Grrl Power #312 – Succudigression
Dabbler obviously avoided the question of what happens when a Succubus is totally deprived of tantric energy asked on the previous page, like if she’s locked away where she can’t influence anyone. I’m picturing a Sleeping Beauty type trance (cause trance sounds sexier than coma) that will eventually lead to death, but they can last a while in that state.
This whole page was originally part of the previous one, which is why I had so much trouble getting it written. When I finally broke it into a separate page it let me fit in a few more gags like Sydney’s though bubbles and the tickle laser bit, so it’s for the best. Optimally though there should have been a pause panel or something after Sydney left before Dabbler started tinkering, but there you go.
If this page looks at all different to anyone, it’s cause it’s the first page I didn’t color all by myself. Allow me to introduce Keith Wood, who landed the coloring spot. He’s been involved in webcomics for a while, most notably Mysteries of the Arcana, which he currently arts. It was a tough decision to make. A lot of people applied, I never heard back from about half of them which isn’t that surprising for something like this. A few emailed back and bowed out gracefully realizing they weren’t quite up for it or acknowledging it was a lot more work than they expected (I gave them the inks for this page to work on, which was an intentionally complicated page as it has Dabbler in both forms and fading between them as well as Maxima, who is shiny and requires a slightly different technique. I needed someone who could jump right in.) In the end it came down to two people and I felt terrible having to tell someone they didn’t get it cause I’m a big softie. I went with Keith because I thought the way he colors would make for easy corrections. I color all the foreground on one layer (well, I break them in to separate layers while I’m coloring, but the end result is all the color, highlights and shadows are on a single layer, (then the background has it’s own colors, etc) where as Keith colors by flatting everything, then doing all the shading on a multiply layer above the flats, thusly:
The advantage to this is that all you have to do to change the color of something is just change the flats, and all of the detail is preserved. This technique is not without its quirks though. On the shading layer, you can flood fill the whole layer white, then set it to multiply which makes it transparent, then start noodling in the detail. The reason to do this is most blendy-painty tools act differently if there are already pixels there for them to blend with than if you’re painting onto a blank layer. It’s like… wetting the page before you start watercoloring. Obviously this technique doesn’t work on the highlights layer since coloring a layer white then setting it to Add, Screen, Luminosity or whatever would just make for a white screen.
So Keith colored this page and then I did some touch up to minimize the differences in our techniques. I gave him some feedback based on that and the second page he did for me, which goes up Monday, was much closer to the mark. This process has taught me that I’m really bad about finishing my background inks until I’m basically done with all the foreground colors. I have to get better about that so I can deliver properly finished pages.
So the point of all this is to free up some of my time so I could start putting the book together, and it worked! The first step is going back over all the corrections I have, and over the one weekend Keith was coloring for me, I fixed nearly everything! Remind me never to change a team’s seal or a character’s rank mid comic again. I haven’t uploaded any of the changes except one yet, I’ll probably do that after I get all the fixes done. After that, I have two bonus pages to draw (I think, they’re not necessary for the book, but they’d be a nice addition if I can manage) then I have to draw a cover, scan some early art, etc etc, then put together the kickstarter. No idea how long that will take, but at least it’s moving forward now.
Here’s a random thing that has nothing to do with the comic but I enjoyed it. I think we can all agree that John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is one of the all time great monster movies, yes? Well, someone wrote a short story that is The Thing, but from the Thing’s point of view. I thought it was quite good. It’s read out in an audiobook podcast here. The whole site seems really cool if’n you like short story Sci-fi.
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.
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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.
Tickle laser sounds suprisingly effective
Perhaps not that good in disabling (unless it is very strong) but it would be a very good distraction. Especially when she gives five of them to Harem.
It depends on how ticklish you are, but I’d say rolling on the floor while soaked in your own urine counts as disabled.
And for some folks, it counts as a fetish.
A game of water-polo, anyone? I’ve got the balls…
So you say.
No, it’s “so I’ve written.”
;)
And as it was written, so shall it come to pass.
Technically it’s “typed” not “written”. The act of writing technically only applies to manuscripts.
that’s not what your wife says.
Hey, that was a legitimate written recipe we used for the meal. It passed quite nicely.
Let us hope you used rice paper, rather than chiselling it into a stone tablet. The latter might have damaged the porcelain.
What were they called in the motion picture classic that was also
Pia Zadora’s screen debut?
Was that a beam or more of a cattle prod?
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. A Mst3k staple. And it was the “Tickle Ray”.
And I didn’t have to look it up. :-)
I remember during the early 90’s they made a B movie where somebody invented something called the Orgasamanater.
Maby Dabbler could invent that. For her it would be a fast food beam.
1990s? How about in Barbarella, from 1964? :)
Sleeper / Orgasmatron.
There is a real condition where people’s genitals are constantly active and get orgasms all the time. (Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder, or Restless Genital Syndrome)
Aparently it sucks (extremely distracting to the point where you are unable to anything, painfull)
This brings up an interesting question.
Is pure physical stimulation enough to generate tantric energy, or do you need mental/emotional/spiritual arousal?
Maybe it works the same as Vehemic energy?
The emotions make it more potent/tasty
Believe the movies name was ‘Orgasmo’, main theme was a Mormon doing his missionary work getting conned into doing porno, but they would use a stunt (stud?) double for the actual sex. It was actually pretty funny.
It was based on an actual adult comic book… ^.^
“Bring in the stunt cock!”
Yes, I remember something like that too. But the movie I remember was called “Orgazmo” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgazmo
In trying to locate that link I also came across this short film – enjoy; https://www.whateverpictures.com/orgasmraygun.htm
Orgasmo was made by the guys who did south park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone…
Tickle lasers are experimental technology! No one deserves to have power like that! Dabbler has gone too far!
For something a little more severe, Dabbler could create the Spayser.
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
It could also be called The Neuter-izer…
Given the effectiveness of “Tasha’s Hideous Laughter” in some circumstances (like when your target fails his safe/you beat their magic resistance), I would have to think so. :)
Tinkering Dabbler is cute
Any other dabbler is just kind of creepy.
I have to admit, that child like look she has is just adorable.
And of course, her hair is damn sexy again!
She is indeed adorable. I thought Sydney’s idea of an amazing pickup line would be the highlight of the comic until I got to that panel. All she needs is a white lab coat.
New colourist looks fine, I hardly see a difference
Yeah! Matching someone else’s work is hard to do but the only place it looked a little different was the nunccubus panel and since that’s a new character with weird lighting that’s not even really a miss.
Sooo, are you going to tell us where the corrections are, or are you just going to sneak them in and pretent it has always been like that?
Most of them are little things like fixing Maxima’s rank, but there are a few art changes. I’ll probably make before after page for those.
Way to kill Sydney’s hope of finding an Incubus.
Wouldn’t be so sure. Check Dabbler’s answer to that question.
Specifically, she did NOT say ” No such thing“, or words to that effect.
She said ” That’s …. complicated. Suffice to say, all succubi are female. ” I think the only thing we can definitively take away from that is that the subject is, indeed, complicated.
Maby Incumbi are a diffrent species of demon.
Related but distinct maybe?
Note that Sydney did name Incubi, and Dabbler didn’t confirm that (she didn’t deny it either though).
So it’s probably some form of that, but complicated.
Or maybe it’s just that a female tantric-feeding demon is always a succubus while a male is always an incubus, and her statement that “all succubi are female” is simply a mathematician’s answer.
Is there a gender neutral word for lust demons? (succubi/incubi)
Like a collective word for both the male and female version (like man/woman is both human)
In the mythological origins of the term, both “succubus” and “incubus” were forms that a demon could take. As such, there isn’t really a gender neutral term, since each was fundamentally one sex or another. Any demon could become a succubus or an incubus at any time. In some traditions, this was how demons reproduced: by jacking some semen from a human man as a succubus, and then impregnating a human woman as an incubus.
Of course this is all moralizing superstition and it definitely won’t appear in the comic (except maybe as a misconception about succubi). But, to answer your question, the only gender neutral term would be “demon” which won’t be used here because it is already a general term for demons who are not succubi at all.
In DMFA the nongendered term is “cubi”
Exactly – the term “succubus” is indeed exclusively female. I take her comment to be equivalent to “All mares are female”, because the word “mare” just means “female horse”, so just like there are stallions, there could also be incubi. Not sure if there’s any non-gender-specific term to refer to both succubi and incubi. (Just like there’s no non-gender specific word to refer to cows/bulls, although “cow” often is incorrectly used for that purpose.)
The non-gender specific word for cows and bulls is cattle or bovine. Not sure about succubi and incubi, though.
“Cattle” is the collective term, used to refer only to a group of cattle. You’d never refer to a single individual as “a cattle”. And “bovine” is really a scientific term, also usually an adjective, equivalent to “equine” or “canine”. Just another weirdness of the English language…
Bovine is a scientific term, but it’s a perfectly valid thing to use when you want to avoid gender specific words.
The word you are searching for is “kine”.
Don’t think that’s right either. Just searched, and it seems that “kine” was used as a plural for “cow”. Wouldn’t be used to refer to a single cow/bull of unspecified gender. (It’s also considered archaic, so nobody uses it anymore anyhow…)
she is a nerd doubled by OCD
of COURSE she will get into this things and want to know more forgeting what she is supposed to do lol
Not OCD, but ADHD. Big difference.
oups lol my bad but STILL, obvious reaction of her due to that hehe
Harem discreetly reaching for the Tickle Laser in the last panel…
A teleporter with a ranged tickle attack?!? That’s so OP
It makes for hilarious hijinks when used on a bomb disposal technician in the middle of a mission.
Haha-booooooom
“You know what happens if you can’t stop laughing? One of these days you’ll die laughing!”
-1 internet, but +1 pop culture for those who know the reference.
;)
What, you don’t think I know the reference? p-p-p-please!
MD never thinks.
Only if it would be funny.
Firstly harem I totally agree go for the tickle Laser
Secondly if there were a surplus of succubi in the World diGiorno would be out of business
I read that panel differently. To me it seems the delivery guy “came” to the sorceress’s house where the trainee succubus was at. She was the one saying she loves delivery.
So in a world with too many succubi every guy wants to deliver pizza. (bastard spell check keeps changing that to succumb –which is almost apropos …)
DiGiorno’s is the frozen pizza that supposedly tastes as good as delivery pizza, so Croc’s comment makes sense in that context. I still think he got it backwards – now if the succubi were DELIVERING the pizza…
Wow.
Or the sorceress ‘is’ the succubus with a glamour up. Either way..
‘Dear Penthouse..’
I used to deliver pizza. FOUR YEARS & nothing even similar to that happened to me. I must’ve had the wrong route…Or maybe there’s a deficit of succubi in our world.
I only delivered pizza for a very short time. I quit because I was spending more for gas for my car than I made with tips and hourly wage combined. My average tip was 10 cents. (I live on the southern border of Detroit Michigan. So people don’t have a lot of money here.) My hourly wage was $2.00 an hour. And I was averaging 100 miles a day on my car in a 6 hour shift.
concur. I delivered pizza for 2 years and did have some great story-worthy events, but nothing even close to a “Dear Penthouse” moment [insert sad face]
Bottom-middle panel Dabbler looks really… different. Her face is drawn in a very different manner than normal.
She’s fucussed. It’s unusual
Agreed. It really sticks out – almost jarringly so. She not only looks much younger but her face looks wider, a little puffier with very suppressed cheekbones. It is almost as if she is intentionally puffing out her cheeks in concentration. Comparing #1694 panels 4 and 7, #1698 panel 1 and today’s 6 I see three very different “people”. #1694 is a darling twenty something, #1698 is a mature thirty something and today’s is a teenager.
As far as the coloring I can’t see any difference. Even flipping back and forth between these last two strips they look the same.
Big Head science Dab’s is not common outside of her lab.
Seconded (or thirded). To me, the change in proportions is jarring and not really in keeping with the rest of the strip, unless it indicates actual shape-shifting.
Yeah I drew her head too big in that panel for some reason, but it somehow looks ok to me like that? I should probably fix it.
I think part of it is the weird expression on her face- I realize that she’s trying to do the sticking-out-tongue-while-concentrating thing, but with her odd features and forked tongue, and the 3/4ths perspective, it comes across as weird-looking. Whether you replace it or not is up to you- there are a few other panels scattered throughout the comic that seems a tad deformed, but IMO it’s all just part of the evolution of your style.
When I was into art for a while, looking at at some of my earlier stuff made me cringe but I forced myself to leave it alone in order to remember the progression.
It’s like it’s half-chibbi. It works for that scene anyway.
I agree, it works for that scene. I was very surprised when I saw it, but I liked it.
It is very jarring to me as well, but I hate it. Mostly because there is no apparent reason for it and it was a sudden jump form Sydney.
it’s in both panels 6 & 7 – larger head, smaller features, smaller body – I’d almost say chibi-fied, except all the detail is still there
FOCUS, Sydney! Ignore the shiny distractions: you’re trying to do something moderately important. Your meds are only an assist: it’s still up to you to have the willpower to keep your mind on target.
With Sydney being Sydney, I think if she DID manage to actually come across a “male” succubi, she’d be the first human female to make one explode……………
HOW she’d do that, I leave to more “fertile” minds, but she’d definitely find a way
Fairly obvious. Laser BOOM.
It was a horrible combination of Carolina Reaper poppers and Terawatts of repressed sexual energy.
I am amused by Sydney’s idea of her being seduced.
“I come bearing chocolate stuffed ghost peppers and lost episodes of Doctor Who.”
…
..
.
Take me now!
Where exactly is he bearing them?
He’s an Incubus. Would that be ‘bearing’ or ‘baring’?
Male, but for lost episodes of Dr Who, depending on which Doctor, fulling willing to cede first base.
Hartnell or Troughton probably, if we’re talking lost episodes.
You will need to cede third base for the lost Dr. Who episodes.
why do you even own parts of a baseball diamond? and why give up part of the set if you have a complete one? or do you mean you would let them steal a base during a game?
I think this might be related to that baseball metaphor I’ve heard about! https://xkcd.com/540/
I’m prompted me to give Sydney & the ladies here this warning: Beware incubi bearing gifts. They know just what to do for breaking the ice & getting…er, um…the juices flowing. And they’ll ruin you for even the most virile of human males (presuming, of course, that Dabbler is an exception-to-the-rule by using an Amnesia Hammer).
…Having the Lost Episodes of Dr. Who even entices me, a card-carrying straight guy…
I find it interesting that Sydney’s version of a seductive demon is submissive (in both speech and demeanor)
There’s an extra space in the “into” in the last panel.
“in to” vs. “into” is kind of tough to understand but I think I got it right there.
Shouldn’t it be ‘in trouble’ instead of ‘into/in to trouble’?
Uhm, this is Dabbler, right? Have we all forgotten that she’s not 100% up to speed on English? Honestly I’d just leave any grammatical mistakes that occur accidentally in place and attribute them to being in-character.
Does this mean that she is talking about “bringing them both in”, as to make them the targets for her “to trouble”?
HAND CHECK on Harem in the last panel!!!
It looked to me like she was trying to pocket Dabbler’s toy.
It didn’t disappear when she let go, it’s one of her few pieces of tech that’s stealable.
It’s still a work-in-progress. She evidently hasn’t installed the “auto-teleport safety” mechanisms yet.
I thought the vampire comment slipped by too easily. :)
The crusader comment made me wonder if this was supposed to be Mark and Abby from Thom Zahler’s “Love and Capes.” :)
Chocolate stuffed ghost peppers?? Ew. Is that a palatable combination for anyone? Will you even notice the chocolate?
Anyway, you’ve been doing such a splendid job with the colours until now that I was apprehensive about you bringing in someone new, but I didn’t notice the difference until I read your comments. In hindsight, are the colours maybe a wee bit more saturated? I thought Sydney’s very tiny smile in panel 4 looked unusual, but I’m not sure if the colours have anything to do with that. All in all, looks good, and hopefully it’ll help you make your schedule a little bit more flexible.
Oh, you will notice the chocolate. For the first five seconds or so.
For someone like Halo this must be a delicious blend. Like these dark chocolates with just a pinch of chilli in them for the mere mortals.
By the way, I just found a 16th century report from Mexico regarding chocolate:
“Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is very unpleasant taste. Yet it is a drink very much esteemed among the Indians, where with they feast noble men who pass through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women that are accustomed to the country are very greedy of this Chocolate. They say they make diverse sorts of it, some hot, some cold, and some temperate, and put therein much of that “chili”; yea, they make paste thereof, the which they say is good for the stomach and against the catarrh”.
Yeah, chocolate was used by Mexican natives for centuries, but the idea of sweetening chocolate didn’t occur until it was “acquired” by European explorers during their travels.
Yeah, it was the Aztec nobility that reserved chocolate drinks for themselves…However, notable merchants were allowed to drink chocolate & even “dress above their station” for holding their own private functions among themselves.
Well they do make chocolate covered jalapenos.
https://www.chocolatecoveredcompany.com/chocolate-covered-peppers.html
Well, but that is chocolate *covered*. Not chocolate *stuffed,* which was kinda my point. Won’t the peppers have totally numbed your taste buds before you even get to the chocolate?
It would depend (I guess) on your capsaicin tolerance. In Sydney’s case that’s heroic if not superheroic class.
Not really. Chocolate and spicy food actually go together extremely well :)
My friends from Korea keep giving me chocolate covered hot peppers or spicy chocolate. I like both separately, and I like chocolate in certain Mexican dishes (a local place makes an awesome chocolate mole sauce) but to me those flavours just don’t mix.
“Suffice to say all succubi are female.”
Well, yeah. And all incubi are male. Its the naming convention. Its like having a male Nidoqueen. It just doesn’t happen.
Also, I always imagined incubi as James Bond-y kind of ladies men. Like, they are really good at seduction like a succubus, but they do it through swave words and romantic gestures that cause ladies to swoon. Unlike a succubus who could essentially just take on a super model form, put on a low cut dress, walk up to a guy at a bar and just go “Wanna go back to my place?” And boom. Hell, most clubs would be all you can eat buffets for succubi.
Well Dabbler can disguise herself to look like the perfect female to any male, so no doubt Incubi can do the same thing
Or they just take off their shirts and let the abs and pecs do all the work.
What? Seems to work fine for the Archon beefcake.
Probably it has been said before, but I am really curious why we didnt get to see anything about Sydney upgrading. Surely that battle did give her some upgrade points… just thought about it after rereading the press conference part.
The trouble was that she accidentally triggered an upgrade to one of the unknown orbs, so she didn’t even know what it did to begin with, far less what her upgrade did.
Actually, she upgraded her “Vision” or “Com” Orb (GP #182). See the fight with V to see what that did for her.
Hmm. I see that you’re right. I misremembered it as being the brown orb, which she looked at two pages earlier, and the page titles are so cryptic that it was hard to find.
Maybe she has a daily EXP cap
looking at the orb’s skill tree it is evident that they are far from 1st level items, with a substantial amount of the tree being filled. we know that they just recieved a level up prior in the day so the must still be a way before enough XP is obtained for a 2nd upgrade.
Even after all the exposition, and the cute succubi, my first question is still: how on earth is the tickle laser supposed to work…?
Don’t take me for a scientist; I just pretend to be one online. Still, my guess would be some sort of directional, low-intensity electrical stimulation. The sensation of tickling works on the same nerves as the sensation of pain, just with a lower degree of energy. I could actually see some sort of ray that creates a tickling feeling as possible in real life, now that I think about it, though of course there would be some complicated issues about how to auto-adjust the power, how the range would effect performance, and so forth. I’d also expect some small electromagnetic anomalies near the weapon’s “barrel.”
In any case, such a device would be exceptionally effective if set to a wide-angle projection and could potentially stall, if not subdue, an angry group.
Larry Niven made his crowd control weapon a TASP. It projects a beam that directly stimulates the pleasure center of the brain, making the attacking person(s) no longer care about what they planned to do to you. (A ‘droud’ is a hard wired link to the same area, used like a drug by addicts)
But how does it know which part of which alien brain it might encounter to stimulate? Because science!
It would probably only work on a single species, since different species would have different anatomy, and thus the laser would need to be calibrated for humans.
It could be relatively easy to recalibrate though
That depends. For Earth creatures most have similar enough nerves that other nerve stimulation work the same (eg capsaicin or pain killers). That said for aliens that could be completely different (they might not have nerves at all).
so basically you’re saying that these guys just need to decrease the power projected by their device and it’ll TICKLE instead?… :D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
seriously though, I’d much rather be hit with a tickle-ray, than the ADS…
Now I need to roll up a Succubus Nun in D20 Modern or Mutants and Masterminds.
Planescape: Torment already did that with Fall From Grace.
Well, Grace wasn’t exactly a Nun, per se, but she did possess cleric-like abilities. Her core of “belief & faith” was derived from her experiences of the multiverse & how it could be subtly manipulated to achieve cleric-like powers.
nah… go with “Kung-Fu CB Mamas on Wheels vs. the Aztec Motorcycle Wrestling Nuns” it was shown in “Murphy’s Rules” from Steve Jackson Games, way back in the day…
Hey, I’ve got that one out in my storage shed. Also the expansions, including “Fun Guys from Yuggoth”. Showcasing the Great Elderly God, Isaac Azatoth.
There was the game that started as Macho Women with Guns & expanded with Renegade Nuns on Wheels & eventually, Batwinged Bimbos From Hell.
From what it looks like to me, your talking about the same game, but renamed it (to good effect).
No, no, you’re right. The Kung-Fu CB Mamas, etc was just a joke game. One of the April issues of Metagaming? Space Gamer? magazine published an errata list with all sorts of weird rules. That’s the one that was in Murphy’s Rules.
Then later Macho Women with Guns et al appeared, probably inspired by KFCBMOWvAMWN.
Huh, looks like Mongoose came out with a d20 version of Macho Women With Guns:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1877/Macho-Women-With-Guns?term=macho+women&it=1&site=&manufacturers_id=45&
And a “homage page” for the original version:
https://maverick.brainiac.com/mwwg/
Okay, long time reader, over a year now, and i must say, that i do personally love Dab’s newest toy there. If i’m correct, isn’t the Sonic Screwdriver model that a certain Tom Baker (4th doctor) used?
Also i win so many geek points for being the first person to notice it.
You do appear to be correct on the screwdriver.
+5 geek points.
But you lose 10 geek points for asking about the points.
The first rule about Geek Point Club is…
Sorry, you’re not cleared to talk more about it.
FNORD
FNORD AD FNORDIUM
Ding! More recent incarnations of the sonic screwdriver are more recognizable but Tom Baker was the man.
A-Blood-Men
https://th02.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2013/335/8/4/sonic_screwdrivers_by_jonizaak-d6wg86d.png
Monty: Dad, is there a word to describe answers that are completely correct but entirely useless under the circumstances?
Prof. Jones: Yes, yes there is.
— Irregular Webcomic!
===
A work colleague of mine said it well, it was a favorite phrase of his as a matter of fact: “Correct, but irrelevant.”
So true, in so many situations. :)
@Oberon: I believe the word is “tech support”. :)
Speaking of noticing thing, does anyone else think that it looks like Harem is attempting to pocket the little gizmo in the last panel there? I know that all of Dabbler’s tech is supposed to port back to her lab the moment she lets go of it, but maybe this hasn’t because it’s not finished yet? Or does she turn that feature off when she’s working on something because otherwise every time she wanted to reach for a new tool or stop to take a break she’d need to expend more energy re-teleporting it back?
The teleport module is a standard piece of her equipment, I’m guessing. It would be the last thing to be installed since I doubt that Dabs actually brings things out of her lap until they have been tested. Harem could pocket that piece because she hasn’t put one in yet.
Sydney! Take one for the team! I need thoes lost doctor who episodes.
Great page as usual, but aren’t panels 2 and 3 out of order? Shouldn’t her asking about food come first followed by Dabbler’s concession that it’s possible to live entirely on tantric energy?
Also, I agree that the proportions on Dabbler in the second to last panel seem a little off. Kind of randomly Chibi-ized, but I find that too adorable to care =D.
No, I think panel 2 is more about whether a succubus *must* have sex herself, or if it’s possible to get sufficient tantric energy from someone else. Food hasn’t come into it yet.
That poor creature in panel one. Every moment of it’s life must be a struggle!
Not so unusual among the “celebrity starlet” or “popular politician” classes…
…to the ultimate detriment of anyone who seeks to host their appearances.
Well, that largely answers my question about Dabblers parentage. Sydney asked specifically about Inccubi, and Dabbler half dodged the question, but seemed to insinuate they didn’t exist. So I guess she must have gotten it from her mother’s side, with the father providing the doppelganger /alien bits. Considering Dave’s reply to my last comment, this means her father is likely an alien of some sort of significance.
I wonder if Dave is taking a more classical approach to succubi. The original idea was a demon (who aren’t usually considered to have a gender, male or female) took on a female appearance to seduce monks in their sleep, thus making them break their vows of celibacy. They would steal the semen, change to a male form, and go over to the nearby convent. This explained wet dreams for the monks, and how pretty young abbesses who’s only male contact is a celibate priest get pregnant (the monk and the abbess are both in trouble, but the priest is off the hook). The previous pages of discussion on weather a succubus’s actions constitute rape have been a little funny to me. The issue is a serious one in real life, but originally, succubi were all about coercing you to do something you had made explicit vows never to do.
We know that succubi have very very powerful glamor spells, so maybe some of them switch to a male persona when seducing women. Dabbler seems to prefer to just make the ladies switch teams.
From what I remember reading once, Dabbler’s father was a doppelganger who had shifted into alien form, and mated with the succubus parent while in that form.
Congratulations, Keith Wood! Your color-fu is indeed strong, and we are greatly impressed
Condolences to those that fell to the wayside, and best of luck on your path
+1 That! I didn’t notice.
I think it is entirely appropriate that in a comic featuring Dabbler the author could say that he got Wood, to color the page of course.
Considering the time of day that new pages get posted here, this would more accurately be described as morning Wood…
Fish need food too. Fish see water the way land based animals see air.
With the exception of Kangaroo rats, land animals also need water.
(Kangaroo rats technically require water, but they get it all from their food because they’re so efficient at conserving it.)
It may have already been said, but considering Dabbler is making a tickle laser I’d say she’s pretty on getting herself into trouble. If anything, Sydney is helping delay that. Good job Sydney!
So another web comic that says Incubus don’t really exist :/
Doesn’t say they don’t exist, it’s just complicated. I’m guessing we’ll learn more about that later.
Says it’s complicated and that all succubus are female, implying there are no incubus. It’s another “What? No? There’s no male sex demons. That’s just wrong.” :p
And nobody mentions that the Incubus is Dabbler-striped?
Well it’s Sydney’s imagination, and she’s only seen 1 demon before. Not strange that she uses what she’s seen as template
Mad me wonder if Dabbler’s got a brother who’s gonna make a “Family” visit.
“The Thing” is originally based on a John Campbell short story titled “Who goes there?” so the cycle of media is now complete.
Don’t forget the original low-budget version from 1951 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/
The alien was played by a young unknown actor James Arness (Gunsmoke).
In this version the alien is plant based and searches out light and warmth. The only thing missing is for it to say ‘I am Groot!’
And “The Thing but from the monster’s perspective” describes the plot of the video game Prototype.
Why do I always notice that someone beat me to it after the fact? :-(
The cycle is complete also because someone is writing about what happens after “The Thing” takes over the world. Immortal Clay by Michael Warren Lucas
https://www.amazon.com/Immortal-Clay-Michael-Warren-Lucas/dp/0692326804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429806441&sr=1-1&keywords=Immortal+Clay
now I want to know how succubi society works *pout*. I’m with you sydney
Y’know, when I brought up the succubus-nun scenario in my comments for the last comic, I was being entirely hypothetical.
But, but we …. I need to know… vampires….?
*points paw at Transylvania just ‘over there’*
She meant vampire bats
The complete story is detailed in the historical work “The Rise and Fall of the Roaming Vampire”.
Transylvania 6-5000!
Saturday The 14th!…
tagline: “It get’s BAD on Friday the 13th… But it gets WORSE on SATURDAY THE 14th….”
too bad i can’t find it anywhere other than youtube, it was a hilarious movie…
Don’t worry, you can beat a vampire if you’re an umpire.
An umpire would just call on the batboy to batter the bat with a bat.
…Yes, I’ve seen the Bugs Bunny cartoon that you’re probably referring to…
It even works on a bat with glasses.
This is a job for BATMAN
When isn’t it a job for Batman?
When it’s actually a job for Superman, of course.
But then again, that’s when it might turn into a job for Batman with Kryptonite.
So when Dave needed help with the beautiful ladies of this comic, he…
…got Wood?
Welcome aboard, Keith!
(On the succubus/incubus thing, I am thinking that all incubi are succubi in male form. Since not all succubi are shapeshifters, this probably involves magic, which may be a glamour. This implies that not all succubi can make ladies switch teams.)
I… am unsure how to feel about this, lol.
You just know that every Incubus in Dave’s world just screamed “HEY! We exist, dammit!”
And Horton hears a chorus of male voices crying out ‘We are here, we are here, we are heeere!’
boil that dust speck! boil that dust speck!
Beezlenut oil futures just skyrocketed!
Re “The Thing”, I’d also recommend the original (short) story by John W. Campbell on which “The Thing” is based on: Who Goes There?
There’s alse an old b/w movie about it, from 1951…
Chibi-ish Dabbler is too cute. Thats aid, she has a dang good point. They really do lack nonlethal combat methods. They need to make some passive techniques too. Because they may not be as genre savvy as Halo, but im sure they are aware of the need to prepare to take down vehemence again if he ever breaks loose. So lots of containment methods, preferably ones that dont create feedback loops because they get stronger the harder you fight them (like a chinese finger trap sort of deal) Perhaps something mechanical in nature, like nanobots programmed to shut down the conscious mind. Pair that up with better penetrative darts and you have a winning combo.
Normally I would not want to nitpick, but since Dabbler’s character is established as being something like a purple, self-propelled, scientific supercomputer, this bothered me:
Bees do not need pollen. At all. They drink the nectar, which flowers excrete so that bees will move from flower to flower, transferring the pollen. Flowers need pollen (which is itself a vehicle for plant sperm). Bees need nectar and have little personal use for the sperm packets of species that aren’t even in the same taxonomic kingdom (though many species of bee have evolved specialized pollen sacs which facilitate pollen transfer, leading to more and more desirable flowers near the hive and consequently more nectar).
I suppose I can imagine that succubi might biologically need the sperm packets of species other than their own, but you’ve pretty much established that it’s more of a tantric energy thing in this continuity. Bees continue to not need pollen.
Love the comic, can’t wait for Mondays and Thursdays.
Bees do eat pollen. Bee larva need something more than just sugar to grow.
I know I’m nearly four years late and just reiterating what someone else said, but I just want to second that bees do in fact eat pollen. That’s why they gather it. (And many if not all species do specifically gather it — it’s not just a side effect of them gathering nectar. Some bee species even have a structure on their legs that they use specifically for storing the pollen they collect.)
To use honey bees as an example, pollen is actually their only natural protein source, and all stages and castes of honey bees (not just the larvae) eat some combination of pollen and nectar to obtain all their nutritional requirements.