Grrl Power #140 – Open mouth, insert foot to just below the knee
Poor Sydney, it’s hard to make friends when your mouth tries to sabotage it. Peggy’s pretty resilient though, she’s probably had to deal with a lot worse, and from people actually trying to be mean about it.
Up until I drew this page, I hadn’t decided if it was her right or left leg, and I just drew it without really thinking about it, so now I guess it’s her right. Let’s hope I don’t forget that too often.
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Let’s see if we can do one last push for Rebecca Cohen’s bid at the Netroots Scholarship, which basically means she can attend an otherwise expensive conference and hobknob with other feminists and bloggers. Rebecca’s comic GynoStar is something I’ve linked before, so stop by and give it a read and if you’re so inclined, throw her a vote.
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Instead of recommending a webcomic for you, I thought I’d suggest some books I’ve been reading. Superhero novels specifically. Unfortunately there doesn’t really seem to be a ton of them – it seems like an underserved genre, unless Amazon just has terrible recommendations for that subcategory, in which case I’m happy to hear your suggestions.
The Wearing the Cape series by Marion G. Harmon is the first one I read, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Coming off a bunch of very dense novels like Dan Abnett Warhammer 40K stuff, Wearing the Cape was an easy read with good characters and a somewhat more realistic take on superheroes than most comic books. The series consists of Wearing the Cape, Villains Inc., and Bite Me: Big Easy Nights. Bite Me is an extension of the universe with one of the characters from the first two novels, and doesn’t have as much superheroey stuff in it. It’s not as good, but I still enjoyed reading it. There’s also a short digital novella called Omega Night. It’s like a stand alone chapter, but after investing myself in the universe I was eager to read more.
After that I read Soon I Will be Invincible by Austin Grossman which is from the bad guy’s point of view. Then there’s Nobody Gets the Girl by James Maxey which strays the furthest from the typical superhero setup. I recommend Playing For Keeps by Mur Lafferty, it’s a great read about a bunch of “Third Wave” heroes with lame powers drawn into a conflict between the Thors and Magnetos of their world.
Lastly there’s Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer, which is one of my favorites. I’d put it up there with the first two Wearing the Cape books. It’s another one from the villain’s point of view as you might have guessed from the title, but it’s also set in a world with characters complex enough that behind the scenes, it’s sometimes tough to differentiate between the good guys and the bad. It made me think I need to work on the back stories, motivations and complexities of my own characters more. In fact I enjoyed it enough that I looked for more work by Bernheimer and wound up reading a book about 13 year old girls riding unicorns. So yeah. Rider: Spirals of Destiny was quite good too. Fortunately Bernheimer is planning more books in both series.
If you have recommendations for me and everyone else in the comments, I have a few things on my wish list, primarily Ex-Heroes: A Novel, and Worm, which is a long running story in blog form. I think I would enjoy it but it would be a lot easier to read if I could figure out how to do it on my kindle. A long time ago I read some of the Wildcard books, but I’m don’t really enjoy anthologies that much. I prefer a single author’s vision.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Poor poor poor girl, i been there too!
Awesomeness! I’m jumping ahead from chapter 2 but just HAD to see what was happening. And my prognostic vision gets blurry with a span that far. Plus Sydney is quarky if you know what I mean. But keep on keeping on. I look forward to more.
Mega Thanks!
I scanned the comments and didn’t see anyone mention my favorite Superhero book. Well it’s just about the only one I’ve actually picked up so far not counting novels based in existing comic universes(such as Codename Wolverine and the Gen13 books). “Prepare to Die” by Paul Tobin is an excellent read, I got it off of the baenebooks site and have read it 6 or 7 times in the last year because it’s so entertaining and deep. It jumps around the timeline a bit because it’s a 1st person memior and he tells pieces of his past when they feel important to him to do so. There is a slight editing issue in the electronic edition I have and I don’t know if it has been fixed in the paperback or not and that’s his overall timeline. He keeps saying its been 9 years since he got powers (at 16) but then he says he’s almost 30. It should have been 12 years but he keeps putting it down as 9. meh. Still one of my favorite single novels of all time. Someone mentioned the Grimnoir books earlier and I wanted to add how much I love those as well. I love scifi fantasies based in a hardboiled 30’s detective novel format.
Glen Cook writes a detective series that’s pretty entertaining.
The Garrett Files? Seconded.
I can’t take his dark fantasy, but I love his humorous fantasy noir.
I love it it’s Mike Hammer meets D&D. Not as silly as Myth Adventures and a touch of dark. People die and he gets beat up (a lot) but he prevails and gets quite a few licks in (with the help of friends and/or enemies). There is a bit of social commentary in it but it’s mostly hidden and can be easily ignored.
Is calling it a peg leg another pun because her name is Peggy? Ooooh! Or is her real name something else and everyone calls her Peggy because she has a peg leg? :D
Heh. Fair guess. Sneaking a look at the cast list, there is an answer to that.
Activating spoiler mode. Avert your gaze if it comes out in plain text (obviously the style has changed with the latest tweaks DaveB has made, and I am curious if the behaviour is different now too).
Name: Peggy Kessler
Age: 27
Height: 5′ 4″
Hair: Lt. Brown (dyed pink)
Eyes: Blue
Rank: First Lieutenant
Hmm, it’s possible the plugin updated. I prefer the click method to the hover method, it makes it harder to accidentally spoil stuff. I’ll have to look into that.
Presumably she dyed her hair to disguise the fact that it’s Lieutenant Brown. Otherwise, enemy snipers would know she was an officer, and a priority target.
Lieutenant Brown. Oh, man. You got a chuckle out of me for that one.
Is it only me who things that Peggy is really hot?
And I don’t say that only because we share love for .338 Lapua Magnum.
Nope, not just you, have thought she was cute from the start (Maxi is hot, but Peg seems more approachable)
No, you’re not. Right up there with Gwen, Harem, and Dabbler. On top of that, she’s got to be one of the most likable characters in this comic so far.
Someone else thinks Gwen is hot as well? :D
Oh my, yes. :)
I knew someone very much like Gwen. Even down to the obsession with the occult, being heavily into Wicca. On top of looking similar to Gwen though, she also oozed charisma. Anytime she walked into a room, she would rapidly become the centre of attention. Kind of like Dabbler, but set on a 9.
Trouble is, she was married to a guy who could steal all eyes by turning his dial up to a 10. Which turned her almost into a wallflower. She was a very nice person either way though. But I could see in her eyes that it was not always appreciated when she lost the limelight. And in the end they separated. Which was a shame, as they made a very nice couple otherwise.
Yep, Peggy’s definately hot, and to quotte The Whole Nine Yards “I can’t think of nothin’ finer than a fine naked woman holdin’ a gun”. The fact that she’s got a good sense of humor makes her that much hotter.
There’s a hotness. I wish I could think of a plausible excuse for her to be all vampy in the story, but I don’t know her well enough to work it out.
She doesn’t need to be ‘vampy’ to be hot, and if she tried, not meaning to be mean or anything, but she would look a little silly (not to say she couldn’t dress up and be even more beautiful, but she is the kind who should never attempt to be all ‘vampy’)
It took me a long time to notice it, but one of the things which really catches my eye in a girl is a nice smile. Kind of explaining why I am a Sydney fan. But as we see more of Peggy’s sense of humour and personality, she is very much growing on me. I suspect that if I met someone like her, in real life, I could easily fall for her. Interests wise though, I sure would have a lot more in common with Sydney than Peggy though. So it probably would be a lot harder to make a connection.
Nope. I think so too ;D
I absolutely love Sydney and think Peggy is awesome. This one made me laugh so much! This has quickly become my favourite webcomic and I love the way you’ve done it, makes me laugh everytime :D
Thanks a lot!
I’ve been meaning to mention Peggy. I’m a blackhawk mechanic in the air force and your description of peggy having that many career fields seems implausible if not impossible. while going from an enlisted sniper to a helicopter pilot is unusual. pilots are specialized to specific airframes (with additional training required for different variants) and cross-training very rare unless an airframe is being phased out (especially with the osprey which is notorious for being unreliable). It would be downright bizarre (if not dangerous) for archon to rely on her for both her skill sets.(sorry don’t mean to be nit picky)
Peggy was never formally trained or deployed as a sniper, mostly because she’s a woman, and up until quite recently (as in, not when she was deployed) they weren’t officially supposed to be serving on front lines. Obviously when occupying a country, the front lines were a little muddy, so she got more than a few chances to pop off a few rounds at scouts in the distance. She was deployed as a pilot, and got in time doing maintenance when she wasn’t in the air.
I appreciate the nit picking by the way, since I am woefully under experienced with the real world military.
one of the M.T.I.s when i was at basic training was a female counter sniper (a sniper who specializes in hunting down other snipers) with several combat kills. And pilots DEFINITELY don’t do maintenance. they have other things to do, and they don’t have the necessary training to do so. in the Air Force there are only two V.T.O.L. aircraft. The HH-60(G)P.A.V.E. HAWK (the air force variant of of the blackhawk) which is specialized for combat search and rescue. which is all we use our very small helicopter fleet for. and while we technically use ospreys the entire air force only has six operational ospreys.
Ah, ok, I didn’t know about pilots not doing maintenance. I mean it makes sense, obviously pilots would be busy being pilots, but what if for instance she’s flying out to a small base in a cargo chopper, she gets there but the engine gets gunk in it, sand or whatever, and they have to swap out a part. Assuming the maintenance crew is short handed or working on the base’s indigenous vehicles, does she just chill out while they’re doing their stuff, or hover and watch, or start handing wrenches and fetching parts?
It’s ok. It was Sidney who mentioned maintenance, not Peggy. Shh, don’t tell anyone. Maybe they won’t notice.
d_d
b_b
I think we’re good.
in the comic itself she only said “the osprey is stowed” no mention that it has anything to do with her job.
the air force doesn’t have cargo choppers just search and rescue blackhawks. Engines are regularly cleaned; all aviation maintenance is really strict about preventative maintenance unlike say automotive. If what the aircraft is doing is important (due to the nature of search and rescue it’s likely an emergency) the air craft will get priority over others. And pilots are neither authorized nor qualified to help. besides it’s new mechanics that are generally a “tool bitch”.
Good to know. It’s hard to get details like that unless you read novels with a lot of procedural day to day military stuff in them. You generally don’t learn that sort of thing from reading Wikipedia pages or even doing a fair amount of googling.
peggy’s rank is a bit low to be the primary pilot (possible but unlikely) as primary pilots are normally captains or majors.
She might still be the highest ranking pilot ARCHON has
She’s not the primary pilot, she’s a sniper who can fly, so she does occasionally when they’re not doing a combat run.
Another point, some senior maintainers for helicopters(in my country anyway) do receive basic flying skills to help diagnose and repair faults, as well as post repair test flights…
Still, a pilot has to have enough knowledge of the equipment to perform the pre-flight inspection, and that does not discount the flying nerd who wants to know everything about flying, including how the machine works, down to the finest detail.
nope crew chiefs (mechanics) preform preflight and aircrew do a look over.
The Air Force is the ONLY (so far) Branch of the US Armed forces too employ female snipers. Part of it is because the Air Force does not go out on patrol (except in planes) and thus usually stay at base. In fact, a woman held the longest-shot record for a while during this last war. As I recall, She was on guard duty when she was an insurgent burying an IED (I can not find the numbers now, but over a mile). She aimed and fired. The bullet entered the insurgents ‘4th point of contact’ (his ass), went clean through, struck the explosives leaving tiny bits of insurgent spread across the ground :)
I may still have issues with women in direct combat. The Isrealies tried it back in the 60s, it ended badly, though not for the reasons in most of the current debates. But, I will never begrudge any Sister (in arms) of mine from serving. Heck, half the time they end up in direct combat anyway.
Still, it annoys me that I can not find the story of that female sniper.
That sounds exactly like something Peggy would do.
The story sounds “improved”. Assuming the insurgent was in several pieces, even large enough to easily determine what went where, it is doubtful anyone would care if, much less where, a bullet hit him. Still, there are enough boys who would be willing to get their hands dirty in order to claim they had actually hit the target. So it could be correct.
Only a little, I found some of the info. It was not over a mile, only 750 meters so, about half a mile. Still, that is farther then I could shoot and hit, and I consider myself a good shot. I can hit the 300 m target about half the time.
Still having a hard time finding her name. I know it is out there… It is going too bug me I know.
Speaking of constructive nit-picking, you may need to update your cast page bios.
Harem’s now supposed to be the shortest meta-human female super at 5’8″, yet unless she has been ‘flaming on’ this whole time, Heatwave obviously isn’t 5’5″ before powering up anymore.
Peggy’s eyes aren’t blue anymore, either.
I’m still curious how strong Anvil is before taking a beating, BTW.
I was never a sniper per se, but as the best shot in my unit, I often filled the role. Same goes for any unit armed with rifles. There’s always a “best shot” in the group, and that person always, almost always, gets any sniper jobs that come up. Actually, the same goes for all kinds of things. Best techie, best mechanic, best cook, best whatever. Once one starts getting tapped for certain duties, one tends to leran more about that duty, in my experience. Take it more seriously, pay more attention to what’s state of the art, best practices, and all like that. That’s just in general.
In Peggy’s case, I can see a therapeutic reason for her to hold on to her sniping skills. Shooting therapy. Seriously, at long ranges you almost have to be in a trance state to control the timimg of your shot with everything from movement of the target to the slow rythm of your breathing and the constant pulse of your heart. Not to mention sight picture, sight alignment, windage and elevation, and knowing your trigger let off. You can’t be doing all that while worrying about the latest catastrophe, so you have to let it go. Let it all go, and be one with your gun. It’s very liberating, once you learn the trick. Shooting therapy, I call it. I’ve got a feeling Peg would know what I mean.
Very interesting.
Insert foot to just below the knee?… in the case of Peggy that’s not very far
Extra points for the Mythbusters reference!
Dave,
I’ve been enjoying Grrl Power since I found it a few weeks ago. I was happy to see you suggestions on the superhero novels. I’ve read Soon I Will Be Invincible and Nobody Gets The Girl. I look forward checking some of the other books. I especially like the POV from the lesser heroes or common folk. Like some of Busiek’s Astro City or ‘Lower Decks’ on ST:NG.
If I may, I suggest… The Red Panda Adventures!
Okay, I’ll admit I’m not following the requirements here, the Red Panda Adventures, while a series of novels, is actually a modern day radio show set in the 1930’s-1940’s of Toronto Canada where a masked mystery man keeps the peace with his trusty sidekick, the Flying Squirrel.
… It’s actually much, much better than it sounds, I swear.
All the episodes are free and available for download from their website or off of iTunes.
I would note that the first episode isn’t their best as they’re busy introducing the heroes, their powers, and the dynamics of their relationships.
The second episode, Night Patrol, is a good example of how the series goes from there on out.
https://www.decoderringtheatre.com/shows/red-panda-adventures/
I would suggest listening to them in order, there is an on going continuity to it.
Also while there are books they tend to work better if you’ve already listened to the radio shows. They don’t seem to spend much time explaining the details of what’s going on, assuming that you know most of it already.
Okay, moving back to books may I suggested Velveteen vs. The Junior Super-Patriots by Seanan McGuire.
It had the one thing that had been missing in most of the books I had read (and I read pretty much everything you listed and most of the comment listed ones too).
That was: It felt like there was a hero story under it.
It wasn’t a giant deconstruction, or a power fantasy for an author insert character.
And, honestly, Velvateen felt like a good person who’s just not having a very good life so far.
Also her powers are just awesomesauce. You can read it for free off of Seanan McGuire’s webpage or you can buy the book for your kindle! I believe it was pretty cheap. It’s a collection of short stories with more to be released this summer!
Slight warning, the first thing you will see in the kindle version is a guest intro, not that they explain that. I read that, got horribly confused and nearly gave up before the story actually started.
I’m glad I didn’t.
I read basically all of the stories you listed in your post (and a few other posts) during the summer and I kept running into some problems.
One common problem was that it was too much deconstruction and not enough heroics, another was that a lot are just power fantasies for the author insert character. I say this only because most of them seem to get the ultrahot superheroine…
It’s not that I don’t want to have some power fantasies where I get the beautiful woman, or that I can’t enjoy a good deconstruction, it’s just that I’m really looking for a good superhero story about people being superheroic.
I’ll check out Velveteen. I’ll keep the radio show in mind but I’m not sure when I’d have time to listen to it.
My suggestions for when to listen to the Red Panda Adventures:
When on walks
When doing the dishes
When folding laundry
When on the bus or waiting for the bus
While driving.
Basically any time your hands and eyes are required, but you’re otherwise free to listen ;~)
I basically use it to make my chores a little more interesting. I can clean the house and still be entertained.
Just don’t let The Red Panda think you’ve killed the Flying Squirrel, or your life span can be measured in hours. “The Red Panda Swears It!”
If nobody’s mentioned it (I’m far too lazy to read all 3 pages+ of comments) Blackjack: Villain by Ben Bequer is probably the single greatest superhero genre book you will ever read. EVER. (and I mean ever).
It’s main character is…A Villain. He didn’t set out to be. And he ends up saving the world and being better than the Heroes really…. And they really do NOT like that. Its pretty amazing, and highly recommended.
Yeah it got mentioned a few times. I’ve added it to my wishlist.
This is me in any social situation. Or, at least the hiding under the desk is an accurate image of me “clubbing”.
Sydney will just have to pen down Peggy on the OTHER LIST, right under Joel and Math.
Do we even want to know what they’ll pull together?
I for one can’t wait (luckily, ARC is a government agency, so they don’t have to pair the skyrocketing insurance and repair bills).
yo, Ex-Heroes is an amazing read. I couldn’t put it down.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned the Twenty Palaces series by Harry Connolly these are a dark urban fantasy/horror genre that came out.These books have a very Lovecraftian theme and manages to capture that sense of ‘otherness’ quite well. IMO these were my favorite new series to come out in the last few years but FYI it was cancelled after three books. There are 3 novels and a later released prequel on e-book format if you’re new to the series start with the prequel but any of the books are on my recommendation list.
Another superhero novel that no one has mentioned yet: Only Superhuman by Bennet. It is actually a sci-fi novel, but within that genre, a realistic vigilante-type superhero book.
I’ve noticed in lots of visual modern media a character’s raised brow is almost invariably their left one, or their right depending on if you’re gauging it from the viewer’s POV or theirs. I don’t think which brow gets lifted is ever specifically mentioned in books, though.
Oddly enough, this led me, through my formative brow-lifting years (important years, those) to develop a habit or raising my right brow. Well, at least as far as it can be raised, anyway.
Recommended reading – Honor Harrington series (bk 1 On Basilisk Station) by David Weber, and in the superhero range – H.E.R.O. series (Bk 1 Metamorphosis) by Kevin Gerald Rau….also available on Kindle.
Love the comic, reminds me so much of our Champions sessions when the inter-party roleplay became more important (and a lot more fun) than going out and catching the villains.
The Harrington Series is amazing (if you have the time to read it all) Although if you’re looking for superhero genre try In Fury Born by the same author, not quite super heroes but close enough to be nigh indistinguishable.
I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ve just seen a bit of exposition. The info about the GPS chip in the collar could very well be the bit that’s going to get Harem caught. I suspect that Leon (and his bosses) can pretty much track where any of the team is going to be at any time. Back when Harem was doing the double agent thing in #130, Dave was very careful to show that her choker was left at home. Given Harem’s personality, though, I somehow doubt if she’ll be that attentive to detail every time.
Just as a note, as long as you’re trying to keep Peggy’s appearance and body language “normal” (what with her right foot being a prosthetic) in the last slide, she would naturally feel more comfortable putting her body weight on her Bio-foot. For future reference, without that table she’s leaning on, she would lean to the left or cross her right foot over her left, opposite of what you depicted. Don’t change what you already drew (she’s got a table there that she’s putting all her weight on) just giving you ideas and educated opinions for future drawings. :)
I’m speaking from my own experience here as someone with an easily overlooked condition, (I’m blind in one eye). Some people (myself included) get so used to the condition that they can unknowingly hide it with their body language, for example, when I’m talking to someone and I make eye contact with them, the angle of my head is such that both of my eyes are in alignment, I don’t even realise that I’m doing it, I’ve been told that I do it though.
Yeah I thought of that after I drew it, but I figured it was ok since she was standing almost completely upright and balancing on the table that there wouldn’t be much danger of her tipping over or slipping out of the cuff. In the next page she’s sitting on the floor with her left leg pulled up to her chest and her right one straight out, so I’ll be conscientious about it, though I suspect Peggy puts a fair amount of time into trying to make it look like she doesn’t have a prosthetic.
I would also recommended West Pacific Supers: Victory at any cost. and West Pacific Super Rising Tide for superhero reading and Merkiaari wars for science fiction, Horror Harrington’s series,The Lost Fleet, and The lost Fleet, Beyound the Frontier, and Lost stars by Jack Cambell, Also the Destoryermen by Taylor Anderson, and the Secret World Chronciles by Mercedes Lackey a superhero series, and for Fantasy The Deed of Paksenarrion, and Paladin’s Legacy series, Oath of Fealty, Kings of the North, Echoes of Betrayal.
Ooo, The Deed of Paksenarrion! Great read, actually named the central hideout for characters based in Forgotten Realms “Sietch Sisli” (probably butchered the first word, but it’s the name of Fremen homes in the Dune series) (it’s built into a volcano/mountain with access to a hidden landing area for Spelljammer ships :D)
Found a story that Peggy might like.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/07/engineer_wins_air_assault_wings_with_cybernetic_leg/
Like two peas in a pod, those two. True grit.
Inspirational.
Especially when you remember he had to stop and fix his leg TWICE and still finished in time.
Recommended reading (all fairly old school, I haven’t bought many comics in the past 10+ years):
Superfolks – 1977 superhero satire/deconstruction novel by Robert Mayer. Despite the humor it has a solid story line which involves a lot of expy heroes and non-heroic comic characters just about anyone would recognize.
Common Grounds – Wikipedia quote “a six-issue comic book limited series created by writer Troy Hickman and published by Top Cow Productions in 2004”
Another deconstruction, several of the stories focus specifically on the drawbacks of having superpowers.
Hero Alliance – Another set of deconstructions. Are you seeing a trend? It passed through several companies, best that you check the wiki article for details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_Alliance
Justice Machine – Also passed through several hands. More of a ‘mainstream’ comic, not as focused on deconstruction at all.
Dave, don’t worry about switching which leg is the missing one. You should actually switch it off a few times, as a Young Frankenstein homage.
Lol Poor Sydney, I can empathize, seeing as I have ADHD. Sometimes words just fall out of my mouth and I’m too slow to pull them back and eat them.
I was certain that someone would have linked to this scene from Mary Poppins by now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9TrMNpUZM8
And while were at it, here is another classic skit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty68LPKRQQQ
Already been linked :P
DaveB Happy Belated Beer’day ! –
Anyhoot instead of worrying about retconing Peg’s history just tweak it.
1) she could have started as a crewchief. then gotten her degree and re-upped as an officer/warrant and gotten helo pilot training.
2) CC’s that make pilot (as warrants or officers) tend to be more hands on with their birds than other officers. They make the time to make sure their bird will perform. It just takes one crash of any type to make them not trust the maintenance group.
3) after her wreck (army costing leg) maybe she was stuck there sniping the hell out of insurgents
4) forced to hospital saw SF guys making it back to the combat line even with one or two legs removed. So she did it too.
5) Army didn’t have a place for a one legged pilot anymore. https://www.ironthumbpress.com/2008/05/john-ringo-shows-his-class.html See Tamara Long USAF – John Ringo Dedicates his books to her.
6) so she could have cross transfered to USAF hoping to fly again. Except they decide that her body count and average range of her shots- while wounded and trapped under a burning helo would make her a great sniper in the field and as a bonus she can crank a wrench and park aircraft or ferry them in a pinch (that means fly em for short hops)— she took transfer
7) something happens in theater and she meets maxima shows her skills and gets recruited later…
that keeps most of her history and lets her have both skill sets at same time.
I like the crewchief to pilot. Hmm, I like 6 too. Does it happen often that someone will change branches? I know there’s a lot of rivalry (It’s called the ARMY because they’re “Aren’t Really Marines Yet” and whatever other jokes they throw back and forth.) Seems like you’d take a lot of heat if you switched branches.
Her taste in hairstyles and friendship with Maxima paint a picture of someone who’d be up to taking that kind of heat if it was for a worthwhile reason.
Changing branches isn’t unheard of, just not all that common. Usually depends on special circumstances inbcluding the transferee’s skillset (eg, everybody wants techs or doctors), plus the needs and requirements of the resepctive branches.
Another example – when the Royal Australian Navy decommissioned its last aircraft carrier without replacement back in the 80’s, that left a number of jet-qualified RAN pilots with nothing to fly – some transferred to the RAAF, and I know for a fact that at least one other ended up joining the Royal Navy.
As I understand it (and I may have a detail or two wrong), the US Army and Air Force have evolved to have differing mindsets about pilot ranks since the latter split from the former. The USAF line is that all their pilots MUST be officers, end of story. The Army is a bit less dogmatic, being known to sometimes have senior NCOs and Warrant Officers fill that role in the past. This differance in opinion has become particularly evident in recent years, with the growing importance of UAVs in both services – the Air Force taking the view that only officers should be UAV operators, and the Army successfully using NCOs in rthe same jobs (and with much less trouble finding enough people).
The reason I mention all this is that it MIGHT dovetail nicely with Peggy’s service record – she worked up through the ranks in the Army (and also picked up a few interesting side skills, such as terrific marksmanship in the process), and then, as an officer, transferred to the Air Force.
that’s mostly because the Airforce doesn’t have warrant officers and the army doesn’t use senior ncos as pilots.
Not at present, and not for a while, I know.
DaveB I went army then Navy after I got my degree. Grunt to Nuclear Power Tech… Yes the jokes were there, but I had the rank to mitigate it. Though I did have to settle for being the new Richard aka I had to go by “Dick” in the office since there were 7 Richards in our shift/dept. (funny how the highest ranked Chief or officer went by Dick also.)
My Ass Rode In Navy Equipment, and we were always glad to have retreads from other services. I can’t speak for how the other services felt about it, though.
When I was in the Army, there was a guy in my unit who had been in the Navy. We occasionally gave him shit for it, but overall it rarely came up. Fun fact: he was aboard the U.S.S. San Fransisco during its infamous 2005 deployment.
Just noticed, but is it me or is Sydney’s last name the chilli hottness rating?….
She needs to change her middle name(s) to Faux Pas
Either the hotness rating was named after her, or she feels she needs to live up to the name
I just looked up the definition of “hotness” and all they had was a picture of Sydney.
Badum – ksh. :)
Oooo-kaaay. It seems Sydney has the foot inserted fully by now, but if this keeps up, she’ll be digesting it too…Maybe even keep the stomach acids nice & stirred up by wiggling toes.
Man, just caught up. First, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA just had to get it out of my system. Second, Great comic love love love everything about it. Can’t wait to read more. =D
Thanks!
Woohoo!
Worm was mentioned!
I know the official tagline is something else, but it really ought to be Worm: Prepare to be Skullfucked by Awesome.
Ok, listen up here.
Suggestions:
Worm. You mentioned it, but if the lack of a kindle version is what’s stopping you, then you’re going to kick yourself hard when you finally get around to reading it. It’s an amazing story, though quite dark at times. The story is focused on one city, but thought has been put into this entire world and it all comes into play. That kind of extensive thought on the setting and people comes into play in this story. The characters are well written and there are several points where the Interludes will have you sympathetic to characters you were colorfully insulting just days before.
And it might still be days before, given the size of the thing. More than a million words in that bad boy, but you’ll devour it all eagerly and you’ll be right back at it for more, chomping at the bit until the next update. At least then you’ll be able to join us in the comments section. It’s somewhat of an odd community, with short stories, deconstructions, debates, essays, puns, Skitter Norris facts, and other fun contributions that help to pass the time with other Worm readers while we all wait for our favorite story to update at parahumans.wordpress.com
There’s also Legion of Nothing, focused on the grandson of a WW2 and postwar era superhero called The Rocket. Their version of Ironman, but not overpowered. He and his friends, also the grandkids or kids of the original Hero’s League, find themselves having to live up to the legacies left behind by the older team, mostly dead or retired, as well as new threats based on old enemies. It’s lighter and available in smaller doses. The first book of it has already been published, but the entire thing can be read for free online at inmydaydreams.com
Legion of Nothing was fun. Worm sounds interesting, but I don’t have that kind of time right now.
Maybe someday…
Last panel. My second favorite panel of Sydney ever. Very close second to the Chibi one where she’s hungry <3
I stumbled on to this while…ahem…on the job. ( I work on chemical vessels which means a lot of waiting.) I read the entire comic from page 1 in one sitting and I am hooked! Definately bookmarked and I look forward to more.
Thanks! Glad to have you.
Omg my husband (who’s sense of humor is a lot like Sidney’s) had this happen to him … A friend had lost both legs and he kept saying things like “I’m stumped” or “get a leg up” or “that’s lame” before he realized what was about to come out of his mouth. Fortunately, like Sidney, it was obvious he meant no harm, his humor was just firing faster than his censors.
Oh, poor Sydney.
Definitely not putting her best foot forward here.
I just realized noone had recommended “empowered”. I just read the first volume and it was great! I love the ideas of superheroes, but much of the time the stories featuring them just end up being un-relatable and ridiculous. Empowered is a great read and the heroine is someone I would actually like to know, much like sydney. Also, if anyone knows of any superhero stories with a black protagonist, please let me know.
Also I love this comic!
Wait wait wait: you’re saying that you don’t like comics where the characters end up ridiculous and unrelatable, but then you recommend Empowered?
Not saying you’re wrong, just seems a bit contradictory there…
Well there’s a show called Afro-Samurai, but you were asking about comics so let me try again. There’s of course the Blade comix series but I’m not sure if you can find it online. While I know of a few others, all that comes to mind at the moment is Demon Hunter Kain, which is not only interesting but also very well drawn and bad ass to boot. As for others, I’ll have to see what i can find and get back to you.
. . . and I have no real idea why I felt compelled to spell “comics” with an “x”. Must be that space madness Malcom Reynolds talks about.
Heh, just found the perfect site for you. https://africomics.com/
Empowered is one of my favorite comics at the moment. I definitely recommend it.
Scott Bachmann wrote a superhero novel called The Paragon of Animals, and is now doing some online comics in that universe:
https://www.oursupermom.com
https://www.raymondhardcase.com/