Grrl Power #184 – Battling the future with rocks?
Oh no! Now Arianna has to spend all evening after the press conference on the phone instead of… no wait, that was going to happen anyway.
I generally don’t think of writing as a big time sink as everything has already played out in my head. Usually it just comes down to breaking the dialog into balloons and sorting out the panels. Sometimes though it will take an hour or more to get it right. This page in particular was one of those. Most of the trouble came from wanting to have Max soliloquize a novel about predictions of the reaction to her little fireworks display, going on about “The fear mongering politician in a battleground district that uses this as an excuse to get his name in the news, the nature of the public discourse, the reaction of the supers, law abiding or otherwise.” and Anvil responding to Dabbler with “But are more predictable events preferable even if the outcomes are less desirable?” and a whole bunch of other stuff that got cut. (“I blew up a practice target on an artillery range, not an occupied passenger jet. The outcomes are manageable.”) Gah! Stop! I have no doubt if I tried writing a novel, the first draft would have 60 page chapters.
Here’s some random things I like:
Leftover Soup which I’ve pimped before has hit strip #500! It’s one of my favorite comics for all the tabletop and RPG talk, the single and double entendres, flat out sex talk, and I know this sounds weird, but the sociological analysis. Mostly this comes in the form of pointing out the absurdities of social mores, but that’s something I really enjoy. For instance there was a story I was reading (unrelated to Leftover Soup) where a group of anthropomorphized foxes were lamenting that English was woefully inadequate at describing the spectrum of scents they could differentiate, while noting that the nearly colorblind foxes had no use for words like periwinkle and chartreuse. You can probably expect a little of that from Dabbler at some point.
Also Kevin Hardman is offering his Kid Sensation series as a bundle, so if you haven’t jumped in, that will save you a few bucks.
If you enjoy the comic, please consider supporting it over at Patreon.
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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.
No one give Arianna any exposure to gamma radiation.
I know what you are referring to, but also knowing the bit of real physics I do, I can’t help understanding this as “Don’t kill Ariana with high-energy electromagnetic waves.” And that sounds like an oddly specific request… ^^”
Ha :) That would be a pity, is a fancy outfit that she has, Dave you are doing great fashion job lately.
If nothing else, it wll teach Arianna to not set up any plans involving Max without informing her.
Like the whole Bank Incident (it’s still the first comic day, after all).
Yes. No matter how smug Arianna might be about the success of that little stunt, it was STILL an incredibly stupid thing to do.
I regard her current discomfiture as a very mild dose of kharmic rebalance. If Arianna thinks she has it rough, maybe she should consider what it would be like if The Bank Job had gone wrong.
Not without covering her in liquorice first.
Let’s hope that doesn’t include telepresence Sydney irradiating her brain…
Arianna already has a super power. Her blood pressure can reach quadruple digits without her head exploding.
Well…stairs TAKE you places…
I like seeing Arianna forced to play the hand she was dealt with the higher ups, but I have to wonder who in the room would have been able to hear both sides of the conversation without really trying.
At this point Arianna and Col. Leander will soon be fighting a proxy war with third world nations over this little set of tiffs.
Dabbler perhaps.
Would be awesome if Syd had actually gotten all of it. Total bonus for her.
Truesound?
Lol that would be an awesome trick, though not as cool as the ability to actually TOUCH stuff with her telepresence.
…um, come to think of it, with Dabbler’s super-sensitive hearing, wouldn’t all these explosions and stuff have her curled up on the floor twitching in agony? Or does she have a “pain threshold” spell to protect her hearing?
Televisions today have a setting to equalize sounds… increasing the volume on lower end sounds and decreasing the volume on higher end ones. I don’t think she’d have any problem doing the same with technology or magic. I would expect her cybernetic eye to have an auto-polarizing effect to protect from flashes as well.
Given that the press didn’t have trouble with the blast (and they probably would have with an explosion that size), I think we can assume Sydney’s shield attenuates sound and light above a certain threshold.
The Tele-sphere already give her Clairaudience abilities.
Would that include the ability to hear lies? Or would that fall under the same category as ‘mundane disguise’ for Halo’s Truesight and thus be undetectable?
I’d guess actual lies would come in the same category as ‘mundane disguises’, and not be picked up. However, if you had a perception filter of magical means set up to make your voice unrecognisable and/or to avoid detection by ‘negative sonar’, I think it’d hear through that without a problem.
I see it as being a bit like effects in films. The Truesense orb lets you see if something’s been done in post-production (CGI, overdubbing, etc.), but it can’t spot a practical effect that happened at the time of recording (masks, lip-syncing to a recording, etc.). The camera doesn’t lie, if you have access to the raw recording, but it can’t tell if it’s being lied to.
Note that I’m on a catch-up archive-dive having been off-grid for a while. There may have been a canon explanation in that time that I haven’t got to yet.
Probably pretty much anyone in the room could have followed it, no super-senses required. Most people with pretty good hearing can train themselves to keep general track of one or two conversations while maintaining a sort of scan for interesting words and phrases. A group I used to participate in called people who did this “chroniclers”, because it was usually for the purpose of posting summaries and quotes (mostly humorously out of context) from a gathering the next day.
A chronicler at Sydney’s table would probably be taking part in their discussion (maybe speculating about the skill tree), tracking the talk at Hiro’s or Max’s table, and alert for interesting-sounding stuff from everyone else. Speaking from experience, I pretty much guarantee that they would at least hear “Plans within plans.” and “You find stairs arousing.” Those are the sort of phrases that ping on the scan and make you zero in on a conversation. (Of course, “trouble” is also an alert-word, so they probably would have already switched to tracking it after Anvil’s first line, if they weren’t already.)
I can second that statement being able to follow up to 2 discussion with the context and interacting and up to 5 without interacting
That’s great, but I was actually referring to the telephone conversation Arianna was having with the senator.
You can generally hear both sides of a telephone conversation if the room is otherwise quiet. This one is not.
I was saying Max did that, at least in part, to get even with Arianna. The ball is now in Arianna’s court. Time to escalate again.
I recognise that guy in panel 4 as the former Seal. Nice one, Dave.
And Dabbler makes me laugh as usual.
You are right! Good one, I did not realize, could be Hiro asking him to pass the salt? :)
I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Funny to see he wasn’t just some random throwaway character.
well you have to admit, he made a good illistration during the Conference about the problems with removing Military personnel from Military hierarchy and expecting them to report to a Civilian organization. hence the “order me to pass the salt” line
O.O If looks could kill Arianna’s would eradicate the planet.
hehe damn i love the face at the last panel
gave you my “patronage” now i just hope my character won’t get you crazy hehe
That final panel is still making me laugh, each time I see it.
Looking on Arianna, I’d say the sleeper has awakened.
Poor Arianna.
I love how she looks, very nice
You mean scary-pissed-off.
I think she’s just one bad phone call away from doing a full Linda Blair.
I’d really like to know what that story abut the foxes was.
Maybe DaveB is reluctant to share it because it involved noodles?
He he. Arianna is fun when she is mad. I can see why Maxima enjoys winding her up. Although it does look like she is ready to start chewing on Maxima\s head. Literally.
Arianna was happy at Max being wound up by Sydney, now Max does it to her. Karma is a bitch, right?
So who is going to wind up Sydney?
Doesn’t Sydney wind up Sydney?
Need an external source so that we can get the circle going.
ari wound her up by the bank incident and recruiting her talk
I think the analogy works completely, if it is someone with Maxima type strength throwing the rocks.
As in, shot put the two-tonne boulder?
Yup. Maxima will be the one all the surfers turn to if the waves are too tame. A boulder thrown by her would easily create a big enough wave for them to ride on.
Probably more akin to a small mountain.
Do that and you will get a tsunami which will take out cities on the other side of the ocean!
Talking about which, I have not heard anything for ages about that island, off the west coast of Africa, which is expected to start sliding down and triggering just such an effect. With New York being one of the cities at risk. Any recent reports on it’s stability?
Is panel 6 a deliberate nod at Dune?
Considering the text beneath the comic, I’d say it’s quite likely.
Personally, I’d have gone with Wheels Within Wheels, bendreth ^_^
The Spice must flow!
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain
(Yes, that was from memory. I’m not sure if I should be proud or horrified of that.)
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking is a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion
Caption for the final panel “Beware Maxima, for she is the Kwisatz Haderach”
There is a 44.9% chance you are a hard-working individual. There is a 32% probability you are an evening person. We will accept this odds.
Oh my, I have the exact same problem Dave :) I usually have to do like three cuttings of whatever I write, often ending with a fifth of the original.
I love Leftover Soup, it is a great comic and I concur with your comments, I found it thanks to you and became a fan since then.
Maxi could hear the grinding of Ari’s teeth getting closer :D
I am realizing that supers at Archeon are always grouping themselves by gender. Boring :)
What? It’s more they are ‘grouping themselves’ with those they are comfortable with (and who, apart from Dabbles and Anvil, would want to have a social meal with The Golden Elf of Doom?)
Surely they are :) but if you take a look it seems to be a gender thing. Aside from Max’s group, Syd’s group is only women too. Hiro’s table is only men. When watching the bank footage at the couch: only women. When Peggy walk out Syd all the men were together again, Harem “worped” in but then all other women was at the balcony. Even at the shooting range Hiro and Stalwart were mostly standing together alone.
The one time we saw they mixed was when Max introduce Syd.
I am mostly joking of course, not a bad thing, maybe just a waste :)
being out numbered and out gunned the males are retreating to the safety of the pack
Hahaha Nice one. No so out numbered however if it were not for Harem :)
it is interesting. In casual military groupings, the self-segregation tends to be a little different. Typically, you would see the seniors from across the command socializing together, then clusters of people with easily identifyable sub-groups (e.g. color, national origin, marriage, career fields such as fighter pilots or submariners, etc), with gender only very seldom being the qualifier. In this group, I would have expected Hiro to be at Max’s table with Kenya & Dabbler (though that might change the nature of the conversation); then Sydney, Peggy, Daphne, and possibly Seal; Math, Daphne and maybe Stalwart; and Amorphous, Harold & Brook (and Daphne), of course.
The regular military social pecking order is strongly influenced by the rank structure. In a super organisation, regardless of what the insignia might say, subconsciously raw super power will be playing a similar role. And in Archon the bulk of that lies with the girls. Just as most guys subconsciously feel intimidated by women who are taller than them, the same will be happening with the guys here.*
But, that said, it is still early days for the organisation. Groupings are bound to change as friendships get made and roles are established.
* Except for Math, but he is unwelcome at the girl’s table because he is a sexist pig.
Also keep in mind that this is the first day, during the week, that we’ve seen these people. Bud’s hanging out with bud’s, etc…
Well, that’s how the world works. Man make easier friends with other man. And vice versa
I guess that makes me a woman. Time to buy some shoes. Women do that right?
I’m a man and I have the same pair of shoes for years now. So yes, probably
I know :) but I find Math and Harem’s way of to be at “the other side” far more fun.
Okay, Anvil is reacting to what exactly in the last panel: Ari’s grinding teeth? Maxi taunting the grinding teeth? or Dabbles openly flirting with Maxi?
My bet is: Yes to all of the above!
I read it as being alarm at Arianna’s expression. Probably because her eyeline seems to go that way.
If somebody present could not see Arianna’s face, but could see Anville’s at that moment, I think they would be very worried. Given that she is a super who’s primary power is to absorb damage!
Thought Anvil’s eyes were looking ahead/at Dabbles, that’s why said “Ari’s grinding teeth” rather than “Ari’s scary teeth”
Anvil can be hurt by many normal means, just not kinetic stuff.
A fire-coated arrow will still burn her, even if it won’t poke her.
So her power is like Sebastian Shaw of the Hellfire Club?
Pretty much, but we don’t know if Anvil can absorb the energy from a laser blast as Shaw’s been shown to do in comics.
Technically, on the subatomic level, all energy is either nuclear (radiation, pure EM waves), atomic (bonds between atoms), stored as matter (duh), or kinetic (the motion of EVERYTHING that stops at 0K – absolute zero)
So going by that logic (and laws of physics), she’s got 25% of the energy spectrum covered, assuming I know my ass from my elbow about those facts, which I’m hoping I do.
Otherwise, I need to take physics again.
True, but for Anvil we’re talking about the Kinetic Energy imparted upon one object by impact. We know her upper threshold is pretty high (The assumption is she’s one of the only people who can take a full-power punch from Maxima.) But we don’t know what her absorption threshold (at what point does she actually start to absorb energy) Too low a threshold and she’d eventually overload simply from the impacts of her feet while walking, or the water from a shower. Which is why I mentioned Shaw’s absorbing energy-rifle shots and the blast from a Sentinel’s laser cannon (Notice I said LASER not Particle weapon like Maxima’s Blast)
I do not see why she cannot simply store it all, she presumably has a big reservoir she can store the energy in or she won’t be able to do the interesting things like stop a truck thrown at her. The incidental energy is similar to anybody building up static electricity as they walk around. Irritating, but easily disposed of at convenient moments. She could even deliberately bleed it off as she walked by adding some of the excess energy into her footsteps. She may sound heavier than she is, or that she is stomping, if she has a lot to burn off, but doing that would dispose of it pretty fast.
used as she is pushing off she could gain a limited super speed forcing her to absorb energy from wind friction or boost herself to resist wind burn. syd needs to stop whispering to me…..
Anvil absorbed kinetic energy and uses it to boost her physical strength.
She can either increase her strength or use it to make a powerful attack. I was just proposing pulling her blow and making a series of weak attacks – against the ground.
I merely suggested the “attacks” on the ground could be if timed right used to simulate an alternate power with a possible new energy source or energy bleed off as a side effect.
That “simulating an alternate power” does have interesting variants. If you consider that she can possibly remove half of the equation “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”, then a whole host of weird effects become plausible.
actually we’re not sure what really CAN damage her, we just know that she absorbs the Kinetic energy of an attack. not that if she’s vulnerable to other effects of an attack, or just how small her threshold (there was a villan with a similar power. when a cop tried to use a CS grenade on him he absorbed the Kinetic energy of the gas’s release and left the CS as a smear of powder on the ground
Arianna is an unarmed civilian. Pretty much all she can do is kinetic attacks. Or grab an electric cable and try to electrocute Maxima with it, or try and set her on fire whilst she does not have her defences raised. But it is not like she would… actually looking at that face… Max, I hope you have a decent minimum defence going at the moment?
Only if whatever provides her with invulnerability doesn’t consider heat to be a form of kinetic energy (which would be odd, but once you’ve got superpowers, the normal laws of physics take a vacation where they wind up doing something that gets Instagrammed around the world and they have to retire in shame.. wait, what were we talking about?)
A disturbance in the force…
Calling it now…
Arianna manifests her super power: Self Detonation.
I don’t see this doing much more than ruining a few outfits and causing some costly repair bills to the cafeteria. Also they’re gonna need a new P.R. agent/lawyer.
No! Keep Ariana! She is a great foil for Max. Max just didn’t want her to get bored, having nothing to do. Now that Sydney has joined the team, she workload is about to triple or so.
So would that be in the model of Cyrax, or the Judean People’s Front?
was thinking Blastar myself.
for me, it was a Creeper… though she isn’t green… oh well, can’t win ’em all.
Like the Big Cheese from Samurai Pizza Cats?
You sir are awesome. +1 internets to you.
why a new lawyer she would rise from the hellfire ashes of the old her like a phoenix as regen is a rather standard part of a detonator type super
She’s a baseline, she’d have to buy the power cost to zero. 3d6 r.k.a., single use, x4 end, 0 range damage field explosive, affects user, and probably costs body to use.
Extra points if you can translate all of that.
Anybody who has played enough roleplaying games will understand every term there. I have never so much as glanced at that system and I follow the rules you are quoting and the implications for each. And would quite happily sit down to a championship level tournament using it, without any briefing on the setting.
Random thoughts.
The fox comment got me thinking. According to the old saying, Eskimos have 50 words for snow (“Fifty Shades of White” number one on the Eskimo best seller list). So how many words for sex are there in the Succubi language?
Also, Ix was the ninth planet in its solar system. For a people famous for being clever, they seemed to be fairly unimaginative in naming their planet.
Blame that on the author, silly!
While I agree with the concept of context shaping language, which shapes thinking patterns, which shapes language, which shapes context, that particular example always bothered me, because it’s factually misleading. The reason the Inuit language has large numbers of words for snow has absolutely nothing to do with the importance of snow in inuit culture – it’s simply because the taxonomy of that language incorporates adjectives into the modified noun. So a rough translation would come up with words such as “wetsnow,” “flurrysnow,” “snowfrozentotheground,” “snowrestingatopathinlayerofice,” etc.
oops – submitted too soon.
(cont.) Thus in this language, the inuits similarly have lots of words for “sun,” “moon,” “hand,” “dirt,” “shoe,” and “telephone.”
Wasn’t there this one episode of Star Trek TNG where Picard and Troy talked about languages?
Troi had a glass/cup of tea held up and just said a random word, arguing that nobody could even remotely understand what exactly she’d wanted to express with that word.
Glass? Tea? Liquid? Dark? Hot? Clear?
I remember Quark saying the Ferengi have 178 words for “rain”. Don’t remember Deanna’s comment though.
I think that was when they met a race that spoke only in metaphor.
Actually I’m often had a similar thought. Who decided a rock should be a ‘Rock”? How did it happen?
Vince McMahon
The episode is called Darmok, second episode of season 5 TNG, it is a pretty good episode. As you mention the story was about a species that spoke in metaphor, named “The Children of Tama”, though they are generally referred to as “Tamarians”.
Failure, for instance, was expressed as “Shaka, when the walls fell”
Now I gotta watch that episode again, yay Netflix.
BBCA just showed that episode a couple days ago, that’s why I remembered it, I could never remember the NAME though.
I did not know that, it is far interesting.
However a word existing in a language leads to a couple of thing.
Usually a new thing is named with a description mixing previous concepts (e.g. windshield, moon landing), but with the use it could be shortened, morphed, etc, into a specific new word (e.g. telephone -> phone, sorry for the lame examples I do not know english so well) or it happens that the speaker just stops thinking about it as a description.
To can be seen as “important word” at least that above must be happened. If the new word is a mixing or not does not matter, what is relevant is how the speaker thinks about it.
I know nothing about inuit language, but any language can built as many concepts as any other, being that a word, a description or anything else.
However it could be that Inuits see their equivalent to “windshield” like a description while we feel it like a thing, and It could be the other way with the 50 words for snow.
If that were the case then Inuits DO have 50 different things similar to snow in their lives.
The Cornish have 50 different words to describe precipitation present in the air. Mostly English-based.
That’s assuming they also had a base roman numbering system
Also, Ix was the ninth planet in its solar system. For a people famous for being clever, they seemed to be fairly unimaginative in naming their planet.
Says the guy living on a Planet called “Ground”.
+1
Though, this kind of thinking always makes me wonder, what people on other plantes would call their ground/soil.
We call it Earth, as in our planet.
But, for example, can Vulcans scoop up a handful of vulcan?
“This is a fertile land and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land and we will call it…This Land.”
I think I will call it “Your Grave!”
Do we even know that the Vulcans call their planet something that has something to do with volcanos?
Or is it just chance that “Vulcan” sounds exactly like “Vulkan” which means nothing but volcano in my language (German)?
That aside, I’d bet that every intelligent species would call their planet something in the general meaning of land/ground/home in their own language because that’s what they would call the floor they stand on before they discover that it’s a planet and it’s not the only one in the universe. :)
Like how most of the native american tribe names translate to “the people”
Now, I’m going to point out that the people of IX, probably don’t call themselves ixians… the automatic translators just take the word they have for themselves in that language they have, and replace it with IX.
It’s not a statement about the cleaverness of the ixians, it’s a statement on the language that named it IX (from outside).
I read the original Dune trilogy in my youth (in actual books with actual paper). Due to the number of comments, I did some additional checking using this new-fangled com-pew-tur thingy. There any many more newer volumes in the series. It turns out that the authors retconned the planet’s unusual name in the later books (that were actually the prequels). Since the empire is thousands of year’s old, they said that when the planet was colonized it was given the standard Star + planet position name of Rodale IX. This was shortened centuries later to Ix. And now you know (cue theme music)
ISTR that a lot of tribal names are actually derived from ‘other’ or ‘enemy’ in a neighboring tribe’s language. May be completely wrong, but I actually got in a argument with a friend of mine in Iowa, who was living on tribal land (read: reservation) at the time, and an older guy came up to us and told us this. Turns out, he was one of the tribal elders.
Possibly due to the English name for some tribes being derived from asking the Native Guide (whose tribe might have been at war with them for generations) what they were called, rather than asking the tribe themselves.
Fact is, every tribe/nation/culture’s name for their original homeland, if you trace it back far enough, translates to “The Land.” Their name for themselves? “The People.”
It’s only later that they begin to figure out that there are other lands and other people.
Arthur: The people! The…things!
Ford: The things are also people.
Arthur: The people! The also people!
-Douglas Adams
At which point you get to the lovely “my land, their land”, and the inevitable “all my land”.
Which is where I do think we’d at least have some common grounds of commucnation with alien non-Earth-of-Sol life. Unless they have no concept of location, which would be odd in an intelligent species able to make space ships and radios. Unless of course they’re well past the “their land” phase and are firmly in the “all my land” phase and have forgotten that there was ever a “their land, and other people”.
Given the transient nature of land, any aliens with a decent life span will be very confused at our fixation with it. “Why are you so proud of this bit of dirt? It will be subducted back into the mantle in a couple of million years.”
“By that time, we will have moved onto a new piece of ‘This Land’, it won’t even be called ‘New This Land’.”
Seeing as most homeworld/lands/places are named before the people there know there are any other worlds/lands/places out there, it’s actually pritty stupid to asume any species would have imaginative names for their planet.
It’s the neighbouring planets that get named after gods (or in our case atleast)
Gods, and an animated dog :P
Actually, said animated dog was named after a Roman/Greek god of sleep (or such).
Plans within plans within plans occasionally interrupted by Sydney moments. Poor Ariana! You set up complex plans of your own without consulting Max’s agendas. I love Max’s facial expressions in panels 6 and 8. Very Machiavellian!
Sadly, most plans fail at the first confrontation.
Yeah, and it’s always the coach’s fault for why the players fumbled time after time
Hence the meme, “You’re killing me, Smalls.”
I will not be surprised if to Maxima Sydney comes to be like The Mule to Seldon.
Instead of a psychohistorian she is just plain psycho.
It looks like Arianna’s wearing Ferris Bueller’s waistcoat
She wants to add Maxima’s scalp as an accessory to it.
mmm… stairs…
after discovering this comic and laughing I hate you…now I have to wait for updates like everyone else, A POX UPON YOU!
I pox myself for not being able to draw faster. :)
cast heal minor illness and dispel curse rolling for effect nat 20
DC was 21, what’s your modifier?
Natural 20 is automatic success.
and Shenrons modifier is +48
But I do compliment you but secretly despise you, for patience I have none…but I do enjoy this comic so keep up the good work and entertain me jester!
You’re in luck.
We used to have to wait a whole week
although I do miss the 40-50 comment strings discussing things like Particle Physics as it applies to Maxima’s energy attack
This comic makes me laugh and entertains me nothing else matters, I’m just greedy…and have already re-read everything…twice…
ONLY twice?!?! Go back and re-read it again young man/lady!
Old man actually “lady”…man “lady” I SAID MAN DAMNIT! “…lady” SHUT UP YOU!
Man, your art just gets better and better. I love the expressiveness of the faces, and your stylistic choices. If you start selling T-shirts, I will buy the SHIT out of them. Until then (and following it), I will continue to contribute via Patreon.
ew…
and what will you do with it? Fertilize your garden?
And who has the shirt-packing job?
…Maxima, if Arianna has her way.
I think she would give her the shit-shovelling job.
I definitely need to get busy with some merch.
This statement might sound self-evident, but do not forget to maximise your artwork. By which I mean your art style itself will sell. In particular the characters. For example, contrast the existing silhouette ‘Always expect ninjas’ t-shirt with the scene it is based on. Granted the silhouette does make the image more generic, which does have marketing appeal. Plus it makes the whole thing more ninja-like.
But what it does loose is in the comedy front. The geeky girl, who thinks she knows martial arts and is willing to fight a highly trained assassin. And that is captured in the single frame. Although both versions will undoubtedly sell, I bet that a full-colour, fully visible Sydney will sell loads more.
Also do not forget that you have two markets. The fans and the general public. Presently the majority of your potential sales will be for the former market. But your work is good enough to appeal to those without the insider knowledge of fans. I do not know if you intend to go with a mainstream online company, or do something dedicated to the site.
But, for argument’s sake, if you do the former, then a bunch of your images will sell well amongst Joe public browsing through comedy t-shirts. Just bear in mind that they are distinct markets and choose the subjects accordingly. Some things that may be of massive appeal to fans (say the skill-tree), will be of little or no interest to the general public. Although it might intrigue some sectors, but that is of more use for advertising than merchandising.
Potentially you could end up with two different marketing schemes, say a high volume (low profit per item) with Amazon for the general public and a low volume (due to smaller expected sales but still requiring initial outlay to produce) print-on-demand for the fans. If so, then you need to pick which goes on each carefully. A bit of market research (opinion-polls with fans and going out into the high street with some samples for the public) will always help.
Not that I am advocating such a split, merely pointing out things you will need to consider.
And bear in mind that you do not charge for your website. So if you can get it taken up by web aggregation applications, and the like, as one of their default sites, then you can massively increase your potential exposure outside of the regular circles. I see XKCD just on just about all programs with free sample content (such as the former Google reader), which gives him vast readership, beyond just word of mouth. Actively pushing that and co-operating with sorting out any feed or embedding technology problems they might encounter would reap long-term benefits.
Ah yes, stairs. . . [one flashback later] . . . I think Dave missed an opportunity here to make a “linoleum” joke.
Maxima: Bad at analogies.
What would you bet that the ‘senator’ is a duchebag like early SG-1 Kinsey?
He’s a politician, they’re douches by default.
Also, politicians are one of 2 kinds of people I’d never trust.
The other being lawyers.
You can trust that the layer you pay will do what you pay him for.
You can also trust that he will massivly overcharge you, not actually do what you told him to, but dress it up in so much legal crap that it looks like he does what you want him to
Nah, you can trust Politicians- they’re actually one of the most trustworthy groups of people… Until they’re out of direct line of sight. Then all bets are off.
Lawyers, though- yeah, can’t trust them to even mean what they say- that’s more an effect of speaking legalese for so long, though.
Not coincidentally, many politicians have law degrees. If I remember correctly, it’s one of, if not the most common degree for politicians.
Hmmm… I wonder if this leads to the conclusion that learning legalese – by which I mean you can grok the hell out of at least a major part of our legal system – rewires your brain to think in shades of grey and be inherently dishonest.Or however you wanna phrase it – YMMV.
You have to know the law to know how to break it and not get caught.
Dabbler is good at that. Although some day the Universal Cops will catch up and enforce their Laws.
New machines….better than those on Richese.
Darn! You beat me to it! Curse my need for sleep!
I love Arianna’s “Senator” shout-out. But “quailing” should probably be “quelling.”
Mmm, yea, good call.
@DaveB you should probably take a look at this.
I see Arianna shopped at Unmoving Plaid Company. (If you don’t get it, it’s from TVTropes. If you plan to do anything else today, do not open TVTropes.)
Never do
Think we need to see more of the waistcoat (on Ari or on the floor /wink) before we can say it is from the UPC
Someone save me! I already have 3 tabs of it open…guess I’m not sleeping tonight.
Strangely enough, TV Tropes never seems to keep my attention for long. I always move on to something else within a minute or two.
Sometimes, you have a friend/acquaintance wherein it is the best fun to get them agitated. I have such a friend. When I play games with him, and others, it becomes a secondary, sometimes a primary goal to get him agitated, because he is hilarious. He stomps around, gesticulates wildly, and delightfully funny and insulting things. My favorite way to get him all bent out of shape is to play Zip Zap Zar with him in a group. It bugs him that I can play the game slowly and still win. I *could* play it fast like everyone else, but where is the fun in that? I also prefer to win games in such a manner that it ends in a bellow of “He can’t do that!”, thus sparking long and funny debates over the rules, and their interpretations. Okay, I’m kinda a dick, but I still keep getting invited into games by those people who know me best, and I’ve never been told to not be myself. Heh. Guess I’m great fun when I’m not aimed at you.
Dabbler: I find complex women arousing.
Maxima: Is there anything in the universe you don’t find arousing?
(Dabbler ponders this.)
Max: Stairs?
(Dabbler gets a hint of a smile.)
Max: Frogs?
(Dabbler smiles more, eyes going heavy-lidded)
Max: Lint?
Dabbler (with a little shuddering gasp): …lint…
you forgot dustbunnies
They do breed like err.. bunnies.
I do believe you just made my night.
what about Cheese?
Dabbler: Nghk! Swiss! Cheddar! Aaah! C-c-camembeeeeeert! Oh! Oh. Oooooh…
(long pause to catch breath, then)
Dabbler: Was it gouda for you?
Damn you, I pictured thqat in my head.
Am I the only one who’s hopeing that Maxima and Dabbler get together?
Nope. Though I believe word of god is that Maxima doesn’t swing that way. Still, I plead guilty to totally shipping that.
It’s a pretty thought but I don’t think it will go that way either. ::le sigh::
+1
I was thinking about that since the “Colonel sexy” phone call :)
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/598
Heh, just noticed how Sydney was reaching for the Forb :D
You mean besides Dabbler? Probably not.
Still, we’ve not learned Maxima’s orientation. She may be asexual for all we know.
Nope, she makes out with dudes.
Nah, still holding out for MaxiAri
Dating “mushy humans” could be a problem. Max have a long history of sad one nighters.
Dating doesn’t have to mean going beyond (gently) holding hands and (gentlier) pashing behind closed doors (it would be like Jamie and her asexual girlfriend from GWS)
Is is just me or is Maxima’s face getting…thinner?
I wonder if Dabbler would find Escalators and Elevators thralling.
I’m going to call those three “The Plotting Trio”. Although I get the feeling it started out as the plotting duo and then Anvil started pitching in to stop Max and Dabbler from tearing buildings down while bickering.
What some call ‘bickering’, others call ‘pre-mating foreplay’
dabbler should let max know that this convo is flirting and light foreplay to her. max’s response brie serious (reference prester)
Dabbler would most likely find particulate soil in a colloidal suspension arousing.
Less of that filth piease! ;-)
Nothing wrong with a mud bath. ;-)
well to be fair science is sexy back in secondary school (high school for all you non brits) i loved science classes especially biology and studying the human body “in depth”.
and the “chemistry” me and my science partner had together
and dont get me on physics…….. actually i dont know any innuendos for physics…. dam
Nothing wrong with enjoying Physics.
you didn’t study Friction and Wave Motion?
And equal but opposite reactions?
Or that opposites attract.
hi just downloaded path of exile its really great so thanks for that any others like it?
what specific aspect are you looking for
gameplaywise
-torchlight 2
-diablo 3 (yes yes i know)
-diablo 2
it dosent quite have poes complexity but it is a good example of that type of game (even if it isnt free to play)
mostly something free but also has good gameplay.
but if you know of anything with in depth character creation you will be my hero
you need a pretty beefy system, but the best sandbox MMO I have ever heard of where you can also (almost literally) build your character from the ground up started out as ‘Project Entropia’ and is now known as ‘Entropia Universe’ with a related game (might be connected – haven’t had a strong enough box or a spot to play for a while) called ‘Planet Calypso’. Bonus for people who can – the game allows a two way link to a RL bank account so that you can convert in-game currency (PED’s {Project Entropia Dollars}) to RL money. Last exchange rate I knew of was 1USD to 10PED.
What is the covered up text in the third box?
Spin.
I never realized before that “SENATOR!” is a punchline. But of course it is. ;)
I lost count of the number of times I read this page before I started reading the comments, which inspired multiple more readings. Loving it!
How is that a punchline? She was just letting those without extremely good hearing know who she was on the phone with
Just so you know, Dave, I’ve been debating whether to add to the Patreon since you announced it, but that stairs comeback pushed me over the line. :-P
The panel that broke the camel’s back eh? Thanks!
Second to last panel had me laughing hard
TMI, man!