shiv me.
My guess would be that demons would be either into human slice of life stuff if they have a xenoanthropological interest, or saccharine cutesy stuff like My Little Pony or Adventure Time or whatever – OR – they’d be into stuff with demons in it so they could have a good laugh at all the crazy stuff humans think demons get up to.
Has anyone ever done a story where a demon gets possessed by a human, (probably by accident, I imagine) and the human has to navigate the demon world and pretend to be a demon, and go to his demon day job and hang out with that demon’s friends in order to not arouse suspicion and get a crack team of reverse exorcists put on his trail? Cause I would probably read that. I mean, a humorous version of that, not some grimdark version. It would be a unique isekai, that’s for sure.
BTW, I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but Kill 6 Billion Demons is a fantastic webcomic that has insane, Sergio Aragones levels of detail at times. And somehow the guy doing it still has time to get physical books printed up, so naturally Sydney’s comic shop would carry it.
I have a cool surprise for you. It turns out, after doing Azumanga Diaoh, which, weirdly enough is one of my favorite animes, Kiyohiko Azuma went and made a 15-and-counting volume manga about Sydney as a 5 year old.
Okay, obviously, he didn’t do exactly that. But he really very nearly basically did. It is called Yotsuba.
<—- Yotsuba looks like this, and is a proper ADHD poster child.
Here is a link to it on Amazon.
And here is a link to a scanlation site, which I kind of feel like I shouldn’t link, but it’s not like you guys don’t know how to use google and honestly I want you guys to check it out and be like “Yup, that is eerily Sydney-ish.”
I feel like I’m late to the party because I just noticed the manga on Amazon is listed starting in 2009, but I just found this and am enjoying reading through it.
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The September vote incentive is up! Let’s call it the November vote incentive and just say I’ve still got two I.O.U’s, eh?
Well, Dabbler is doing her Dabbler things, and the Patreon version has a nude variant and a comic that… I don’t know, expounds on the goings on of the initial picture?
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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.
https://i.imgur.com/WxpQDTV.png
what, K6MD is freaking cool, lol
plus as long as it’s fiction, who cares?
“plus as long as it’s fiction, who cares?”
Like all the people who cared/protested/hated during the lust aura arc that just concluded three strips ago?
Clearly, he wasn’t one of those people. I hope.
More important, no demons are actually killed and KSBD doesn’t even HAVE demons. It has devils which are completely different.
Also, don’t forget that Abbadon, creator of KSBD, also did a killer TTRPG: https://massifpress.com/lancer
Also also? Now I want Sydney to meet Auntie Maya. I’m curious how long she’d survive a full bore Sydney ADHD storm. And also curious if Sydney’s shield can stop any of Maya’s sword moves up to and including the maybe sword.
Syd’s shield was strained by some mere planet-wreakers doing big explosions.
The Maybe Sword wouldn’t even notice it’s there.
Are the Veil and border control on vacation or something.
The demons are members of an actively hostile entity, so should have trouble getting through border control and Joel assumes protestors, meaning that either Sydney told them there are demons there(which is a clear NDA violation) or they can suddenly distinguish demons from humans, which the Veil should have prevented, since they’ve double representation in the Twilight counsil(extra-terestial and demons).
My best guess is that after the Alari landed in Galytn, the Veil was no longer able to cover the existence of aliens, similar to how supers slipped away from the Veil’s cover after the press conference. Then when Tom’s demon army helped Galytn invade Mozambique and was shown on international TV, that also slipped from under the veil.
Not all demons are the same, nor are they all employed by a raving sociopath hell-bent on subjugating the Earth under his rule
As for protests: hyu-mons will protest the building of a cross walk if it means delaying some Karen’s coffee run by so much as five minutes
Or if it removes one parking spot. I used to advocate for bicycle infrastructure, and for many years it was “But it will inconvenience drivers to not kill cyclists.” We had literal denial of installing bicycle lanes that caused a 30 second/mile delay of car traffic on a 2 mile long street.
They’re indeed not all employed by him, but they are citizens of the same government that sanctioned his actions.
Tom isn’t the hostile entity I described.
Its his government that provided him with an army.
Yes, not all demons are employed by their government, but some are actively employed at stealth based positions and will not tell you that they’re employed by their government to do these things.
This is in a large part, why nations tend to limit mingling with citizens of hostile nations.
You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about demon society that are unsupported by the text. That they’re all in the same polity, for instance, or that they have a government.
I make this assumption, because on multiple occasions within the exoterral arcs post ftl governments are described to be purely inter planetarian, because in the monster arc they had centralized representation in the Twilight counsil and because in that same arc it shown that there can be violent competition, between Demons and other species(angels).
The violent competition between angels and demons shows that at least Dabbler think of “demonkind” as a single ethnic group.
The fact that Toms army consists purely of demons(it’s described as an army of demons multiple times) means that there is at least organization, between demons(this could still be federated)
The point that Demons society made their infernal contracts, because they were competing against angels(as explained by Dabbler in the Tamara arc) means that “demonkind” is organized enough to have common enemies, so “demonkind” was at least defensively allied with each other.
Dabbler’s disgusted reaction of angels(“bad blood between angels and demons never”) when asked in the Sconia chase implies that some demons with powerful contacts within their military(Tom) still see “demonkind” as something that competes against “angelkind” and since she explained in the Tamara arc that this was military competition it’s save to assume there is still military collaboration between demons of some kind.
I admit this could still mean just a defensive alliance, but that became less realistic with the exoterral arc.
The demons are presented as an interstellar specie and the interstellar nations are presented as a bunch of civilizations organized under the alliance of the Xenoarchy.
The Alari are treated as a single nation with different political factions(as explained by Deus).
The galactic peacekeeping force is explained as knocking down civilizations large steps(ftl to stoneage) on the technological ladder and isolating them. That only works if they are the only one within their “uncrossable borders(things they they can’t cross, because of technical limitations)”.
Anyone except Deus who tries to conquer earth criticizes earths lack of central rule when declaring their intend of world domination.
This will be addressed on the next page.
Considering Dabbler already announced the demons part I’m going to assume it’s fully on the veil part.
it would be hilarious if the veil was actually still working and still disguising demon/aliens, but some of the local non-humans decided (after seeing the alari) to just start cos-playing as themselves, so what people see is paint and prosthetics meant to mimic what was being hidden
Deus exposed demons, each alien species has to be out in the veil individually, so any aliens seen so far thanks to the New York incident and Deus via the demons are now no longer covered.
There is also a possibility not all demons are part of the same governing body and likely have civilians regardless so assuming all demons are part of the forces in Galtyn is like assuming all supers are because there are also supers there.
right?
My hypothesis about how demons treat “demon agressive fiction” is actually nostalgia. Remember back in the day of “infernal contracts” of the old demons killing other demons was common and even encouraged behavior.
I, a rich and privileged white guy, really enjoyed watching Django shoot all those slave owners and henchmen.
And who among us didn’t experience a frisson of delight when that submarine full of billionaires exploded?
No? Just me then? Carry one.
Sorry, I only had the standard issue tall glass of schadenfreude.
I was upset about losing the sub, the rich idiots not so much. I did feel bad for their relatives that loved them.
The sub wasn’t much of a loss. Terrible design.
Just look at how popular historical fiction or low fantasy settings are. Vikings, samurai, knights, pirates – half of which are murdering their way to the top while the protagonist struggles to be a marginally better person than that.
History? Today people murder their way to the top. They just get more efficiency from briefcases than broadswords.
Azumanga Daioh is the bomb. More laughs for me than most anime. That stray cat bit, that repeats is gold.
You know there’s gonna be a demon geek that feels he has to correct all the demon or alien lore in games and comics.
Now Sydney dealing with an “aktually-demon” would be hilarious.
given that they have been living here… there are likely comics that actually are demonic in origin. new collecting angle!
OMG… Humans and Households came from the demonic realm??? It makes so much more sense now:
I cast fog of realization.
It’s me or Sydney is at two place in the first panel ?
Cardboard cutout, cosplay or parfait having fun ?
:P
The fact her balls are so tightly packed on the left would indicate cosplay (not sure why they are on that side of the counter though… )
I think they are on a cap. A staff member wearing merchandise?
She’s the Archon Merch girl.
tell me the balls are each sold separately…. along with an official ‘cosplay’ display hat (one size fits all)
oh yes- roll out the puns!
The balls are sold in Mystery Boxes.
Collect them all.
Callback to near the beginning of the comic when Arianna got the vapors over merchandising Halo and her orbs.
Also she has a noticeably different shade of skin and hair color than Sydney usually does, definately an employee cosplaying / showing off merch.
She’s probably using her orb that let’s her make a double of herself.
Especially since that’s also her Truesight orb, I think?
Location is Arc-swat merchandise
Also, the girl dressed up as Sydney, who had that idea? And how long until Sydney notices?
They are behind the counter, so probably staff (or Parf… see, another word that doesn’t sound like it should :P meant ‘staff’ by the way)
You might want to read Mairimashita! Iruma-kun “Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun!”
It’s not quite ‘human posses a demon’ but the main story is of a human kid getting adopted by a powerful demon and then having to hide he’s a human while going to demon high school.
Which sounds kinda similar to the premise of Rosario + Vampire when summarized like that.
“How Not to Summon a Demon Lord” might be to his tastes, too. The main character isn’t technically a demon, but he’s pretending to be one mainly on account of being really bad at interpersonal relationships. So he’s kind of roleplaying his MPORG character after getting Isikai’d into BEING his MPORG character, as a way of coping.
The demon realm from (The Owl House) called their social media sites “Pentstagram”
Reach heaven through violence.
Failing that, reach discounts through portals.
“Murder the gods and topple their thrones” is good advice in general.
I’ve always gone with”Annoy the gods and pee on their toilet seats”.
Love Yotsuba! That manga has won a ton of awards, too. Really good, wholesome stuff.
It is never too late to enjoy Yotsuba.
I too recommend Kill 6 Billion Demons, seems to be in its final arc now.
The author has said it’s the last book.
I’ll believe that when sales tank.
From you: “Has anyone ever done a story where a demon gets possessed by a human, (probably by accident, I imagine) and the human has to navigate the demon world and pretend to be a demon, and go to his demon day job and hang out with that demon’s friends in order to not arouse suspicion and get a crack team of reverse exorcists put on his trail? Cause I would probably read that. I mean, a humorous version of that, not some grimdark version. It would be a unique isekai, that’s for sure.”
There’s a HaremLit book series kinda like that actually…
Otherworld Academy, by Deacon Frost.
( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X3ZF34X?binding=kindle_edition&searchxofy=true&ref_=dbs_s_bs_series_rwt_tkin&qid=1700136677&sr=1-1 )
It’s basically about a guy named Levi Walker who gets hit by a truck (in the first chapter, so not a spoiler) and ends up being pulled through the Reincarnation Network. He is isekai’d into another body, basically a half dragon. But he also finds out early on that he’s a Demon Lord. As his harem is growing, and he’s taking his classes at the Academy, it turns out that there’s an entire multi-dimension spanning empire that wants to kill him because of what he is. He does have to try and hide the fact that he is a Demon Lord as much as he can, because they are not only rare, but also considered “Kill ASAP” by a number of races.
It’s actually one of my favorites in the genre. Fairly well written, consistent in structure, and unlike some HaremLit he actually seems to take the time to use an editor (or, at least, a proof/beta reader)… so not much in the way of typos and continuity “oopsies”.
FYI This comic is not on the homepage. It is also not linked from the previous page. I only got here thanks to RSS.
Thankyouverymuch 😝
Managed to get here from the previous page, was still reading the last page before the update so just used the next button
Kill 6 Billion Demons came out in 2013, I thought Grrl Power was set in 2011?
We also don’t (publicly) have supers flying around. There are some differences.
Continuity schmontinuity. Personally I don’t think details like that are important.
Ehh you see, comic time is like this timeylimey mixed ball with strings and multiple ends all jumbled together.
I don’t think Matt considered that.
continuity errors are hereby blamed on the British.
For longrunners set in the ‘current’ time there are often two ways the flow of time is handled.
Either the story is locked into a certain time period.
A sliding time scale, where the current in comic time is not too far behind the current time it came out.
Both have their pros and cons.
I was a teenage Cthulhu love-slave… by Harlequin Romance
I don’t X/twit whatever…it was and is the second stupidest social media. :) He sounds like a grubby nerf herder.
It’s ok to deadname Twitter while Twitter’s ToS allows deadnaming.
Although the jokes about it being an ex-website do write themselves (expecially given it’s user number trends).
Twitter is the Dead Parrot skit of the Internet. With Elon’s money replacing the nails on the perch.
Well. There are isekai (other world) stories where a human from modern Earth gets reincarnated as a demon and has to learn how to do “demon things.”
One of the best that I’ve seen so far is “Newly Summoned Demoness” currently undergoing a rewrite at Royal Road, and our protagonist Eliana not only has to deal with monsters coming at her, but extreme “kill or enslave on sight because they’re all extremely dangerous, if not downright evil” racism coming from the humans she meets.
Is it just me, or does this comic shop not have a single cash register?
Coffee of Doom does have a cash register, but they lost the key to it long ago.
Of course he would be a fan of K6MD.
Of course a demon would be a fan of K6MD.
Well there is a manga and light novel where a human kid gets adopted by a demon after his utterly selfish parents sell him to the demon, who promptly takes him to the demon realm academy he’s one of the three rulers of and pretends he’s a demon because rank and file demons think humans are a myth. Honestly it’s sad that the demon (who adopted the kid so he could brag about his ‘grandson’ to his demon peers) is an honestly doting and loving parent to the kid, something his actual biological parents never were.
There’s an anime of this as well, Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun, 3 seasons.
The school song might have something to do with his keeping up the pretense. It would be kind of off-putting if you were human…
Strangely enough, a close fit for your reverse demon possession would be Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun. His parents sell his soul to the underworld and he becomes the “grandson” of a high ranking demon. He has to keep his friends and classmates from finding out he’s a human or they’ll eat him. It’s mostly comedy, but it’s also got political intrigue, a soft magic system, and surprisingly good world building.
>> Has anyone ever done a story where a demon gets possessed by a human?
That sounds interesting. I do have a book in final clean-up (should be on Amazon next week) where someone was raised as a human, but it turns out they are not, and after graduating HS, he gets recalled to the other planet. (link is to my first book, new one will be up next week)
I really wish Grrl Power had a proper Archive sorted by storyline. Wanted to che k an old storyline but can’t find it.
What are you looking for? It’s not really structured like a traditional comic book, because it bounces around so much. But I’ve read through it enough times that I can usually find a given page pretty quickly.
When one puts it like that, what’s the draw to go set down on Earth since it’s a non FTL planet/community? For that matter we’re not even really in the know about the existence of much of the collective community ether. I can see why someone avoiding the collective law would want to hide out, but the rest of them?
That plus The Veil makes anonymous sex tourism really easy.
There’s another webcomic I read that goes into detail about why Earth is such a draw, we have the best media on this side of the Galaxy. We’re not invaded-brought into the galactic economy because everybody likes our shows, magazines, and music and doesn’t want to damage what is by letting everyone know about aliens etc.
Never seen a comic shop that clean, neat, organized and uncluttered. But, hey! If you got the big bucks to buy a huge church for your shop, then maybe. Still, I think chaos is just an inherent element of a comic shop.
My German teacher was living in Salzburg when “The Sound of Music” came out, and everyone in the theatre thought it was a comedy.
The best example was the final scene where the family is running over the hill to flee the Nazis and escape into Switzerland. Well on the back side of that particular hill was Hitler’s summer home. The whole audience was laughing and yelling “I don’t think they make it!”
Another thought for what Demons would love — “I THE DEMON KING HAVE BEEN TRAPPED IN THIS HUMAN WORLD AND MUST SURVIVE!” See “The Devil is a Part-timer”, and the Tapas comic “Demon King Levels Up”.
Aahz and Skeeve myth adventures (Robert Asprin)
the “human possessing a demon” idea is eerily similar to the plot of Frank Herbert’s Man of Two Worlds.
Speaking of which, when do we get Grrl Power on dead trees?
Demon Nerds… okay I will take it! Wait… are there Demon Nerd Girls?
If male demon nerds exist it stands to reason that there are female demon nerds to go with them.
It’s already been established that Dabbler is a massive tomboy nerd/dork by Succubi standards.
Haven’t seen a demon be possessed by a human but if you want to watch a human have to pretend to be a demon in the netherworld:
Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun (Mairimashita! Iruma-kun)
Theres the manga and 2 seasons on Crunchyroll.
Dear Dave,
Thank you for the reference to Yatsuba&! As a connoisseur of sweet, I don’t know how I missed it. Having now read the first chapter, it is clearly at or near the top of my list of darling mangas.
Yotsuba is indeed excellent. Haven’t read any of it in ages, but it’s good wholesome fun.
Constantine fan!
Not that surprising. Kill Six Billion Demons is fantastic. And it’s on the web!
I can see that the church was from the era of “panel the whole thing in sheets of cabinet grade plywood with walnut stain” interior design.
Superhero comics are actually a pretty niche market, even restricted to American comics, thanks to their broken distribution system. The actual Big Two are Viz and Scholastic, and at the time of Grrlpower, the biggest selling comic writer/artist was Raina Telgemeier, with a fuil 6% of the American market (now it’s Dav Pilkey of Captain Underpants fame). Maybe they’re here to pick up the Eisner-winning Smile.
Kill 6 Billion Demons reminds me of the sort of stuff you see in the 2000 AD anthologies.
It’s great stuff.