Grrl Power #152 – Harem, AKA Corporal Wakka Wakka
Dabbler, that’s just bad form, 1-upping Harem’s joke like that. Well, succubi are competitive like that. I really wanted to have the General say “you secure that shit!” but again, probably bad form on camera. The reason Arianna is just having a little chuckle is that beyond assuring the public that the super powered are on their side, she’s also there to sell the team on its personalities. She’ll be the one on the team complaining about all the crime fighting they do because it’s disruptive to their appearance schedule. “Well hurry up and save the world! You’re due on the set with Craig Ferguson in 9 minutes!”
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She probable shouldn’t have used the part of her that was in uniform to say that
At least Max wasn’t there to hear Army-Harem say it.
That’s true. No Conan for her.
HAHAHAHAHA! Oh man, Harem, at least you got the audience to laugh! Never mind your superior getting mad with you.
And good thing nobody else knows who Dabbler really is. That makes her line even funnier to me.
Love that you mentioned Craig! I think he the most entertaining of the Late Night Talk show hosts mostly because he doesn’t take it all seriously.
He does have a certain casual attitude that I find appealing.
I see Dave and Leno as so formulaic that they have the exact same timing of when the music act plays or when they do the monologue or interview. Even the subjects tend to be the same.
Dave comes off to me as an arrogant smug prick. I never liked him at all.
I hope that you are referring to some TV show host by that name? :-O
David Letterman. The guy who built his late night talk show career out of the concept of being too good to be a late night talk show host.
Leno always came off as a suck up to me and just a little to in love with himself. And his actions re: Conan left a really bad stink of me first piggishness.
And any chance of looking like professionals goes right out the window…
Yup. We know that she is a double agent. Clearly this shows that she is more interested in sabotaging the start up of Arc, than she is in maintaining a clean profile. She will not be trusted in front of the cameras, or any position more responsible than peeling potatoes, for quite some while now.
i think she’s only doing the double agent thing because she finds it fun.
Yeah…if she was truly a double agent, she’d be trying to keep her nose clean so as to be trusted more.
eh i don’t really think so, they probably interview people about your past, if you went from having a personality like harem has to all of a sudden being a ‘yes sir’ kind of person, they would start digging to find out why. the best way to keep from being caught is to act natural
I am becoming progressively more frightened by the possibilities of what Sydney will be doing.
Forget Sydney. I’m more curious about what Dabbler might get up to.
Is there anything about her that isn’t considered classified? How does she feel about essentially having her very existence being considered a secret?
I wouldn’t be too surprised if she drops her glamour just for the hell of it…
yeah, and i’ll bet that she’s going to DROP the illusion, and claim the OPPOSITE…that she JUST cast an illusion, to allow SOME discussion of her abilities, (and why she’s on the team in the first place) but yet STILL keep secrets, all at the same time!
You have read the Myth series I take it?
the first 5 or 6, i think, i lost count :) i haven’t read any of his newer ones in the series yet, as my backlog of stuff to read is over 100+ right now…
So you could be mythtaken then?
Hahahaha! Nice one, Yorp!
From the look on dabs face I’d say that she honestly doesn’t know. She is an alien afterall.
Or as a succubi she just doesn’t have one.
the strip caption says “Dabbler knows full well what a gag reflex is.”
I enjoyed the mini comic below the main one. LOL
Ah, but the kind of gag reflex she’s used to is the one that happens when she drops her illusion while someone is drinking a can of Coke. It is usually followed by the “blow soda out your nose” reflex.
Here’s a question I thought of while reading this…. does Harem really have some sort of disability and when she realized she said that part out loud tried to cover it up with a joke?
I could see her as having ADD if they hadn’t already given that to Sydney
Who says only Sydney can be ADDled? Daphne being ADDled (or even ADHDled) would make perfect sense
Obviously. Her actual disability is being incapable of sonder, requiring no less than 24/7 levels of attention, often achieved by tiresome levels of gloating and trying to get her superiors to ‘send her to detention’ or whatever.
Well I learned a new word today.
Once again, Urban Dictionary comes to the rescue. The only other definition for “sonder” I could find was a yacht category.
No, she’s trying to establish a public persona as a bit of a cut up, but of course some people will ascribe the label celebutard.
I think her disability was being born without a loyalty reflex, given she’s a double agent and all…
I don’t know if you noticed but in the page where she double crossed Archon, she took off off her choker at what looked like the badguys place, if this is true it means the Archon has a GPS tracker in the badguys base.
You are wrong sir.
No, the choker was left in her own room. Dave mentions in the commentary that the bra on the bed is supposed to show a different spot from Machina. Also, the books involve teleportation in the stories.
ah… it wasn’t very apparent from the comic itself then…
To me, it seemed very apparent from the details in the room where she left the choker, though there were others that felt your confusion…
Yea, I think the consensus of opinion was that it could have been made clearer with location captions. “Harem’s bedroom” and “Machina corporate headquarters building” respectively, for example. The clues were in the pictures, but did require a bit of detective work in spotting them and then following through with deductive reasoning. Which is easy to miss in a casual read-through.
of course when leon asks why she spent an hour with her head laid on a desk……….. and possibly why her vitals appeared to be flatlined…..
“I took off my choker to take a shower.”
Personally I would say “Poke it. I am not wearing a tracking device in my off-time”. I have never liked the concept of mobile phones intruding on privacy. I feel sorry for folks in the US who have recently had the court decision that obtaining access to their personal movement history, as tracked by their mobile phone company, does not require a court order. Let alone the possibility of some flunky questioning my whereabouts every hour of the day. Bad enough if it is a requirement of the job. Outside working hours… they can take their tracker and shove it where the sun does not shine.
Since she can make new bodies, it would have to be a mental disability.
I’m going with Tourette’s syndrome.
She could totally play it off by claiming that she meant for one of her other bodies to start flailing its left arm and making nasal grunts and yelling BUTTPISS.
Making that kind of joke while in this situation is a way to get yourself in serious trouble, with some superiors anyway. General Eisenhower was renowned for having a foul mouth, but you never heard one word of it in front of the cameras. I know this unit has more leeway than most, because of the special nature of the members, but I suspect she will receive at least an official reprimand.
I remember my brother-in-law, a former special forces master sergeant, once saying “I can’t use that kind of language in front of this audience.” The audience was family, including my parents and his children, and the situation definitely called for a reaction.
Her behavior will have repercussions. :)
“Dammit, there’s just some times you really itch to slap someone.” — Gen. Geo. S. Patton
Wait, did Arianna just say we get to meet Craig Ferguson? Um, hey guys! Do you ever think that maybe the school bus full of disabled children might want the chance to save itself? How’s about we mosey on over to the show, see of the problem works itself out? Oh, you say there’s adorable puppies on board that bus as well? The EXTRA adorable kind, you say. Hm. . . . . .*sigh* Fine, I’ll go pull the precariously poised bus off the crumbling platform over the fiery waters infested with ill-tempered freaking sharks and mutated freaking sea bass with the freaking lasers on their freaking heads. But so help me, if I die you better make sure Craig Ferguson autographs my left ass cheek as part of my last will and testament. For shits and giggles, that’s why!
I like him he’s silly! :)
And we spent all this time speculating about Sydney’s behaviour at the press conference.
Riiggghhhhttttt.
Are you questioning Sydney’s ability to top Harem?
I think at this point Arianna’s hoping Sydney will top Harem. Being able to say ‘oh, she’s a new recruit, she hadn’t gotten the training yet’ is better than whatever she’s going to have to do about this…
Ooh, can I watch her try? With high heels and a flogger?
I see what you did there.
Was that an intentional Aliens reference or did it just work out that way?
MMM, NO… No, that was an reference to a very old movie called “Deep Throat”… i’ll let you look it up at your leisure, it’s Very NSFW (or polite company either)
Stop making me feel old, dammit!
I think LykeX was referring to what the general said, in which case yet, it’s a direct reference.
Yup, was thinking that as well, specially seeing how General Faulke has been stated as being based on that guy from Alien(s)
+1 for correct military usage of the word “secure”.
@Chaos, I give Thrythlind better-then-even odds of being correct over you. Dabs is a succubi, her M.O. is seduction, and to many guys, that faux-innocence is seductive as hell (except she’s not from Hell, she’s from another planet). Ask yourself, how many guys in the audience are mentally volunteering to help “explain” it to her? A nice light snack for an emotion-eater.
Aha, took me a couple trys to spot the microprint caption. I’d looked for and found the alt-textm which reads “Harem a.k.a. Corporal Wakka Wakka”
Although, to be Wakka, wouldn’t she need red hair?
Here’s your remedial course in Muppet History:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yoPV3tgG8
Her au naturel form is the red-head, if I remember right.
Close enough :D
What’s going on in the mini strip? What did Syd say that made Dabby feel sorry for general Faulk?
she explained what a gag reflex was. So Dabbler felt sorry for the males of this world that women can have one. Do I need to explain it better than that?
Nope. Now I get it. Of course Syd took her seriously. What was I thinking?
Well, good-bye to any form of professionalism. Guess we can introduce Halo now.
Well Dabbler still never ceases to amaze me
Ok… I’m kinda lost and that happens rarely with webcomics…
It seems it’s story time, and all the little heroes get to give their speal. Naturally it immediately turns into a large dirty joke.
About the “gag reflex”? Think oral and you might see the light at the end of the throat.. er um tunnel.
Actually it was the General’s line that lost me o_O
the term “secure” is typically used to mean “Stop” in an unmistakable way, so that during, lets say, a battle at sea, or a place where there is a lot of background noise (ie, gunfire), the person saying “stop” won’t get misinterpreted as saying “top”, or “shot” and the person hearing the order won’t do the wrong thing because of that error… so basically he just told the Corporal (Harem) to “Stop saying those very naughty words in a public setting like this” :D
I knew what Secure meant, I meant what she was supposed to secure, the latrine? =P
Her mouth
sorry it was the way he said it and a mind needing coffee but I suddenly pictured Harem posted at Guard duty over a porta-potty ;)
And that would actually be a realistic and appropriate punishment for her rather odious public behavior.
Soldiers (regardless of what branch) are often shown digging latrines as punishment for various infractions up to and including striking a superior officer.
In the Navy, when they tell you to “secure” something, they mean “to make it safe against motion”. In other words, to put it away or tie it down so it won’t move around when the ship does. You will hear “secure” used in place of “stop”, but that is not something done for audible clarity, it’s a case of military people using military jargon in place of perfectly good words.
Or, I expect, it gets used for things other than concrete objects to secure, and motion to secure against. Secure information against espionage. Secure potentially embarrassing/unbecoming-a-sojer behaviors from access by the press. etc, etc. Those are all obvious extensions of the usage, which I expect would show up spontaneously used by multiple folks without collusion nor common descent.
I expect it even gets used mentioning a concrete object to stand metaphorically for a related abstract concept, such as “secure your lip, corporal!”, the lip being a concrete object standing in for vocal behaviors.
After all, loose lips sink press conferences.
Isn’t the politically correct term “differently abled”? Thank you for not using it. The “inspirational” speeches and “you’re so brave” talks get really old quickly.
P.C. is not necessarily applicable in this world or comics for that matter.
That’s probably for the best. I’m sure my clairvoyance and minor prescience have nothing to do with the slow mental processing speed.
It wouldn’t look right to have Harem talk in PC terms. That and “differently abled” sounds stupid. I have a whole rant about such terms actually doing more harm than good but I’ll spare you guys the 10 page speech.
You do what’s right for the character, this usually reflects in the writer’s own views, but not always. Overall, Harem isn’t the kind of person to let overly fragile feewings get in the way of her thoughts.
You’d be preaching to the choir. The thank you part was genuine.
I fully understand. I just figured that even by now there’s gotta be some people that read this comic expecting PC behavior in the writing. So an elaboration of why it would sound off in and out of the comic was in order.
Nice… gag?
don’t get all “choked” up about it.
The running gag is Harem doesn’t run from gags.
…and neither does Dabbler!!
…and now we know why questions about what happens if Harem is pregnant don’t come up…
and now i want to know. maybe if she uses her powers during pregnancy she has quintuplets, maybe she will automatically have quintuplets every times she gets pregnant, maybe her baby will automatically have her powers at birth. could you imagine that, having to keep track of a ever changing number of teleporting babies
and notice the instant rivalry displayed by Harem to Dabbler? this bodes ill i tell ya’…
@DaveB… who is the General pointing at?
it looks like he’s looking at, and pointing to somebody out in the audience, and NOT at Punk Harem who actually SAID the comment… unless he considers ALL five of the bodies to be in the military even though only one is actually dressed for it, and he’s pointing to Goth Harem that’s out by Suzie and the other female reporter??
He is trying to point around the podium,which is in his way.
Yeah Andrew’s right, he’s supposed to be leaning out and pointing around the thing. I will grant that I may not have made it look quite right with the angles.
He is a General they point through things all the time normally this is a bad thing. General pointing at the map your company needs to take this spot. The spot in question is 5 k behind enemy lines the terrifying thing is they really do mean it.
a general expects the men to walk thru walls if commanded, who’s to say he cant see thru a podium
and expect others to as well
Though he could have leaned back for that.
:( yeah, i think it would have looked better if he was turning his head to his left, and having his arm foreshortened a bit, and pointing towards Ariana in stead, that way it would look like he’s actually trying to make eye-to-eye contact with Punk Harem… rather than out in the audience like he currently is..
If she doesn’t have a gag reflex, how can she tell a joke?
Was wondering that as well >.>
He he
The same way her dog with no nose smells. Wait, what?
Terrible.
hey that pooch just got washed!
Ever small wet dog?
Whenever I have a shower.
Thought it was Dabbles standing behind Military Harem in panel 1 at first, Blondie looks a lot like Dabbles if you are not paying full attention (damn, knew should have written down the nicknames came up with for the Daphnes :()
That would be “Vogue”
But came up with names for all 5, proper names even, but can’t remember what they are now :(
Punk, Goth, Posh, Student?, and Farm-girl (wears the “thing #1” shirt, and if i remember correctly she is the “original”
No, real names, like Gothette
Not to be re-writing this, but should that “secure that” come from either Ariana or Anvil? I would think that the General would be one to issue his punishment in private rather than having an outburst like that. Just my opinion.
Yeah you’re probably right. I’m still learning how to military.
“Never give an order in public which you know will be disobeyed, subverted, or looks like closing the barn door after all the horses have fled”? Maybe? Hence, Anvil or Arianne saying it as a maintain-low-tones aside? Maybe?
( Military? “This I know from nothing”, but it’s what leaped out at me; somebody high ranking would also be trying very hard not to… I dunno… appear to be so impotent in the face of insubordination. Maybe. )
( On the other hand, that doesn’t mean it’s implausible officers would fail at this attempt, especially under provocation of folks like Dabbler, Harem, and/or Halo. So I have no particular problem with him having said that. He probably wishes he hadn’t, but it’s plausible enough that he… had. )
The biggest problem being that it shows an incredible lack of discipline in the unit. Which reflects very badly on him, in the most public of circumstances. The fact that he caught the inference and severely disapproved might win over civilians of a similar mind. But, I suspect, those viewing the incident from a military point of view will be having concerns about his competency to command the unit. Really not what they wanted as the take-home message from the press conference.
Dave, nothing wrong with having Gen Faulk taking the active stance – it fits his character as we’ve seen thus far. Most our-universe US GOs would have turned to Max and quietly verified she’s going to handle it, at which point most other Lt Cols would have stood up, walked across the stage to stand beside vogue and put a warning hand on her shoulder… Given Max’s anger management issues, however, her response would likely have been a bit more… robust
Also, Max is not at the table any more, so the General, or Hiro would have to take care of the issue.
Maybe if the General wasn’t there, it would fall to the next highest ranking officer, which would be Hiro
And it probably would have looked better if it had come from either Hiro or Anvil, they are both officers. It does make the General look impotent not only in front of his troops, it detracts from his perceived abilities to get the job done in the eyes of his superiors and gets egg on the face of the brass in the Air Force, Pentagon, DOD, and the Armed Services Committee in Congress.
I could suggest that the ranks of Captain and up, save for a few individuals are as much as a political capability as they are actual capability in getting the job done.
IMO, having someone below him in rank doing it would have done more harm, as that would imply that he can’t even maintain order himself (think the ‘good’ Commishioner from the Police Academy movies)
He was already disrespected by his subordinates on staff, and if you don’t mind my asking, were you referring to Commandant Lassard?
I think that rule number one of managing others, is to get the individual closest to the problem to stand up to the issue, while you yourself are standing up supporting the individual, and such should support the chain of command.
To all our sadness…. This means Sydney’s gag reflex is over developed…. Whooop whoop woo woo woo Satan!
I remember back when you could actually subscribe to a comic and have it delivered to you home in the post. In fact, I really enjoy reading this comic so much. I wouldn’t mind subscribing to it. :}
You can uh… subscribe to the RSS?
Heheh, I meant like a DC or Marvel or even an Image Comics monthly comic. ;)
Well, that triggered a giggle reflex…
If she doesn’t have a gag reflex that could be dangerous since it can be a life saver. A story point in the future.
Okay I’m 27 but as a male virgin who isn’t apparently up to date, I don’t get it…… could someone explain to me the gag reflex joke? X_X
Lets just say that without a gag reflex, swallowing sausages whole becomes a hell of a lot easier. :D
wha? so she’s bragging or something?;_;? cause otherwise wouldnt that be a good thing? (i think)
see my above post about the really old movie… if you watch it you’ll see why…
To do a quick G rated explanation, when you consume something too large for your throat to handle, let’s use Plasma Mongoose’s example, a large sausage. If you try to eat a large sausage too big for you to handle, the gag reflex pushes against it to try and keep it from going down your throat and killing you.
To turn it R, there’s certain….umm activities with a large sausage of a different kind that can kick in the gag reflex. That’s what Harem and Dabbler are discussing missing.
And the facepalm was heard around the world!
Well, personally i wonder if Dabbler actually is joking.
She´s a Succubus, after all. Isn´t she?
DaveB: Don’t worry (overly much) about getting military stuff wrong. 1) This is an alternate universe. Things could operate differently. 2) You don’t have a military expert on hand. The due diligence you do is plenty. Keep up the great work. Yeah, I’m waiting for Sydney to one-up Dabbler on the next page. *grins*
I like getting the little things right, but when I get to make a Grrl Power movie, I reserve the right to hire a military consultant. :)
Oh man, I’d watch that!
Dammit, I’m thinking up casting now. Thanks Dave, my day is going to be non-productive now! :P
I think Sydney would have to play herself. ;-)
Peggy may not have been born with a gag reflex, but she’s certainly developed one during the course of her life. See how quickly she turned her “disability” into a gag?
O.o
Ooops. My mistake. That was Harem, not Peggy. Either way, my main point still stands.
Was Wakka Wakka a Pacman reference (big mouth) or a Muppets reference?
Someone linked to a compilation of Fozzie-isms
in this context… Muppets…
I shudder to consider how Sydney will one-up harem (or one-down as the case may be)
Something tells me Craig Ferguson would get along really well with Harem…
Having no gag reflex is all fun and games until somebody chokes to death.
Wait… Your name is Barrack?
Dave is just grateful that his older brothers took the names “Army” and “Marine” before he was born.
I must admit my parents exercised more restraint that I would have with naming a kid. “Army” and “Obama” would be candidates until the wife shot them down.
If you have a girl, you might consider “Amy”.