Grrl Power #340 – Shared insecurities
After loosening up a little, Sydney suffers a bit of a backslide, but she’ll adjust. There’s little chance she’ll ever be prancing around like Dabbler though.
Sydney grew up on superhero comics of course, and also stuff like Red Sonja, She-Ra, Xena, etc, so the idea of the strong woman is not surprising to her. If there’s a body type she’s legitimately biased against, it’s the heroin chic beanpole supermodel look. It’s not the obvious unhealthy standard so much, or the fact that she feels it’s totally unattainable look for her – it’s just as unlikely she’ll ever look like Xena either. She just prefers the look of a woman that can one hand a bastard sword or punch out a horse. Not that she has anything against horses in particular. It’s just just her standard unit of toughness is 1 horse ka-power. I’ll be here all week folks, tip your waitress.
I know that last word balloon is a little gratuitous, and I prefer covering things in a more natural looking manner, but from Sydney’s point of view, they’re just… right there. For those of you having to quickly scroll the comic off the page then read it while furtively glancing over your shoulder, there’s only one more page actually in the showers. Of course then there’s the locker room, but things will be gradually returning to fully SFW status shortly.
In case anyone would like, here’s a full size Chibi Dabbler: 
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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.
Poor Sydney. She’s still super adorkable – they can’t take that away from her.
and never will remember the first episode where she’s playing a superhero RPG with her friends then goes to work at ARC
Of course Sydney can understand women with muscles are sexy. It’s her nerd-cred showing again.
Who is one of the sex-symbols in comics? Is smart,fun, and often has problems with her attention span and temper? She-Hulk.
Now she isn’t as built as Anvil, but they are defined,
with that speech bubble there anvil looks like a a extremly affeminate male
But it is the shape of the speech bubble that is important.
First time I’ve seen a speech bubble with a nipple.
Made me look.
*Dabbler-esqe ear twitch and looks* Ok… damn there IS a nipple on that word balloon.
Welp, I know what I’m asking my artist partner to make next time we need to lampshade some dudity. Foreskin on a speech bubble!
I find the censored speech bubbles to be amusing. Part of the comedy. :D
I was going to mention that “oddly-shaped” word balloon anyway, just in case nobody else noticed (& commented) on Dave’s “unusual choice” in shaping it…And then I read about it in his blog. But I certainly appreciate the cleverness of it when I saw it. It certainly made me look twice, in comparing the balloon placement to what should be right behind it; it looks to me to be in perfect proportion for what it covers.
:P
Was just thinking that, and that’s possibly another reason for the placement of the Bubble over her Bubbles: she looks like a well muscled man with lips and long hair
As long as the speech bubble is; in fact, a bubble. And Syd’s towel is a Turban
those could be two men in that last frame.
. . . There is a suspicious looking small bump on the left of that last word-balloon. And, going by other pics of Anvil, shouldn’t the balloon be bigger?
(Overenthusiastic Dabbler in panel 6 is adorable!)
nope thats the difference between bra and no bra
With pecs like hers? There should be more natural support going on there – but some of the disconcertion may be down to the absence of shading.
Go check out SheMuscle.com for images of bodybuilders without ‘support’
Interesting how they go across the whole range of “beach balls” to “Mine’s bigger than hers and I’m a reasonably well toned male”.
Yup, that site features builders, sculptors ad girls who are simply ‘fit’ and slash or ‘toned’
Point was, there are well muscled women in real life who look like Kenya (with ‘support’ they look like beachballs, and without they, well, look like deflated footballs, and there is nothing wrong with that)
Dabbler looks like a kitty in panel 6. Which makes me want to pet her. Make her… purr. >:)
Did she say cantrip or cat nip . . .
I think ‘can’t rip’ was how she described her ribbon grenades.
Her “Nips’ aren’t anything like a cat’s.
…aaaand the speech bubble is the punch-line. Never actually seen that done before.
Yeah, it does seem to stand out & draw attention to itself…
Ever notice that those who are most comfortable with their sexuality and body image are those with the most to put out there? Just sayin’.
The only one on this page who is comfortable, is Dabbles
That is a powerful spray of water btw. It appears to have removed much of the curve of Anvil’s back end. Is her upper arm really wider across than her abdomen front-to-back?
Given her height, entirely plausible. The internal organs aren’going to be much bigger, and they have more room to stack vertically. Building those muscles won’t bulk her out much there either. My own upper-arm is about the same as my abdomen front-back, and I don’t exactly have Anvil’s upper body strength. (6’4″, with a 26″ waist…)
There does seem to be something wrong with the Anvil’s proportions in the last panel, even taking into account the sideboob speech bubble.
I can’t comment on her backside, but with her flexing her arm (making it bigger) and her abs (making them draw in), they are reasonably proportioned.
I was mainly meaning the backside, not her arm.
All I know is that if sydney doesnt get over her self consciousness soon, the archon building will run out of towels. Geez lady, cover up any more and you will smother.
Oh, my goodness. At the end there, she looks like a short ninja.
Or a Muslim wearing a Burka (but that last ‘flip’ to cover her face strongly leans towards ‘mini-ninja’)
All in favor of “Towel-Ninja” becoming an alt-Halo costume, say “Aye!”
Aye.
Aye, too.
ARR!!!
Halo’s only just been declared a Ninja, & already the Pirates car coming out of the woodwork. I know it’s an ancient rivalry, but come on, give her some time…
Hmmm, Ninja Pirates…
Only if there is an accompanying Towel-pirate somewhere in the offering.
I begin to wonder…How many would prefer pirate-Sydney compared to ninja-Sydney. We can’t expect her to be both; ninjas & pirates are Natural Enemies.
Well, clearly, she’d be a double-agent for the pirates–we know that she’s on guard against ninjas constantly, that would explain it.
neither, Pirates and Ninjas are both subclasses of rogue and sydney seems to be going more for the mage archetype with her forcefield and pewpew…
There are few things scarier to contemplate than a mage-assassin…
Ninja Pirate Mage-Assassin?
Sneaks up to you in her ship, Ninja-flips out the side, runs across the water to your location without you knowing, kills you all Ninja-silent-assassin style & if discovered, unleashed a barrage of magic?
Once Sydney hits the internet and sees all the nerd hub-bub about “Halo: Nerd Goddess! How to Rules Lawyer Your Way to Victory!” and “Petite Chic Geek Bounces Big Badass!”, she ought to have a wee bit better image of herself; that is, until she sees all those celebrity fakes that will start popping up. I’m hoping that Sydney’s sense of humor finds that silliness to be funny as all get out, or else she’s in for a rough ride.
And Sydney? Pay attention! There are nerds and geeks with six-pack abs out there, and they will find you.
talking about This guy?
And others.
We don’t know whether it’s a geek or what, but she’s already got fans out there. HALOjrFan, for instance. Notice the fourth panel.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1655
Vin Diesel. Full Nerd Cred and has the six pack. Plus a really, *really*, dorky break dancing how to video.
Cydney’s ability to make clothing out of towels would make the Hashshashin proud.
“Cydney”? Really?
I’m pretty sure she’s spent an unreasonable amount of time practicing all the different uses proposed for a towel by the Hitchhiker’s Guide.
“Cydney”? Really?
I’m pretty sure she’s spent an unreasonable amount of time practicing all the different uses proposed for a towel by the Hitchhiker’s Guide.
So she likes the female Mongo types lol still one of my favorite scenes from Blazing Saddles where Mongo punched out the horse much to the dismay to the guy riding it lol.
Either that or Conan… hmm, not QUITE the same though since it was a camel he KO’d… but similar enough for comic-book logic, i guess?
It seems likely that this comic is teetering close to NC -17…!
Who else will be showering soon???
Nah, it’s currently PG-13 in the U.S. system: No nipples, no genitals, not even any actual butt-crack (which would be allowed in most PG-13 these days). If they were showing boobs and a lot of butt, that would be R, and they might get away with full-frontal so long as no one shaves.
NC-17 would be explicit showing of shaved women’s genitals, showing of erect men, or showing of fairly explicit sex. In some cases, full-frontal without that will cause an NC-17 rating, but a lot of that depends on whether or not the producer has friends at the MRAA.
not even necessarily shaved.
True, that was kind of my shorthand. Basically, you can get an R while full-frontal with a woman, but only if it’s ONLY showing bush, these days. She can’t spread her legs, or be viewed from behind while bending over. Basically, she should look like a Barbie doll with a touch-up with a Sharpie. The penis is even more tricky to get past censors–even the faintest hint that the organ has a sexual function at all will pretty much go straight to NC-17 territory, so it’s pretty much got to be utterly flaccid.
There’s other ways around it too. One is the Censor Decoy… where you throw something in that you know will be censored, so that the bits you really wanted will be allowed to pass because they seem tame in comparison.
For example, Alfred Hitchcock put a shot of Marion Crane’s buttocks in his original cut of Psycho so the censors would let him keep a plot-important scene of a flushed toilet, which would not have been allowed to be shown on film. (At the time, you could play the sound of a flushing toilet, but you could not actually show a toilet.) That’s a mild example (by today’s standards) of the Censor Decoy.
There’s also Plan B: Take the censor to the bar and get him drunk, which the producers of Star Trek (original series) did once. Sure enough, the parts they wanted to keep were allowed to stay in.
*Thumbs-up on the censor decoy* Yup. And stuff can get appealed, too–Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s description of the process around getting “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” to screen is pretty hilarious to read.
On the Star Trek bit: Was that to get ‘the kiss’ past the censors?
No, actually. It was something else… (the silver two-piece worn by one of the actresses in “Gamesters of Triskelion”, maybe? I’m not sure.)
In regards to the kiss, it might very well have been the only thing Nichelle Nichols and William Shatner ever agreed on. The scene was supposed to be filmed twice, once with the kiss, once without. Nichols and Shatner deliberately screwed up every single shot of them not kissing, until the producers had no choice but to use the one with the kiss. (Surprisingly, the censors didn’t say anything.)
In Mirror, Mirror they simply pulled Uhura’s skirt down a bit when the Moral Watchdog was not on-set. He never noticed, and the episode aired as-is, navel and all. (Remember this was at a time when you weren’t even supposed to show a woman’s belly button on screen.)
Then there was “A Private Little War”. Captain Kirk comes across native girl Nona bathing naked in the river, and we see a brief glimpse of the side of her body as she wraps a robe about herself. However, this is a case of Censor Decoy, and is not the one where they got the guy drunk. Originally they included a breast shot, knowing that the censors would cut it back to the glimpse of sideboob they wanted.
So I’m not sure which episode it actually was. I know it’s mentioned on TV Tropes somewhere, but I haven’t been able to dig it up yet.
Still don’t understand how ‘NC-17’ is worse than an ‘R’ rating
Personally feel the whole ‘censorship’ crap is Victorian and needs to be abolished
Because NC-17 means “no children under 17 admitted period … with or without a parent.
Rated R means “children under 18 admitted only in the company of a parent.”
In other words, rated R is actually less restrictive than NC-17.
But an NCC 1701 rating means free Enterprise…
DaveB, I think you mean “heroin” chic for super skinny waif types (Kate Moss, Twiggy).
“Heroine” chic is the more fit/muscular version (Lynda Carter, Adrienne Palicki).
Dude, heroin is illegal drug.
Yeah, and that’s what those skinny waif models were on
To be more precise and fair, the models resembled people who take heroin, who are generally thin to the point of being almost skeletal; the look was also called ‘anorexia chic’ for the same reason. Whether any given model was either on heroin or anorexic, however, is not determined, save in cases of arrest and/or diagnosis with public admission.
The look was heavily criticized because it was impossible for anyone who was not already genetically disposed to being that thin to meet it without adopting an extremely unhealthy lifestyle.
Hah yeah, I’m too used to typing the other one.
Heroine Chick is all the females on this team.
Obscuring speech bubble in last panel seems too small for Anvil’s coverage
or perhaps precisely right….this may take more analysis
yup, so under closer examination, I think the issue is just related to a white-space balance perception issue. If the text box were colored/shaded I think things would look just fine proportionally
That’s how non-fake breasts work outside a bra.
Oh I have no objections or criticisms to the natural effect of gravity on the anatomy, just that something seems a bit off with the proportions here. It may be the angle, the body position, the physique, what have you, but I’m just not sure it seems to quite match Anvil’s previously presented proportions, even within this same page. It’s not like she’s leaning backwards or anything here :)
That’s how non-fake, non-super breasts work outside a bra. We have seen examples showing that super breasts are naturally more…gravity-resistant than normal. So I have to agree that I expected that word balloon to be a little bigger.
But, the whitespace may be throwing me off. We really need a non-word-balloon version to judge properly. Dave, vote incentive please.
We really need a non-word-balloon version to judge properly.
I bow to your impeccable logic.
How could I ever refuse to add my “Aye!” to that?
O.o
That would get two “Ayes” from me. Like saucers.
It looks like the eyes have it.
O.O
I second this motion, and humbly request the inclusion of Dabbler as well.
…And Dave has certainly been showing off his research in “boob physics” with accuracy & distinction.
:D
It could also be the fact that anvil is more built than usual. Most of the girls are decent hardbodies, but she is basically a brick type hero so she is built like a tank. Having a lot of chest muscles effects a girls boobs.
I’d say that Anvil should stay well-defined with blatant “muscle-cut” appearance. After all, even ordinary anvils are supposed to have a “hard body.”
:)
Girls with abs are more common than you think. Try https://www.reddit.com/r/hardbodies/. (Usually work-safe, but don’t push your luck.)
At WalMart they’re rare. Target less so. It depends on where you hang out, offline or on. :)
Xena was never in particularly good shape, either. Always bugged me.
I used to watch that show! Perhaps that’s something I should be more embarressed about than I actually am? My main interest was really Gabrielle, though – not Xena.
My interest in Xena was the Chakram’s design. Gabrielle, Callisto,and Dischord though….
I never watched it when it was on originally, I tried going back and watching it on Netflix a few months ago and wow… it was just awful. Camp is one thing, but this was unwatchable. That’s a series that could use a reboot.
Rumor has it they’re planning just that, though Lucy Lawless’ role in the show is still up in the air, not expected to be Xena again though :)
Xena was as much campy as the Hercules TV series with Kevin Sorbo, IMO.
Considering Xena was a spin-off of Herc, no surprise there.
Of the two, I liked Xena better (not by much, mind you, but a little). But I think that was because they’d gotten the formula a bit cleaner, even if they hadn’t figured out how to break it. Of course, Lucy Lawless did do us all the favor of giving us the cliche, “A wizard did it.”
Never really cared for Xena for some reason, despite that she was a physically strong female who battled not just women, but men. In fact mostly men. Which normally I’d find all levels of awesome.
But the show just never really did much for me, and it got worse as it went on. By the time they were in Rome beating Caesar I was already going meh, and when they started having the whole Christian One God thing with angels and Xena killing all the gods and Gabrielle’s daughter and the amazon dream world stuff…. it had long since jumped the shark. The best episodes were the earlier ones (not the first season, like… the latter part of season 2 and most of season 3), Hercules had a similar problem. I still watched it but I didn’t really like the show – it was always just background noise.
It’s weird though, because usually I’m a big fan of female superheroine-types when they’re actually kicking butt without it being ALL just ‘we’re women’ (ie, where being powerful has nothing to do with the fact that they’re women – it’s just that they’re powerful). Xena was like that – she was powerful because she was powerful. It had nothing to do with her gender. Yet for some reason I never became a fan of the show.
However, I’m so stoked about the Supergirl TV show (Melissa Benoist rocks) and I’ve been liking iZombie despite episodes 8 and 9 having her carry the idiot ball for some reason (they totally redeemed the show with the season finale).
You can almost tell where the show starts getting bad as the characters’ hair styles start changing. :) Like the hair is fleeing the show.
The hair was evidently smarter than some of the viewers were, since the show lasted at least two more seasons (IIRC, it ran for five seasons.)
Gabrielle was in good shape though.
I believe she once deflected a sword with her abs of steel when everything she wrote in her parchment was coming true.
I miss joxxur the mighty. He was my hero.
Always felt that the more ‘super’ one in the show, body image-wise, was Gabrielle.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Gabby_Xena.jpg
With her faithful sidekick, Joxxur.
https://brandyseymour.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/xena-been-there-done-that.jpg?w=588
“Gabrielle was in good shape though.”
Which you could tell because her costume covered less and less every season . . .
Dave, is that last bit where Syd talks about being mistaken for a guy and making a turban out of a towel a reference to a Legend of Zelda game maybe?
Most likely
Using a bastard sword with one hand isn’t exceptionnal… The bastard sword (or hand and a half, think Andúril) was designed to be used either one or two handed. Using a greatsword, on the other hand…
Better yet think about using a bardiche or other polearm one handed
Not usually for women, though. I mean, I doubt they were designed with women in mind at all, but given that men physically tend to have greater upper body strength, most women who picked up a bastard sword likely wouldn’t have an easy time wielding it in one hand. Those that could would be quite exceptional.
Also, even most men probably couldn’t wield one in just one hand. Only the strongest would, it was still super heavy.
Yeah, there’s a reason you need to spend a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency to treat them as one-handed weapons.
They really weren’t that heavy about on par with a longsword between 2-4 pounds. some exceptionally heavy ones weighed 4.5 pounds.
Granted swinging around a sword even that heavy would be pretty tiring if you weren’t used to doing it.
Good point. For anyone who thinks that a 3-pound longsword doesn’t sound that heavy… try swinging one around for a while. I guarantee after half an hour or so (possibly less), it won’t feel so light anymore.
The vast majority of 15th-century longswords weighed 3 pounds (1.3 kg) or less; even the heavier bastard swords were less than 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg). The horse swords called ‘hand-and-a-half swords’ were around 4 pounds (1.8 kg), and even the enormous two-handed swords seldom weighed more than 6.5 pounds (3 kg). By the 16th century, longswords were even lighter, averaging 2 pounds (0.9 kg)
The above information comes courtesy of the late Ewart Oakeshott, leading author and researcher of European swords, who had handled literally thousands of swords in his lifetime.
Do yourself a favor and ignore the comments of people like Charles Ffoulkes, who stated “All the swords from the ninth to the thirteenth century are heavy, ill-balanced, and are furnished with a short and unpractical grip.” Right. Apparently 500 years of warriors and fighting men had all gotten it wrong, but a museum curator in 1945 London, who had never been in a real sword fight, let alone trained with real swords in any form himself, is able to inform us of the failings of these weapons.
Oakeshott does make a good point about where some of the incorrect facts come from:
Out of ignorance, many sword makers and their consumers honestly expect that a sword should feel heavy. They have been conditioned by endless displays of lumbering swordsmen with great sweeping blows of slow blades to believe that unless their “barbarian broadsword” is hefty and causes strain when lifted, it can’t be a “real” sword, as if sheer mass alone affects a successful sword blow. In fact, it is often these modern replicas that are heavy and unbalanced, frequently due to a lack of understanding of blade geometry or intentional cost-cutting considerations on the part of the manufacturer.
Even if they know their sword is not an accurate reproduction, sellers and makers will rarely acknowledge that their swords may be too heavy or poorly balanced. It’s much easier to simply offer statements to the public about how they are “supposed” to be that heavy. While the difference between a 3.8 pound (1.7 kg) and a 5.3 pound (2.4 kg) blade may not seem like all that much, when trying to correctly perform proper fighting techniques, it very much is.
Something else to add…most warriors and soldiers did not wield swords outside of the Roman Legion. Axes and maces were far more common in Europe than swords. This had to do with how expensive iron was. Plus, a mace or axe was apt to do more damage to an armored soldier than a sword unless that sword was designed to be blade heavy like a machete. Part of why Roman helmets had that odd ridge on their helmets was due to a falcatta being able to cleave right through it.
This is true. Even the short swords used by the Roman Legion were more like oversized stabbing daggers than actual swords, mostly for practicality. When you’re part of a tightly-packed shield wall, you simply don’t have room for a proper swing.
In Europe, swords were mostly used by nobles, who were generally the only people who could afford such a thing. If you were a common line soldier, you were lucky to be outfitted with a leather or padded cuirass (sometimes chain), a mace or axe (or a halberd or poleaxe in later centuries as armored knights became more common), and maybe a dagger as a backup weapon.
Remember, most European polearms started as basic farm implements on longer hafts.
Thanks for spreading such rarely-seen solid information, MSpears. It’s nice to know I would be fully able to lift and swing a normal longsword, or even bastard sword, one-handed – they all weigh far less then the 2L bottles of water I’m used to drinking from. Even a Zweihander seems to be roughly as hard to lift as a pitchfork or a spade – meaning I could lift it with one hand, yet not quite swing it with any degree of accuracy without using my second hand.
for comparison, grab the end of a 7ft pvc pipe and try to hold it horizontally.
or hold your water bottle by the cap.
It’s worth adding that the sword would also be much better balanced than a 2L water bottle. Unless you were incredibly strong, the bottle would pull you off-balance with each swing because the center of gravity is close to the end of the “weapon”.
With a properly-constructed sword and enough training, each swing could be followed immediately by another in a flowing sequence of strokes. A good example can be seen in the demonstration below, at about the 3:00 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov_iVrHy4_A
I just weighed my longsword; 1.5kg (3.3 lb for you non-metric users), 3ft steel blade, leather bound hilt with a brass pommel and cross-guard.
It’s a blunt edge weapon designed for mock combat and with the pommel weight it’s pretty balanced and easy to swing, after 15-20 min of hacking and slashing it feels more like 20kg though :P
The bigger problem for a greatsword or a polearm is the center of mass. Part of why it needs 2 hands to wield is that the dynamics are all wrong for using one hand even if you were incredibly strong. For instance, a sickle sword like a falcatta or kukri tend to be on the heavy side- more than four pounds in some cases, and yet they are designed to be swung one handed. Now, take that same weight and extend it from the two feet of the falcatta to the four feet of a larger sword and it becomes unwieldy because of the center of gravity. A four foot long falcatta would be nearly impossible to wield, from what I’ve experienced. Take that to five or six feet…
In the end, it’s all about center of gravity. Despite all those movies and games which show someone wielding a two-handed weapon one handed, it’s almost impossible.
Just as a point of reference, I own a falcatta and a long scimitar. The scimitar is lighter than the falcatta.
Usually, a woman would opt for a polearm or staff instead of a sword. It has to do more with leverage & wrist-strength than with shoulder/arm strength. Even the Japanese women who were trained in such things usually used a Naginata (a bladed polearm).
Anvil could wield a Claymore with one hand.
To be fair Anvil and Max could probably wield a Maul one handed.
Too be more fair anvil and max could wield a guy wielding a maul one handed.
And that is an interesting image. Are they trying to hit with the maul,the man, or have the man hit something with the maul as he is swinging by?
Grabbing a man holding a maul by his ankle and swinging him around as a weapon one handed. Grants extra reach and turns a maul into a flexible weapon as the guy being swung around can in turn swing the maul wherever it needs to go. /nod
To be air, Anvil could probably wield a Claymore antipersonnel mine with one hand. As a melee weapon. And live through the experience.
Pretty sure that anyone Anvil hit with a Claymore antipersonal mine would just be air afterwards, yes.
Actually Dave has said that she’d still get hurt by a bullet or a grenade, maybe not quite as badly since she’d absorb a lot of the projectile’s/shrapnel’s energy but she WOULD be hurt, and possibly killed if it hit her in the eye or managed to penetrate her vital organs.
from anime “we do not refer to ourselves as claymores”. great now I am picturing anvil with the white hair and abnormal eyes of one carrying an over-sized for her sword in one hand while swinging claire with the other.
Didn’t expect Anvil to make an appearance, yet here she is. I’m very positively surprised. A real all-you-can-eat table of eye candy, I say. Appreciations!
I find it ironic that Sydney uses the “heroine chic beanpole supermodel look” for her roleplay character in the first pages.
Is Dabbler’s bottom shining? Nice :)
OK. That is it. Her nickname is now officially Twilight Sparklebutt.
Just goes to show she didn’t really need a shower, she was just following her porno sense. I mean if she has a drying cantrip she most likely has access to a cleaning spell.
Dabbler can just enjoy a hot… wet… soppy… shower?
Damnit Daveb, now I need a cold shower.
Soppy? As in “soppy wet,” or “sopping wet?” Yeah, that describes Dabbler pretty good (in or out of a shower).
:P
More likely ‘soapy’
If I can’t play with the Grrls, then I’ll have to settle for playing with the words. Dave has already set the precedent for playing with words…And word balloons.
Okay, now you are just showing off with your accidental censorship.
I am not even angry. I’m impressed.
Let out a bark of laughter at the nipple bubble.
Also, anyone who considers these scenes NSFW is a prude. I have seen more gratuitous nudity in an art gallery.
I never really understood how this NSFW thing works. Unless your work is reading comics online, I belive every page here and anything, realy, should be NSFW.
NSFW means Not Safe for Work. Not good for viewing in a professional environment where someone might think it’s causing a hostile environment. To be fair, a shower scene with nudity or even quasi-nudity is probably not your best option for viewing at work.
Basically…. anything sexual or having partial or full nudity. If you can get fired for it if your boss sees you viewing it because there might be female co-workers that would be offended, it’s Not Safe For Work. That’s not actually prudish – it’s just a warning so you will keep your job.
I think Pander means that if you are seeing entertainment material at work you can be in problems not matter what kind it were.
Sorry, I meant “Rodrigo” not “Pander”.
Depends entirely on your job, though. When I was a programmer for Texas A&M, we didn’t have any kind of web filters… as long as you weren’t looking at porn and as long as you got your assigned work done on time, they didn’t care what you did in your spare time. (Though if you got your work done ahead of schedule, you were expected to tell your supervisor and ask if they had any other assignments for you.)
I also met one guy who was a player of City of Heroes. Generally in the last 30 or 45 minutes before the end of his work shift, unless he had a meeting with somebody, he’d boot up the game and play for a while (though he did use his own laptop for that, instead of his work computer). Nobody cared because they never scheduled meetings after 4pm. So between 4 and 5pm, unless he had a meeting at 4pm, he could get away with it.
At the extreme end of the spectrum was a programmer for some big company who outsourced his own job to China, and spent all day at work looking at cat pictures or whatever. It took months before they caught him in the act… (Yes, he was fired, but only after they caught him doing it.)
Wouldn’t stop some people from being offended.
Honestly, there are adverts for dealing with all sorts of embarassing physical ailments. Yet there are people who will watch these without as much as twitching, then lose their minds over a hint of genitalia on primie-time TV.
There are some people who find being offended to be offensive :p
“convenient placement” is the only acceptable censorship.
“cloud” is a crime, and “black” bar is just plain lazy.
Hard to argue with that.
Especially when it is done this well. :)
DaveB, Anvil looks like she is wearing a push-up bra in panels 1 and 5, or else she has had her breasts done, which tends to make them look too perfectly round.
Yeah, they probably are a little buoyant. My excuse for panel 1 is that I just assume that women know some secret wonderbra towel-jutsu. (Though realistically wrapping a towel tightly around them would probably put them in their least lifty state.)
Don’t worry, there is a perfectly explainable reason for this. Anvil is simply subconsciously absorbing the kinetic energy generated by the effect of gravity on her breasts. Voila!
I’d like to know that towel-jutsu.
Dave we really need a NSFW vote incentive of unwrapped Sydney at some point! Don’t we all here agree? :)
Definately!
…Aye!
Really depends on where exactly the ‘band’ is: too high and they are flattened, but low enough and they ‘lift’
Dabbler is truly the 2nd most adorable character…
Let’s see, when we first reached the showers, we had Sydney, Peggy, Heatwave, Varia, and Harem. Then Peggy and Heatwave seemed to vanish into thin air. Now Harem and Varia have disappeared, too.
Run for your lives, ladies! That’s not just some innocent shower, that’s a veritable Bermuda Triangle!
I suspect super villainy is afoot . . .
I really should have stuck Peggy in the background of one of those panels but I barely got these done on time as it is.
she’s short; maybe she is in one of the panels (bending over maybe?)
or sitting on a fold down bench in a shower stall so she doesn’t have to balance on one leg.
Sydney is the new girl on the block. Everyone is checking her out, not necessarily in a sexual manner, and thus distracting the poor ADHD lass, so that her showering time is taking much longer than usual. Plus, Sydney may just be one of those people who takes long showers when she has the chance at unlimited hot water.
… or perhaps because she is so self-conscious when placed alongside the supers that she spent a lot of time trying to avoid exposing herself instead of actually showering, thus making it take longer
For all we know, X is in there too.
that speech bubble… is strangely attractive…
well done DaveB
Anvil looks a little flat in that last panel…the speech bubble doesn’t seem like it should be able to cover her chest.
Real breasts, specially on a bodybuilder, don’t resemble an over-inflated beach ball: panels one and two are being held up by the towel, panel five is possibly been pushed up by Anvil herself to deal with the under-boob sweat
But Anvils, do. She is, most probably, the largest endowed female in the comic. Even without a bra, very large boobs stand out, not just droop down. A towel worn like that provides exactly 0% support, if anything it flattens the girls down even more, and from the angle of her upper arms in panel five, they are hanging straight down at her sides (her arms that is). And finally, Anvil is not a bodybuilder, she doesn’t work out to maintain her body dimensions, super-nature does that for her, she’s all natural baby!
This…my basis was on earlier images of Anvil. I almost missed it for the very reason Guesticus mentioned…then I remembered she was a Boobs of Steel trope example.
Wait, I got my No-Prize* suggestion. Remember, we’ve got a fiberkinetic on staff. Obviously, he’s given the towels a permanent effect when wrapped around the chest region. So any woman in Archon who wraps herself in a towel is automatically given the same lift as she gets from a normal bra. Why did he do this? Because Math has been feeding him stock tips (all that brainpower has other applications, I suspect).
* And I just dated myself pretty badly, since No-Prizes for explaining continuity errors were retired sometime in the 80s…
And yet I still got it and laughed! Hint for next time: just say that you’ve read a bunch of old comics recently.
I probably should have phrased that as “Anvil looks like a real bodybuilder rather than the shape she normally shows.”
Well, on the plus side, there’s a good chance they’ll think she’s a gut with all those towels.
TOWEL MAN, with the power to leave a lot to the imagination!
Dabbles in panel six is super chibi :D
Ha! That last word bubble has a nipple! /)^3^(\ ( . Y . )
“For those of you having to quickly scroll the comic off the page then read it while furtively glancing over your shoulder, there’s only one more page actually in the showers”
This. This is me since I read this at work. I constantly worry someone will call in and the screens will be up and be recorded and I would be fired. But I cant resist. Mondays & Thursdays are my favorite mornings……
May just be me, but Kenya looks the most ‘normal’ in panel seven
And is this the first time we have had a really good look at Dabbles’ back as in panel two to see how her four arms ‘fit’? And, again, it looks natural, as though some evil scientist type removed Dabbles’ head and upper torso, extended her spine, added extra arms (and corresponding muscles) and reattached her upper torso and original arms (and corresponding muscles), rather than just have two extra arms stick out from her sides or from under her ‘natural’ arms
Considering she’s not human, 4 arms are quite natural for her and -should- look as such. Just adding two extra arms to a standard human frame would look all sorts of unpleasant.
Yeah, but the way DaveB drew her makes it look natural
Also, makes me wonder: is Kenya wearing a ‘normal’ towel in panel one, or one of the longer ‘bath towel’ types?
Given her height, I’d go with “bath sheet” at a first guess. :)
Dabbler is surprisingly adorable here.
Dabbler is always adorable. :P
yeah, but this time in a little different way.
I’m not sure how I feel about this joke. It just seemed a bit flat to me.
Stop picking on Sydney’s figure. :)
Which joke? o_O
The joke about no one mistaking Anvil for a man.
i donno…with that terrifying almost nonhuman(some bodybuilders look like freaky aliens) muscle tone….
I’ve seen pictures of dudes with pecs almost as big as hers.
sidney does look like the kid from full metal alchemist though
Edward Elric? Sheik? Double cosplay score. Wonder who else she’ll emulate?
(And yes, Dovahkin has already been done)
That was her Hunger, not necessarily her.
I think what many of the comments about are implying about Anvil in that last comment is we’d like to see her without the speech bubble, perhaps as a Patron bonus.
To evaluate the art.
Really.
And Sydney-eye-view versions of the first too panels?
*two. Stupid spellcheck >_<
Don’t complain. My post was pretty confusing all on it’s own.
*thumbs up for the Chibi Dabbler in the comments page* Any chance of getting access to full-size pages in general, or are they already available somewhere I’m unaware of?
Normally they are as we see them, DaveB specially isolated and enhanced that panel because of how chibi-cute she is :D
Unfortunate :( My eyes aren’t the greatest, I can miss a lot of the subtle details at that resolution that I know are put in there
Same here, often miss subtle and ‘background’ details
HEY DAVEB! We need a little bit more background above and below Chibi Dabbler if you want us to use it for Memes.
No, most meme’s are on a black background anyway
That last panel is a joke that can only work in a comic.
That’s because only comics have speech bubbles :P
That last panel text bubble is too small for what it’s hiding, yet it’s hiding it. BAD DAVE, NO COOKIE!