Grrl Power #341 – Absentoeism
If there isn’t a comic about Evil Dead called the Necronomicomic, there should be. It’s a horribly missed opportunity otherwise. There should also be a convention for the Necronomicomic, called, of course, the Necronomicomicon.
Peggy usually has a sense of humor about her leg, cause the alternative is to be bummed out about it all the time. Her personal favorite is making a joke that would have been inappropriate coming out of someone else’s mouth, just to get that moment of tense silence while everyone figures out if it’s ok to laugh. There are limits though. Her reaction to Heatwave might have been a little cold – she might have been more sympathetic if Heatwave could no longer drive stick.
I designed all of Peggy’s tattoos myself (there’s not much to them really, mostly lots of stars, stripes and eagles) but her back tattoo is pretty ok, if still a work in progress. If you want a better look at it, check it out on the DA page.
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.
Necronomitoes, get em while they’re fresh—
…You wouldn’t happen to have Tank-Girl as a potential inspiration for your comics, would you?
I’m getting a massive TG vibe from Heatwave in panel five, the expression she has on her face is extremely recognizable!
Hm. Who wants to bet that one of the unknown-power orbs is a healing one?
If that was the case, Sydney’s bruises would have healed by now, besides, they have been tested many many times through the dreaded use of “paper cuts”
Maybe at their currently unlocked level they can only heal others, slowly while in direct contact with the damaged area.
kinda like “mothers touch” in VTM. you can heal others but not your self.
It would make more sense that it would start off being self-heal first
No max said she should try it she has not yet and its still up to Dave wait they do
What if it isn’t healing per sa, but regeneration of lost tissue? IE, limbs and anything the human body cannot normally heal. To my knowledge Sydney has not been in contact with Peggy whilst handling either of those two orbs and the mechanism could even require touching the area in question and repeated treatments.
Though with scarred over wounds like healed amputations that could cause intense pain, but…
Not that this proves anything one way or the other, but if I were writing healing powers into one of Sydney’s orbs, I would have made it have some clues about it’s nature, such as gently pulsing it’s glow when in proximity to a wounded (or ‘healable’) person, with frequency and/or intensity of pulses growing as proximity decreased. Another possible clue would be altering it’s flight patterns, perhaps flying circles around an injured person. Come to think of it though, if Sydney’s truesight orb reveals the true nature of whatever she directs it at, even when simple visual clues without language can’t convey that nature (as in the case of Vehemence’s whatsit field), then mightn’t it show her something if she were to hold it and focus on one of her other orbs? or on her skill tree, perhaps? Though, since the skill tree is in reality an illusion, it might just be invisible under truesight.
She tried to use her True-sight orb to see the skill tree; ended up spending her point on it. Probably why she couldn’t see Dabbler’s Lust Aura when they first met (before the skill tree), but could see Vehemence’s Violence Aura during the fight (after the skill tree).
Thought she just poked the Tru-sight section and then tried to get her point back
see https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1171
She tried to see if the orb was the key to see the tree at a higher degree.
This locked it in for using her point there. She then used the orb after the ‘upgrade’ to check out her balls. (I could have phrased that better)
Okay, was partially correct :p
She didn’t see the aura because she hadn’t turned it on to see that. She later turned it on during the fight and there was a separate greyed out rune at the same time she believes is the new skill.
Even better, status transfer.
Sydney activates it to end up with a necrotic toe which she then desperately tries to pass around.
…. Some small evil part of me wants to make a really poor blond joke about brook…. the rest of me knows i can’t pull it off…
Yeah, because Brook isn’t blond, and she’s not dumb
She’s just naive and a bit slow off the starting line.
These is from a red head I worked with “red heads are just blondes with tempers” laughed my ass off when she said that
Just wondering. Something I’ve noticed. In many of the earlier comics with Harem, all of her bodies seemed to have freckles, but I’m not sure if the blonde Harem did. I know pink haired Harem does, and I think white-haired one does as well. Wasnt paying attention to the others and not really wanting to go back to each page to check out freckles :). Definitely in all the shower examples, blonde Harem doesn’t have freckles (except for on one panel on one page, though that might just be water from the shower). Is it that she somehow put freckles on some of her copies, or did she somehow bleach out the freckles on blonde Harem?
Weird question, I know. It’s just something that I’ve been noticing.
No, all Daphne’s have freckles, just check out her Playboy spread
All her bodies are the same. Where the differences lie is how she dresses them and does their hair. Missing freckles is likely an error on Dave’s part.
OR, that body of Harem is using make-up to downplay the fact that they are even there?…
but yeah, I’ll go with a more “realistic” reason… the Artist got tired of drawing them on that panel and/or forgot to do them entirely…
Just like Sydney’s bruises :D
Personal theory here: Freckles are a result of levels of sun exposure, yes? Would this (and suntans) be cosmetic enough for it to vary from one body to another? If so, would she prefer to send a body with more melanin in the skin to desert assignments and the like, to reduce the risk of sunburn?
Unless she has started to tamper with her bodies on the cellular level, they will all have the same melanin levels
In my personal experience, if you have freckles, you always have freckles. that’s just how your melanocytes are distributed. But if you get very little sun exposure, they’re very faint freckles, hard to see.
You know what’s the worst thing about freckles? Sunburns. You basically don’t tan much in between them, and if you do get a bad sunburn, and start peeling, the peeling skin is tack welded down at each freckle. It’s amazingly messy looking.
Injury etiquette 101: Don’t compare your losing a part of an appendage to someone else’s losing the entire appendage.
Just curious, has Sydney experimented with standing with each foot on an orb, a third bracing her back for balance, maybe a fourth in front? If Maxima can’t move them, that suggests they can heft some weight. This could be a useful trick for flying up to command and control height, set up the “hover” config, shields up and have access to a second ball for offense. Unknowns for the feet, telepresence in the fanny pack, flight up front to her chest (for quick swap out). Shield in left and option of Pew Pew or Moles –er– LightHook in right. To make it really convenient, build the round depressions into her boot soles, chest and back armor. Hehe, add some clip on points, carabiners and such and maybe she carries Goose along dangling from a harness for close combat drops.
Wait for it….
Then Goose would be Halo certified.
Even better she could fly Peggy along with shield up and coordinate a sniper shot from a virtual “tower” by dropping shields “until she heard the bang” on command.
Hmm. Stretcher carrying harness. The Sydney-vac maneuver.
And while I am on this caffeine induced word rampage –Unknown Gold = FTL travel orb, will not activate near gravity source. So to use it she has to get 1 lunar orbit out on the opposite side from the moon…
I don’t think she needs to engage in such trickery. Grab the flight orb and the shield orb. Fly into position, or just short of it, popup, and go ballistic. Let go the flight ball, grab the pewpew ball, destroy the target, and then grab the flight ball again at the top of your arc. And she never has to expose herself to direct fire by letting go the shield.
You know the way Americans (and now Chinese and Russians) do over-the-horizon bombing? It’s similar: They pop up the nose of the bomber at speed, release their ordinance, then pull the nose back down and turn around and leave. The bomb takes a ballistic arc that continues up over the horizon and down onto the target zone and the bomber is never exposed to direct fire.
Better hope it’s a LGB. Probably a allistic-lobbed laser-guided munition, with someone down on the ground highlighting the target. Works rather well, and doesn’t give the enemy a delivery system to shoot at, if you are lucky and they don’t have massively layered AA systems.
Only works if the PPO can go through the shield.
That’s why he said that she lowers the shield to fire
I base this on nothing more concrete than my humble opinion, but I suspect we’re one day going to find that the PPO beam will start outside the shield. It would seem foolhardy for the orbs creator to design a death ray that could kill them just because the shield is up. Besides, when she tried to use the lighthook at the restaurant fight, it was consistently and persistently outside the shield.
Hmmm. I wonder if one of the upgrades on her skilltree is a stun setting for the PPO . . .
Silly — Sydney is too ADHD for stable combos, and the law of cool says she’ll mostly find a new way to use known powers and combos rather than settle in something solidly…
…and who thinks she’ll be trying to use the non-hand orbs that keep her hovering without thinking?
Who wouldn’t see it coming even after I stated it???
Blondicus’s eyes in the last panel. Damn DaveB, the exact same face in two panels there with just the eyes changing and it carries off the whole expression change. Had to look multiple times to even notice it was the same (while doing a freckle check– Thanks Pander).
Expressive use of eyes. +1
That’s Blondini not ‘Blondicus’ :P
And it looks like Sydney changes her eyes from watching Brook to looking directly ‘into the camera’ (they are too big to convey that she is looking down without moving her head), personally feel the ‘looking at the audience’ is better :D
For “not being able to save the toe” there is quite a bit of it left.
If it was necrotic, wouldn’t it be removed?
Most of it is probably bandaging
I’m convinced she hasn’t lost the entire toe. Probably only down to the first joint.
Yup, seems to be the overall consensus: if she had lost the entire toe, there would simply be an extra gap and the bandage would be on the foot itself
That…
… just makes the comparison even MORE insulting.
If she’s only lost a single joint of the toe (and I’d need before and after foot views to be sure she’s even lost that much) trying to compare to the entire leg…
You don’t leave any necrotic tissue, it invites gangrene and that spreads fast… *shudder* yuck.
Still saying that she was comparing trauma rather than the injury itself
Brooke, there’s a HUGE difference here. Hopefully one day you’ll notice it.
Why does Sydney look like she’s wearing a burka???
Because she wants to. She’s got serious body image issues, and being strutted in front of super-models isn’t helping.
“Modesty mummy”, remember? She’s the only one on the team (so far, anyway) that has a severe problem with body image. She’s not a Statuesque Stunner with Boobs Of Steel, and everyone else (except for Peggy) is.
Though Peggy is clearly tougher than most of them.
Hey now, there is no denying Peggy’s rockin’ some serious sexiness of her own. >.> She’s just not as…blatant? about it as some of the others. Scary thought. Peggy dressed to the nines for a formal occasion. Picture it. And try not to drool. ;)
How can we not drool? She is drool-worthy when dressed in her combat fatigues
This has been discussed a few strips back.
Grab your drool sponge and picture this…
The consensus was that she would get a nice set of girly shoes that match her haircolor that day.
Also an evening gown, strappy. Slit to the hip (left side if she wants to be subtle right side if not) for mobility. (cause dancing bitches)
with a floral design (think hawaiian shirt)that coordinated with whatever Tats are showing.
(added bonus it breaks up the sight patterns sufficiently that she could conceal weapons in something other than a thigh holster)
Said floral design is over a muted background color that compliments the Hair/shoe combo.
For more formal… Same dress in Black. Similar floral pattern but smaller flowers spaced wider apart. Or just for trim. Maybe a sleeve on the side opposite the leg slit that is as long as the hemline.(if the dress stops above the ankle the sleeve stops above the wrist)
Her hand cannon with spare mags is probably stowed within her peg leg somewhere. Nose powder lipstick grease paint and a claymore in her hand bag.
Something mean and stabby in wrist (if sleeved) or thigh (no sleeve) scabard.
Perfect for state dinners out of uniform or just a random “im feelin girly” night
I’m assuming heatwave and harem are wearing water proof lipstick?
Heatwave has no lipstick in panels 2 and 5. She only has lipstick in panel 3.
Pretty Sure thats because she’s giving more cartoony expresions so the lipstick isn’t shown. Unless you think she put it on then took it off again?
I understand why Peggy’s miffed, but seriously, loosing a toe is fairly traumatic.
That depends on who’s losing it and how they lost it. Losing a toe due to dropping a tombstone on it? That would be traumatic. But when I lost half a toe (surgically), as soon as my friend showed up to drive me home, I practically pulled the IV out of my arm myself, and walked to the car on my own… I couldn’t wait to get home because there was a TV show I wanted to see. Never bothered me in the slightest.
It really depends on which toe. Losing your big toe can actually mess with your gait. Losing a pinky means basically nothing except from a cosmetic standpoint.
There actually is a comic where the Necronomicomic plays a key role: Marvel Zombies vs Army of Darkness. In which Ash travels to the marvelverse and repeatedly, accidentally gets super heroes turned into zombies with the power of being clueless.
Well, there’s an indie metal song called “Necronomicomicon” https://ichabodcranemetal.bandcamp.com/track/necronomicomicon
In the card game Munchkin Cthulhu there is an item card called Necrocomicon. It is next to the Necrognomicon. They also have some more variations. And the good old Necronomicon.
This looks like one of those trust-building exercises, except someone forgot to tell Peggy.
“Peggy’s distrust building exercice”
In before one of the unknown orbs is a healing orb. It never worked because it’s never been around hurt people when used,
Again, it’s already been mentioned (people really should take the time to read all the posts, even if they get here two days late), and again, Sydney has been injured enough times due to being Sydney that she would at least have tried to heal bruises and paper cuts already
Perhaps she can’t heal herself with it.
It could be any of a number of non-obvious situation dependent effects. Maybe one of them lets her talk to fish. Archon will make her follow protocols of testing an unknown in a ‘safe’ environment, like the desert test range. This combination would not give her much to talk to.
What if it isn’t healing per sa, but regeneration of lost tissue? IE, limbs and anything the human body cannot normally heal. To my knowledge Sydney has not been in contact with Peggy whilst handling either of those two orbs and the mechanism could even require touching the area in question and repeated treatments.
Though with scarred over wounds like healed amputations that could cause intense pain, but…
Come on, a gold or platinum toe would look very sexy in those strappy shoes…
You know, it just occurred to me, why does Peggy need a false leg when Dabbler’s cybernetics exist? Couldn’t she just make her a new one?
But she won’t. As DaveB has stated, Dabbler doesn’t trust humans with her technology (or rather, what they would do with it if they could reverse-engineer it).
Well, yes. It’s true that she doesn’t trust us with any particularly advanced tech, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t build something that’s on par with the cutting edge of human tech, which presently includes fully functional prosthetic limbs with semi-sophisticated brain interfaces capable of reading the intent to move a limb. We also know that Dabbler is perfectly capable and willing to install tamper-proofing mechanisms in her designs, so it’s not entirely implausible that she might lend out something that would be impossible to learn from. In the case of matching cutting edge stuff, it could be argued that she isn’t giving away anything that would risk causing dramatic changes to human tech, while still providing important benefits to the team. In comparison to the manmade stuff, which is still mostly in research phases and nowhere near a consumer market, getting one from Dabbler would have a number of advantages such as not needing to check in with scientists who want to fiddle with it and not having to return it. Also, Dabbler could probably bypass the normal neural interface “learning period” by running an in-depth scan of Peggy’s brain beforehand and could likely manufacture a working model, sized and proportioned to fit, in a small fraction of the time it would take to get one from one of the research labs.
Besides Dabbler’s willingness to provide tech to humans, there is another potential obstacle: Peggy may not want a prosthetic replacement. A lot of fully armed (a-hem) people find it hard to believe at first that someone would choose not to be “repaired” or even “upgraded”, given the chance, but it’s not unheard of. When a person has been living without a limb for a significant period of time, they grow used to it and it can even become ingrained in their identity. Others find the idea of having something that didn’t grow there be attached as part of their body distasteful, and still others worry about becoming dependent on a mechanical prosthesis that could potentially fail and leave them suddenly encumbered. It’s also possible that nobody in the comic world has legitimately considered the possibility: Peggy’s leg is such a constant in other’s views of her that they might not even realize that she is, in fact, missing a leg. Things like that can go unnoticed for a long time, longer that most people would be comfortable with admitting to, and long enought to make people wonder why it hadn’t been considered sooner.
Then why not just get current over-priced hyper-inflated egoed doctor (or whoever currently builds that damn things) to build one for them, with a gentle ‘nudge’ from Maxi (or Dabbles) that it’s ‘for the good of the country’ and do it all for free
It is real and soon upon us.
https://stonehill.org/necro.htm
But srsly, when do we get to see Syd’s towels fall off?
When you pay enough so DaveB can give up his regular day job
I just had a brain fart. A very common occurrence, sadly.
I started to wonder about Sydney showering with her orbs. What if they weren’t water-proof?! What if one or the other of them started having some kind of fault?! How could she possibly know it was safe to get them wet?!
Then I remembered where she got them from . . .
*Groan*
:D
Maybe, maybe that’s been the problem all along: they were waterlogged and they are finally getting dried out (until Sydney took them into the shower and got them wet again :P)
Ooooooo….. dem ballz got their own kryptonite and it’s going skinny dippin’?
BTW Dave, any chance you’ll be at New York ComicCon?
For the scroll on the tatoo: How about ‘Vene Vidi Igni” (I came, I saw, I set it on fire.)
For Peggy’s tattoo, that would mean she makes heavy use of incendiary rounds when she shoots…
What kind of military unit doesn’t require the wearing of shower sandals in the shower? It was one of the first things we were required to buy at the Canex when I went through basic training.
An Atypical one, perhaps, full of practically invulnerable super hero type people?
How come you had to wear sandals? To avoid slipping and falling?
To reduce the spread of athlete’s foot. No, I am not kidding.
Necrotic within an hour? That’s faster than even flesh-eating bacteria!
If it was cooked by the lightning,extra-crispy, you can’t heal that, just have to cut it off.
Would it be safe to say that, in this conversation, Heatwave doesn’t have a leg to stand on?
It would not be safe to say that.
That’s the problem.
:P
I once lost some dead skin cells while using a loofah. Does that make us sisters as well? Does it matter if I’m a guy?
Did the loofah set your skin on fire in the process? Then no, it makes you “Iron Rogue 2.0”
NecronomicoN. :)
Hey, Heatwave! You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, girl. You don’t wanna know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a toe by 3 o’clock this afternoon WITH nail polish. These fucking amateurs.
What about the Necronomnomnomicon?
Sydney, I am disappointed. The next time a naked girl slips, in front of you, I want you to overcome your modesty issues, and catch her, before she hurts herself!
The foreshortening on the drain in the first panel makes it kind of look like there’s something sticking out of Heatwave’s foot, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was looking at for a good two minutes. I laughed when I finally realized.
There actually WAS a Necronomocomics. A bunch of Minneapolis fans did it long ago — I think it was in the Seventies. I did a quick two pager with Wolfgang Werthless meeting the Checkered Demon. I’m pretty sure Richard Tatge, Ken Fletcher, and Reed Waller were involved too. Wish I’d kept a copy. At least I still have “Spacevarmits Comix” from back from ’81 – ’82.
Holy crap, someone else who knows Richard!
Peggy : “No! No hugs while naked!”
Self: Nodding. “That’d just be awkward.”
Gah, I have gotten too used to reading Cyrilic writing. Regarding the text in the swirling arrow, in the final panel, I was misinterpreting “PIVOT” as “РИОТ” which would translate as “RIOT”!
Just doing a re-read, and while I realize that likely nobody is ever going to see this comment…
How in the &$@*# is there NOT a webcomic called “Necronomicomic”?!
https://maxbareart.com/blog-1/necronomicomic , it exists…