Grrl Power #299 – Old gnus is still gnus if it’s new gnus to you
A bit of and odd page. I know people were expecting a scene with the orbs coming out and everyone oohing and aahing, but I thought we’ve already seen that a few times in one form or another. Just assumed that happened, the press took lots of pictures and asked obnoxious questions. Eventually Sydney yelled and waved her hands like she does and shooed Joel into the back office to get up to speed.
It really only occurred to me as I was drawing panel 5 of this page that Sydney’s phone should have been going berserk all last night. She had it on her at the restaurant, and every news agency in the world would have been trying to get a hold of her to get quotes and set up interviews, not to mentions her friends. I guess she had all her calls going to voicemail, or more likely she just turned it off after she called her parents. Of course, any reporter looking for information on her would quickly discover that she has a business partner which is why Joel’s phone is loaded up now. I’m sure everyone she’s friends with on facebook has tons of messages from news agencies as well. She’s going to have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Oh and if you’re curious about my misspelling of “news” in the title, it’s a reference to Garry Gnu, from a old kid’s show called The Great Space Coaster. I remember nothing from the show at all, I even had to look up the name of the program, except for the news segment, which was hosted by Gary Gnu, a muppet gnu (wildabeast) and started with his catchphrase, “No gnews is good gnews with Garry Gnu.” The joke being that anything he said starting with an N got an added G sound in front of it which is of course the opposite of how you pronounce gnu. (Though I realize now my title should say “gnews” and not “gnus”. Oh well.)
Update: I’ve posted about a colorist position so if you’re interested, check it out here. (applications are closed now)
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@HALOjrFAN: as sweet as Sydney’s smile
Awesome XD Guess she’s gotta have loads of stalkers now
Fear For Them.
Now? We have been out there for years!
Oh, you mean ones in a world where they can actually get to meet her in person, don’t you? Ahem. Yes, yes, you are perfectly right.
Ok, move along now, nothing to see here…
“Looking very hard for a dimensional doorway into Sydney’s world”…. What? oh yeah moving on.
Maybe that’s what the unknown obs do, open doors into her world, for the aliens who are waiting to get a table and eat our brains through straws.
(whistles innocently while discreetly hiding a transdimensional door between two bookcases) what the key orb? no it doesn’t. nothing to see here.
Gate spells, check.
Dimensional jump ship, check.
Map of multiverse with dimensional openings marked, check.
Locked away in vault in Citadel of Aloneness. Check.
still best security leave the key in plain view and hide the door after putting an interestingly difficult lock on it.
The mechanism should incorporate testing the geek/nerdworthiness of anyone using it. We would not want her being bothered by anybody with too low a rating.
The handle on that Twitter account makes me suspect that it’s Sydney Scoville, Sr…he wants everybody watching channel 5 to know how proud he is of his namesake.
No, I think it’s a random guy that wants to feel Sydney’s orbs. If you know what I mean.
But who specifies HALOjr cause otherwise that would be weird.
I think the possibility that it is her dad is sweet. But there is a plausible alternative. Doubtless @HALOfan is already taken. Likewise I know that other alternatives will have been snapped up already. For instance Sydney-Fan will have gone already.
Sydney Schoville Jr’s full name is a part of the public record, and will have been mentioned by the media, as a routine part of their reporting. So anybody looking for a fan handle may have opted for that one.
Personally I like the implication that she is connected to the other, previously more famous HALO. Bringing up a vision of her dad being Master Chief. We know her dad to be down with his geek. So that does not discount the possibility that he is the one who snapped it up. I imagine it would amuse him to be viewed in that light.
Joel can’t complain about Sid, she promoted the place
And every station around is carrying that pic. I go back to my statement a few pages back, he needs to tell the reporters, if there not buying anything there not a customer. If there not a customer, they cant stay.
As an I.T. guy, I am wondering what that advertisement has done to their web traffic. Has their web-host figured they were getting a DDoS attack or for some reason got mentioned on /. or what? BTW, you are going onto your own server in the morning!
You are, of course, assuming they have a website.
on the original page under the logo she said “.com”… therefor website.
Two identical piles of rubble! I smell a conspiracy. It was all staged ;-P
Or just a lazy artist
*slap*
*slap*
What are you slapping him with? Just bite him. No need to puncture skin for a warning though just bruise him.
Yorp is using his tail to slap with.
yorp used tail whip its super effective
He’s slapping him with a week dead salmon.
Well, that shockwave WAS pretty bitchin’.
I wonder if their version of Mythbusters will use it as another reference test of the ‘knock your socks off’ myth?
Call the networks, I just had an Idea! They could get really increased ratings if they can talk Achilles into standing in for Buster in some of the explosion related tests.
Hell yea!
I’m pritty sure he’d love standing in the middle of an explosion on TV.
Though he’d probably demand a bigger explosion… ALL THE TIME
…And demand sturdier clothing…
I wonder how accurate Achilles sense of touch is? Can he tell how damaging an experience would have been to a normal human? “Yes Jamie, landing like that would have broken a someone’s ankles, but they would have been distracted from the pain by the fact that they were on fire.”
Sounds plausible that he would be able to do just that. There is probably an upper limit to what he can sense though, simply because the human nervous system would not have been able to handle it. Rather like how many species have very few survival adaptations which are optimal after the age that said species ceases to reproduce.
For humans to have evolved the ability to sense things which would have killed them, they would need to have the ability to have actually survived such experiences, and for that to have been a useful adaptation, which allowed them to pass on their genes. So it will help for the situations where people might potentially have survived, sometimes.
But I doubt he will be able to tell anything much above that level. For most programs, “it would be enough to kill anybody” would be sufficient. But Mythbusters have been known to take their tests beyond even that!
I think that there is an actual genetic condition/disease called CIPA in which the patient cant feel any pain at all, ever. Its actually not as advantageous as one would think.
I do not know the name, but, yea, I am familiar with it. It is potentially deadly. Not noticing a cut means you can bleed to death. And you can have your hand sitting on a burning hot pot, or in boiling water, and could be totally oblivious to cooking yourself alive.
Well he could stand in for Buster on any test really. Just attach the same sensors to him. Also they wouldn’t have to reassemble him every time.
This needs to happen.
It’ll be hard though to come up with an in universe myth busters that does not infringe on any copyright or trademark, that’s still close enough to setup the gag…
… perhaps not into the comic… a vote incentive page?
Parodied likenesses of Jamie and Adam will be fine. Especially if satirising them, rather than playing it dead straight. Avoiding directly using the name of the show is advisable though.
Next on “Mythbaggers” Johnnie and Allan use Achilles to see if the brown note really exists.
Hell, parodied? I think Adam would love to be in a webcomic about super heroes. He’d probably be tickled pink.
I have no doubt either. He is a regular attendee at ComicCon But does he hold the intellectual rights to Mythbusters, and all of the material sold under that name? For instance some TV channel might have bought up rights to the old episodes. So, even if he does speak for the current franchise, the ‘old episodes’ rights holders could object to him devaluing the name (they would be twats, but I am just talking legal rights).
You may recall that both he and Jamie appeared in a Simpsons episode. Yet even though it was being voiced by them, the Simpsons used a disguised version of the Mythbusters name.
If, even under those circumstances, they felt that was necessary, then I think it would be foolish for Dave to do otherwise. Possibly it was just done for the laughs, but I am sure Dave will be able to think up an equally amusing play on the name. So, either way, he wins by staying safe.
You don’t even need to use the name, really. Just have Jamie and Adam on a TV, boom, everyone knows what show they’re watching. No show title required.
Very true. They have instant recognition amongst a broad sector of the public. Especially including folks likely to be fans of this webcomic.
Again…. Any webcomic user can put a satire of Mythbusters, using the name Mythbusters, and using the name Jamie and Adam, and using cartooned images of them, without worrying about intellectual property rights. FAIR USE DOCTRINE.
Heck, Least I Could Do already has done it. Much as I think that comic sucks, I’m just mentioning it because of the Mythbusters intellectual property thing.
Duly noted. However, surely a line must be drawn?
If it is just cameos then sure. But the comic we have is real world plus supers. And in the real world, if Adam could hang around with supers on a regular basis and get them to help out with his projects (see the discussions on Achilles as Buster for just one example), then he would.
So it could be feasible that he would become a recurring character, and possibly even one of the regular cast. And then a number of arcs might centre around Mythbuster stories.
If this were being done in a true-to-life fashion, covering the same kinds of things that Mythbusters do, and giving the impression that the story really is debunking some, real world, myths, in the process.
Then, at some point, a court is going to rule “you are no longer making a parody or satire of this show, you are replicating too much of it, too close to their show format, and are therefore in breach of their intellectual rights”.
I thought of this a while ago when I was thinking about how Mythbusters would operate in the GrrlPower universe. I was thinking that Achilles was a stunt double for Buster.
It may even be in Dave’s (as yet unrevealed) history canon that this is what drew Archon’s attention to Achilles in the first place?
Doesn’t ‘Les work as a stuntman in Hollyweird?
Yep
The people over at Eyrie Productions came up with that idea a while back: In Undocumented Features Adam is Kryptonian, which did delay the acquisition of Buster, (who, being a droid, gets to make comments before they do various things to him).
Would love to see representation for internet news sources, ie. TYT, Huffington post, etc.
Also, not including the sleazy “news outlets” like TMZ & Buzzfeed, just feels unrealistic…
JFFR
But what about CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News?
OK, Fox is already represented, but my point stands.
Heh… Now I want to see a comic with Sydney on the Diane Rhem show (NPR) with the expected cutaways to Max, Adrianna, and Joel smacking their foreheads. :)
Or not represented. As someone pointed out, Fear News was a thing on a network other than Fox
Plus no one watches msnbc anyway :)
I forget didn’t Sydney’s not show up on camera or was it just the skill tree. If I remeber the orbs themselves did not have any emission to scan for.
I forgot the word *orbs pardon my spelling tired and have two major papers due.
Basically, the upgrade tree didnt show up on camera. The orbs are visible, but totally undetectable by magic. Its a massive mystery they havent even begun to look into yet.
Yup. And, even when they do start looking into it, I do not expect regular science to have much of a chance. Dabbler might, but if she continues to hit a blank wall, given her capabilities in super-technology and magic, then I suspect that nobody else will make any progress either.
Which is good. Life has it’s mysteries. They need not all be solved.
Science: We have empirically confirmed that they are round, and float in the air, and are totally awesome. Beyond that, we got nothing, but do the “pew-pew” thing again!
The best thing I can say is that the orbs are round. I would be especially worried if they were .
Hope I got the format right.
Nope, I didn’t. I should have trusted my thoughts and remembered to close it.
This is not round
I do not recall having seen that file before. Although I did get a distinct sense of deja vous.*
But I can say that the orbs are not SCP-055.
* I no longer make comments, on YouTube, since the change which enforced Google account names to be shown instead of suitably anonymous ones. But, I still felt a very strong urge to compliment the uploader, on superb timing, on when to cut that scene.
Superb timing indeed. I too feel a strong urge to compliment the uploader.
surely you mean deja vu (already seen), not deja vous (already you(pl/formal))
Yep. My French was pretty poor, when it was at it’s best (dating a French girl), but has degraded badly. Thanks for pointing it out. I shall try to remember.
Hopefully, when I next write it, and see it is misspelt, I will get a sense of having been in the situation before.
What? Did you say something?
All I heard was the Silence…Wait! What are all of these counting-type marks on my arms?
To be fair, there are alot of things science just doesn’t understand.
For example, one of the ‘leading theories’ as to why we sleep is “idk, because we get tired?”
The question as to why we get tired is awnsered by a shrug, and some mumbling
There are loads of theories, ranging from the formation and reinforcement of memories through dreaming to allowing our bodies to repair themselves.
We don’t know which of these theories are true, but scientists are always willing to have a guess and then try and work out how to suport or disprove it.
And of course it’s possible that the answer is several of the above.
Indeed. And there are others too. I have an interesting one, which may feed into that, or stand on it’s own. Stemming from the fact that I have had dreams which come true. Under circumstances uniquely verifiable enough that I am happy to accept such as being factual. Despite that I could offer no proof of such to anyone. So would not expect folks to find it plausible.
But, should you find the prospect interesting, it opens up the field of possibilities even more.
Traditional explanations include that we are reviewing the day’s events, making sense of them, and sorting the memories in ways that are easy for us to access quickly, when we need them. But, if dreams also allow us glimpses of the future, then we may well be doing the same, for tomorrow’s events, as well as today’s!
It would explain why time seems to slow when we have a crisis. Yes, we do have that adrenalin pumping through our system. But we may also be so calmly analysing the situation, because our dreams have prepared us for this moment.
Whilst giving us flashes of insight, as to what is about to happen next, would seem to be the more useful application of such a capability, it could also be highly detrimental if it came as a full-sensory vision.* People would loose track of what was actually happening, especially if it happened just prior to such a crisis. I suspect that evolution would have eliminated such an unsafe mechanism.
But, just preparing us, so that we can understand and analyse the entire situation easily? That is likely to be a win-win scenario that will be propagated. Folks who can do the same whilst awake though? They may win or they may lose. Possibly they will be installed as the oracle at Delphi, and advise society for an extended period, and attract others with like capabilities.
Or, alternatively, they might get burnt at the stake. But, just discreetly dreaming, and being better informed about what is yet to come, when it does? That would help, without risk. And would account for déjà vu.
* I can verify that, even in a dream state, such a vision is fully as real as if you were living through it. This is distinct from the normality that dreams ‘seem real’ even if bizarre. They have a degree of clarity, consistency and detail which makes them distinct. If you are aware of them, enough to analyse the difference.
While I’m not entirely ready to believe that one can predict the future in one’s dreams I’m not willing to dismiss it either. It would certainly be an asset to survival.
I also figure the vast majority of dreams are just the subconscious mind sorting information, trying to make sense of things learned or experienced and just plain mucking around. Since I don’t typically recall what I dreamed I figure that if I do there’s a reason so I try to figure out what the dreams meaning/message is.
A very fair attitude. It is interesting to note, that when analysed by physics and mathematics, there is no particular reason why we view time in the way we do. Other than the observable fact that we all (well y’all) only see it in the one direction. It would be equally plausible for us to experience events from the opposite perspective.
Were it not for entropy, we would not even be aware of there being a distinction between observing things one way, or the other.
As for why most of you only remember events in one direction, I leave for others to speculate. I have no plausible explanation for that, at this time. (Get it? Time, *wink wink*).
I will however throw out one possibility, amongst a host. Perhaps the human mind is ill suited to experiencing time in both directions? In which case sleep might simply be the switching mechanism. Sometimes we might experience life in one direction. Other times the other.
Each time we only have access to the events that lie ‘behind us.’ * In our conventional way of viewing the world, we have chemically and biologically laid down memories in our brains. So can access those, to remember things that have happened in the past.
However the mechanisms that we use to conduct that process are dependant on the arrow of time (entropy). How, or if, we could do the reverse is another matter. But, potentially, we might be able to remember the future, when experiencing time back to front, yet be unable to remember the past.
Perhaps cognitive function does not work well in the opposite direction? Although it can be philosophised that, if we can still think, that we would simply have different perspectives as to things like life, death and war. Hitler being the great humanitarian, who restores life to millions of Jews.**
But, if we are not well suited to functioning whilst perceiving time in the opposite way to normal, even though we can do both, we may prefer to spend most of our time (ahem, maybe I need a new lexicon to discuss this) experiencing life in the direction that we know we do.
With sleep being the mechanism used to separate one from the other. Or to ease the transition, should it be desired. And dreams being a side effect of this. Plus, of course, evolution often makes multiple uses of any mechanism that has the potential for other uses. So the mundane explanations, for sleep, could still be true too.
Think on whether you have a particular golden time, within your life. If so, the next time you are dreaming, you may wish to ‘flip the switch’ and experience time in reverse, until you are beyond that point. So that you can flip it again, to relive it.
No guarantees this will be useful mind. You will not be able to remember this discussion, for one thing. Unless you first master remembering the future (from your new perspective, that is). And for another, would you want to live through the reverse of a golden time? Viewed that way it might be a dark age.
* Interestingly there is one culture which actually uses a different analogy, they feel that we walk backwards through time. We cannot see that which lies behind us, but can see where we have been.
So, in the hypothesis I propose in this post, sleep is just us (or those of us who can, if we happen to be in a minority), turning around. We can still only see in the one direction, once we have done so. Continually spinning would be highly disorienting, after all! But once we have turned around, we can continue to walk backwards.
Whether that is towards the past, or the future, we would only be able to tell by observing the effects of entropy.
** With an appropriate nod to Red Dwarf, and others, who have played on that, in the past.
My usual apologies, for the wall of text.
Who is it that Max is punching in panel 4? I don’t think it was V. His pants were more grayish.
As for panel 2, the moment she said ‘dot com’ in her press speech the server hosting that site must have darn near burst into flames with all the traffic. Syd and Joel probably could only afford to go with a low cost business plan for their site. If they are getting charged for used bandwith their bill for this month will have several more zeroes than usual tacked onto the end. It is also a private site being used by a high profile government employee. It is prone to attach by malware by a foreign government looking to gather intel on her activities. ARC should offer to move it to their secure server. It would be like a US Cabinet member using a private email account to conduct official government business. That would be silly.
The influx of traffic was probably effectively a denial-of-service attack. And even if they did get charged a lot extra for the bandwidth, I’m sure they’ll make it up this month when EHC becomes the single most popular comic shop in the world. Right now they should make sure to order as much extra merch as they can to take advantage of all the customers they’re about to get.
Nope. The pants leg actually matches his pants legs when he got punched as he was leaning up against a slab of concrete
…Unfortunately, we already know of at least one former State Dept. official who didn’t think it was silly…
Hmm, whoever could it be?
Gotta love that Marvel poster in the background.
+1
Secret Wars FTW!
Sydney’s hentorb cursive “m” error is now double canon.
hey, you try writing cursive with mind controlled pseudopod, then you can comment on her mind controlled pseudopod cursive writing
When I learned cursive, one hump was an r, two was an n, three was an m. Maybe my teacher was insane, but that’s how I’ve always done it. (Though I think Sydney’s sign in that panel was the first time I’d used cursive in about a decade.) I’m totally fine with the explanation that Sydney goofed though.
That’s how all of my teachers taught it too.
No, that’s correct. Three humps is an “m” in cursive.
Compare to the example on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursive#mediaviewer/File:Cursive.svg.
A correct cursive M should have 3 vertical legs, not 4.
If you count the correct cursive as having 3 humps (could be 2 or 3, depending on if you count the ascending connection at the start as a full hump or not), then the one in today’s comic actually has 4 humps. Therefore it’s incorrect.
I guess the error comes from DaveB coming back down, and only THEN starting on his M, creating a superfluous leg. But the M should actually start as soon as the O is ending.
The o-m is a tricky one in cursive.
O – n and o – r as well.
m has 3 curves, n has 2, r has 1. The o subtracts 1, leaving m with 2, n with 1 and r with … well a twitch.
I like that sydney has it wrong, it fits with her ADD nature “I’ll add MORE just to be sure”
Aaa yes, ‘you’re going to need to know cursive later’
It fits nicely in the bin with ‘you won’t have a calculator with you at all times’ as reasons to why you need to learn to do complex math on a piece of paper
But then again, you might not have paper & pencil (or pen) with you at all times either; In short, you’re still screwed either way.
Stick (or finger, for that matter) plus dirt works.
That still works for MidnightDStroyer‘s final sentence. Nicely played, albeit you were a bit dirty!
Sorry. I need to both attend Punahoics Anonymous and have a sexual harassment refresher course.
Also, a lot of people living in cities don’t have ready access to dirt to scribble in, albeit with finger or stick.
Blood might work.
Blood fixes everything.
It’s like ducktape for demons
Blood doesn’t seem to be very good at fixing negative emotions…there’s more crying done over spilt blood than over spilt milk
That “m” has four.
But I am also fine with Sydney just being wrong.
also, rather than counting humps, count legs
your “r” has one, your “n” has two, your “m” has four.
A peek at my notes:
Three legs. Ok, camel with a wooden leg. Mmm, three humps. So, a camel and a dromedary. Having five prosthetic legs.
Punchline, punchline…
I think I see where the problem is. You were going from an o. the m looks different depending on if you are coming from a bottom tail or an upper tail(like the o has).
reference
The first hump is actually the lead in from the previous letter. Most letters end with the tail at the bottom line. This creates the appearance of an extra hump. However the o tails out at the middle. This should lead to a different appearance. Of course some cursive writing has the o end low to solve that problem. Or have you drop down from a mid tail before you start the next letter.
All this talk of ‘humping,’ ‘bottoms’ and ‘tail.’ Do you have some Freudian issues?
Who hasn’t?
…Some guys might instead be simply well-Jung…
Of all the possible responses I had imagined, this was not one of them. You sir have truly come out of left field. Or maybe it was right field. I wasn’t really looking. No wonder I never did well in baseball!
I have never been much for sport. Wordplay is just as much fun, but far less tiring. Throw a stick, expecting me, or my Jack Russell companion, to fetch it, and we will just give you a blank look. But you can catch our attention with an interesting word, if it evokes more entertaining prospects.
I suspect that the “three humps for m” rule counted the hump formed by the line coming up from the previous letter.
My advice? Consider going back and including that page of Sydney showing off her orbs sometime. The first panel here gives the distinct impression that he’s reacting to her opening the canister, and if these are the early pages of a new “issue” then a splash of Sydney swinging her balls in the air would be a good image.
Personally I think it is fine, as is. The only improvement that I could suggest is putting a bit of reflected light on his face. A couple of glows, from the orbs he is looking at.
I daresay, in the movie adaptation of this scene, they will start with a shot capturing the unveiling, reflected off his eyes, then pull back to reveal this dead-pan expression.
Where can I buy tickets?
Well, if you are impatient, you could try the Fan-made Halo the movie.
I was looking forward to the Joel reveal, personally. Especially with how much she avoided telling him about the orbs since she started walking around with an orange tube on her back. Felt like a build up from the beginning and no initial pay off.
Vote incentive ?
Hint.
Hint.
His reaction was likely due to the fact that this tube literally rotated around her body. Like, she just held her arms a little loose, and this tube rotated around her. Just from that, some crazy stuff is about to go down….
I’ve got that poster, or one just like it on my studio/den closet door.
Right now it’s buried by several years worth of con ribbons.
Oh, and I agree with Joe (see above) a new issue needs a few “scenes from our previous episode.”
The guy on the Bloviation Station needs to look like J. Jonah Jameson though…”Threat or Menace” is a JJJ trademark!
I just love that his show is titled “The FEAR Zone!”. Best summation of network news ever.
… on BSNN (Bloviation Station News Network).
Nice it doubles as BS news network.
Usually the Station Logo is in the corner while the Show Name is up top or its the Show Logo with the Segment Title.
Ooh, ooh, now that the world has seen the resounding victory that Arc won, do you think that they will build a monument to the battle?
Maybe calling it the ARC of Triumph?
Probably not a good idea, as it could easily be nicknamed the “ARC arc”. Sounds like penguin laughter.
I love it.
I hearby officiall dub this monument: “The ARC arc”
It wasn’t that funny. :)
But it was archetypical…or would that be apocryphal?
Arc-typical.
Or maybe ARC Arch…or the Arch of ARC?
I think it would be more like The Triumph of Arc.
Poor Joan. Such a sweet, God-fearing girl, burnt to death, for political motives. Still she did indeed have her share of triumphs, before her untimely end.
I would assume whoever owns the land the battle happened on would turn it into a tourist attraction.
Oh man, I love how most of the news stations are trying to be all stoic and serious, but apparently News5’s just decided to embrace the madness- the fact that Suzie News was able to stay the face of it, and how they’re treating the actual action the way people would _actually treat it_ is probably going to be great for them.
Thumbs up (figuratively speaking).
*Holds dewclaws in the upright position*
I bet Suzie News’ coverage is full of onomatopoeias. “First, the big guy was all ‘POW POW POW’ and then it was all ‘NEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOW PAP PAP PAP PAP,’ and then that one guy was beating on Maxima and it was like ‘BAM BAM BAM BAM,’ one after another, but then Sidney came in and she got the guy to lower his guard and was all ‘SLAM BOOM SPLASH *gurgle,*’ and then everybody dog piled on the guy and the day was saved.”
*Sydney Sorry for misspelling your name.
I think News5’s management did not recently adopt the madness. Remember, the guy writing the lower third of the miz Scoville’s first interview was making sly commentary on the content of her messages. this MAY be their draw or “gimmick”.
Heck, if you find a TV company which starts using that gimmick, in real life let us know! If it can be accessed free, on the internet, I would watch it. Provided it actually reported real news, and it was just funny captions. As opposed to made-up stuff, passing for news.
I think it would actually be a very clever development, should any folks working in the industry be reading this. Provided they think they can pull it off without risking slander or libel lawsuits. I can see that in a genuine news reporting environment the ‘this is a joke’ defence may sometimes fail. They would need a team of lawyers, behind the scenes, for that show.
It would follow very successful innovations, introduced in the past though. In the UK we used to get “Not the Nine O’Clock News” showing on BBC2. With the non-satirical version being on BBC1. I can’t recall if they ran in the same time slot, or consecutive ones.
But several companies have realised that audiences who follow the news are also good candidates for watching a satire of the same. So schedule them in either of those ways. And, as it turns out, that the satires can often pull a bigger crowd than the main news! Politicians, who are charismatic and witty enough to pull it off, can boost their careers nicely by a successful appearance on “Have I Got New for You”, for example.
This is due to the phenomenon of a lot of individuals being turned off of politics, and reaching for the remote, when it crops up on the news. Yet enjoying the piss-takes of it. So doing, inadvertently, getting their political information only from that source. Politicians who gain their approval will have reached a voting sector that actively avoids party political broadcasts, or other overly political reporting.
A company who can manage to combine the two things into one show may actually attract very high viewing figures, and retain a strong body of loyal fans. And would be doing a public service, by attracting audiences, who are dissatisfied with the regular news broadcasts.
In Canada, we have had several satirical current event programs over the years: Royal Canadian Air Farce (TV and radio), This Hour Has 22 Minutes (half-hour program with room for ads, satirizing an old news-magazine show: This Hour Has Seven Days) are just two of the mix.
Personally, I enjoy the “Last Week Tonight” show that can be found on the youtubes. It’s mostly USA based stuff, but quite good.
It only covers one subject a week though. Sometimes two things, with the second being much shorter than the first, and sometimes the second bit is the appropriately titled “Why is this still a Thing?” show, where they ask why a thing is a thing. The lastest one was on daylight savings time.
Three bits of advice for Joel:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.
3) Repeat.
Good advice for most people, really.
The secret to a long life is to keep breathing…
I like how Suzie News apparently got veto power over how the superhero story was told on her channel. Also, how the CG team gave her free reign to write all over the shots she took.
I would think it more likely that what he’s watching isn’t the live newscast, but videos that have been uploaded to the internet to which someone added text to that last one.
No, he is watching TV channel re-run slash highlights, obviously wouldn’t be live :P
Well, given that she’s probably the only reporter that even has a chance of properly talking to Sydney (Sydney likes her. Which I’m not sure is actually a good thing), she’s probably going to have alot of power in the future
And Ari certainly took a shine(r) to her as well :D
Have to laugh as to who’s reporting the last one. Everyone should have such a happy inner kid.
That would be Suzie: of course she’s happy, yesterday (comic-time) she was just a rookie reporter who just happened to be doing her banking that day, and now she is an anchor :D
Very true.
Mind you, it is even more than that. Yesterday she was just an intern. She was probably just running some chore to the bank for the news editor. And may have been off to pick up his suit at the dry-cleaners next. So she showed real initiative in calling out a news van, and when they told her ‘but we do not have a reporter nearby’, just saying ‘give me the microphone, we do not have time to waste!’
Sydney is not the only girl with balls, in this comic!
Which is Grrl Power in a nutshell! Go, Go Suzie News!
I believe her title would be “Special Correspondent for Superhero reporting”
Or such.
Suzie might like the job of embedded reporter for Arc SWAT. Unless Dabbler trys messing with spelling of ’embedded’.
Dabbles would have to get past Ari to get to Suzie ;)
No, she would just “embed” Ari to.
The M in comics has an extra leg… I’m gonna OCD over that now.
Dang, no point in mentioning to him that the original image was like that too. He will be caught up in an archive-read through now, having been compelled by his CDO to check that. And then gotten sucked in. So, by the time he gets to read this message, he will have found that out for himself.
Mind you, it does to prove that, despite Joel thinking Sydney was unsuited to marketing, she was willing to put in the extra legwork.
Let’s not tell Tom that “Event” is actually being spelled as “Evert”, due to a lack of the extra hump that would make the “r” an “n”.
Go back and look: I made that comment on the original and he replied, and again higher up on this page.
No, it doesn’t. A cursive m has three humps. A cursive r has one. A cursive n has two.
Yeeees… If you look at panel 2, you will see that the “n” in “Event” has only one hump, making it an “r”, and if you count the humps of the alleged “m”, including the hump tailing off of the “o”, you will count 4 humps, but the number of legs is a dead give-away that an error has been made.
Hey, you’re right! I missed the “n” in Event back when I noticed the original “m” in Comics
What Tom and Town Crier said. (Maggie is not wrong in that a cursive M does have 3 humps, though, but apparently fails to see panel 2’s actually have 4).
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, when Sydney floats upside down her hair stays the same as when she is up right?
The popular explanation is that Sydney’s “flight” power is actually more of a “Moveable personal gravity well” so that no matter what her orientation is as seen by us, her personal “down” is still “down”.
I am now leaning more towards a ‘controllable inertia field’ now. Given that, when she was experiencing the joy of flight, with Maxima, Sydney’s hair was not pointing in the direction of travel.
Ok, she could have her hair flipping up and down, as she fine-tunes the free fall, by making gravity go forwards and then backwards. But that does not seem as elegant. Nor was there any indication that such was happening.
It would also stop “Fly Ball” being a misnomer for “Gravity Control Ball”. If my proposal is right, Halo can fully control her inertia, and thereby her velocity, by having the power to bypass a means of propulsion and simply choose whether to move or not, and in what direction, and at what speed. Regardless of gravity.
The implications of that being that her upper speed limit may, or may not, be that of light speed. I leave that up to space opera physicists to explain. Either way she best only test that outside of an atmosphere. Otherwise there might be a scorched Earth!
She still has mass, which prevents her from reaching the speed of light.
An object with mass becomes more massive the more energy it has. In the end, this means that, an object with mass moving at the speed of light, would have infinite mass.
Because you need energy to increase your speed, you’d need infinite energy to reach light speed.
Offcourse, it’s still theoretically possible to reach almost light speed, but in the same way, your accleration will decrease exponentially the closer you get to light speed.
So it would take a VERY long time for her to reach speeds like that.
Offcourse, at speeds like that you get time dilation, so time would slow down for her, which means that she’d live longer (relative to us) and thus have more time to reach those speeds… And down the rabit hole we go
So if it is a gravity control orb, …
Could she combine it with PPO to make a gravity bomb like the Guyver? to use Guyver as an example, the Guyver gravity envlope was very tight to the body the hair could fall out?
Mmm, not really. Gravity control and inertia/velocity control do utilise different forces. Even though there are overlaps. So, although it may superficially appear to be the same thing, there are some profound differences. Initially there are some artistic considerations which come into play. For instance that hair should always hang in the direction that gravity is pulling.
For Sydney to fly forwards, that means her hair should also be pointing forwards. Gravity is pulling Sydney and her hair, and both are falling that way. That is ‘down’ for her (regardless of where the Earth is, if she is controlling gravity). We cannot argue that wind was pushing it back, because she had the force field up, so she was just as insulated from that, as we would be in a fully-enclosed car.
But, if she is simply making everything in her field (including her hair) move, by directly controlling their velocity, and can do that either overriding gravity or ignoring it, then the hair will not be influenced by the external gravity, but behave in the same way as the rest of her body is. If it happened to be hanging down, when she started doing that, then it would, all other things remaining equal, just stay in the same position relative to her.
Likewise, if the gravity is turned up really high, for some reason, then you get the classic ripples on the face effects. However that would not happen if just controlling the velocity (unless gravity has to be overcome, as with any conventional means of propulsion, in which case flying away from the Earth would have the same effect). But high speed horizontal travel would not cause that, if not using gravity to move.
Whilst either version could potentially be weaponised, if Halo can direct it against an enemy, without affecting herself, how they are used would be slightly different too. Using just gravity, an opponent could be gradually crushed, under their own weight. Whereas, by controlling their inertia, Halo could launch an opponent away from her, as if fired from a cannon!
But that wouldn’t happen in any case. If the little gravity field is what causes Syd to move, she would be weightless all the time. Her bangs would be doing the “shocked Scooby-Doo” thing.
Anifreik’s explanation is the best: she’s carrying around her own personal Starship Enterprise. Gravity is always 1g – downwards (her ‘down’) – and there are built-in “inertial dampeners”.
But, yeah: a Gravity Gun is always fun…
The Guyver gravity powers are neat, but he uses them for flight as well.
Gravity Control Orb/Controller (重力制御球/裝置 Jūryoku Seigyokyū/Sōchi?): The Gravity Controller siphons gravitational energy from a higher dimension. Two main uses include giving the Guyver the ability to fly and to unleash destructive gravity waves in the form of a directed “Gravity Cannon”, also known as the “Pressure Cannon” (重壓砲 Jūatsuhō?). It could also be used to block attacks like a small temporary shield.
Nigh Unflappable. that is how you describe Joel. That, and the straight man to Sydney’s punch-line life. this would make him a perfect contrast and business partner for Sydney.
i hoe maxima doesn’t find out about that poll
Why? Why would she be upset? Unless she loses, but don’t see her as being the jealous type
She doesn’t like being objectified. Or anyone else being objectified.
She objects to being the object of objectification.
with maximas feminist ways i think a whos the hottest super heroine poll would offend her
Indeed. However I doubt for a minute she would be surprised at it. The fun will be seeing Maxima’s and Arianna’s argument about whether to object to it though. The feminist versus the spin doctor!
Arianna will only see it as positive publicity. Unless Maxima can convince her that the harm of offending the feminists, by not speaking out, is greater than the good PR by just letting it run.
Whilst it is derogatory, it is still none-the-less positive publicity. Contrast that to the news that Fear Zone are running with, and I do not think Arianna will want to deflect that channel, from their current pro-hero attitude.
I suspect Arianna will be working hard to keep news crews well away from Maxima, for a while. And not just because of that one report.
Coincidentally most news crews are fighting to get well away from Maxima as well :P
It’s been less than a day, but I have no doubt there is already fanart of Archon floating around the darker parts of the internet.
And Sydney probably isn’t a total stranger to those darker parts. I wonder how she’d react to seeing fanart of herself…
Due to excessively high volumes, all calls have been temporarily diverted to http://www.ARCHONline.gov.
Better grab this one, DaveB, while it is still available.
He could get .com or .net or .org .gov is reserved for government use only..
Town Crier knows that. He also knows that DaveB is a government sponsored market researcher, trying to superstitiously judge public opinion. To work out the best time to reveal that super powers do exist.
Hey, why do I see a couple of black cars, with dark tinted windows, pulling up outside my house? And those guys in black, coming up the path!
CUL8R!
Since I see similar cars pulling up outside of my place, I probably will CUL8R.
…Even if no one else does…
The older meme is – and I’m not supposed to reveal this – hey, what are y…
*muffled voices*
NO CARRIER
superstitiously = surreptitiously
Mmm, I think my glasses need checking. I am picking out some very odd words on my spell-check prompt.
They’re on to me. Recall the cars and stealth choppers. We will continue with superstitious subliminal mind control, as that appears to be working just fine.
Darn it, now how am I going to take over the world?
Quit hogging the bandwidth!
You’ll just have to get in line behind Dr. Revenge for taking over the world…
Which is the proper way to stab someone.
That’s why I have clones.
If I really wanted to rule the world that is.
I could rule the world if I wanted to, but who has time for the paperwork?
And making all those decrees.
Tis better to rule the rulers.
Yea, that is easy. Just keep them in a straight line.
If they refuse to toe the line, you can take them to court to have them ruled out.
Gary the Gnu is gnoble and gnice. He lives out in Africa with elephants and mice…
…. Damnit. >_< Now I'm gonna have that in my head all day. XD
Looks like Pinkie in panel two.
Guess that proves they are from different networks: let the rivalry commence! :)
Ooo no, Pinkie is in panel three (she has Pink hair, hence her name, ‘Pinkie’)
Fear Zone! We tell you what to think!
Superheroes: Threat or menace?
LOL! :D
Ah, ‘journalism’.
One thing I just noticed about the news coverage highlights. They conveniently left out the video feed of all the reporters beating each other senseless. Maybe some video technician will release it to the web.
Believe the only reporter involved in a scrap was Suzie
Suzie seems to be the only one who was there before the roads got blocked. I suspect she made a deal with Arianna to get some sound bites after the dinner and got the story of the decade instead.
Glad to see Suzie has been promoted to anchor :D
I don’t think the network had a choice.
She had the all time first at the bank, and she’s probably the only one Sydney would talk to.
Also maybe even more important: Arianna liked her
Arianna liked her with punches, kicking, and hair pulling.
Excactly, they have a bond
You are forgetting the make-out afterwards to make-up for the punch-up
Foreplay.
Glad somebody else had that impression. I thought so too. And almost commented on it earlier, but held back. I was not sure if she might have just been doing a regular report and it was having those other screen elements brought in around it. However anchor does seem more likely for that kind of shot.
If so, Susie has been making phenomenal progress in her career!
Intern —> Reporter —> Battlefield correspondent —> Anchor
Three total garbage “news” stations… Only one that will receive any flak for it.
but i wanted to see the scene where one guy freakes out about Sydney finally showing him whats in the tube, i was looking forward to the call back where he goes “wait, so when you said it was full of artifacts that gave you super powers you were telling the TRUTH!?”
I remember Gary Gnu but I thought it was the “New Zoo Review” he was on. Any my mom saw it and got the giggles. Sometime she paraphrase it and say “This is Gary Gnu with all the Gnus that is Gnus. My mom was almost as weird as me.
Arrgh should read “ANYWAY. my mom” An edit function an edit function my kingdom for an edit function!
Oh. My. FG. I’d so totally forgotten about The Great Space Coaster! That show was so kids’ TV awesome!
Typical? That’s his reaction?
I remember in the last update someone suggested that it’d be funny if Joel suddenly opened up a portal, complained about the advent of superheroes, and left for a quieter dimension.
Seems that’s the direction he’s headed!
*attacks the colorist position page before coming back to read the comments*
Wheee!
Good Luck
Thanks! It’d help if I could get gmail to admit his address exists…
Why not use telepathic channels, like we use?
XD I got it figured out.
So…. ‘Typical’…..?
Does Sydney regularly cause his phone to be swamped with new messages?
I’m sensing that there may be more to his history with Sydney.
this is when joel puts up a sign ” ‘on the job press people’ stay outside the store; and dont block the Kriffing door! thankyou.”
of course he would probably word it better but still!
oh wait i just realized- Sydneys late for work again!
“How should real American’s feel about this! We tell you!”
No, FOX news, we actually are capable of deciding for ourselves. And you suck. A lot.
Exactly my sentiment.
Quick thought: you may want to put the reveal sequence in for the paper books as this is theoretically near the beginning of a new book, it wouldn’t hurt to recap I think.
Actually, that is not a bad point. I still like the way it works, as stands. But recaps do serve a good purpose, for stand-alone sales.
Artistic integrity -1. Sales improvement +1
Poor Suzie. Again we see, in panel 3, Suzie wearing her heart on her sleeve!
*hugs Suzie*
There there Halo will keep you safe!
P.S. Congratulations girl. Independent media analysis has shown that you statistically feature in two thirds of all current TV coverage. Even on channels that your TV station is not affiliated with!
Oh yes, thank you puppy for reminding me why ‘Pinkie’ got that name
/places a box of Scooby’s on a plate
Yum yum, munch, gobble, crunch, nibble, chew….
*bits of box flying in all directions*
puts bottle of scooby dew soda next to yorp “remember to breath and drink something at some point”
Dave is the title of this page a tip of the hat to the great space coaster?
And if so no news is good news with…
“It really only occurred to me as I was drawing panel 5 of this page that Sydney’s phone should have been going berserk all last night.”
I would assume that Leon would have done something to protect her information and possibly a way for her calls to be automatically vetted.
*runs away and hides*
It’s okay not that kind of vet. Umm…There appears to be a trail of urine.