Grrl Power #175 – Pose dramatically much?
Maxima’s pretty much done showing off now, it’s hard to top “delivering dramatic backlit speech while wreathed in flame ” anyway. Of course Sydney has to butt in with her comments. Maxima may not like the press but she’s realistic enough to know that her little speech will be oft-quoted in the press and online, and to her this is like Buzz Aldrin adding “…and one medium sized step for a giraffe, cause they have really long legs.” to the end of another famous quote.
Fun fact, this is a redraw of the first color page I ever did for the comic. I knew this scene was going to happen for a long time. I’ll post that sequence next Monday I think. It’s pretty interesting seeing how stuff has changed in the last few years. BTW, I drew the original version of this page before I had ever seen Hellsing. In case you’re wondering why that’s relevant, every episode of Hellsing has like 5 scenes in it with someone doing the “cloaked in shadow with the big grin and the glowing round glasses” meme. I know I’ve linked DBZ Abridged here before, well the same guys did Hellsing Abridged, and in both cases, I think the abridged spoofs are by far the more entertaining versions.
Next Monday I have to resume the once a week schedule, but it was nice getting through a few extra pages relatively quickly. Who knows how long it will take me to find a job though, maybe there will be some bonus pages here and there. Anyone in the Dallas area hiring? Design/layout stuff? IT? (not phone support, like on-site, in office stuff.) Front end web stuff? (I don’t know how to program unfortunately) That’s the tough thing about job hunting these days. Anyone looking for web HTML/CSS also requires PHP/ASPX/Javascript/AJAX, and anyone looking for 2D art also requires ZBrush/3DSMax/Maya.
Thanks again to everyone who’s been continuing to donate and use the amazon link for their Xmas shopping. I myself am a last minute shopper. Well, last week-ish.
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.
Sydney, we LOVE YOU!!
Epic artwork here.
I wonder if Sydney just helped or hindered what Arianna was going for.
Just helped Ariana decide as to some of the training programs that Sydney will have to take.
I think that Arianna is probably pleased with Sydney right now. Somebody who can rattle Maxima, when she is in full blown megalomaniac rant mode, does not really need assertiveness training or the like.
Assertiveness is not Sydney’s problem. A training course on “How to think about what you say before you say it,” could be helpful. Many people with ADHD often just talk in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way. This can result in chronic foot-in-mouth syndrome.
Foot In Mouth? Sydney? SURELY not!
I believe Sydney is the one of the few people who use a Dr. Scholl’s tongue scraper. (Sorry if this is terrible, this is the last thing I am looking at before passing out from working for 12 hours.)
rather persistent explosion to last through all that talking, normally they tend to extinguish themselves unless its incendiary
Meh, comic physics when needed
She finished up with an area-of-effect, damage-over-time power. Usually, you start with something like that, so you get more damage out of it, but this wasn’t a fight, it was a demonstration. The goal was not to defeat the bad guys, but to impress the press. ^_^
Maybe her attack is hot enough to set up the conditions needed for a firestorm – although i’m wondering what the firestorm could be burning to sustain itself. (Whoops, there was a pipeline buried under there ^^ – well, at last that would give the team a way to make a practical demonstration on how they can fight major disasters :p)
I’m 99% sure the explosion is powerful enough to create plasma, so it could feasibly be a case of localised combustion of the air.
Yeah, but Spiderman has whole conversations in the time it takes to throw a punch, so, like RobK suggested, I have some comic book leeway here.
So your saying its a use of Talking is a free action trope (TVTropes link, click at own risk!) in use?
it’s*
darn notice of typo just after clicking submit.
Why is she still clothed? Even if the force of the explosion did not tear it appart I would still expect it to catch on fire by now.
There’s a force field of sorts around her that’s protecting it (see link in previous page comments).
She can extend her powers to things she’s touching. As as been throughly repeated over and over in the last pages already
Yeah, you tell those people who don’t read every page of comments! That’ll show them for having lives and stuff!
And over, and over, and over. Etc., etc., etc. Again, and again,
and again!
Why is she still clothed?
Becaue this comic is not 18+.
The lack of “contains mature content, only go there if you are legally allowed to view it” page should be a dead giveaway.
Seems like DaveB needs to make a section soon only for that.
Yes, we all know we all would like that very much.
If the air all over her is on fire, how is Maxima supposed to be able to talk, and even breathe? OK, she may be able to breathe through fire (Superman style) but if I remember correctly, producing sound requires air/oxygen to me moved… Even if she could, with the sound of the explosion behind her and the ensuing flaming/burning sound, nobody should be able to understand what she says, right?
Anyway, really cool page (noted the Hellsing-like panel ;) ), great work! Although I must confess I’m disappointed in not seeing Maxima crush the tank into an 80-tons baseball-sized piece of scrap :P
Sound does not need oxygen. It only needs a medium to pass through. It can pass through air (any mix of gasses), liquids, or solids. Just because the air is super-heated does not mean the sound can’t pass through it.
Thus SONAR. dolphins and whales also use sound to locate prey and navigate in water. And the Mantis shrimp can cause a sonic boom underwater.
Correct, thanks :)
Although here I don’t see Maxima calmly speaking but rather shouting over the burning sound…
BTW I didn’t notice at first sight but the “burnt paper effect” after the first panel is quite nice too!!
She’s got super strength and endurance, and she probably inhaled and compressed a lot of air before the explosion, and now she’s letting it out, not that she’s breathing in any more until the air clears or she goes back outside the blast effect zone.
well, she’s a smoker – while orders of magnitude hotter (and voluminous), the smoke/fumes from this fire are probably no more harmful than cigar smoke…
Das awesome O_O
Ok I take back what I said monday. THAT is what I want as a new wallpaper.
pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease make that first pannel available as wallpaper
second panel for me, please! (without the word balloon)
Yeay for Achilles. Finally some glory to him, even if it’s non cannon
That one’s actually canon, I just couldn’t fit it on the regular page. (Even though he should being tossed around like a mote of dust in a windstorm.)
Easy enough, he landed on the far side of the shield and ran back with the Marshmallow that burned up.
Thank you very much for giving Achilles some time. I can imagine the reporters simply gawk at him now, walking through the explosion like Superman and then totally unphazed asking that. Very nicely done, Dave.
Well, incinerated as an option sort of makes sense. If they’re incinerated, there might not be enough left to inter.
Incontinent. BWAHAHA! Let those bladders and bowels flow!
Archon recruiting: [ Shakes hand with young (22 or so) woman, about 5’4″ medium mass for that height ] So you want to join Archon? Excellent. Do you have a special ability that would qualify you for Archon, as opposed to one of the other services?
Potential recruit: About a minute after I touch someone, they lose control of their … waste removal systems. Where is your bathroom? [ Recruiter points to a door ] You might want to go there. We can talk some more in about 10 minutes or so.
The recruiter gets a weird look on his face, then runs for the bathroom. As he runs away, the recruit calls out, “Can I be called the Deconstipator?”
More like X-Lax
Ooh! Or Ex-Lass
Actually, pretty sure there was a character in the Magellan webic with that power (and that exact scene, except it was a guard with the power and a snotty daughter of the most powerful Super was the ‘target’)
Missed that one. But, Charisma does need to be taken down a peg sometimes.
“Ok so as far as we know this “Halo” has no rhyme or reason, and states the most random things possible, unfortunately for all of us, her shield makes tomatoes useless”.
What do you want with tomatoes than? She’s awesome
She might not want the tomatoes. Tomatoes aggravate my ADHD, and might do something similar to Sydney.
Just a note, those quotes mean that this is an in-character as someone reporting on these heroes.
It occurs to me that while Maxima may be easily able to withstand the sandblast (and fire) from that rather enormous explosion, her clothes will not. Fire resistant maybe, but sand traveling at that velocity — I’m not sure there’s a material she could be wearing that escapes undamaged.
…I give up. Please read the other comments
Just read the bloody comments. There are only a few of them even at this point, and it’s ALREADY been awnsered
You have to give him at least some credit for originality: Everyone else only said fire. He’s the first to bring up sandblasting….
Dave’s going to have to re-re-re-iterate this concept in the strip, until readers get it, because people comment here without reading others’ comments. Maybe put that on a banner above the comic: “she’s not naked because a force field protects her clothes”. Of course, then people will wonder why that’s there.
I think we’re just going to have to keep replying to the same question, no matter what…
That has already happened here https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/376
Answers to why clothing remains mostly pristine despite the extent of damage in the area.
A) Suspension of Disbelief
B) Clothing Damage only occurs when Dramatically Appropriate
C) It’s par and parcel for the superhero genre, which this comic is
If you(or anyone) cannot accept that A,B and C are Word of God for the comic, perhaps superhero comics aren’t for you.
I’ll go with awnser D:
Explaind already over and over and over and over
Zero range telekkinesis. Holds and moves any object by thought so long as she touches it. The telekinesis can hold the molecules in place so they can withstand bullets etc.
Not sure about the heat issue without re-reading. heat is energy so if energy is also stopped from affecting or contacting the object held by the TK field…
Quick, someone call the Department of Redundancy Department….
Have you looked at blind ferret? (Least I could do, looking for group, etc)
I hear they are looking for a graphic designer.
Don’t try to get Dave to leave us, jobs come with responsibilities elsewhere. We need him here :P.
Suddenly you can understand why Arianna needs someone so disarmingly human as Sydney
And not just because *she’s* disarmingly human, but because she can also get human responses from the monsters out there like Maxima.
Maybe? Guess we’ll find out whether that’s true if that little chat between Halo and Maxima becomes the highlight of the of the news story – backlit by the gigantic explosion.
Max ain’t a monster XD
She’s extremely caring about her team. She’ll also destroy anything that threatnes the things she cares about
I look forward to how showing an international press corps that the U.S. government employs a literal man-portable, reusable nuclear weapon goes down. Yay for the future super-human arms race!
Gods, Maxima is dumb…
A lot of the aversion to nukes is due to the radiation: fallout and persistent effects. It seems a fair bet that there are no such issues with whatever Maxima just did. Its still scary from a logistics point of view in a military engagement, but politically less so.
The fact that this is apparently a branch of the military is probably a relief as well: they tend to operate under more rules than some other parts of the US government.
She’s Military Brass. The philosophy of “Having a gun so big we’ll have peace because nobody will be stupid enough to f^(k with us!” is endemic.
I would call Maxima more of military gold.
Right, because this one bomb is going to make a whole lot of difference on the rest of the bombs
It would if she dropped it ON all the other bombs, now wouldn’t it?
R-i-g-h-t. Because every other super in the world has, up until now, only been law-abiding and peaceful.
Sometimes, you HAVE to show the metal.
Sorry, atm, I’m full up on artists and not sure if the budget will support any more. Or even the ones I have, sadly.
Am I the only one who get an “Hellsing” feeling from the first panel? Very good job!
You are certainly not the only one who didn’t bother to read. It’s in that big box of text under the comic
Looking at that maelstrom of fire and super-heated sand (and remembering the discussion on power levels) I realized that there are only a few superheros in other universes that could walk into that and have little chat with Max. Then I realized (with a little training and focus) that Sydney will probably be the only one who could do that in this universe.
Achilles can do it, as shown in the fun comic under the real comic
Just came here to say Hellsing Abridged is the best thing ever. And if you haven’t seen it then by glory go click that link!
Jesus wants a hug!
Bitches love cannons.
F**k the Hell YES!
Oh fuck all kinds of duck!
he just left to take a walk.
Oh god!!!!! This has to the best one yet. Just love panel 1 and 2. Friggen great. Going to print this one. Keep up the fantastic work Dave.
I need dat epic artwork without bubbles.
ah, but if they are incinerated…you can’t inter them.
Yes you can, they are called ‘urns’ and tend to be placed on the mantle-piece of family or loved-ones
Waiting for the ultimate nerd follow-up, “INCONTHEEVABLE!”
That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
My name is Maxima Leander. You ruined my monologue. Prepare to die.
Prepare for very high intensity boot camp. You will wish you were dead.
He he. Moral of the story – do not piss of your commanding officer. Especially when they have sufficient rank that their decisions can influence national policy. Doubly so when they have personal power comparable to Superman. Not if you hope to have an easy boot camp.
Personally, I just hit them over the head with a rock. OK, I admit, that it it is not very sporting. But it works!
Max is sooooo powerful the only way she’ll get a “slapdown” is through Sydney’s “slapstick.”
Incontinent villains are the worst…
Adult Diaper man!
they are villain, they won’t wear diapers so their incontinence will make life harder for super heroes :p
You do not want to be on the opposite side to Maxima. Sydney I want on my side.
I am incredibly pleased to discover that scrolling with the arrow keys brings the top of the comic flush to a pixel with the browser ribbon on my system.
I hope Maxima is familiar with the concept of mach stem. If she threw an explosion of the right size at the right altitude, the effects on the ground could be devastating.
It makes sense that Achilles isn’t being blown around. The blast winds have definitely stabilized by now, and though it’s hard to guess the scale of the firestorm, I doubt the wind on the ground could lift a guy. It would be havoc for anything airborne, though. Maxima is sustaining an incredible amount of heat in the area! I wonder if we’ll get to see a fire whirl?
That is just from when Stalwart and Maxima kicked the tank, puncturing the fuel tank. Then Maxima threw the tank away, that sprayed all the fuel around the force field. When the explosion wave front covered where the fuel is, it caused the fuel to start burning. It is just doing so all around the force field bubble. We can wait for the fuel to burn on on the next page before Halo has to drop the shield.
If there was any fuel in the tank Sydney’s Pew Pew orb would have touched it off.
fuel tanks aren’t in the front corners of any tanks I am versed in or briefed on, and that is where syd cut it, besides the risk of igniting from electrifying the tank would be more probable than a explosion over sand absorbed fuel. I should also mention the fact this tank was set to be a target so all sensitive items and petroleum products would have been removed.
I maintain the opinion that Maxima seems a little too eager to dish out state sanctioned violence and death.
She’ll get her chance too. Human nature means that when someone tells you absolutely not to do something, your drive makes you do it. Maxima just said go against me and die. Well, that’s going to make someone go against her just to spurn her.
Never draw a line in the sand, someone always crosses it.
funny you say that, as far as i can tell, she never used more than the necessary force.this is a ”fire” range and she made sure sidney had the power to protect the other member of the press. they barely used strength to swat the criminals who tried to hold up the bank and she’s basically jsut intimidating/venting out out here. no one hurt.
the worst she’s ever done was an atomic wedgie to harem and most of the hurt was done by harem herself.
In the bank, she also knew it was Achilles. So she knew she could hit him as hard as she’d like, but still made it a little believable that he’d survive
nah she figured it out after when they were being lifted into the ambulance and one of them squinted to see what was going on.
She knew it was Achilles when she smacked him across the room. As shown here
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/323
i stand corrected.
Yes, but did she know that before she swatted him? Or after when he didn’t turn into a red mist?
I’m pritty sure she can dissable any non super without killing him :P
Dammit, Sydney. We do NOT interrupt other people’s dramatic monologues! Aren’t you supposed to be the genre-savvy one around here?
I think her ADHD won from the genre-savvy-ness
Thanks for the fortnight of double updates. Looking forward to seeing how the above awesome art compares with your original concept art.
Good luck with the job hunting.
This surprise move is also going to tick off Arianna in another way. I’m sure she has already planned out the merchandising of the team, including various toys and children’s clothing lines. She is probably thinking “How are we going to get the Disney princess endorsement when she pulls stunts like these!”.
Ha, like Maxima would cooperate with that
A Maxima Barbie would be epic though
I think whatever company tried to produce that product, inevitably without consent, will find the doll inserted rectally, sideways. Probably without lubrication.
and done while max boosts speed atrib
This is my favourite page by fart!
The shading, dialogue…. extra Sidney Dialogue…. it’s perfect :) Well done Dave.
Just try to resist the urge to light it. The page is already on fire as it is!
Hey Dave,
I sent you a message abaout a possible employment contact via the comic’s FB page. Check it out.
Really feeling the Alucard in that first panel, or maybe Integra Hellsing. Either way loving it.
How does achillies shave? or is his hair not protected?
His bio sais that his hairstyle might be stuck in the state it was when he gained his powers. He’s also much older than he looks, and probably does not age.
So I gues that his powers freeze him in the state he is now. Without beard
I wonder how old Achilles is actually going to get.
Will he perhaps overtake the Face of Boe?
That explains the mullet… :)
I have to say, Sydney’s presence really humanizes Max, since it makes her seem more like someone you can be comfortable around, rather than a walking weapon with a hair-trigger temper. That’s probably intentional on DaveB’s part, not just for us but for the in-world audience. I’m curious if the characters/plot will note the difference she makes.
Regarding your commentary, on Apollo 12 Pete Conrad’s words upon stepping onto the moon were: “Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”
Which, reportedly, he said on a dare after someone claimed that NASA had written Neil’s “one small step” line in advance. Though considering Conrad’s personality, I’m fairly sure he would’ve said something silly anyway. Good thing he wasn’t in Buzz Aldrin’s place on Apollo 11. :)
One problem with this ‘personal forcefield’ thing: if it was protecting Maxi’s clothes from burning up, it should also be preventing it from moving in the wind (that is why Supes wears skin-tight long-johns and his cape needs to be replaced fairly regularly)
I think Sydney is being quite useful to Arianna at the moment. Her comments might help offset the terror speech thing Maxima has going.
lol! looks like achilles new unofficial power is to be able to pop up random marshmallow at any time ^-^
He probably brought them deliberately.
He is going to a firing range demonstration with Maxima, Heatwave, Jiggawatt, Dabbler and Halo.
Its a fair bet that something is going to get set on fire.
If (according to Dave) this mini comic is canon, then the marshmallow gag must be a call-back to the also-really-happened comments made in the ambulance on page https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/323
Good one, I had forgotten about that