Grrl Power #31 – Urge to kill… rising…
The hardest part of these things is coming up with titles, and… not much is happening on this page, which is probably an indication that I could have condensed the events of it to 2 or 3 panels. Originally this page was far more important, as it introduced the fact that Sydney has a sort of event horizon thing going on with the contents of her poster tube. However, I drew this page a long time ago (well parts of it, I had to redo some of it cause it was yuck), before the argument at the comic shop that lead to the first incident showing the range limit. It does, however, show the continuing chain of events that may or may not cause Sydney to snap. Perhaps we’ll find out soon.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
i hope your quote about the cameras comes true XD
Whelp. Wouldn’t wanna be a bank robber crossing her path now with the mood she’s in. She’d probably wouldn’t need any kind of superpower at all. Simply using the tube to pummel you to death. ;)
About that… Eh spoilers…….
Should have used the drive-thru!
In addition to her OTHER non-heroic attributes, Sydey is also
an aggressive driver?
It would be funny if in 6 months of strip time (2014 for the readers)
she has to go to court mandated driving school!
You are so funny. :-)
Right tho?
More than ten years later, I think we’re approaching 6 months of in-comic time…
it kind of looks like that guy who said that the tube would clatter after her is right. The carring strap for the tube was not on the arm rest when she was in the car, but is when she goes back to it.
That darn container is nuts. Whats in it anyway? I may have missed a post.
I don’t think it has actually been said in comic but if you look at the cast page Sydney’s powers are from 7(?) spheres that orbit her, I’m guessing that when not in her hero persona she keeps them in that container because she can’t go more than a short distance away from them and having stuff floating around you is not a good way of concealing that you have superpowers (well artifact derived ones anyway). Why the tube doesn’t float or follow Sydney along rather than acting as an anchor for her is also as yet unrevealed.
It hasn’t been revealed yet in the comic. The answer is on the cast page, but I wouldn’t spoil it since the reveal is coming up soon-ish. Actually I’d go and take it off the cast page if it wasn’t for that fact. If anyone wants to discuss it I’d remind them that the comments have a spoiler tag detailed in the tag notes.
Ah, my apologies, I had not realized that information from the cast page that hadn’t been revealed in the comic was considered spoilers. I shall bear that in mind for future postings.
Yeah it’s not super easy to see. I’d like to find a plugin that gives the comments form buttons more like wordpad, but it’s a surprisingly difficult extension to find. At least one that I like that doesn’t restyle all the comments too.
Snap? Do you mean she will be a bad guy instead of a good guy?
Oh and I was talking about this comic to my friends and we all agreed it needs to be more feminine. Specially with the title. Just needs a bit of a woman’s touch.
Yeah it seems Sydney is definitely a guy’s kinda girl, more so than I had intended. It may seem kind of stupid but somewhere in my mind lurks the idea that making a female character with any feminine traits is stereotypical and sexist, which is of course pretty stupid but that’s how my brain works sometimes. I once started making a list of extended character traits for my various characters, like favorite music and clothes, etc, but when I was done I looked it over and realized that none of my female characters wore dresses or skirts, so obviously I need to go back over that again. But Sydney has grown up as a girl in a guy’s world, you know comic book stores and sci-fi conventions, mostly guy friends, and she’s pretty small to boot, so defensively, she’s turned in to one of those punchy, spitfire girls.
The title of the comic has more to do with it being about a bunch of female super heroes, (and Maxima being a stalwart feminist) but yeah I could look for a few areas to soften Sydney up a bit. That’ll probably have to wait for other characters to show up though. (I can actually think of a few double take producing gags. And suggestions ladies? A gag about her freaking out over ponies springs to mind – or is that too stereotypical and sexist? I can never tell.)
The pacing of updates is killing me though, so I think I’ve decided that whenever I can get my buffer over 4, I’ll post an additional comic, probably on Thursdays, cause there’s so much that I want to get out there. The buffer is sitting at 4 right now and I almost finished a new one last night, so I’ll see if I can get it out this week. No promises though. Crysis 2 hits tomorrow.
not a lady, but syd seeing a really cool dress in a window or even being wearing one (excuse, it’s laundry day *shifty eyes*)
I happen to like Syd as she is, I see no reason to change her personality and it would seem to me you did an excellant job on captureing what women have to deal with on a daily basis in the work place or even when they wanna have fun, but if you wanna make her geek out about somthing cute my vote is on cute plushies or unicorns
I did not say any thing about changing her personality I was just saying make the comic it self more feminine. A feminne comic I read now is candicomics which I think is where I got the link to this site.
I used to read that. I think the updates got sporadic for a while and I lost track of the story then got behind. When you follow around 70 webcomics, it’s really easy to lose track of a few of them now and again.
Ya I read a lot of them too so I keep a list on one of my 2 web sites I run.
Only 70? Mine’s already in the triple digits, but I’ve lost track of many of them. Makes for a good time waster when I lose track of them for a few months and look at them again.
I got that beat, I had to sort my comics out by day of publication so I could get through them faster. I have a different folder in my Bookmarks for each day of the week plus another one for comics that are on hiatus or that update infrequently.
Perhaps it’s just me, but Syd seems too established to have her just freak out and go all “girly” over anything. From what I’ve seen of her personality so far, she most likely has several “girly things” that may switch her brain to girl mode, but she seems the type to keep these ultra secret from everyone, or only indulge them around other girls.
So I could totally see her as a stuffed animal, rainbow unicorn, twilight reading, giggly little girl who likes playing dressup. Finding this out about her, however, would not likely be very healthy (i.e. the memory of it would soon be beaten out of your mind). Great comic, btw! Been here since the first comic was posted (thisis my first post though) and am loving every update.
Yeah I’m not planning on turning it in to a bishoujo comic or anything, but I think Amy is right when she points out there’s nothing feminine about Syd at all, so it wouldn’t hurt for her to have some kind of girl button that can be pushed
hur hurto humorous effect. Once I get the other characters introduced we’ll see more variety of character achetypes obviously.I would think she would have a dress-up guilty pleasure (enforced in her knowledge of superheroine outfits) that would get her wearing some lavish costumes and maybe even sexy-spy dresses.
Surely she has collections of geeky comic book figures, why not also an extensive My Little Pony collection. That’s girly while also being a collectible
Ponies? There is only one good kind of pony and that’s the ones from SkullCrusher mountain!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_ryNJVreiY
It makes it a better gag if the some characters get the gag (Double take! triple takes as other characters notice a double take about ponies and don’t know why!). …10 panels after the questions about the balls in the tube were properly evaded by the pony song.
Well, I’ve nit-picked enough on another page (*cough*cough*) so I’ll simply say that yes, Sydney does come across as a man’s idea (or “stereotype” if you want to be less polite about it…) of a girl.
I don’t have any real problem with that, despite being a lady myself. There’s a difference between being stereotypical and being disrespectful, and so far you’ve definitely not crossed that line. Anyway, superhero stories are, by nature, supposed to be grandiose and larger than life. Realistic personalities need not apply.
I only tend to associate with masculine girls and effeminate guys.
Androgyny for the win.
You’d think she’d learn by now…
For a second there, I thought Bank was a sound effect of grabbing the money bag. I’ve been reading too many strange webcomics that do that.
That’s interesting. Panel 3 shows it on the passenger seat. Panel 7 shows it looped over the driver’s armrest on the driver’s seat. It looks like the “leash” that holds Sydney with her parcel may be affecting the parcel as well.
// If you read between the lines (of code), good video games sort of do this:
If (too far) then {grab stuff so it’s not dragged along; emit anti-afk beam; activate anti-DOOM field; laugh maniacally in binary;}
I like Sydney’s creepy silhouette.
I’m very interested in seeing what this whole tube thing is about. Holding myself back from checking the cast page is an exercise in self-restraint. Thanks ya jerk…
Keep up the great work!
You know, maybe I will just go in and redact that this evening. It would only take a minute to do, and despite the reveal coming up “soon” as far as the number of pages goes, in real time it’s still a ways off unfortunately.
Found this webcomic via Twisted Kaiju Theatre, and loving it! :D
Found your comic via your Twitter mention (thank you, btw!). Fun stuff! I understand your struggle with the cast page – I’ve been wanting to update mine as well, but half the stuff I want to add would ruin things for new readers, so I haven’t done anything. And now I’ve introduced characters who aren’t on there, blah blah…
Anyway, thanks for a cute comic! I’ll be hanging around :)
In both cases, you and DaveB, it might help to have a hefty notice at the top of the cast page.
“Warning! Spoilers ahead! New readers, proceed at your own risk. Management assumes no responsibility for lost dreams, misplaced hopes, and/or shattered expectations.”
There is a notice now, I put it on the cast page a few weeks ago, and tonight I removed the information until it’s introduced, so now it’s safe to poke around. I don’t think the other characters will have an extended revelation process.
The trouble with a static cast page is that either the information is there or it isn’t, so if you have info that’s current with the comic, and someone goes in and reads part of your archive then jumps to the cast page, they’ll have things spoiled. I’ve figured out how to circumvent that slightly with my “Who’s Who” box next to each comic. It’s a plugin (that only works with comicpress as far as I’m aware) that reads the tags that you put on the comic and can place relevant info into a box or other styled element. By using multiple tags, like “Sydney1” “Sydney2” etc, I can make custom mini-bios like what you see that only contain information that’s current with the comic that people are looking at.
If I ran a bank in a world with superbeings, I’d probably try to buy or rig some kind of superpower detector to give advance notice of potential superbandits. I wonder whether this particular bank has one installed.
In the Marvelverse, where Sentinels can just look at you and tell if you’re a mutant, something like that could exist, though I wonder how expensive that would be and how safe it would be to have some kind of active scanner going all the time for employees. They never address that in X books have they?
“Well, this scanner can ferret out mutants with 92% accuracy, but…”
“But what?”
“Well, it kind of puts off a lot of radiation. In fact, if it scans someone who isn’t a mutant… well, it turns then in to one. That or they’ll die of liver cancer.”
Cancer is just another mutation.
True, but in marvel the mutants are born with their mutation and it is written into their genetic code. Cancer is more of a mutation of replicating cells that deviate from the original code. Also, super powered folks like Spiderman are not technically considered mutants but are considered super human or altered human (I forget the exact term that the comics use). Although there are a few comics that speculate that Peter Parker had some kind of “mutation” that simply allowed him to take on the attributes of radioactive things that bite him.
So what would happen if the Hulk bit him? Or Radioactive Man?
Mr Fantastic, used the term Paranormals.
You know, I have a feeling that the fact that the event horizon effect stopping her is on camera, it might be foreshadowing…
I would agree with the foreshadowing but she basically looks like a spaz there acting goofy and let be honest anyone meeting her will assume it fit’s her personality and she just acting up because she’s nuts.
has anyone else noticed that the tube actually has a lock on the top or am i just seeing things?
No it’s got a lock. I assume since poster tubes can be used to transport blueprints and other things of actual value other than posters, that a poster tube with a lock is a real thing. Besides, I’d think that otherwise, the top could pop off fairly easily (depending on the weight of whatever’s in there) and that’s a concern for Syd as she’s always flopping the thing all over the place.
Having a lock is a good thing when you want to keep things inside a container, or to prevent their theft. But it can lead to difficulties if you need to get the contents in a hurry, or if you lose the key…
Hmm. That’s twice now the tube has got its strap caught on something. I wonder if it’s doing it on purpose?
She should try Wat Har Bo! That stuff is a war crime.
As a fan of Sailor Moon, I immediately think “professor tomoe” for panel six. If you don’t know what I’m talking about ignore this message.
The Element’s gear selector lever thingy-doo is mounted underneath the console – it’s almost like a really big button. That said, nice work on getting its distinctive light-blue interior fabric! The Element is a great car :D
love that title!!!! a reference to black mage prehaps?
I smell a robbery of the bank deposit, and an unleashing of her powers in this comics first foiled robbery!
I love that fact that Syd Can drive a stick shift! **cries** Wish my wife knew how to drive a stick
Question, when the tube pulls her around, where does she feel it pulling? Her head? Chest?