Grrl Power #1306 – Exposure therapy?
In my eagerness to put this goofy page up, I have skipped an important transitional page, which would have shown – without dialog – a doctor talking to a forlorn looking Peggy, a doctor showing an X-ray of what was left of her leg and Peggy looking slightly green, then a series of panels where Peggy is psyching herself up to use a crutch for the first time to get to the bathroom. Not a funny page at all, but something to show that at least a day has passed since she woke up. Hopefully the limp hair, yellowy bruises and absent neck brace show that at least a little time has passed. I hope people don’t read the previous page, then this one and think she’s sitting in the hospital and no one has interacted with her since she woke up. If they do then it’s my fault for rushing ahead to this one.
I honestly apologize to anyone who’s had a catastrophic injury like Peggy here. But it also makes me laugh so… here we are.
Can you imagine sitting in a hospital on a ventilator, recovering from say, West Nile or something, you turn on the TV to the stacks of body bags scene in a plague-pocolypse movie like Outbreak? Then you change the channel and find yourself in the middle of Contagion, then on to The Andromeda Strain, 12 Monkeys, then… I don’t know. 28 Days Later? People think of that as a zombie film but it’s really a Super Rabies-ish film. Anyway, you’d think someone was playing a prank on you.
When this page occurred to me, I started working on it right away, looking for scenes in movies where people get legs cut off. While it does happen in movies, by comparison, arms and hands are ejecting from bodies like they’re both positively charged magnets. If someone does lose a leg, it’s because they’re getting eaten by a shark of they stepped on a mine, and that’s the last we see of them. There’s very few leg-losers that continue to appear in media after the event, with some notable exceptions like Lieutenant Dan. (I’ve never actually seen Forest Gump so it wasn’t upfront in my mind while googling famous limb-be-gone scenes.)
You know what sucks? The panels on the left obviously started as screenshots, but then I meticulously painted over them and rebuilt all the backgrounds like that Bespin shaft and the forest litter and creek and bridge and it just looks like I ran them through a slightly smudgy oil paint filter in PhotoShop. Maybe I’m a dumbass, because each one of those took me like two hours, at least. Well, okay, maybe the Planet Terror one took an hour. It’s a simpler picture. I maybe should have tried to redraw them entirely in my own style, but I didn’t want it to be ambiguous as to what she was watching if I couldn’t quite capture it right. Ah well, maybe next time.
The new vote incentive is up!
Dabbler went somewhere tropical, in a very small bikini. As you might guess, it doesn’t stay on for long, which of course, you can see over at Patreon. Also she has an incident with “lotion,” and there’s a bonus comic page as well.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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lmao “now that’s an idea”
“Nah, the barrel would get fouled walking around…”
bro, you have to have the FOOT on the end that you PULL IT OUT OF. that barrel gonna be ready for unloading on the unsuspecting when you need it.
If the “foot” part slides down out of the way when the leg-as-barrel is lifted into firing position, we might have a winner. But give the image shown (and the movie it was in) what muscle groups are involved with triggering the minigun? And if you think glutes –what happens when you cut wind?
Braap vs Brrrt?
Braap vs Brrrt? Try #2
Run a structural support down the centerline.
Like the Scotsman in Samurai Jack?
shit yeah! opus my man!
I didn’t think it had been more than a few moments based on the comic. I think it could use a text bubble from present-Peggy about “Anyway, let’s skip all the harrowing conversations with hospital staff and get to what I’m still baffled by to this day.”
Or something like that.
Good idea, most of us know what they will do.
All the doctors asking the same dam questions over and over, you having to get used to the reality of your body, and most of all the sheer damed fustration.
I was working under the assumption it was an undefined amount of time later. Her face has seen significant improvement (just some dark spots rather than purple bruises; more realistically, her face in the previous page probably would have been fairly swollen, but wouldn’t be at this point), she’s wearing less medical gear (namely she doesn’t have the neckbrace or the… *Googles “oxygen nose thing”* nasal cannula anymore), her hair is different (laying flat rather than being spikey, implying whatever product she puts in her hair has been washed out), and she’s clearly in a better mood. But a brief blurb establishing the time skip probably wouldn’t hurt.
Peggy wasn’t coloring her hair yet, and just try brushing/combing your hair with those bandages! Distractions help a lot, once I had my back brace and casts, I was able to get up and sit by the window. It was a few days before anyone brought my spare glasses, so TV was out, but the TV did have a few music channels.
She’s never seen Machine Girl. It’s a BAD Japanese film featuring a young woman with a machine gun for an arm.
I’ve seen it, it was her leg. The actor was an amputee and this movie was suppose to be “her big break” but it was a crappy movie. I think that heavy of a machine gun would hurt like hell and would damage the hip. You can tell the “firing” of the gun was added in post production.
Oh come on Peggy, you should of at least still been watching when they eat the minstrels.
Yes, there was much rejoicing.
YaaaaaAAHaaaaaa
That’s how you get minestrone soup.
Let’s be honest: if we had already developed worthwhile cybernetics, people would be queuing up.
And the corps would include hiring clauses giving themselves permission to modify our bodies for their convenience.
That’s pretty much what the world is like in R.Talsorian’s Cyberpunk RPG universe (which CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is based on). Want a job? Better get some upgrades so you can compete, buddy! The corp may even pay for the chrome. Of course they’re even more likely to reposess the upgrades as company property (or bill you more than you can ever afford) if you leave or are fired. Practically everyone chromes up. Stuff like enhancing or replacing your eyes is done quick and easy at a mall clinic. Rejoice, you can now get the latest stock prices in realtime in your field of vision. You probably also get annoying pop-up ads unless you paid for the premium package. Replacing an entire leg or arm, that requires an actual hospital.
Interesting that an eye is easier to connect than an arm or leg. Of course there have been experiments with pig eyes and a lot of science is put into making artificial vision possible. Still, nerves that are connected to muscles are in general more robust and resilient than those connected to sensors.
Nerves do heal, slowly. Or I’d be in a wheel chair by now. The optic nerve is fairly simple, but a limb has hundreds of thousands of them, and the spinal cord has billions of them, so transplants and graphs are beyond medical science still today.
In my younger days I had trouble with pneumothorax (long collapsing). First time it happened, I was hospitalized, and a friend thought he would bring by a really long book to keep me from getting bored. It was the early 90’s, so there wasn’t any portable electronics available that could keep you occupied for more than an hour or so. So, here I am, in the cardio-pulmonary wing of a hospital, lots of patients hacking and coughing around me, and this guy brings me the longest book he has. The Stand by Stephen King. I’m sure everyone that will see this knows the story, but just in case, the book starts out with 99% of the world population dying from a super-flu called Captain Tripps. I wasn’t offended or anything. I actually got a bit of a chuckle out of it. Another friend brought by some flowers and a can of Fix-a-Flat.
Lol, solid punchline. Or foamy.
That’s just good friends, they know that a laugh is sometimes what is really needed.
And you’re right there for it.
There is also Ash with his chainsaw hand in Army of Darkness. Haaa, classic. ^^
I mean, panel 1 is Ash cutting off his hand in the first place.
What film is the fourth picture from?
It’s the Robert Rodriguez Planet Terror from 2006
Dude. Dave. You were born in like the 70s, right? You seem to have seen a ton of movies. You have cultural references in the comic that go over my head. In general, you have a deep knowledge of various media (esp media associated with nerdom). And you haven’t seen Forest Gump?!? I know it’s not really a nerd movie but seriously!?
Watching an actor herp-a-derp their way across the screen in a shameless Oscar bid never held any interest for me. Never saw Gump or Radio or What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Saw Rain Man, but I think that’s cause it was just what the parents chose for the dinner movie. Literally the only thing I remember from the movie is that he was bad at roulette. The best one of the bunch, of course, was “Simple Ben.” :)
…. not like “Simple Jack” you know dave… you… m-m-make me haaaaapy…
Shoot. Simple Jack I meant.
I suppose that’s a fair point for portrayal of a disabled person. Hanks did give a great performance though.
Also, Rain Man was an equally enjoyable movie. Bad at Roulette, good at counting Blackjack cards.
However I digress. Watch Forest Gump for the soundtrack, which had some great music paired for the era and events.
Ah, brings back memories, having the president of the college chess club for a room mate. I never beat him at chess, (Occasionally managed a stalemate, though.) he never beat me at backgammon. He was absolutely terrible at computing odds.
Better yet, forget the movie and read the book.
One film which shows a more-or-less realistic scene of this is the 1970s Roger Moore romp, Gold. The Mine Manager gets his leg trapped in a rockfall, and has to be cut out. There’s some black humour as he argues about share prices with the doctor while they wait for the anaesthetic to work, some gruesome sawing sounds (close up of Moore flinching as he watches) and we are told later that the patient died from shock and loss of blood on the way to the surface. We also learn that he was only months from retirement….
Don’t say yes, if it doesn’t include WiFi7 and BluTooth 5.2 or higher!.. and unlimited Data Roaming! And universal charging! And static charge self-dispersal in case you tend to drag yer feet! and…. and… and…
I can’t believe your made a mistake on your geek knowledge. It’s “No. I … am your father”. Not “I … am your father”
Always felt that the cool artificial replacement hand was a Chekhov’s Gun that never went off: Something were he was being force-frozen, but could still move his hand, because it’s cybernetic.
It has two Chekhov’s Gun-ish moments in RotJ. First, during the fight on Jabba’s barge, it takes a hit but he’s unharmed (unlike everyone else who has been shot by a blaster up to this point) thanks to it being cybernetic. Much later, after Luke hacks off Vader’s cybernetic arm at the end of their duel, he sees the wires and circuitry, then looks at his own cybernetic hand. It serves as the catalyst to make him realize he’s becoming like Vader, allowing him to avoid doing just that. So, not a Chekhov’s Gun per se, but a Chekhov’s Shield and Chekhov’s Catalyst/Mirror.
The “no” happened between panel 5 and 6. :)
i just heard a game npc say “you have piqued my interest”
I guess you caught their Pique-at-you
The ninja hit squad is en route.
Cool but wildly impractical.
I can emapthise with Peggy here. Had a catastrophic accident in 2006 where my left foot was badly broken (22 months off work, 5 operations). One thing that really sticks in my mind is lying on the floor waiting for the ambulance and a Queen double bill came on: “Another one bites the dust” & “the Show must go on”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and it definitely felt like the universe was punking me!
Side note – Did you know ‘Another one bites the dust’ is the perfect tempo for conducting CPR? Just don’t sing it out loud, especially if there are others around…
If there are others around, instead sing the Beegees’ “Stayin’ Alive”. Same perfect tempo.
Also avoid “The Witch is Dead” from “The Wizard of Oz” with any older female patients.
Are you speaking from experience?
PinkFong’s “Baby Shark” has the right tempo as well. Added benefit, it’s a pernicious earworm so you’re not going to forget it.
There was that henchman in Darkman that had a submachinegun for a prosthetic leg. He had to take it off to use it and just stood around hopping on one leg but it fits the theme here.
I always thought that she should have been wearing a small backpack to hold around a hundred rounds of ammo for the mini-gun in panel seven.
I know it was supposed to emulate a cheesy sevenies-eighties movie but at least try a little bit.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger film The 6th Day has a scene where a guy gets his leg blown off.
The end of Mad Max is probably one that would really hurt.
I like that the final two panels of Peggy are that one meme.
That is a great use of the Kombucha Girl meme.
Kudos!
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Okay, hear me out…. Foot of Vecna!
*THIS!* THIS RIGHT HERE!
(Close enough, anyway.)
I was recovering from major surgery in the hospital right when Leona Lewis’ “Keep Bleeding” was super popular.
I’d wake up, and hear her singing “Keep Bleeding, Keep Keep Bleeding! ” and my drug filled brain would be “no, Leona Lewis! I need to *stop* bleeding or they’re never letting me go home!
What film is the first picture from ?
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. Ash (Bruce Campbell) cuts off his demon-possessed hand.
A little surprised you didn’t mine any of the phase 2 MCU movies, considering their ‘secret’ theme of losing body parts.
Woman Trying Kombucha = |:?|
Peggy Minigun Leg = ε:?)
This feels very familiar. When I was in hospital for a gallstone that nearly killed me, every single commercial was for Little Ceasar’s latest cheese-and-grease-laden heart attack.
I feel like we missed an opportunity at more genuinely poignant storytelling for cheap jokes tbh.
when i was in the emergency psychiatric wing of my local hospital (it’s the place they take you before putting you in a proper psych ward), the tv was playing… suicide squad. granted, it doesn’t have much to do with suicide, but it’s stll sort of on the nose. nobody was paying all that much attention to it, though. one of the patients was really loud, so it’s not like you could really hear the tv anyway.
When I joined the military, I signed my contract at meps. When I walked into the building they were playing the omaha beach scene from saving private ryan. I ABSOLUTELY BELIEVE THE HOSPITAL WOULD DO THIS.
I mean, it’s considerably easier to recover to use a leg prosthetic than an arm one. We do a LOT more with our hands than our feet. It’s a much bigger loss to lose a hand than a leg.
Oh there’s an excellent leg chopping scene in the very beginning of Kung Fu Hustle! And of course there’s loads of limb losses in the bug battle sequence against the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill Vol 1. :D I might have gone with one of those instead of Empire if you really wanted to stick with leg losses for the purposes of the joke, but this page is delightful nonetheless.
Ugh…”big battle sequence.” I hate it when I see my typo right after I click “Post Comment.”
New entry for TVTropes’ “Your TV hates you” page.
The last panel meme callback got me. I needed this laugh today.
Sadly, no opportunity for a Toxic Avenger reference. (Sad moron tears.)
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How short this is compared to the several chapters in Serious Engineering for a double arm amputation. I get not wanting to divert the feel etc of this comic though.
For leg amputations in film there’s always the supremely weird A Zed and Two Noughts and the better known Boxing Helena. Though I don’t see Peggy taking either for inspiration.
More to Peggy’s taste, if it wasn’t a 2020 production, might be A Call to Spy, about Virginia Hall, who was a WWII agent for SOE and then OSS in Occupied France, and later for the CIA, all while a below-knee amputee.
Another one is in the film “The Horse Soldiers” starring John Wayne and William Holden. Holden is an Army field doctor during the Civil War. An early scene has him treating the wounded after a battle and one poor fellow’s leg is too mangled to save. They get the guy drunk before Holden has to take a saw to his leg. It’s not actually shown – this was made in the days before explicit gore became acceptable onscreen – but you know what’s happening by the camera angles.