Grrl Power #122 – If only all behavioral therapy was this easy
Back unto the breach. I missed you guys. Well, I checked in on the comments a few times but mostly I was drawing over the break, and hardly spending any time playing Far Cry 3, I promise. I did manage to get an extra page finished over the holiday so yay, buffer. Now I won’t miss a post if I lose power over the weekend or whatever.
The reason this takes place in Leon’s office (you can see the servers behind Max and Syd on the last page) is that I forgot to draw the funny shirt I was going to put on Leon the first time I put him in the comic, so I needed an excuse for him to change it. Of course, now that I’ve called it out, everyone will be all “It’s not that funny” when they see it, but at least this way it leads to a good way for Sydney to be introduced to him and a few jokes on the next page.
As a nice little bonus this page shows a bit of a flashback to Max as a teen. I’ll eventually show her origin, but probably in little snippets here and there. I don’t know that every little detail needs to be spelled out.
Also I finished the background on page 120, so that page is finally complete. And if you didn’t see it last week, thanks to Shouri for her Sydney pinup.
Edit: Added the orbs and a little smoke, etc to Max’s flashback panel to make it more clear what happened.
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she owes leon a new mountain dew
forgot the obligatory “YAY 1st”
We don’t usually do that here.
I know, and it’s probably the only chance I will get
Where are the orbs? She’s not wearing her tube and I don’t see it nearby… and Happy new year!
Watch, the artist will sneakily add them into a corner, or the like.
She found out that one orb was a shrink orb, used it on all the orbs and the tube, put the shrunken orbs in the shrunken tube, and put it her pocket. THERE SHALL BE NO PLOTHOLES! :D
Hah hah whoops! There’s something to fix tonight.
Relax Dave, it’s New year’s. Why do today what you can put off to tomorrow.
Besides drawing with a hangover is fun.
C’mon. You’re slipping to much with the orbs. Maybe you should draw a few scenes where Syd is offscreen but the orbs aren’t. You’ve made them an essential part of her, and the orbs should only be gone when something has really gone wrong.
Addition of the orbs is great, but where has the tube gone? Unless it got left at the doctor’s office along with the visitor pass.
Maxima looks to be in her late teens to early twenties when that happened.
I bet the guy had to change his shorts after that.
I reeeeeally want to see more of Max discovering her powers now.
And not just because more of her in that outfit. :P
Of COURSE not. ;)
we believe, thousands wouldn’t
Is that kid Max’s little brother?
ALL SHALL BE REVEALED! yes.
Interesting that there appears to be no family resemblance.
Well besides hair color and skin color there may have been other changes when Max got her powers, like a sharper new nose. Also consider the way people’s faces change as they age especially during the teen years.
Their noses are similar.
you assuming he’s her younger brother since it’s the sort of thing a pain in the butt kid brother does, he could also be an ex-boyfriend (soon to be arch-villain?)
I wonder if Max’s transformation (I assume that she wasn’t born gold and powered) prompted her to join the military in the first place? And why the air force, rather than another branch? I’ve heard that women are not treated well at the Air Force Academy in recent decades, with a LOT of sexual harassment and pressure to give sexual “favors.” (PLEASE tell me if I’m wrong, I don’t want to cast aspersions where none are warranted)
Also, what were her plans prior to gaining her powers and whatnot?
But more to the point: how was she injured, while nearly invulnerable/powered, while serving? (when she met Anvil, according to their bios). The variability of her powers could easily explain that in the right context, but under what circumstances would Max have lowered her resilience enough while in combat to risk serious injury?
Moreover, did she even get/need a plane to fight in, given her suit of powers which would make guns, bombs, and the plane to carry them unnecessary? Even more importantly, how on earth is she already a Colonel at only age 36? That’s just under General in rank, for those who don’t know, and often takes career officers years to reach. Granted, she might have been recently promoted given her new responsibilities with Archon and ArcSWAT, but methinks that there are a few good stories behind that rapid rise through the ranks (lest we forget her title, Destroyer of Mosques).
The scenario that makes the most sense is she was putting so much into attack (beams, speed, whatever) that there was nothing left for defense. making her vulnerable to some attack. Don’t forget that just because she got hurt doesn’t mean that whatever caused her injury wasn’t something in the super-powered range. She could have been hit with something in the realm of a 6″ naval rifle or a 155 mm howitzer, or the civilian equivalent a loaded pickup truck at 70 MPH…
… Or even simply being too close to a buttload of explosives or other volatile substances when they went BOOM! Can see that happening, very easily.
Plus, accepted that Max is Tough, but there are presumably limits. There may even be gaps in her abilities – certain things that her toughness is less effective against. Ample precedent in the cape-and-spandex crowd.
Capes are bad.. very bad.. you don’t want to be caught flying with a cape near a jet engine… (not to mention the times some strong winds cause it to wrap itself around your head, causing you to crash into an orphanage!)
… or maybe a mosque? ;)
It doesn’t take flight, or even much in the way of powers, for a cape to be a liability. Just ask one of the Minutemen what happened to Dollar Bill.
No capes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy2YhxXn7NY
that’s what i kept telling people on CoH
Now ,see, that’s why Artful Kat’s cape was a breakaway only worn during official events, and ready to swap for a more sensible costume at a moment’s notice.
(a moment of silence for the passing of the fantastic City of Heroes,)
I’ve subtly changed her rank to Lt. Col, though I haven’t gone back and updated all the art yet (the pin on her epaulets) Most of the rest of that stuff will be revealed in time.
Max is probably thinking why me and wondering what she did to deserve Sydney.
+1
cI Like
(^thumbs up)
that mosque must been worth some serious bad Karma, maybe she’s Allah’s idea of pay back
Well the Muslim religion (or any Abrahamic faith for that matter) is not well known for it’s fair treatment of women.
Syd is certainly working Max to her last nerve. She has gone full double-facepalm-fetal position.
So who is that guy in panel 2? Max’s little brother? Seems like a little brother stunt to pull.
Max doing the full double-facepalm-fetal-position? Sydney scores 10,000 points for that particular Achievment.
boyfriends will also do that same kind of thing.
Probably the last time he tried ANY kind of stunt around her.
I didn’t understand anything on that panel. And those things I think I understand don’t make sense.
How did Maxima destroy that wall while lying on a couch too far away to reach that wall?
Why did Sydney bang her head? Why does she suddenly has force spikes on the back of her hands?
“Reset your reaction to surprise”???
I feel like I missed some pages before this one.
Well, Max can do energy beams and stuff. Also she may have just thrown something, who can say.
Because she’s a lunatic, and she’s decided that’s a way to reset how her instincts react when something startles her.
They aren’t spikes, I think they’re indicating rapid motion.
Essentially Sydney’s instinctive response when she is surprised is to lash out aggressively. The problem is she now has the potential to level buildings, or worse, when doing so, and Max is attempting to head her off before that happens. It IS possible to consciously retrain your instincts so you perform a different action when surprised, but it takes lots and lots and lots and lots of training. Max is just suggesting that they should get to work on it, that Sydney should keep in mind a non-aggressive reaction, like using her forcefield orb, rather than striking out at whatever surprises her.
“How did Maxima destroy that wall while lying on a couch too far away to reach that wall?” Not sure, maybe she has powers we’ve not seen yet, or maybe just a joke?
“Why did Sydney bang her head? ” To reset her brain, so she won’t have the reactions she had before.
“Why does she suddenly has force spikes on the back of her hands?” they’re swoosh marks, she’s moving her arms
She had just come into her powers and didn’t know she could shoot power blasts from her hands.
While she was taking a nap someone popped a blown up paper bag, and starlted her awake where she let loose a blast from her hand blowing a hole in the side of her wall. Thankfully missing the prankster.
Little brothers: Ya gotta love them . . . . or kill them in their sleep, I always forget which. ;)
Just like little sisters, they are all little treasures I still wonder why mom wouldn’t let me bury them in the backyard? I dug a hole and everything.
i tried that, the dog kept digging him up
There’s this quote from Stephen King that I used to get my niece to behave: “People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.”
Babysitting her got real easy after that.
Maxes powers: Phenomenal strength, speed, armor, flight and energy beams. Notice the young mans burned left arm and sleeve.
Plus (only a guess, but I’m dang sure of this) a large wet area that has suddenly appeared around the guy’s feet.
“Maxes powers: Phenomenal strength, speed, armor, flight and energy beams.”
And dislocate shoulder at will?!?
yeah, that left arm doesn’t look right to me either.
It looks fine to me. His shoulders are hunched up. Some people do that as a natural response to threats, than normally duck their head as will. To protect their face/head of course. :3
That’s not it. The arm looks too far back. We’re actually looking at a part of the arm that should be attached to the collarbone.
Either that or it’s growing out of her back.
We’re not talking about “his” shoulder.
Now that makes sense. My first thought was grab the coffee table next to the sofa and throw it into the wall at a weak point, like a window, and it took a little more with it. It had to be a weak point of the wall otherwise the table would have broken instead of the wall.
But noticing the burned shirt and arm definitely takes the table theory out of contention. Energy blast it is/was.
So basically she’s Superwoman.
GOLD BEAMS
Last post as Badgers?
She may have destroyed the wall and was so surprised that she stumbled back onto the chair.
She must of lived in a 3rd story apartment, the way the outside is angled.
With her being able to fly and have super strength, it wouldn’t be as much a pain to her as other people.
I remember it being hell to move furniture when I lived in one. Vaulted ceilings my ass. Anybody try to pull that one, just tell them it’s harder to heat in the winter.
2nd story maybe, if it was 3rd, they would be looking down onto the roof of the other building
They are.
Of course, the could be on a bit of a incline.
Yeah, supposed to be second floor. She came up in a fairly well to do area which I was trying to show with the nice houses outside. Luckily she missed them.
I’ve lived in two houses where houses on our side of the street were on a hill, while the houses on the other side of the street were downhill from us. It isn’t really that easy to tell what floor they’re on when you take situations like that into account.
OMG, it must have been expensive for Max’s parents as she discovered her new powers… Everytime she discovers a new power, they have to rebuild part of the house… I’m wondering how long it was before they started severely punishing her brother for pranks that startle Max…
Preeeetty sure that would have been the last time he did anything remotely to startle or upset Maxi ever again!!! (only takes one near-disinteration to make someone a doting little brother)
Just noticed: he didn’t get away completely unscathed (look at his left arm and shirtsleeve, if he was standing a few inches more to the right he could have lost that arm)
Actually some brothers tend to get a kick out of “Poking The Bear” like that. He’d probably just do it from a different angle next time. Pissing off siblings is a goal most children aspire to.
If that didn’t work, I’m sure his parents assigning the mortgage needed to repair the building to him would.
Was that some kind of kinetic/energy wave or did Maxima throw a pillow?
Also, a counter-coup type blow to the head can force a hard reboot the brain.
notice the scorch marks.
image of Max giving Sydney a “gibbs” like slap on back of head every time she does some thing wrong
I like Max as a teen :-)
And it makes he even more likeable when you know she’s been struggling to control her own powers.
… and thats definitely her little brother who by now learned never to abrubtly wake up his big sister again… ever!
Aw man, I had/have the same reaction to being surprised as Max/Sydney, I tended to warn people up front what would happend if they decided to “surprise” me.. :-)
Exactly my thoughts. It’s almost like she’s picking up a previous conversation… “Well, I’m super-strong, and I can move fast…” (wait for a few weeks) “… and apparently I can do THAT.”
He was probably hoping for her to jump up and literally imbed herself in the ceiling.
Good guess.
That a girl Sydney way to make a good first impression on your I.T. guy. Well back to medical to treat that concussion and to get some booster shots. God only knows whats been on Leon’s desk. Happy New Year all.
Snot On My Keyboard award winner AGAIN!
Ok, now I gottat gor find out about that award.
Ok, what is up with Leon’s eyes in the first panel? And kinda betting he will turn around to Maxi and tell her to stop letting the crazies into his room/office/vicinity (in a polite way of course)
Wait, Leon isn’t Maxi’s little brother with a dyejob, is he? That might explain his look in the first panel
He’s looking at a computer screen working. That is a dissatisfied glower of someone who would rather be doing something else.
He considers his office his little castle, her doesn’t care for impromptu meetings going on behind him.
The Church of the Subgenius might refer to this as corrective phrenology.
In one of Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ books, a retrophrenologist was briefly encountered. The guy ran a busy shopfront practice where he would alter or redo the bumps and dents in people’s heads for a fee – had a wide selection of mallets and hammers for the job.
I would say Sydney’s approach could be called autoretrophrenology.
Yay discworld, sorry huge Pratchet fan
Teen Max is sit-com gold!
Did she wake up one morning 8 inches taller, 2 cup sizes larger and gold plated?
Nice couch! Is there something wrong with her bedroom?
Guessing one of her OTHER emerging powers had previously totalled her bedroom.
Noting Max still had her shoes on, so maybe she was just chilling or napping or watching TV when “it” happened.
What, you’ve never napped on the sofa?
I’m so used to sleeping on the couch a bed doesn’t feel right sometimes.
Put it on after the show with the cousins who have twin moms and the same dad. Then there would be an hour of watchable television every week!
People who have complete mastery over their mind may be able to do this, change their reactions and thought patterns instantly… Its possible that Sydney has this ability, but due to the way she is, she has to do it in a way that makes sense to her… which is pretty much why Sydney does anything
And also keep in mind that Sydney may just be a crazy person who thinks that bonking her head on a desk will enact the exact right change in her behavior. :)
random personality disorder, banging her head “re-rolls the dice”
Chaotic Neutral – bang head for random behaviour.
You mean that trick DOESN’T work?!?!
her perception of reality may not be the same as everyone else, but that doesn’t mean she’s crazy
…It’ll be hilarious if Sidney’s resetting method actually turns out to WORK for her.
“Don’t underestimate the therapeutic power of blunt force trauma!”
I’M now kind of wondering if Sydney’s brain was on ‘The List’. We know that other parts of her were.
You mean something like,
“Stupid period! That’s it. You are on the List! For that and how you started to itch like crazy after my last date! He and I were getting along so well too.”
this bloke i once knew used to say
“the therapeutic value of a good dump first thing in the morning is underrated!”
I think that was something else :/
You know, what with Sydney being Sydney and all, I’d say she’s probably just crazy enough for that to work.
Gotta say, Dave, I love everything about this week’s strip – the glimpse of a younger Max, Sydney’s …. erm, “reset” and the reaction of Max and Leon to same. Pure Awesome.
Thanks!
“Pure Awesome” just about sums it up for me too.
Remember the placebo effect – if Sydney thinks head banging the desk will have that effect, it might do for her.
I suspect Sydney would beat me at a competitive game of chasing parked cars :(
Okay, for the record, because I hate it when you get a huge server farm on someone’s office in a tv show or something….
Have you any idea the noise a single rack of server can produce ????? There is literally no way you could have a conversation in front of a wall of those. A wall of those would do about as much noise as a train passing full speed 1 feet of you (please don’t try that, it’s dangerous).
Also, no-one in their right mind will put those on their office (not even considering the security or the equipment safety. one mountain dew in the servers = tens k$ of hardware and days to put everything back together).
When I worked in a convience store, I always thought the cooler would make a perfect way to set up a server farm. It’s in a refrigorated room with double layered glass doors to help keep down the noise.
Maby he has that kind of set up for his server farm, except a little more high teck, with liquid cooling units as well to keep the heat down.
It appears to me as if there is some sort of wall lighted from above between him and the servers. A thick Lexan wall would be protective, transparent and cut way down on the noise. It would also allow him to check for warning lights on the servers a lot quicker.
I admit that I’m not really very good at backgrounds still. In my mind, there’s a layer of glass or something between him and the big server rack. Maybe I need to put some shiny reflective stuff in front of them, maybe some dots on the glass or the hexagons I have on some of the other windows.
His own computer (which you’ll see on the next page) is just a standard (if custom built) rig, but he has a few windows open to monitor the servers and also a KVM squirreled away somewhere.
Also they’re water cooled, all nicely trussed up in the back with hoses.
If he was really cool, he’d go with passive immersion cooling, add some leds that fade in and out and slap a nuclear sign on the aquarium :D Passive immersion cooling has the whole system into a tank filled with something suitable like Flourinert, and cycles liquid through a cooler to keep it nice and chilly just below room temperature (even at maximum overclocking). DVD/BD units would have to be left outside the liquid, due to moving parts, but solid state drives don’t.
I saw a guy at Quakecon who had build a rig in a fishtank, then filled the whole thing with mineral oil or something. It was cool to see a submerged computer running like that, though I’m sure it was super heavy and a mess if you have to replace a part.
I knew a guy who kept his CPU in a bar fridge.
One winter I stuck mine in the window then opened it up. With -20 air blowing across everything I was able to double my CPU speed. Until it warmed up a few days later.
K, this is a server room in a building that houses super people. …… It’s probably got re-enforces steel frames, double coted safety glas, and a few force shields and magic shields thrown in for good measure. Not to mention the magic spells to prevent someone from hacking in. In otherwords it’s gonna be a sweet set up that only Leon can untangle.
Also Tingles was part of a force that had science that oculed (?sp) sound. They could be using that here too. Best place for it. :) … unless you’re one of theose sysadmins who can tell if someting is wrong just by the sound the driver is making, or can pinoint the lose nut by the fan vibrations.
and then Maxima accidently discovers she has magnekinesis and wipes the servers clean.
Or Dabbler finds out burritos and her stomach should NEVER meet! o_O
But is it a “Billion-Degree Burrito”? =P
Or one of the orbs is a EMP blaster.
When I was in graduate school, I once floored my research adviser by breaking off a conversation and turning to the (ASR-33) keyboard a few seconds before it coughed up the results of a 20-minute program run (Raytheon 500 mini-computer). I entered new parameters and started the next run. My adviser asked how I new that the run was about to end. I could tell by a change in the pattern of whines from the switching power supply.
Being the old military man I am, I know that in the last panel, Maxima is repeating over and over in her mind, “Why me? God, what did I do to deserve this.” I can sympathize with the Maxima because on November 5th the wife delivered a baby girl, Based on the way I was when I was a kid, instead of Lexi, I should have named her Sidney and I know I’ll be in the same pose at some future date.
Comiserations. I mean, Congratulations! :)
So have you decided upon which shot-gun you will be “cleaning” when her boyfriends come to pick her up for their dates. Don’t go leaving this choice for the last minute. If you do, it just winds up looking so last minute and they (the boyfriend) don’t just don’t have the same reaction to the whole ordeal. :-)
Shotgun? That’s old school. Have them sit down while your sharpening arrowheads. and checking out the aim of your bow.
isn’t bow n arrow even older school
There’s some pretty space age bows and arrows out there.
I much prefer the idea of having an electronic flash go off and then his face come up in a facial recognition software suite, and on the desk is sitting what looks like a programming station for a smart bullet already being prepped for loading. Heck I could pull most of that off already except for the smart bullet. Wait a second, I could easily hack together an assassin-bot instead Mwahahahahahaaaahaaahaaaaheeee.
Sharpening a K-bar while in full camo might get the point across more clearly.
No joke man, when I went to pick up my prom date her old man took me into “the backroom” for a chat. It was where he kept his collection.
I’m starting to wonder if Max’s “assets” were an abrupt change for her. Maybe one year she’s a skinny Sydney-like nerd with no figure and the next she’s a golden Amazon.
There are a lot of women who do that naturaly, of course they are usually between the ages of 12-17.
It would explain a lot of her attitude about her “assets” and how people look at her.
In my experience of teaching teenagers, a girl can be pretty much flat at the beginning of grade 9 and somewhere around C-cup by the end of the school year.
I remember one girl, from when I was a student in high school, who had would have worn an A or B-cup at the end of grade 9 and was sporting D or DD cups at the beginning of grade 10; she was a short girl and may have grown an inch or two in height over that summer; she was still short after that summer break. This made her growth that summer seem even more dramatic.
All sorts of things are growing at this time. Teen Max is already quite tall by the looks of things, but still has more breast, hip and muscle growth to become the amazon we all know and love.
Holy freaking Hell.
How has this not been picked up by a major network and turned into a TV show already?
too creative.
maybe a few years ago, but these days, tv’s all about rehashing formula without deviation.
They’re not ready for the next Joss Whedon! (pats self on back) Seriously though I think Maxima by herself would be a strain on any budget. Until you can do Golum level automated CG overlay on an actress without a team of touch uppers and painters, I don’t think this would work for live action. You couldn’t do her correctly with practical effects. As a cartoon on Cartoon Network? I could see that.
Don’t sell yourself short, this strip is much better than anything Joss Whedon has done so far (he gets some points on the Avengers movie, but really you’d have to have been Fox or Uwi Boll to screw that one up). Plus Avengers were already existing characters with decades of story behind them with other movies to work off of done by other writers and directors.
Um, Fire-freakin’-fly!
Definitely also to a lesser extent Buffy and Angel.
Buffy the vampire slayer, I never liked the show, except for the odd episode here or there, and mostly not till the show was out of Highschool and started to be more than it was. Having multiple writers doesn’t hurt.
Angel, I didn’t really care for this show till season 6. Figures they’d cancel it just as it was actually getting original and interesting. I’ve seen the supernatural detective thing before, several times (Forever Night, Brimstone, Dresden Files), but monsters running an evil lawfirm and trying to do good from within the belly of the beast was something I’d never seen before.
Now there is a show I got into that I thought was going to be another supernatural detective, Lost Girl. However she is practically a larva of her find, knows nothing of the supernatural world requiring help from those around; her liason on the police force isn’t human (kudos to Angel for ending this part early on), but on Lost Girl the police liason is a werewolf, and his partner a male siren. She gets in overhead moreso than anything else.
I will say most of the second season is better than the first, the first has more sex to bring in the audience (Succubus main character), second season focuses more on plot; but it feels like towards the end they kind of overreached, their big bad was something they really didn’t have the budget to pull off as impressive *same problem with Supernatural, a show that regularly bugs me*
Shows like Lost Girl may smudge the folklore, but only once enough to irritate me (Garuda), which unfortunatly was a big plot point, but Supernatural does it on a regular basis. Supernatural should be more like Buffy and Angel and just make up monsters if they don’t intend to even partially resemble the folklore.
Personally I think Firefly is over-rated. But then again I did watch it, the movie felt a little odd like they were compressing several intended seasons into one movie (possible). But for me the sci-fi western never really melded well, and I always hated the (we are in the future but our whole planet is filled with backwards hicks) episodes of shows like Star Trek, seriously a witch hunt in one episode.
But as my next comment will show, it could just be that the show didn’t have time for me to get to like it.
Well using our own planet as an example we have people who have no access to technology above the iron age and people who STILL believe that garbage despite space age technology. So really not so unlikely.
Well Joss can do drama, which… I can probably do to some extent, but I don’t know how good I’d be at relationship drama. I have very little real world relationship drama to pull from. My own feelings have always been that I’d rather not be in a relationship if it’s one that includes drama, so I’ve pretty much avoided it. Anyway it’ll probably be a while before we get into relationshippy stuff in the comic.
That’s why this strip was meant to be a cartoon. Right after The Simpsons
Look at Lexx, They painted almost all the actors in that one. It’s not that hard to do with a halfway decent budget. The hard part would be finding girls who look enough alike to play Harem and the CGI for Dabblers arms.
There are a few identical (or nearly identical) triplets in the acting community. Just make sure that no more than 3 Harems show up at the same time on screen, or you could add some split screen magic. I guess you could find a couple more women to play the other two, but changes of wigs and makeup could allow 3 women to play 5.
its fairly easy to use a computer to insert duplicates, just have to get the shadeing right and gravity. Not to mention don’t put a duplicate in a spot where a keen observer will notice their feet are in the floor or they are part way into a table or something.
Actually, Maxima shouldn’t be too bad for the budget, unless she is actually using her powers. Get a former super-model (right height), add a purple wig, gold skin makeup, a push-out super-padded bra and and insane workout routine to get a reasonable facsimile of Max. Finding a 6’7″ woman to play Anvil will be harder. Dabbler would be the character to bust the special effects budget along with Sydney’s floating orbs.
I think the orbs would be the easiest thing in the comic. A copy of Maya or 3DS Max and After Effects plus a few glass practical models and you’re basically done. Dabbler would be tough but for the purposes of the show she’d probably spend a lot of time in disguise. Physical paint on a model wouldn’t look like what I have in mind for Max. It’d be the best you could hope for if someone decided to cosplay as her but for a show she’d need to be mildly reflective and smoother than skin+paint would allow. Anvil would be tough, that’s true. Ideally for a movie you’d probably do her with CG as well. I hated the rubber Juggernaut in Xmen 3. That should have been CG and he should have been as big as the hulk. For a show on a budget… you’d probably have to settle for a tall female bodybuilder and be clever with platform shoes and stuff like that.
“Hobbit-ize” (ala Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings) the rest of the cast around Anvil and Max?
No, Sydney, it’s “hard reset,” not ‘hard surface reset’. I know you get easily distracted, but it shouldn’t be difficult to learn the difference.
nice!!! and happy new year to everyone!!!!!
Max in the last panel had me laughing SO hard! Perfect way to end the year, cheers Dave!
Sorry I’ve been absent! I almost died again. No big deal.
So in the last panel either Max is ducking and covering or trying not to cry. :D
I’ve read through the comments and I have one thing to say.
Really no else is bothered by the mountain dew, I mean look at all the other sodas that have been drank so far look at them. Not one of them was from a brand that well known(if any of them even exist to begin with) and they were all puns on what was happening. Now suddenly we have mountain dew! Really just regular mountain dew, not “Bang!” or “Crash” nothing of the usual creative joke he makes with them.
Dave I am very disappointed with you.
Well the humorously named sodas are unofficially Harem’s thing. Leon is easier to pass off as a proper IT guy if he’s stocked with something highly caffeinated.
From Thinkgeek.com current https://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/ and historical (i’ve been shopping there for years):
Bawls, RootJack, Jolt (in the big battery cans), Mana energy drinks (in those round-bottom’d bottles), plus this nice list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_drinks
I heard they stopped making Jolt.
Is that true?
I remember when it first came out and tried one, was bouncing off the walls for hours. I was 12 at the time.
Now they’re just normal energy drinks, but better tasting.
whatever the story is – i can’t find Jolt anymore – It’s always been really hard to find.
https://www.sodapopstop.com/products/detail.cfm?link=630
Correction, try THIS link.
https://www.cisoldit4u.com/jolt-cola.htm
I’m from Canada mountain dew is caffeine free up here
What? That sounds horrible. I like the taste of it but without the caffeine there’s almost no point in drinking it.
Yes and I don’t have a caffeine addiction and actually dislike many caffeinated drinks (including us mountain dew)
Canada has (had?) some law about not allowing clear pop to be caffeinated. Now there’s an “energy drink” version of Mountain Dew that is but the regular still isn’t because that’s what people are used to.
“Crush” is a drink line owned by Snapple these days, often marketed here in Canada by Pepsico. “Crash” is close, but should be far enough away to avoid trademark lawsuits.
Are you sure it’s Mountain Dew? It looks from the can as if the first word ends in “…RT” – although this could well be one of DaveB’s patented retrochanges. Not sure what the word would be, though – not many fit the theme without sounding massively inappropriate.
I strongly urge you to tell Max’s backstory in little snippets during the regular comic. I’ve read comics and manga where authors took the time to put out pages with detailed backstories, and I’ve never truly enjoyed it. Not only does it bring the main story to a halt, but it ruins the sense of mystery and wonder. I personally enjoy deducing backstories from snippets, and detailed backstories spoil that for me :)
If you look you can also see wrecked trees in the distance indicationg how close she came to hitting that house with an uper level patio. If there had been someone on it diving for cover it would have added to how much her brother had screwed up pulling that stunt to a sleeping soldier.
Happy New Year Dave (in 12 hours). Here’s to more hijinks in the future with the Arc Crew.
Ya know, I am curious on one thing that I forgotten if there has been mention of: What has Sydney’s family been up to. Cause if Sydney appears at the Archon Press conference then I am expecting a phone call by both Joel and her parents to interupt it if not call right afterwards to yell at her.
That and I am curious as to how far from the tree the spazz apple falls, and from which tree it fell.
The trees are not wrecked. That is just smoke from the hole in the wall.
He he. Only have a moment on the computer, but lovely to catch the comic.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I love all the facial expressions on this page.
It is not fun to faceplant with glasses.
That is a LUCID couch!
Nice to see Teen Max, too.
I can’t read this page with out laughing, done so four times now.
Last page: Maxima’s “Connection made!” achievement
This time: Sydney’s “Connection Unmade” type UNachievement.
I love the last panel, I think Maxima is gonna have a real tough time dealing with Sid lol
I think I’m beginning to see a new theme in the story — when in doubt, get someone to slather his/her shirt in something so he/she has to go change.
P.S. — Max’s reaction is FANTASTIC.
Actually I seem to remember Harem taking care of the guys shrits even though there was nothing really dirty on them.