Grrl Power #297 – Morning errant
This page is exists almost entirely due to the fact that when I’m descending in an airplane, I have enormous trouble telling where I am. Mind you this is on the return trip – when I’m coming home to the city I’ve lived in for ~20 years. Obviously I know I’m near and/or heading toward the airport, and sometime I can pick out a massive landmark like a huge mall, but if I’m high enough and can’t read the store names, I’m not positive which mall it is. Also, you’d think one of those big mix masters on the highway would clue you in to which road you’re above, but a sufficiently large city has one every 5-10 miles, so you can guess but you still might be off by quite a bit.
This is mostly my own fault. I mean besides the fact that everything looks different from above when you’re used to seeing it from 6 feet off the ground, but for all the time I’ve spent living in Dallas, I really don’t know it very well. 90% of my haunts are probably within 10 miles of where I live. Once every 3-4 months I’ll wander down into Dallas proper for one reason or another but considering the size of the DFW metroplex I really don’t go exploring a lot. That’s why when I spot a mall from the air “near the airport” I still rarely have any idea where I really am. Sydney’s probably the same way, most of her regular destinations are ~10 miles from where she lives, with the odd trip out further to the specialty game store or a small comic convention in a satellite city. If she wanders too far off her beaten path without a working GPS she can get lost real quick.
That top panel took like six hours. :…..( While I have a functional understanding of perspective, a city scape like that is more or less beyond me, at least making it look convincing. So my solution was to take several photos and stitch them together, then use that as a base to paint from. That’s harder to do than it sounds cause finding aerial photos taken at roughly the same altitude can be tedious, plus most of the pictures I found were either taken smack in the middle of the downtown area, were suburbs with nothing but residential housing, or they were countryside and farmland. Maybe I’m bad at Google but industrial urban sprawl aerial shots all in the right perspective were few and far between. Once I have the reference pictures melded together I wind up fudging a lot of details anyway, but it’s useful to have the base to work from. I do that partially cause I don’t want to just plop a photo in there, even with attribution and permission I’d still want to paint over it, and partially because I want to be vague about what city they’re based in, at least until I decide it’s relevant to the story to establish it. The point is the characters may fly over this exact spot a lot. :)
It occurs to me that I didn’t draw Sydney with a purse. I gave her a little blue one in some of the early pages when she was at the bank but then I completely forgot about it for the next 250 pages. Even though she doesn’t carry cosmetics around with her, it seems unlikely she’d be able to get by with just a phone and wallet in one pocket and keys in the other. (And The List in her back pocket) Yes, if she was only running to a grocery store and back maybe, but she’s leaving her apartment for the day. Very few women are so minimalist. I don’t blame them. If I could carry around a purse like thing that was acceptable for a man, I would fill it with all kinds of garbage. The perfect example is a shoulder bag I bought for carrying stuff around conventions. It’s exactly the right height and width to fit an iPad, but obviously it’s deeper than that with three separate zippable compartments. Now it has, in addition to a small sketchpad, some pencils, a phone charger with 4 separate USB outlets on it and the appropriate cables attached, and a small stack of the postcards I use to pimp the comic (perfect for a convention naturally), it has every adapter known to mankind so I can hook the iPad up to any video display, with the possible exception of UHF. The bag is now weighs 18 pounds. Oh, also one of those very small screwdrivers with all the interchangeable heads stored in the handle. Because I’m a guy.
March snuck the hell up on me. :P I seriously thought there was like a week left in February. :/ Edit: The vote incentive is finished finally!
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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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.
The unskilled javascript injection of some malware “kit” is back.
she has her shield up in the other hand so she isnt beaten to death by the heilo blades or pushed arround by the down draft. There will be no passing of a pen.
Possibly she also uses it during flight to prevent damage by birds or strong winds.
Also probably because it’s friggin’ cold up there without a jacket.
I get that, but it seems like it’s been coloured as the “Lighthook” orb rather than the “Shield” orb, no?
The colouration can vary depending on the lighting conditions and, more importantly, the background behind each orb. In this case, helpfully, we can clearly see the lighthook orb above Halo’s head. Because those two can have a similar shade (in circumstances such as that panel), it is always safest to look at the inside of the orb.
Those two are distinctly different, when you do that. Notably you can see a miniature version of the tentacle writhing around inside the molest orb. So we can tell that she does have the Forb, in her right hand, and the Fly Ball, in her left.
Looks like I’m not the only one seeing some javascript that my antivirus dislikes.
I see it too this time, a first for me :p
I’m assuming the screwy text on the top of the page is the malware that’s been talked about repeatedly in the comments recently – I use safari, and this is the first time I’ve seen it.
Yea, it comes and goes. Very weird
I dunno. I put “industrial urban sprawl aerial shots” into Google and clicked the images ‘tab’ and got a lot of images that look a lot like your panel 1.
It’s a good thing Sydney has her force field up. Otherwise if the pilot thought he was having a stroke and went to land real fast she might be Cuisinarted by the rotor.
Mmm, so do I. But, whilst there are a lot of results, trying to find half a dozen that are all from the same height and angle? Which also look interesting enough to add to a rich composite panorama, in a seamless manner?
This is actually the artistic style that my dad specialises in. In his case (despite being an amateur artist) he is a retired professional photographer, of many years experience. So he can pick and choose his own shots. But that process takes a lot more effort than we, those without the artist’s eye, appreciate off hand. The photos I may pick could well end up as poor reference material, to those with the eye.
Having to trawl through the results that come up on my search, rather than taking the exact photos required? I can well see how that will have also taken a big chunk of time. Let alone the legwork required to come up with that search term originally. Sometimes you can waste a lot of time, using terms which yield poor results. That none-the-less require investigation to see if there is any merit in them. Not to mention getting some weird top results to some, that you were not expecting.
I do love the results of this style mind. Doing a photo-realistic painting is something I much admire. But, for a photographer, that is rather a pointless exercise. However, compositing a picture, which looks like it was painted from a single photograph, yet being a rich and varied vista, which has never existed in the real world… that sends shivers down my spine!
Thinking about the difficulty of navigating from the air it seems to me it would be fairly easy to find certain general areas, but a specific place would be more challenging. Particularly if it’s not near an easily recognisable (from the air) landmark.
So… now that I think about it. Did she tap the glass with her shield? Because I don’t think her hands reached through it.
Good point. That is not something that anybody has raised yet.
The best explanation I have heard (regarding a way in which Halo could be heard in the helicopter) is that Halo pressed her force field flush against the cockpit of the aircraft. As a side-effect, of doing this, it could have made a “TUMP” noise, and, if Halo had to adjust her position, it could have repeated that. Or she could have done it deliberately to create a knocking.
That does not quite sit well with me. Halo is pretty smart, and would not want to do anything which would unduly endanger the aircraft. Well any more than what she has just done by scaring the pants off them, anyhow! It would be hard to judge exactly how much to bang into the glass, to create the noise, but without a risk of fracturing it.
But, if her main aim was to move the force field flush to the glass, without any knocking, then she could be a lot more gentle with it. None the less, that would leave the question of how she actually made the noise, as I doubt such would have created a noise loud enough to carry over the rotors. Looking at the picture though, we can see Halo has the orbs raised. It looks like she has been tapping on the inside of the force field with one of those.
The fact that the two surfaces (force field and glass) are in direct contact, would allow the sound of the tapping to be carried from one to the other, and setting the air moving, beyond, to allow the sound to be heard.
Note that this is doubtless a sound-baffled helicopter, with the minimum of rotor noise, as it is one used for live radio broadcast. The rotors will still make an intrusive noise, as the graphics demonstrate. But, clearly, the “TUMP TUMP” was heard, however Sydney may have done it, otherwise there would not have been the reaction.
Depending on the reporter’s reactions, on the next page, we will find out if he could also make out her words. It was necessary for “DaveB” to write them, for the gag to work. But there is nothing, yet, to say that Barry actually heard them, on his side of the glass. But I find the theory outlined to be plausible, personally. So I would not have my disbelief challenged if he did hear it. Although I would expect it to be difficult. Helicopter conversations always are.
By the way, I should make an apology to one and all. I know I come across as a know-it-all-twit. And it can be a very irritating attitude, at times. Even for folks who know and like me, in real life. Family included. The friends I keep are the ones who can put up with, or forgive, the irritation. I have lost more than a few, down through the years though.
Sadly, it is an integral part of me, not one that I can dispose of. Not without loosing more than I am willing to part with, anyhow. So I just want to say how much I appreciate the tolerance y’all show to me, in this community!
This page, in particular, brings it out in me. Even putting aside the re-appearance of the doggy, who’s image I use as my avatar. Which would clearly bias anybody. But, trying to be objective, I feel that this is simply a masterful page. The panorama in panel 1. The phenomenally cute hovering-with-feet-raised-behind, in panel 6. The true-to-life observations about point of view changing perception, and the corresponding ease of getting lost.
Not least of which is the final gag, which is simply side-splittingly-hilarious! Although I will usually defend DaveB, as a matter of principle, where there is the benefit of the doubt to be had, I am can be amongst the most vocal, if I feel something is not right. If only from the point of view of providing constructive feedback.
On that angle, the one flaw I could raise with this page is that panels 5 & 6 do not have the smoothest of transitions. Not that it impacts on the gag, as the visuals of that are far stronger, than the “which way has he turned?” query, which only comes up later. Beyond that though, I do find the totality of this page to be incredible. Writing, art, social observation, the lot. And champion it accordingly.
In doing that though, I can ride roughshod over dissenting points of view. Which can be unfair and potentially counter-productive, if it dissuades constructive criticism. And, ahem, sorry once more, over the walls of text.
*slopes off guiltily*
I know that kind of feel, Yorp. Some of my freends have referred to me as “a vast repository of completely useless information.”
The way I see it is: Just because they can’t find a use for it, doesn’t mean it’s useless.
;)
Let he (or she) who is without character flaw cast the first stone at ya.
The biggest problem with that kind of sentiment is that most of those who start throwing stones will not acknowledge that they themselves actually have character flaws…
:/
*throws a stone at you*
Not because I’m without character flaws. I just like throwing stones at people.
Refer to Math’s “effortless dodge.” But I won’t be caught off guard from any other possible attack, like Math was.
;)
*throws a 400lb boulder at you*
I am DR.REVENGE , and I am an argumentative rules lawyer.
But since every rule has it’s exceptions, that would count as your character flaw, wouldn’t it?
;)
*throws another stone at you*
“Hands Pander a Belt of Stone Giant Strength and a 400lb boulder”
You, sir, are a great man.
Okaaay…time to invoke the ‘ol Ninja Invisibility & get the hell into Dodge(ing).
*throws heat-seeking 400 lb boulder*
Evil Overlord rule #198
*Yorp* I guess you can take this as a compliment but I thought you might have been a 2nd account of DaveB’s because of all the stuff you knew or thought would happen in the webcomic, or you were someone that could talk to DaveB directly somehow and he shared ideas with you. Why would DaveB need a 2nd account? I don’t know. That thought just gradually came into my head after reading many of your comments.
Aww. That is nice.
*wags tail*
Nope. Not unless he is the one writing my life. And thereby scripting my comments. Mmm….
Hey DaveB, can you introduce a little love interest please? Shades of Sydney. Perhaps a dash of Peggy or Dabbler?
Too bad one of the as yet unidentified function orbs isn’t some kind of GPS / locator tool.
Instead, Sydney will have to do ‘fly bys’ of any copter, aircraft or winged wonder that is around the area for directions.
You are looking for a TOWER and can fly… 250mph, i think it was?
I thought it was near or just over 400…
Sydney was going about 400mph when following Max out to the test range…”popping some taaaaabs.”
It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to fly that fast amongst buildings & other such city-based obstacles…
And when Sydney was flying at 400 mph, it’s pretty clear that she was not going at her max speed – she didnt even realize how fast she was going, so it’s pretty unlikely that she was ‘pushing’ her speed.
It’s not Sydney who has a max speed though, it’s the orbs.
It would depend on how the orbs handle feedback if she can even tell when she reaches her max speed, other than not being able to accelerate anymore
Given that she had her shield up when flying at 400mph, it’s not surprising that she didnt notice at all how fast she was flying. The shield probably also shields against inertia and wind shear, and Sydney is not the most attentive person to be looking down at the quickly moving ground when she’s having fun.
I wouldnt be surprised if Halo can break the sound barrier.
Sydney, clearly you need to spend some time looking at Google Maps and their aerial views of your hometown.
I saw some HTML up above the comic a few pages ago…I’m on an iMac so it didn’t do anything evil, but I was curious about it. Is that the unskilled javascript someone keeps trying to dump onto the site?
And I completely belly laughed at Sydney in this strip. I have an innate sense of direction and while I CAN get lost on crowded close streets, for the most pat I’m pretty good at finding my way around. It comes from a lot of wandering around, and reading maps. A LOT.
The junk appears at the top every so often.
Then DaveB invokes his mojo and it goes away.
I think the web master waves his coding wand and intones “JAVAS ELIMINATUS!”
My COFFEE! What have you done to my beautiful, beautiful COFFEE!?
Don’t you know the difference between JAVAS ELIMINATUS, LINGUA JAVA PERFICIO and SCRIPTUM ECMAS REMEMDIO?
I swear, what are they teaching wizards nowadays.
“Hands R. PENNER a card for a lifetime of free coffee.”
It expires Monday the 8th of March 2015 .
Signed by Thanatos.
I wonder if R. Penner’s Greek is as fluent as they sound in Latin? Hand’s R. Penner a copy of the Iliad, with annotations marking a section on the fall of Troy.
Beware Greek gifts.
So does anyone else think it weird that sydney always wears a long sleeved shirt under her t-shirt? Like have we ever seen her without a long sleeved shirt? Could there be a reason she does this?
Not necessarily, I’ve seen a few people over the years for whom that’s normal. What I found more unusual is that yesterday Yorp’s owner was wearing pink spandex bike shorts & sleeveless sports top and today she is wearing sweatpants and a jacket.
Colder today and earlier in the day (so also colder)?
Yeah but definitely a big difference in FL that’s a couple day’s and/or a lot of rain’s difference.
Well, yesterday showed blue sky and sunny – looking at the past few pages, today is gloomy and overcast, with threats of rain.
Any rumours of possible links between Jiggawatt’s battlefield entrance and storms are, of course, entirely unfounded.
Some people do wear them that way.
It could also be a case of wanting to wear a favorite shirt and having an extra layer between the bra and eyeballs?
Eyeballs of other people that is.
It’s called a ‘layered look’. A way to show off a fancy t-shirt like Sydney is wearing and have something more substantial under it in cool weather. At least when it started. Now it is for the look only.
What I find amazing is that Sidney doesn’t seem to notice the Looney Toons reference.
She is heavily preoccupied with being lost.
I’m so glad that you saw that. I was feeling quite old and alone for recognizing it. (and Bugs Bunny has always been one of my favorite quotation sources.)
I just want to hug you, and pet you and squeeze you!
*hugging, petting and squeezing*
*gently*
I hope that Sydney’s balls don’t have a limited battery life, otherwise it’s a long way down…
I’m sure Sydney’s balls are powered by something other than batteries.
Perhaps some green renewable energy source like wind power…
They’re powered by what all superpowerful mysterious weapons are powered by.
The souls of dead orphan children, of course.
Which, to Observer’s credit, is probably considered a green renewable energy resource.
I was trying to be creepy and you topped me. Bravo.
Thank you, thank you. I aim to please.
All of the replies reached levels of weird I thought I’d only seen in Felicia Day’s 48 hour fundraiser through Geek &Sundry’s twitch.tv channel last night. Probably today though I’m not where I can watch it. And tomorrow.
This comments board is pun addicted. Opening with talking about Sydney’s balls dropping is just asking for weird! Let alone packaging batteries in the box.
Unless I’ve seriously misread accounts based in old folklore, the souls of dead children wind up in pumpkins if they don’t first go to whatever afterlife awaits them. This is one of the reasons for carving Jack o’ Lanterns for Halloween; carving the pumpkin gives the souls awareness that they are dead & when the pumpkin itself dies, are freed to pass on.
First off, the souls of dead ORPHAN children. They can’t just be any old dead children. Has to be orphan children. Learn your science, man.
High tech gadgets are always powered by the souls of dead orphan children. Even Thaddeus Venture knows that. They are to physics doohickeys what embryonic stem cells are to medical doohickeys.
There was a 6 part comic book series in the universe of “The Crow” I picked up at a comic book shop one day.
The guy was killed and his girl’s body was used by an organization to download an old woman’s mind into it. He wound up killing the enemies followed by doing a psychedelic dive into the computer system to pull his fiance’s soul out so they could move on.
Totally different type of science, but similar principles.
So long as it’s not the suffering of orphan children I can live with that.
Don’t worry about that. Orphan children don’t have feelings like normal people like you or me. They’re like gingers in that way. So there’s no suffering even when you use their souls as a power source.
That’s just science.
Besides, even in the unlikely event that they did suffer, it’s still a green energy, and green energy is good right? I’m pretty sure Obama said that a few times. I’m also pretty sure if they suffer that their tears can be used as nourishment for the world’s hungry.
They are powered by SPACE MAGIC!
Nah, you’re thinking of the endings of Mass Effect.
They’re powered by swearing, of course… I’m sure the things must be nearly at full capacity, if not overflowing by now…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eT0nZUROQ8
If only two of Sydney’s powers work at once, I deduce she is using the Flying orb and the force field orb, because when you stand under a flying helicopter, your hair goes wild no matter how much gel you used. But doesn’t that mean the helicopter suddenly has a place the air it is pushing downwards suddenly can’t go and it will spiral out of control?
Not enough air blocked to make a big difference. A little adjusting of the controls keeps things on an even keel.
At least it isn’t as bad as the Batcopter from the 1960’s Batman movie. The bat wings they mounted on it effectively robbed the engine of half it’s horsepower due to blocking the airflow from the rotors..
https://acesflyinghigh.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/to-the-batcopter/
I doubt it is a problem. Whilst the downward displacement of air is an essential part of the process, of keeping winged aircraft in flight, that is achieved by the horizontal motion of the wing, through the air. For a fixed-wing aircraft, that involves being able to travel horizontally. For helicopters, they simply rotate.
Either way though, what is going on underneath is of less importance than the air on the same level as the wing, that it is actually passing through. Turbulence from aircraft travelling through their flight path is a real issue. Turbulence behind you (for fixed wing) or below you (for helicopters) though, is not such a biggie.
Provided that the obstruction, below the wing, is not so significant that it is stopping air from passing underneath it.
So, provided Sydney stays well away from the rotors, I think the helicopter will have no problems from her presence. The pilot though? He may yet freak out.
Those are indeed the two orbs in use. Think she would have been better served using the telepresence orb and appearing inside the helicopter to avoid most of the rotor wash/noise, but think that’s one of the orbs on the ‘not cleared for public consumption’ list?
Correct
A similar effect did come into play in the military operation to go after Bin Laden. When the helicopter tried to land in the compound the walls reflected the downwash around and back up over the spinning blades effectively pushing down on the helicopter. This sudden loss of lift caused it to drop to the ground rather than land properly and crashed the tail section into one of the walls.
Yea, however that is a significant obstruction causing that. Not that I am familiar with the reporting on the incident but, going from what you describe, the key part is that there is an increased airflow going over the top of the rotor. They are shaped just like the wings on regular aircraft. Designed such that, normally, more air passes underneath the blade, than over the top.
This means that there is a lower pressure above the wing, compared with than below. Resulting in lift. In that incident, however, the pressure would either be equalised or, even worse, made greater above than below. In the worse case causing the rotor to actually push the helicopter down. But, either way, given that helicopters are not lighter than air, gravity will win, in that situation.
Halo would have to enable her enbiggener for there to be a comparable risk here. Currently, the surface area of her small shield, compared with the far larger area, that the rotors are sweeping over, makes the effect negligible.
There will be a certain amount of drag being created mind, but that would only manifest in reduced operational efficiency, rather than creating a hazard. If she were flying next to a fixed-wing aircraft, for a significant distance, it would find that it’s average speed was being impacted.
Unless they established themselves in appropriate positions corresponding to birds flying in a “V” formation. In which case they will actually optimise the airflow, to reduce the drag on the trailing aircraft/hero.
Do however note the legal implications, unique to Halo, as a device using hero, for attempting such a manurer. For the aviation regulations on this, see the comment posted (oddly) on the September vote incentive commentary page.*
However drag, from a hero chatting outside a hovering helicopter, would only result in a minor increase in fuel consumption. In my non-expert opinion. A few cents worth, for a particularly long conversation, I guestimate.
* I say ‘oddly’ because it used to be easy to see how that would happen. Whereas now it no longer is. Dave used to post a link to the vote incentive page, in the ‘please vote’ box. So I could see how folks, unused to how the comments here, could easily find themselves there. Even when wanting to comment on the current comic. That happened on a regular basis.
But now, there is no longer such a link. So I cannot figure out why it keeps cropping up. Perhaps the link still appears, when accessed from certain devices or programs?
*sigh*
manurer = maneuver.
Mmm I note that my spelling was so bad, that it did not actually give me any options to pick, other than the shitty one.
Aha! No I was not wrong! I spelt it correctly. The effing browser dictionary just did not have the word at all. Which is odd, given that it is not exactly a newly coined, or specialist, term, such as “teleportation”.
Do you knowthe way to San Jose?
I dunno. I mean…
I’ve been away so long.
I may go wrong and lose my way.
I think my compliment to Dave about the excellent use of light in the incentive art never got through. So here it is again. The sunlight reflecting and refracting through the orbs is complex and beautiful to look at.
Yes, that is a beautiful effect. Especially combined with the sunrise/set.
So…a question that may have been addressed already (even if the answer is “comic book”): If air can’t pass through Syd’s shield (illustrated by her needing to drop and refresh) how can people hear her? Don’t sound-waves travel through air, meaning [no air passing]=[no sound passing]?
Sound is just the vibration of molecules. That vibration can be propagated through any contiguous material. Be that air, glass, water or otherwise. The transition from one medium, to another can alter the properties of the sound though. Muffling it, dampening it or otherwise making it unintelligible.
However, if she had hard vacuum, on the other side of her shield, no sound would pass through that.
As for the properties of the shield, there we can only speculate. But, as you say, air is blocked, but sound is not. The most obvious analogy is that of glass. Especially as we can see through it too. If you stand in a greenhouse and shout, people can hear you outside, even with the windows shut. The sound is being propagated through the glass. Muffled, yes, but it is still getting through.
So just think of the shield as being made of unbreakable glass, if that helps visualise how it behaves.
Or better yet a hamster ball OF DOOM!
I think Doom was more in need of a squirrel ball…
Ok… I need that shirt.
Someone make it happen.
I sure hope the pilot has nerves of steel.
Also you should properly label the image used for “floating in the air above city” shots. In case you lose it by accident. =)
She could just be knocking on the edge of her shield with one of the balls in her hands to make the knocking noise. Simple and it gets the job done.
This just in, a light drizzle will pour down on the city in three seconds.
That took me a second to figure out…and then I was like, “EWWWW” and then was like “Oh dear god HAHAHAHA!” Nicely done.
Thank you. :D
I forget, where is this set? It doesn’t look like the stereotypical NY super setting, is it Seattle? LA? Aerial views confuse me too ^_^
Dallas
huh. OK thanks :)
You gotta remember, this strip’s creator lives in Dallas (most of the comic creators for the series you are used to were from New York), and the Team is technically a branch of the Military so Texas (Texas & the Military are incredibly fond of each other). It also doesn’t hurt that strategically a protective agency located in the south central US makes a lot of sense (between being able to reach both coasts in the same relative amount of time & having relatively reliable weather).
… yeah, as someone who lives in Dallas, “reliable” is not the word one would ever use to decribe the weather here
Where weather is concerned you never use the term reliable.
Except for it is reliable on messing up your plans.
Hence the use of the modifier “relatively”. I greatly suspect they’re less likely to be socked in by something like a blizzard than say Chicago.
Well, a Dallas-like city anyhow. The names have been changed, to protect the innocents’ identities.
Such as Sydney and Kenya. Until Dave’s public opinion survey project (a.k.a. Grrl Power) has helped determine the optimum timing, for the press release, to let us know the truth, anyhow.
Any chance of getting the first panel without captions, in a size large enough to use as a screen background? That would be cool.
I think quite a few of us would like to see that. And a couple of attempts have been made to get a survey going on just how many of us would. As those incorporated a poster option though, I was unable to sign up, given my impoverished state. And there would clearly need to be a cost, to get such into production. But, if that does not get off the ground (so to speak), a wallpaper option would indeed be awesome.
And Halo’s face, in the final panel, would be a lovely addition to the portrait rotation, for that matter. Her inquisitive expression being so cute.
This is the most disappointing strip I have seen so far in this comic. The problem is, it is the first one I’ve read that doesn’t have one after it. Please fix this terrible error, as I have never come across any webcomic that has made me laugh as much as this one.
SOON!
Somebody who makes such a barbed and hurtful comment, turn into a resounding compliment, is clearly a witty and welcomed addition to our community.
A bit of a random question, but could Sydney possibly deliver pizzas to the space station with her flight and force field orbs? Because that would be interesting to see.
It all depends on the relative position of the ISP to her location on earth.
Probably. Sydney would be safest using a proper space suit too though. The shield probably protects versus radiation, just as much as light. But, as Maxima demonstrated on the bomb range, Sydney looks cute in big puffy suits. Ahem, sorry, I meant it is best being safe, rather than sorry.
Likewise she should carry plenty of spare oxygen tanks, and power for her heater. Even embiggened, the shield would only trap so much air in it. Plus any other supplies she might need, such as water and food (no nibbling on the cargo allowed!).
Without crunching the numbers, I guess that at 400 mph, she should have little problem getting there. Usually the biggest issue is the amount of propellant and fuel available. But that is simply not an issue with the Fly Ball. And Halo can probably fly faster than that too.
But the air would get stale, at the very least. And may run out, depending on the flight duration (especially if she does not take an optimal trajectory, as DR.REVENGE points out). So she would want a healthy margin for error.
The pizza would be cold however, by the time she did get there. Halo would be able to open the air lock door though, provided she came to a stable rest, before swapping out the Fly Ball for the Tentacle Orb.
I would recommend she take a curry instead. She would enjoy that more, and it is just as good cold as when hot. The ISS astronauts recently had to evacuate one of the modules, isolating the atmosphere in the contaminated section. Which they did perfectly safely. So they do have practice, for such an eventuality.
I don’t think curry would work well in the extreme low gravity. Very messy and Sydney does not need the eyepatch again.
I did consider that. And you may well be right. However I do not think that will be the case. Halo does not demonstrate anti-gravity. Her control seems to be absolute, rather than a simple negation. If she flew by falling horizontally, her expression would have been very different, when she first did that.
We have more than just the five classical senses. The inner ear, and other organs, allow us to tell if we are falling, and it triggers a primal response. Terrifying rather than exciting, especially if not expecting it. Which, for her first high-speed flight (as best we can tell) that would have been a serious problem.
As such, I am fairly confident that she does not simply control the direction that gravity is applied in. She also can change the magnitude of it. In my opinion, she flies by controlling the gravity, and increasing it in the direction she wishes to go.
She can probably allow herself to free-fall, under it’s influence too mind. But the control she gains, from being able to fine-tune the force, gradually increasing, decreasing or reversing it, means she has fine manoeuvrability. Thus making it feel more like rapid decent in a high-speed elevator, rather than the butterflies-in-the-stomach you get from a bungee jump.
Halo really can experience the joy of flight that way. So I think she is fine up to the International Space Station. But, if her ability to generate gravity is reduced, as she moves away from Earth, then that would have major implications, as per your comment. Let alone those of the far more ambitious concept of interplanetary travel.
But, if she is able to anticipate and measure that limitation, in advance, I imagine a suitable low-energy trajectory could be calculated. Perhaps she would be able to coast? Giving a much increased flight time mind. How feasible that would be would depend on factors we can only speculate about though. So could not even asked our informed physicist readers to calculate. They would lack key numbers.
Mmm. Self-analysing that hypothesis, I can see that the arguments would still work if she was only applying fine-tuned control of the magnitude, with an upper limit of normal gravity. Ie if she could reduce or change the direction of the prevailing gravity, but not increase it. If that is the case, then Bmw‘s argument would remain sound.
Unless someone can suggest any other indicator, either possibility remains open. All depending on how she controls gravity of course. If she is falling towards an extra-dimensional planet-sized Chthulu, then she would have no problem doing that in interstellar space, for example.
He he. I missed the word “curry”, as I was still thinking about the initial flight to the ISS. And immediately launched into my reply without reading the rest properly. Sorry. And apologies for all my separate posts, especially those due to my mistakes. It was a thought-provoking initial question.
Addressing your latest, in the terms you actually wrote it, rather than the impression I jumped at though. Mmm. Most of my previous points, regarding flying to the ISS also apply to the art of (near) zero G curry eating.
For ease of simplicity I still visualise Halo as creating her own gravity field (note that her hair always hangs perpendicular to her own,*** local, gravity field, rather than the planet’s). This is not to say that there is convincing evidence that she is not just manipulating the direction of the prevailing gravity field. Just that I find it easier to visualise.
If that is the case, then she would be able to walk around, and eat and drink exactly the same as she could on Earth. One handed, as she would need the Fly Ball in hand to do that. Without it, * yea, your amusing image of curry floating around all over the place would be true.
But would that stop Sydney from wanting to chase globules of spicy curry around, with her mouth, messy and dangerous though it would be?
Hell no!
* Or if she is a manipulator but not creator of gravity.**
** Other than the teensy gravity field we all create.
*** Important observation, added as a PS to all the above. Sydney’s hair, in the ‘Joy of Flight’ scene does not fall in the direction of travel. So at that instant, despite travelling forwards at a considerable speed, gravity was acting towards her feet. This is entirely consistent with my hypothesis that she is tweaking the gravity forwards and backwards, with her hair flipping around as she does so.
However, if her hair does not do that, then she may not just be able to manipulate gravity (or may not even control gravity at all). She could be directly controlling her inertia (including her hair etc). And intertia (or inertialess, to be more precise) drives are one of the staples of space opera (see the classical books of E.E. Doc Smith for them in action).
If she is able to manipulate the two separately from one another then the questions of space flight and curry-eating may need to be addressed separately. As there could be the case of her having no trouble getting there (manipulating her inertia), but then having a problem with floaty curry.
If we take it that Halo can control the velocity of any objects though (hair being one example, albeit complicated by being a part of her) independent of any other force acting upon them (such as gravity), then she could force the curry to behave as if it were in a gravity field, even when none were present. Or fly into her mouth. Or do loop-the-loops.
She could also make inert objects circle around her head, for instance. If you can think of any examples of her doing that, then it would strongly support this hypothesis.
Oh, and she better take some ‘overflow capacity’, to store anything that the suit cannot handle, for a long trip. We must not forget that what goes in, also comes out. Icky to talk about. But not as icky as if she forgets that.
Not sure if anyone else mentioned it, too many comments…
But OMG, she forgot to take a left turn at Alberquerque… Drive!
Traffic in the metroplex? wait… wait… this is happening in DFW? mind blown – also, so THATS why the background in the first panel looks like south Dallas
Yea, I remember it’s look from the air, and that is reminiscent. Not that I have seen any thing of it on the ground. At least not that cannot be spotted from the airport. Vast though that is. Mmm, they also had big hot dogs there. The stereotypes about Texas are true!
That is not to imply I would not want to go there mind. I have a friend there, who I would like to visit. He does have some strange hobbies though. Bagpipe playing and illegal alien hunting.* Dabbler beware!
* With binoculars, not guns, thankfully.
Ooh, I note we have some new portraits added to the rotation above. I found Halo, looking at the skill tree, to be particularly eye-catching. Nicely chosen Dave. I shan’t rush to peek at the others. Although I am keeping my claws crossed that one of the cute ones from ‘touching a star’ is in there too.
And it looks like we Grrl Power holds spot #1 on topwebcomics.com by a fair margin.
*wags tail happily*
Loving the finished vote incentive Dave, especially like how Halo is cheekily reading an X-Men comic :D
Chopper guy should fall out of the sky without a hand on the stick. Choppers are twitchy like that.
He’s the passenger… the pilot is off frame.
She can’t be TOO lost… That appears to be the same woman and dog she terrorized in front of her store yesterday…
Reference: see page 16 (sorry, for some reason I can’t get my iPad to make a link to it).
That is ok. I remember the encounter graphically. And, yes, it was. The nice lady, who gives walkies, has now recovered. Plus it is now a fond memory for me. Alarming though it was, at first.
Because any Bugs Bunny reference is a good reference :-)
If that were an air ambulance the possibility would’ve existed for a “what’s up, Doc?…. besides you?”
Ok, I guess I’m a dumb schmuck, but when I first glanced at the first pic in the comic, I thought an actual photo had been used to make the background!
Nicely done!
I would not say that is dumb at all. It does convey that impression, at first glance. And it took a lot of work to achieve that effect too. Six hours well spent by Dave!
Love the “left turn at Albuquerque” reference.
And, if a city is sufficiently large enough, ~75% of the drivers are either complete assholes or incompetent morons who in either case need to have their license revoked until they pass driver’s ed again (and the assholes get to take an anger management course too).
Off the top of my head; Kansas City (BOTH states), Oklahoma City, Dallas. Pretty much any city where a wqreck happens on THE SAME STRETCH OF HIGHWAY NEARLY EVERYDAY and the drivers still can’t seem to learn to USE THEIR F***ING TURN SIGNALS.
What is the name of this city? I don’t recall it ever being mentioned.
It has not, intentionally. Even to the extent that, if you read the artist’s blog above, compositing photographs taken from different places (almost certainly from more than one city) into one view, when drawing the scene above. Likewise the street names are fictitious.
Currently it is a generic American city. Although DaveB might choose to set it in a specific one someday, if it serves a purpose. However, it is worth noting that he lives in Dallas, and so there are a few shades of it, in some of the art and dialogue.
https://www.google.com/search?q=industrial+urban+sprawl+aerial+shots&biw=1366&bih=609&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiH35KHkYfNAhVLPiYKHUwaAqEQ_AUIBigB
You’re right..most of these aren’t suitable.