Grrl Power #1262 – Law enforcement vs. water endorsement
If sitcoms have have taught us anything (and I will admit that an alarming amount of my knowledge comes from similar sources) it’s that firefighters and police have cartoonish rivalries.
What would you ask a stunt person? A stunter, if you will. A name they’re almost definitely not called in the biz. I feel like I covered the spread more or less here. I guess the “what’s the most dangerous” or “had the most potential to go wrong” is really where you start. After that, I think I’d ask, “what’s the most benign stunt?” Because studios usually won’t allow actors to do nearly anything these days. Obviously there are some very notable exceptions, but I guess it’s understandable they don’t want doing anything even remotely dangerous like… I dunno, sliding down a bannister or taking any kind of fall when they can’t pad the ground. If an actor twists an ankle or gets a tooth knocked out, it can hold up the production and cost the studio a ton of money. I bet the most lame stunts out there are things like getting water thrown in their face because some actress can’t help but inhale sharply when it happens to her and she winds up coughing and choking and ruining every take.
On a tangentially related note, has anyone ever noticed how often you see girls/women holding their nose when they jump in the water? I never see guys doing that, but like, half the women I see do it. Watch a few episodes of Wipeout and you’ll start to notice it. Assuming they didn’t just take a giant foam covered armature in the gut and are spinning as they go in. It’s probably just some weird bit of confirmation bias I’ve picked up. I mean, just exhale slightly through your nose when you hit the water. That’s enough to keep water out of your sinuses, unless you’re colliding with the water like you fell off a speedboat.
The new vote incentive is up!
Every so often I get the urge to try and draw Maxima all properly shiny, and this… isn’t my favorite attempt if I’m honest. I’ve been sitting on this for a little while doing little tweaks, and decided to finally publish it cause I’m already behind on these. The next one will (almost definitely) resume the trend of including a little mini comic to extend the scene a bit.
As usual, Patreon has some outfit variations as well as sans flagrante.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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She didn’t hide it, she just used super speed to quickly grab it while he was distracted by the newspaper clipping. That’s not an odd shadow or smudge on her nose in the last panel, it’s a fly that was in the way that got splattered due to the high velocity impact.
I didn’t even notice the thing on her nose. Is that the choker’s magic getting overwhelmed as Dave said it would a few pages ago? We might get that reveal sooner than I thought. Although, if standard plotline rules apply, it will just be a close call that leaves Rowan confused and a little suspicious.
Same. Thought it was smudge on my monitor at first, but it’s definitely part of the comic, and shouldn’t be there unless it foreshadows something important.
I legit thought there was some gunk or something on my screen and went to wipe if off… it didn’t budge and then it was a haha im dumb moment.
I wonder how much of the Grrl Power universe is shared with the “Manly Guys Doing Manly Things” universe.
Rowan seems to think in a similar way as Commander Badass/Rock Lobster does on how to deal with people.
Gods, I wish that comic would come back.
I would _love_ to see a few crossover interactions. Especially Sydles getting tired of Notlink’s shenanigans and suplexing him while Notganon sat there with a bowl of popcorn.
Same.
Imagine all the trouble Jared and Sydney could cause together. And then Commander and Maxima would facepalm and sigh in stereo.
They would either solve a major problem or be the cause of a major problem.
After all Jared did manage to start an almost cthulhu based Pokemon apocalypse.
Considering how powerfull and chaotic they both are they might do both things.
in which order though? tbf, jones was also to blame for thinking about time-travel.
What order? AT THE SAME TIME.
OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED THAT WHY JARED ASKED THE GUY HOW MANY STEPS HE’D TAKEN!!!
X’D
Jesus H. Christ, Sue. Take your goddamn time!
You got Harem beat. X’D
I feel this would be more like surround Sound. Straight up Dolby shit.
oh man i miss Coalesquid’s work so much. i still check from time to time but i’m not holding my breath on this one.
I miss Dr McNinja.
And Strong Female Protagonist, which put up a “We need a bit more time to finish the story, as we now have day jobs” sign about 6 years ago, and not a peep since.
Oh! I miss Mr. fish.
That comic was the best!
But I thought the maker died?
Looks like she posted to her Instagram about a week ago, so thank god you’re wrong. Phew.
Coelasquid is fairly active on twitter, and has been since they stopped working on the comic.
If she quits the profession will she be “stunted” huehuehue
she will take THE FALL.
it would be quite the JUMP to make.
nothing to see here, folks, it’s just a small defenestration… I mean, um, demonstration
You get a ninja hit squad! And you get a ninja hit squad! And you get a ninja hit squad! And you get a ninja hit squad!!!!
(Oprah impression)
They will be STUMPED by the effectiveness of the Ninja’s
Quite the Oprahtic performance.
Ninja Opera… it doesn’t start till the skinny lady sings?
you never see the skinny lady. The lamp sings, the bedside table sings, the ….dang it, Beauty and the Beast was all about ninjas!
oh we hear her, we just never see her.
For the most overly cautious use of stunts, Stan Lee’s first speaking cameo on a production about one of the characters he created was during “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk,” a made-for-TV movie set as a continuation of the Incredible Hulk series. Stan Lee was sitting as the chairman of the jury. When it came for the Hulk to lift the jury box a foot or so, Stan got swapped out for a stunt person, even though he said he could do it. Go figure.
Insurance is a bitch. In short. To comply with insurance requirements they have to be cautious as it’s unlikely that they will be able to cover the actor’s loss of earnings such an accident occur. If they sign a waiver, they sign away basically all insurance rights and indemnify the study… any self respecting agent would file that immediately under “go find the nearest high bridge and jump off it.”
Actors are frequently willing to do things, but it’s just not feasible, even for the benign stuff. This stems from the good old days where actors did used to do many of their own stunts… and some of them sued the studios. It actually made life better for many actors.
One stunt they tested on Mythbusters on Discovery involved someone breaking their fall off of a building by going through a series of awnings inspired by a Jackie Chan movie, Rumble in the Bronx, I think, but I could be wrong. They tested it with Buster, their crash test dummy, but the finale was supposed to be Adam doing the stunt, while rigged up in a safety rig of course, but the insurance company refused to cover it because he was one of the stars. But they said that Tory Belleci could do it and they would cover it. Tory said he was considered expendable.
Isn’t that what those three were there for anyway? To do the more dangerous and less fun shit that the main duo couldn’t or wouldn’t do?
It was only much later that they became popular and stars in their own rights (and still paid less than Buster :P )
For stunt people it’s also training. Stunt people I’ve worked with have all kinds of physical training, from martial arts and gymnastics to clowning. That makes a big difference when taking a fall because the person knows how to do it repeatedly in a way that minimizes the chance of getting hurt. The actor they replace doesn’t have that ability/training.
Which as Gusticules points out means the stunts can be more dangerous (which stunt people find fun).
For the falling through multiple awning gag, the stunt person has a harness and is wired to a variable descender. That’s a rig which slightly slows the descent for the majority of the drop and then decelerates the stunt person quickly at the end so they only hit with the force as if jumping off a step ladder. It is carefully set up to ensure it works properly and tested prior to being used. The cables are removed in post so the audience never sees them.
And then Stan got his stunt during his mailman cameo for Fantastic Four.
The whole police-versus-fire-fighter thing is actually comparatively recent, entirely one-sided and basically can be boiled down to a single sentence.
“Ain’t nobody sayin’ ‘fuck the fire department,’ dawg.”
The pigs are aware they have a particular, very well deserved reputation, and they resent the fact that nobody has a similar problem with the objectively better class of human beings who run into burning buildings explicitly to save lives, while they alternate between accidentally killing people, deliberately killing people, and finding ways to loiter outside locations where they are explicitly and specifically supposed to be protecting people – especially children – from active, armed murderers while trying to act like they are Big Billy Badass “warriors.”
– “Ain’t nobody sayin’ ‘fuck the fire department,’ dawg.”
You say that, but…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JkrJUAg8aI
Ain’t Max on that?
Which isn’t helped by them arresting firefighters during active fires for trying to order them around. Or refusing to move their patrol cars. Kind of makes you wonder how many storylines are pulled from real incidents.
A lot of stories are pulled from real incidents, then toned down to make the cops look less bad.
Not even “good”.
Just “less bad.” X’D
Because certain people will never believe anything good related to cops, usually because they give cops a reason to be watching them
Well, Bubba, I’ll tell you what I was taught in the Navy, when it came to anything that might come under public oversight & scrutiny.
“It only takes one ‘Aw, Shit’ to knock down a whole buncha ‘atta boys’.”
And the cops have a helluva lot more than _one_ “Aw, Shit.”
You wanna fix the problem, or blame their many, many victims?
AKA: The pig fucker problem.
I’m a guy, have been my whole life. I always hold my nose jumping into a pool or ducking under the water.
Seconded.
Thirded
Fourthed (A Ford’ed~ )
fifthed
Sixed. Sixted. Sixthed. One of those.
Sithed.
Please don’t go sith.
*male fantasy answer*
‘kiss me then maybe you can look for the other one.’
Or…
– Hey! That was MY stick of gum!
– *chewing* You want it? Come and get it!
Who feels that Dabbler should’ve showed up as Harper?!?
I think there’s going to be a future scene where Dabbler has to show up as Max’s coworker. Also a stunt double.
At which point Rowan’s coworkers are going to be really curious to see whatever movie the two of them are in.
And more hijinks ensue.
I considered Dabbler but Harem seems more likely. She is less likely to try to upstage Max for one.
You know Dabbler is a BODY double.
That sounds like a very, very bad idea.
It should therefore be done at the earliest possible convenience! ;)
There’s competing incentives for stunts. You want the actors to do as much as possible, while facing the camera, because the audience is paying to see Brad Pitt jump off a bridge, not John Smith, and they want to see Pitt’s reactions.
CGI (mapping the actor’s face onto the stunt double’s) does a bit more for this, but it’s expensive. And the actor still has to do the reactions in such a way as to make the mapping possible, which not all of them can do.
Training the actor to be able to jump off that bridge safely (or safely enough) is a consideration. It does depend on the movie; the Matrix had martial arts stage training because it was pretty central, while other movies might do a fight mostly with doubles because it’s just one of a bunch of action bits.
And yes, insurance is a factor as to what you can have them do.
Even with all this, there a number of actors who have been pretty severely injured doing stunts. Darryl Hannah in Blade Runner, both Carrie-Ann Moss and Keanu Reeves in the Matrix are the ones that come to mind.
There’s also tolerance for injury and age (a consideration for recovery). Jackie Chan comes to mind – he’s been injured a lot of times, but his recent movies aren’t quite so kinetic.
There’s also the fact that the majority of Jackie Chan’s career was in Hong Kong, where worker protections are somewhat more relaxed.
Pretty sure Tom Cruise also does a lot of his own stunts, at least in the Mission:Impossible movies… though the director sort of hate that he insists on doing so many of them. Because usually he also insists on doing several takes of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lsFs2615gw&t=5s
He also tends to get injured doing them… which is the whole point of having stunt people and body doubles
At some point I’m sure there is a balance between the draw of an actor who does their own stunts versus the risk to an actor who is getting paid a lot of money and whose injury could derail filming. It’s not just Tom Cruise though. I understand Natalie Schaefer did her own stunts on “Gilligan’s Island”.
I like this guy. He’s a solid person and very interesting as an average person. He got Max with his own charm and she is definitely into him. It would be interesting to see a reveal. I could totally see him being very chill with this and rolling with it, or that he figured it out on his own and was just waiting for her to say something. I would love to see this get serious. He’s good for Max.
Agreed. They’re a nice couple. Rowan seems to have a mellow temper (likely from working with kids… and Verner), so I have high hopes for him not being upset about her hiding who she is from him.
I’m just looking forward to the moment they meet when they’re both on the clock.
Some pyro sets a trap and takes a bunch of firefighters hostage, and we get to see Max in full “violently protective girlfriend” mode.
Ideally in full matrix slo-mo, so it takes more than 2 panels.
The last item on that list of “did you ever” actually looks like what Achilles used to do before joining ARCSWAT (and did so much that he got bored with it).
My go-to question would probably be something like “what’s your favorite/most-proud-of stunt you successfully pulled/worst mistake you made that didn’t cause anything beyond a minor injury at worst”
because how many people are going to be looking for the blooper-reels with the stunt-doubles, instead of the actual actors?
and limiting the screwups to mostly-harmless ones would make them really have to think about it, and probably result in something much funnier than “I broke 6 ribs and was in a lot of pain but goddamn those drugs are wonderful once they hit”
like “I was working with [actor] and had to sneeze REALLY badly in the middle of a scene where I was supposed to catch a baseball right in front of my face, so instead I headbutted it when I sneezed and it ricocheted off the ground and rolled away. I couldn’t understand why everyone started laughing so hard when I stood up, until someone snapped a photo and I realized I had the stitching pattern of the baseball embedded in my forehead.”
It’s been said that, in New York City, the only thing the Police Department and Fire Department ever agree on is the date for their annual boxing match.
I have sparred and trained with both. I would MUCH rather fight a cop than a firefighter assuming guns aren’t involved.
Cops almost always try woofing and social dominance first. It’s a less dangerous way of getting a favorable outcome.
Fires are remarkably unimpressed by dominance displays and deescalation, so firefighters tend to go straight to the point.
Firefighters are uniformly strong, fit, and have excellent endurance. Cops not as much.
Also, Firefighters often have an axe handy. “Hey, you said no guns, not no tools.”
Although I’ve trained with cops who were in remarkable shape, firefighters seem to be more fit on average. As you mentioned, fighting fire is an uncompromising business.
It’s because of all the gear they have to lug around, not to mention people on occasion
Thank you! Hell i didn’t have a neck until I had broke my back, I lost a lot of muscle mass while recovering. The body brace I had to wear got so loose on me it about fell off after 6 weeks. Even after I used up all the adjustments on it.
A FDNY firefighter got in trouble for ranting on social media about how they had to go to *another* cop funeral because another cop died from being too stupid to wear a mask and vaccinate.
Covid still doing a wonderful job purging the nazis.
Point of order. this is demonstrably false. they reproduce faster than the Ninjas Pander uses.
I heard that the Nazis are running Israel now.
I will worry when they build a new temple.
Re holding nose: confirmation bias, I think. Not everyone immediately learns the breathe-out trick; I spent some number of years as a kid swimming with a nose clip until I figured that out and/or my nostril muscles hit strong enough to make that sufficient. And it works better when diving than when jumping.
Boys might have more incentive than girls to figure out the exhale trick (because they think holding their nose looks weak, and that goes against their idea of masculinity, or something along those lines.)
The biggest error about the stunter identity is that it is an easy thing to check. What movie or show were you in? Why isn’t your name in the credits?
I believe when she first stated she was a stuntwoman, Dave added in the commentary that “Harper Lux” had been added to the credits of a number of then-recent movies, and would continue to be added into some more to keep her secret identity safe.
Max has “A CIA-grade false identity” (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1157-max-cant-drive-165/), backstopped by the magical resources of ARC-Dark’s magic users, and Dabbler’s alien technology. We can probably hand-wave that one away as “taken care of.”
How many people would sit and watch ALL the movies made in the last 5 years to catch a glimpse of “Harper” in an action scene? Few if ever! People want to watch the actors, not the stunt people, and saying you’re one and being reluctant to talk about a current job makes it hard to find her much less disprove it. Plus, these days with the CGI, green-screen, and now the AI tech, it’s even harder to spot, Max could just say “I had to wear the mapping suit for most of my scenes in (insert movie) so they could map the actor’s body onto me.” they had to do that on the first Juassic park movie because the one girl’s scene when she almost fell down to the raptors from the ceiling, she looked up so they CGI’d her face over the stunt doubles’ face.
No need to watch a single movie. Just Google the IMDB.
you do know what Leon is, and he can do. they even told her she now has an IMDB profile and credits.
It’s not even all that hard to get on IMDB. My niece has a IMDB page and the only acting she ever did was a bit part in a low budget slasher flic.
My movie literacy is below average, but I have the occasional stunt performer fanboy moment.
“Hey! That was Kitty O’Neil in The Blues Brothers!”
“Hey! Dar Robinson got a speaking part in Stick!”
Yeah, I’m old.
you’re only really old if you shook Fred Flintstone’s hand after ‘A man named Flintstone’ went off the air
I always liked how the most dangerous stunt in The Hobbit was the one when the dwarves had the floor falling from under them while sheltering from a storm.
it looked so innocuous, just the floor falling away and the stunt persons falling on a mat three meters below.
One of the stunt persons told in the behind the scenes how they were all acting cavalier about it and got more and more quiet and pale as they realised there would be several tons of equipment slamming down around them as they fell… Just rolling the wrong way in the chaos could well have been fatal.
Wouldn’t they have used specially painted foam pieces for the materials falling around them, though? Seems like it would be easier on the set, anyway. Not to mention, the ears.
Problem is, foam falls differently than something even slightly heavier, and it’s very noticeable
Watch the original Star Trek episode Arena, the one with the Gorn (the lizard man). Look at the boulders and the way they fall.
Admittedly nowadays you could CGI in a bunch of rocks, and they probably did. It’s how they did the highway scene in the Matrix Reloaded – there were about 5 CGI vehicles for every real one.
But you still need some real “rocks” to fall. It makes it much easier to convincingly map in CGI rocks.
Firefighters and police presumably have a rivalry because one of them are a basically selfless group whose sole job it is to save other people from dangerous situations and will actually do so and one of them are the police.
So far that’s two independent comments pointing out how the police have a very poor reputation that they’ve earned through their misbehavior. I wonder how many more we’ll see? Maybe if we shake an oak tree and make a few acorns fall…
It’s a very healthy tree, nourished over many years by plentiful rain, consistent sunlight, and good, strong soil.
I’ve had loaded guns pointed at me three times in my life. All by cops. All while I was breaking no law or disobeying any officer’s command. The last time I only found out about from a neighbor’s security camera.
Those are my acorns.
Both cops and firemen have the spotlight in a bad situation, but fire fighters have the distinction of over-riding the cops claim when it comes to fire/rescue, and some cops HATE taking the backseat. I’ve never had an issue when I was one, but I have heard complains from the guys that did. By the way, I hate the TV shows, as do most of the civil servants, they NEVER get it right and as often as not, we’re depicted as the bad guys. The news media as well, it’s all about views and rateings…
There’s also the issue that – most of the time, anyhow – people the fire department deals with are happy to see them. They generally only show up to help after something bad has already happened.
Cops get to deal with people at their worst, and – even when they do nothing wrong – at least half of the people the interact with (“perpetrators”) are going to be *very* unhappy with whatever they do. Add in that some of the laws that they *must* enforce if they see a violation are things that most of us do, at least occasionally. How many here can honestly say they’ve never, absolutely ever, gone over the speed limit? How many *never* tried pot? (Not arguing that it *should* be illegal, just that in must US jurisdictions it is. And I’ve seen idiots light up in plain sight of people that *have* take notice or risk losing their job.) In the cases where “that SHOULDN’T be a crime”, take it up with your elected officials; cops just enforce the law, but *they’re* the ones that make them.
Not to say that there aren’t bad cops – there are, and they deserve to lose their jobs, their pensions, and serve time when they abuse their position. But despite all the publicity when one is found, they’re a tiny number. And most of the folks I’ve talked to that really dislike cops base it on incidents when they or their friends were breaking the law and got caught doing it. Not “bad cop” situations, but “the pigs caught me!”
Disclaimer: My (ex) son-in-law is a cop. Quite a few of my cousins work as prison guards. And two of my brothers-in-law are former cops, albeit not in the US. And I *still* get black-and-white fever whenever I’m driving and spot a police car.
– But despite all the publicity when one is found, they’re a tiny number.
Yes, they’re just a few bad apples, but as the saying goes: A few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.
And then those bad apples get protected, and any cops who try to get them in trouble for being bad apples not only get fired, but get CPS called on them and houned out of their state or found dead in an accident.
And even if those bad apples get fired, they get hired one county over, because the only union with any power is the police union.
And they rarely get sent to jail, because “qualified immunity” means they get to break the law whenever they like.
This is true for any organized group. And it’s why most police departments give their internal affairs departments a significant amount of independence.
I’d still assert that in the US the percentage of bad cops, and the severity the effects, is miniscule. I’d also assert that most of the US-vs-THEM behavior observed is in large part the result of the political powers-that-be using cops as political scapegoats. The majority of the cases like that I’VE seen in the news were cases of “cop did the right but unpopular thing, mob demonstrates, politicians cave and feed cop to the mob.”
On the flip side, I think that we should reduce or eliminate the qualified immunity government officials of any stripe (including cops) are accorded when they’re “just doing their job”. How many times have you read a news story mentioning that “the City is paying out a settlement of $xxx”? In the case of bad behavior, the perpetrator should be equally on the hook.
Of course, I also believe that in the case of a conviction overturned due to concealing of evidence, all involved – police and presecutors both – should be required to serve, at a minimum, the same amount of time in prison.
What is the purpose of the police? Is it to protect citizens, or to control them? I propose that the distinguishing factor is whether the police are more loyal to the law or their fellow police. If they have professional pride, they would be offended by any one of their own abusing their position, rather than offended at their authority being questioned.
The problem is that the “good” cops will almost never turn on a bad cop, which makes them also bad cops. That’s what makes it US-vs-THEM. It should be citizens and cops versus criminals, but instead the cops, good and bad, are on their own side, opposite citizens and criminals both.
The issue isn’t so much how many bad cops there are. It’s how few of them are ever brought to justice.
What about the firefighters who are arsonists, or just abuse their power and position?
Guessing in that situation, it’s not ‘few bad apples spoil the barrel’ but ‘few bad apples… what bad apples?”
I’m only aware of one firefighter arsonist; he’s been rotting in a California prison since 1992, and will be there until he dies. Officials did a lot more in investigating whether he was a problem than any of the police problem cases I’ve heard of. Then again, police body cams are a thing now for a very good reason.
When they remember to turn on the body cam and when the file isn’t “corrupt” and thus deleted before its content can be checked. Those responsible for the storage and security of the files if memory serves say there is never file corruption.
There have been several cases in California in the recent drought years where firefighters or former firefighters have been charged with starting wildfires – the Oak Fire near Yosemite was one.
To be fair, a former Criminal Justice professor was arrested and charged with setting four others, including the massive “Dixie” fire in Lassen County.
“Then again, police body cams are a thing now for a very good reason.”
They absolutely are. And what we have found from them is that a large majority of claims about cops are BS.
That still leaves real problems, yes. But a HUGE amount of the flack thrown at police is BS.
But the easiest thing for me is this: when you vilify the police, especially gratuitously, you get less policing (um, duh?), and that results in a LOT more crime, very much including murder.
So, if you’re going to vilify police, generally speaking, you need to be really, REALLY sure that what you’re protesting is A) something that actually has some chance of being fixed, and B) that it’s worth the body count that will result.
I’m not saying that’s fair, good, right, ANY of that. But it is true.
Our policing system, even with all the known problems, is a ******LOT****** better than having less police. They are a HUGE benefit, even with the existing problems.
Flinging general hatred in their direction is dumb.
Remember how when the NYPD went on strike, crime went down?
Strike Breakers and Slave Catchers.
Oh well, that’s simple then: get rid of the police entirely and then there will be no crime
For anyone who’s actually interested in the details:
The NYPD police strike wasn’t a full strike, because police aren’t allowed to do that.
What it was, was a stop to certain kinds of policing (A “work to rule” strike). Police didn’t get out of their cars unless they had to, didn’t go after minor offences, etc… basically stopped doing anything they weren’t absolutely required to do or they’d get fired.
And the result was that all types of crime went down, including big stuff like burglary and murder, and took a while to come back up to normal levels after the police strike ended.
Which is a really interesting result, in that it provides real evidence that overpolicing makes crime happen. Which means that not only is there some non-infinite optimal number of police, but that the NYPD is over it by a significant amount.
And that’s not even getting into the attitude of police that they’re an occupying military force in a hostile country, though it might partially be caused by it.
‘For anyone who’s actually interested in the details:’
this is the internet. do not bore us with facts.
warning- this post may contain pain fueled sarcasm, please read responsibly.
What that suggests to me is that perhaps police presence serves as a deterrent to crime, but that at least certain kinds of police activity create situations in which either people feel more justified in committing crime, or more desperate.
I don’t think there’s much of a consensus on either what police should do, or what they’re actually doing.
Did actual crime go down? Or just reported crime?
Because, if the cops aren’t getting out of their shops unless absolutely required, then who is reporting the crime? Or at least making arrests (legit or ‘false’)
Aww, do the facts hurt your feelings?
“Remember how when the NYPD went on strike, crime went down?”
No, but I remember how police pulled back after Saint George Fentanyl ODed and the crime rate SPIKED MASSIVELY in several major cities.
Several different people have done basic math on before and after BLM, and the net result is several THOUSAND more murders (the lowest estime I’ve seen in over 5,000), to say nothing of the increase in other crimes. A disproportionate number of which were black (just like murder in general in this country – by black people, against black people… and yet, I still think it’s bad. Because racism, or something?).
Oh yeah, Black Lives “Matter”, all right. Great job “helping”, you self-avowed communists. How are those Large Mansions you Bought with the donated money?
But anyone pointing out that blatant SCAM, or how black people’s businesses were much more likely to be burned down, or black people were more likely to die when the police stopped coming around was shouted down as racist. Bloody MORONS. AT BEST. Arrogant, ignorant morons, getting people killed and feeling GOOD about themselves.
While the really bad apples may be tiny in number, in my experience the vast majority take up the job as a power play. They get to carry a gun and push people around. They also don’t seem to be on the high end of intelligence either. There also seems to be a significant difference in personality types between city cops and the highway patrol. I suspect that this all is the result of their motivations for choosing their careers. I doubt many city cops were thinking “I want to serve and protect people”.
There’s stories of people being told “No, we won’t hire you as a cop because you’re too intelligent”
Not sure how true they are, but they’re absolutely believeable.
Only if you are an idiot who believes every bad shit connected to cops and ignores the good
https://newlondonvoice.com/too-intelligent-to-be-a-cop-the-dilemma-of-high-iq-and-law-enforcement/
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/09/nyregion/metro-news-briefs-connecticut-judge-rules-that-police-can-bar-high-iq-scores.html
https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20220620-robert-jordan-too-smart-police-man/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836#.T52c0Kvy-z5
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/09/nyregion/metro-news-briefs-connecticut-judge-rules-that-police-can-bar-high-iq-scores.html?r=1
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/jordan-v-city-new-london-policing-hiring-and-iq-when-all-answers
Perhaps one should consider performing *cursory googling* before asserting something like “only an idiot would believe stories of that happening” when five minutes of half-assed perusal would find you like half a dozen news articles and a literal academic paper on the subject.
But whatever, maybe most of those are fake or only constitute outliers or some other handy excuse, but I’m sure you’ll be happy to respond with all the great things cops have been doing, like suppressing protests of genocides with weapons banned by the Geneva convention! Oh wait that’s evil actually.
Oh, well, at least most of the angels who come down to Earth seem to prefer police officers for some reason. It’s true, look up “40% cops”! =)
*ugh, one of my links was pasted twice, that’s embarrassing. Now it looks like I’m inflating the count. Sorry.
Ugh, one of my links was pasted twice. That’s embarrassing. It looks like I’m trying to inflate the number of accounts. Sorry.
Does anyone know if getting a Gravatar or whatever will let me edit my comments? Or something?
She did tell him who she really is before it got this far right?
I doubt it, she wants to be sure he’d be cool with it AND that he’d keep her identity from the public, thanks to Dabbler, she can now go out in public and not get instantly spotted. With Max’s looks she’s always going to catch the eye, but as Max it’s far, far worse. As Harper, she’s just another hot babe walking by.
I wish women understood how many women are in fact hot.
oh, they do. That’s why they’re so catty to each other. and almost every single one of them doesn’t realize they are also just as hot, just in a different way.
Specially when you set them on fire
Light a woman a fire and she is warm for a day, light a woman on fire and she is warm for the rest of her life.
When my wife and I got together, she had this awful self-image of herself, her boobs were too big, her knees were knobby, her freckles were ugly, her hair was all wrong etc… all the while she was the hottest lady I had ever dated. She was 19 then, all young girls think they are ugly when they are young, very rarely is there a young lady that doesn’t. The “Chads” and other players figured that out and used it, the rest of us don’t until we’re older. It took me years to convince my wife of my view of her, and I’ve met other teen girls who had the same view of themselves in the same way.
If you want the secret of where she was hiding it, just look down a bit! Max is just making sure that he might just have an issues that she’s technically a cop herself. Cops do have a habit of being a pain in the neck, mainly because they hate having to act as crowd control during a major fire. People love to crowd around in hopes of seeing something awful. It’s the same with car accidents, morbid curiosity. More often than not, it’s the gapers block NOT the accident that causes the hyway back-ups.
Good points! Plus, there really are situations where the police and fire department may have differing interers – possible arson, for instance. If it’s an active fire, the fire fighters are going to focused on preserving life and containing or extinguishing the fire, not preserving evidence.
This is one of the things I’m confused about.
As far as I know, ArcSWAT(sp?) is *military*, not police. Maxima is a lieutenant colonel, under a general, so they use military ranks, and military uniforms. Yes, I know the police also have uniforms, but they’re quite distinguishable.
Yet they operate inside the US. There might have been a page back when saying “Oh yes, there was a ruling about that.”
Yes, going into detail on this would be difficult to fit in with the tone of this comic. There’s a reason DC and Marvel tend not to worry about it. But most of those superheroes don’t have official positions as far as I know.
It’s quite difficult to fit a superhero or super group into existing structures.
The question is asked at the bottom of the previous page, but the answer to your question is on page 147.
The one question I would ask someone that was a professional would be ‘Who was the best actor to work with and who was the worst actor to work with, the same for actresses, in your opinion?’ because some actors and actresses have a reputation for theatrics on set having nothing to do with the script.
That’s a common question on talk shows, I’ve heard that Matt Daemon and Brad Pitt are a handful.
If girlfriends are allowed on the team I see more Firefighter victories in the future.
When Casper Van Dien makes comparisons between Starship Trooper movie and Helldivers 2, he talks about the stunts he made himself and injuries he sustained. Well, that was way back.
I would start asking silly questions about fictional stunt people, like Fall Guy, the TV show, and that one Burt Reynolds movie…with Jan Michael Vincent? And then derail myself giggling about what sector the original Jan Michael Vincent might have patrolled on that improvised cable channel on Rick and Morty.
Oh, dear. I see why Max likes Rowan. They’re both mother hens.
Dive in there, Rowan! Get dat peppa!
She missed the chance to say something like, “That’s a lot like dealing with my colleagues”.
You forgot to include occasional prank wars in the rivalry.
Do you understand that there is a law enforcement capable fire fighter? And not a hose toting cop?
Perhaps if the hose were filled with donut jelly, the raspberry kind.
Max isn’t really law enforcement though, is she? I got the impression that ArcSWAT was closer to a military organization than a law enforcement one. Granted there’s some overlap…
They’re a really scary combo military/FBI unit.
If it weren’t for the fact there’s less than a hundred people qualified for their ranks, it’s the stuff police states are made of.
Of course, as soon as Max decides to start playing politics, she wins at it simply by stepping into the room and pointing at some politicians who don’t want to be treated to a close-up demonstration of how she destroyed a fel supercarrier.
Inquiring succubi want to know where you got that pepperoni!
Actually the best sitcom fodder you never see on TV is the cop who lives in a bedroom community of a large city who’s also part of his hometown’s volunteer Firefighters. That makes the most spectacular water cooler politics.
Well, I do have a cousin who is both a retired prison guard (at a maximum security prison) and a still active volunteer firefighter.
He told me once he did the first to earn a living and the second for his soul. And all the work memorabilia he kept at hone was from firefighting.
I can see that.
Prison guard would be interacting on a continuing basis with a lot of really violent people with poor impulse control who are cooped up and bored. Even getting in and out of your shift likely takes a while as you have to make sure that nothing that’s not supposed to is going in or out. You’re hated by most of the people you interact with (some are better at hiding it than others). Both the prisoners and the visitors. The people you’re keeping safe you don’t interact with.
At least police only deal with lawbreakers much of the time. With prison guard it would be pretty much all of the time.
With firefighter, you aren’t hated by anyone. In fact, most people think you’re heroic.
A lot of times you are hated by your coworkers as well. As a prison guard, best advice is, don’t play favorites, and be fair. Prisoners will tend to at least respect you for that. Prisoner a gets caught with contraband, and gets sent to solitary, but prisoner b doesn’t? Oh, you just made an enemy. Send them both up for doing something they knew they weren’t supposed to be doing? They grumble, but nothing more than usual. And realize the prisoners will try to make life tough for the guards. Do you want to have to go get a guy out of a cell (even as a group) who wont come out, when he has covered himself in his own **** so that he is slippery? I know people who have had to do this. Guy said he was bored and had nothing better to do for the next 40 years.
Oh man–I just saw the tag line under the comic. XD Not sure how I missed that this morning.
I expect that her make-up is going to be smudged, revealing her shiny skin beneath.
It’s not make-up
Her ‘makeup’ is actually a technological texture and skin/hair/eye color modifier coded into her choker – it can’t get smudged.
Dabbler needs to find a more expensive version of the original gadget. it would have features allowing makeup to be smudged. somewhere I’ve heard that if a man doesn’t smudge his girls makeup periodically, she will think the man’s not taking her seriously.
It won’t. She’s wearing the magic choker Dabbler gave her, it won’t smudge off like actual makeup it’s an illusion to hide her normal appearance.
Actually, institutional tension between Law Enforcement and Fire & Rescue is common. At least when I had EMT training the instructor took us aside one day to tell use how to handle a cop threatening to arrest us for doing the job. Mainly it stems from different perceptions of jurisdiction and cops often being trained to assume absolute authority over situations (a nicer way of saying they’re often belligerent to what they consider “interfering civilians”). But also occasionally it stems from authoritarian-minded cops who realize an EMT may end up putting evidence on record that contravenes their preferred version of events (like, for instance, keeping an inconvenient eye-witness alive).
“I bet the most lame stunts out there are things like getting water thrown in their face because some actress can’t help but inhale sharply when it happens to her and she winds up coughing and choking and ruining every take.
On a tangentially related note,”, a different one though:
Don’t do pepperoni kisses unless you’re confident that the spiciness doesn’t make you cough and choke everytime you breathe in, ruining every attempt at kissing. :-)
“…those skill have a surprisingly broad range of applications” – so true. Not only as an asset when working in customer service, but also when dealing with upper management.
I like getting to see Max unwind like this. It is delightful.
A old nickname for a stunts person is a “fall guy” and there used to be a very good TV series called that.
And shitty remake movie
and another of those just came out
That’s the one was talking about: with that idiot from that shitty doll movie from last year
You really are just the full steriotype, aren’t you?
How long do you think it will be until you start claiming that the Jews did 9/11?
There are so many pepperoni based jokes to make and *none* of them would work with Maxima
well, there is such a thing as purple pepperoni