Grrl Power #387 – A noble investment embiggens the smallest wallet
Deus claiming to be the 98th largest economy in the world sounds crazy, but the fact is that the top 10 wealthiest people in the world each have more money than the GDPs of the bottom 100 nations. Even having “only” 1 billion means you have more money in the bank (assuming all your assets are liquid) than the annual gross income of the bottom 14 countries, at least in 2015. Now, a lifetime of personal wealth accumulation does not compare to the annual income of a country. The next year that country will generate that much revenue all over again (assuming global economic stability) so personal wealth vs. GDP is not a real comparison. Still it makes for a cool brag, and Deus may be throwing it out there to test the general economic acumen of the room. But probably mostly to brag. Also remember his claim takes place in a flashback to a decade-ish ago, cause otherwise people will try and look up exactly how much money he’s claiming to have and I don’t have the time or frankly the interest to work up a historical timeline of his wealth. It’s double digit billions, probably less than Batman at this point, but with not nearly as much tied up in themed private fighter jets. Every time I see a Batwing get shot down in a Justice League cartoon, I can’t help but think that’s got to be like what, $20-30 million dollars easily? F-16s are something like $17 million, and they’re made on an assembly line. Batwings are all custom built and dare I say it, artisanal?
Also keep in mind that most of what Deus is saying here is a sales pitch. Being skeptical that the king of a sliver of a nation could become the richest men in Africa is probably sensible. Of course, who knows what Deus’s plans really are? Besides the Shadow. That guy knows. I mean, it’s his job.
As per requests from last week, here is the money map from the talk show’s set. (updated with the kr symbol over Sweden) I will admit there are a few patches I used the “Unspecified Currency Symbol” in a few places: ¤ mostly because I had already spent at least 2 hours on the map and it was getting really tedious and I needed to finish it to get the backgrounds done, and also because there are a few spots where there are a bunch of small countries right next to each other and the size of the font I was using to make it remotely legible in the background of the comic meant their symbols wouldn’t show up unless they were all the same across their contiguous area. I can probably fix it if anyone is terribly put out about it since most of the work is done already. I can also do one with the country borders showing if there’s any particular demand for it. I only hope the symbols I used are current. I did just enough googling to get the map presentable. One thing I learned while doing this is that the US dollar and the peso (some pesos, not all) both use the $ symbol, which is slightly disappointing, but obviously made my job easier, or it would have if my source listed the symbols and then all the countries that used it instead of country then symbol. :/
I didn’t get a chance to update the vote incentive because I had to get two double pages drawn this week, which put me slightly behind but I’ll get to it. I want to see it colored as well.
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.
snakes are being charmed out of there skin right now.
Some of the most interesting fictional villains tend to help certain groups to further their own goals. That country will probably remain happy with him.
Doctor Doom is a template for that actually. His home country actually loves him. And no he _didn’t_ mind control them into it or trick them. They know he’s a complete bastard to the rest of the world… but they are living much happier lives thanks to him… and that’s all they care about.
Doom’s subjects live with an almost zero crime rate. Doom’s punishments for criminals are so draconian that the criminal-minded among them would rather die than face his punishments for committing a crime against their fellow citizens. The mere threat of the punishment overwhelms the greed of most people.
It’s a hard life if you are part of the Latvarian democratic underground though.
The only ones who want Latvia to be democratic, are either corrupt arzeholes who want the riches for themselves, or failed democratic nations (like the US)
Dictatorships can, and, in many cases, do, succeed where democracies fail miserably
And in this case, there’s the added benefit that the leader who becomes rich by these actions while the country becomes rich itself. Will be the one the citizens focus their ire on if things go bad. While the business owner will say “I don’t know why this happen, but I swear that no matter who runs this country I will continue to strive to help”
The only way things would ‘go bad’ is from outside interference (well, that’s talking about the good dictators of course)
Damn you Reed Richards!!!
Pretty sure that almost all of the richest and most successful countries are democratic.
Just an FYI: Sweden uses the krona (kr), not the euro.
That said, I still really like the map!
How much longer is Sweden going to use that currency? I hear they’re not doing so well.
They are not doing as well as they are used to. But this is something all the Socialist Economies of Northern Europe & Canada are facing.
They exist through very heavy economic regulation combined with small/stable or stagnant population growth.
Lots of Services for all Citizens means
they have to be paid for with Lots of Taxes.
Which means Lots of people Need to be Working at Something. Anything.
As long as that population stays stagnant/grows reallly slow, the economy can be regulated and fine tuned by the Government at the speed of government. (as opposed to capitalism’s boom bust cycle)
And it works out not too bad.
There are at last count some 8 million and change syrian refugees. trying to flee through over a dozen countries (Remember all the bad stuff you heard about Greece and its economy or lack thereof?
Well its still that bad and Syrians are literally dying to go there)
into the 8-10 stable economies found further north.
Countries that normally require you to have a job they can tax (to pay for all that free stuff) before you emigrate. Keeps shit from getting out of whack. But there are no jobs. But the refugees (insomecases) literally have guns at their heads… Its that jewish problem all over again…
At last count i can find the entire country of Sweden has (somewhere between) the same population as the states of Virginia or New Jersey. At something like 9 million People. Even if an even distribution of people were to occur amongst the target countries, For Sweden thats still 800.thousand refugees getting put into the system in the space of 18 months. A system that is designed for growth rates of one tenth that amount at most.
Most of whom are either too young/too old/too under-educated to work. which breaks things even harder. (even creating a service economy within the refugee group out of the members of the refugee group only gets you so far)
And this is a Problem that every State in northern europe is facing. Mind you these are the Good economies. THe rest of the eurozone is in an even more fragile state.
As for the US its population of 300 million could swallow the 8 million refugees whole one would think.
Until you realize that the population of refugees out numbers almost 40 of the 50 individual states.
Out of those 40 states 6-7 of them get outnumbered by 2 to 1. The rest face a factor of 3-1 and higher.
The population of the bottom 5 states+all territories (except PuertoRico) COMBINED are about equal to the current numbers of refugees.
Nationally the influx of 8 million unemployed people would bring the levels of unemployment in the US back to the worst of the Recession in 2008-2009.
And that is a hard pill for anyone to swallow.
I thin your exaggerating how much one county is willing to bring in.
Regarding the moneymap, you have set euros in sweden it looks like, sweden does not use the euro as currency, we have kr, like norway
“we have kr, like norway”
Important to note that it’s not the SAME krone/krona we’re talking about.
And the Australian dollar is not the same as the US dollar, but we use the same symbol (which I gather would work in your case as well).
Anyway, DaveB has already stated that the program is likely bombarded with complaints about how their monetary symbols are ‘wrong or misappropriated’.
Thank you for the map DaveB, I am a happier person for viewing it.
singing:
“I’ve got ninety thousand pounds in my pyjamas,
I’ve got forty thousand French francs in my jeans (and so on)”
Obligitory link
I think that should be “forty thousand French Francs in my fridge.” Aside from the alliteration, billionaires don’t wear jeans. Or at least they didn’t before Bill Gates.
Nah mate, its “Forty fousand French franks in my fridge.”
The way Yngvar stated it, that would be a good way to store a sizable quantity of cold, hard cash…
Just like how the United States and Canada use the same name and symbol for our currencies (Dollar, $), but they are independent currencies.
yeah, quite correct. I was going from memory as the interweb connection here is currently (to use a technical phrase) “f***ing horrible”. But fridge/jeans you can just swap them around in most sentences and not notice the difference right? What do you mean “no”?
I’ve updated Sweden.
I hope you haven’t also made the Desktop version of that map yet (as requested in the comments of the previous comic page)…Or you’ll also have to update that before posting it to your website.
:D
Now you just have to fix Denmark as well, we also use Kroner (KR or DKK), but that’s a third type, altough it should be said that it’s the same Kroner as they use in Greenland.
Also Kazakhstan – the biggest country in Central Asia – uses the Tenge. I’m not sure where you’re getting that symbol from… The Tenge symbol is a capital T with an extra bar on top.
That being said, I feel bad for you because you’ve just stepped on one of the nitpickiest land mines of the financial world – what currency is used where…
Interesting that Deus already had the scar in the flashback.
At least it wasn’t a single diagonal scar, meaning whatever happened to him, he let happen a second time.
At some point he and Dabbler need to sit down and discuss their respective battle and/or industrial accident wounds. Right before he compliments her ‘assets’ and tries to impress her with the size of his, ahem, ‘portfolio’.
And then after the bonking (both bed-wise and hammer-wise), she goes on her merry way with him none the wiser.
Or so she thinks. Little does she realize he was well aware of her ancestry the entire time, and had some means of harnessing some of that sexual energy for himself, whilst also using the sex tape to blackmail Arianna into revealing Archon’s kettle corn secret recipe.
Combining the two elements gathered from this plan he creates an aphrodisiac popcorn that ends up drawing in millions, nay, billions in the long term.
Of course, it was all part of his plan.
Dabbler probably wouldn’t give a flying banana boat about a sex tape. Hell, she’d probably 3d print a trophy with a mini video player on repeat and display it on her mantle as proof that “I banged a billionaire bad guy!” And include it in her resume, just to piss off Max and Arianna.
Ah, but I didn’t say he was blackmailing Dabbler, did I? No, he’s blackmailing Arianna, and by extension all of Archon, with proof of alien life as well as evidence for the precedent of proof of the eschatological.
And all he’s asking for is the kettle corn secret recipe.
Of course, he’s also doing this because he wants them to know he knows. And he wants them to know that he wants them to know. So now when they try to act against him, they have to take into account that he knows that they know that he knows that they know.
And knowing this, anything they do will be all a part of his plan.
Checkmate.
Sadly, they have Sydney! Which means they also have a planner who can think 64 moves ahead! And she’ll do it sideways, just to make sure he can’t out-think her…
Thinking “sideways” is one of the underrated benefits of ADHD, it would seem…
I thought thinking “sideways” was Dabblers specialty. OH!
Nah, Dabbler’s more of a “deep” thinker than a sideways thinker…
Maybe it’s a birthmark!
(Gotta admit, that would be a pretty badass birthmark.)
What, did he have an X-section or something as his birth method?
It’s actually where he delivered Athena. “Deus” and “Zeus” come from the same Indo-European root…
“So, what are you gonna to do with 200 million dollars?”
“Buy the Presidency.” – Gary Busey, Under Siege and possibly Donald Trump sometime last year.
Actually, doesn’t the big decision happen in November of this year?
I get what YuffiemK is saying, it was in 2015 that Trump decided that he could buy a presidential election solo, as an ego trip.
I doubt he’ll survive the primary season, front runners normally don’t, especially ones getting the “troll” vote on polls. He’s basically pure poison for the Republican party come the general as he’s a motivational factor for centrist and left leaning folks to really come out and vote (to make sure he’s doesn’t). That puts Republican Senate and House seats in danger by proxy. He’s also a wreaking ball to what the party has been trying to do in soliciting Latino voters over the past five years. Since his money is being held for personal use and not being spread to local candidates, their not going to back him. His only support is from “Poll Trolls.” And even those he’s alienated to a degree by demanding Bill Gates shut down the Internet. In short he believes, wrongly, that money alone can buy a presidential election in the US. You need money… to play the politics, Trump doesn’t play those games. Maybe if he decided to buy a Senate seat first… but that wouldn’t contain his ego, and he doesn’t play those games.
Nah, he’s just using the primaries to promote his new book.
Sorry, for a paltry 200 million you only going to rent Trump; short term rent at that…
Hopefully, not a 4-year lease, involving 1600 Pennsylvania, Washington DC. I like in the Big Speech near the end of “Dave”, the main character is in front of the joint house stating the he had been hired to do a job and a temp job at that, and he had let people down. Trump does not need to get that temp job and the US needs Trump to not get that temp job.
Still waiting to see Deus do something bad or evil, so far he hasn’t even lied or mislead his intentions
You don’t have to lie or be misleading to be evil. You can always tell the absolute truth and do things that seem good and still be the most corrupt, evil being on the planet.
Yes, but we haven’t seen him be corrupt or evil so far (creepy certainly, but not evilly corrupt)
And the point was, we haven’t even seen him lie or mislead let alone do anything bad or evil, unless helping a fledgling nation become officially recognized is evil and bad
Yeah, but you can’t also be the most powerful.
Most Shareholders would hesitate to elect someone who opens positions for “The deadliest game” instead of “Summer intern”.
You know, I’ve only read one story that had the bad guy “Present truth in such a way that people hearing it trick themselves into believing a lie.” The bad guy in this story was quite litterly the Prince of Lies, Lucifer. And doing that is the big game/trick he plays on mortals.
In an act of rich irony when Lucfier first that on the main charter, he cut the head off Lucifer’s avatar and kept it in a sealed and silenced presentation case. Used it as a centerpiece. And yes the lone head was still active and changed expressions in reaction to people talking around it. And yes, he was more than a little peeved that one of his avatar’s heads was in such a state, tough he didn’t try that ‘lie by telling the truth’ trick on him again.
Huh, I read some weird stories.
His plot to take over the world is based on him buying out one of the video streaming services and modifying it to beam subliminal messages to people. This will slowly drive them insane and make them susceptible to his will. It will be called “Ct-hulu”.
Oh my god, that pun!
Actually someone is already trying something similar to this: Avoid watching FoxNews if you want to stay sane.
Avoid watching ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and the rest if you want to keep your lunch down.
My TV’s remained unplugged for at least 3 years now & I’m all the happier for it…And better informed of the truth too.
Anytime I really want to know what’s being said on TV, I go to the Media Research Center online…I highly recommend it, for getting some real background-checking & an analysis of how far devolved TV has gotten.
I fully expect a plot twist where he actually has no intention of doing anything evil and has just been a red herring stand-in for an actual bad guy. Like what if his interest in Maxima shown earlier was just for her awesome skin color?
And her boobies.
Do you not count spying on the government as bad?
Who spying on which government? o_O
The government, all of them, should IMHO have nothing to hide anyway. And since the governments are spying on their people… I mmmmmay perhaps not consider it as bad.
Oh, I don’t know about that. There are plenty of things that I think shouldn’t be public knowledge and dissemination of which should be limited.
For example, I’d much prefer that things like nuclear launch codes remain secret. And the creation and use of bioweapons and other WMDs.
Things like details on how (means and methods) the government is obtaining information about other countries and their governments is also something that should generally be kept secret.
Undercover operations should also be kept secret while ongoing, and possibly remain secret even after ending, and the identities of those undercover should remain secret even after the operation is over. So should things like information about people involved with or in WitSec.
Most military technology should also be kept secret, or as secret as is feasible.
There are others, but I think I’ve made my point, and if I haven’t made it to someone with the ones I’ve already mentioned, I doubt any additional examples will change their minds.
@Guesticus, Deus is using Harem to spy on Archon, which is part of the US Government.
Personally I think there should be a civilian oversight comity that is seprate from the government and it should be up to this comity if something should be classified based on national sceurety and the safety of the people involved
Wouldn’t it be ironny (ironic+funny) if there was a ‘civilian oversight committee’ and Deus was the head of it? :D
All three branches of government are civilian already.
There already is a civilian oversight committee that is separate from the government. It’s called ‘the voting public’. The problem is that its research division (the journalist profession, which is to say newspapers, news agencies, and news networks. Y’know, reporters) has been effectively bought out by private interests.
I have a special agreement to the hide how to produce bio-agents while developing them to create counters, for when idiots steal or develop there own and try to hurt people.
But “Loose lips sink ships” isn’t the only reason some activities shouldn’t have complete transparency. Not that I believe that we have anywhere near the level of transparency we need. More transparency would probably cost a lot of people a whole lot of money and perhaps some jail time in the short term, which is why, just like campaign finance reform, it will probably never happen.
But in the long term it would eliminate patronage and graft. And that would be good for the country as a whole, the economy, and the public morale and trust in government.
Last panel: that isn’t a Trinity knot, but I’m not sure what it is… Possibly a cross knot?
It looks like an cafe knot to me
It’s supposed to be a trinity knot. Maybe it’s humid there and it makes the knot slippy.
It’s an upside-down trinity knot, I noticed with the blue tie it was correct, but I don’t know how to tie one with the middle loopy bit on top when it comes to the purple one. That being said it is my favorite way to tie a tie, so props to you there!
Trinity knots are hexagonal, with rotational symmetry order 3. To ‘flip’ the knot horizontally you can reverse the chirality (horizontal ‘line’ to the left or the right of center) but you can’t flip it vertically – 3 edges have holes, 3 edges are solid.
But, that’s not the point I’m making on that knot – if you follow the lines, you see that 1 loop is on top of both the other strands, making it closer to a Cross knot. (X-shaped, not cruciform – you need a VERY long tie for the latter)
Pic of observations follows (Dave, my profuse apologies for this mangling of your work)
https://postimg.org/image/tlgsqyo5d/
I honestly expected this to be 5-mins followed by “Oops, fixed that” xD
Quick addendum – the other ties are all fine :P
I suppose there are sound reasons why this wouldn’t work in real life.
The word you are looking for is “shouldn’t” not “wouldn’t”. Sorry, I’m a cynicism-nazi.
Both are acceptable in this sentence as per the context of it.
This wouldn’t work in real life because of “x”.
This shouldn’t work in real life because of “x”
and the wouldn’t almost always ends in people.
the shouldn’t often works because people do what shouldn’t be done to make the process work aka shouldn’t work in real for reason of morals
@DaveB why not make the money map the vote incentive?
@Chronocidal last panel is a Trinity knot. You can also see it on the third panel.
Dave has the knot slightly rotated, but I claim artistic license.
In the last panel, the bottom-right portion of the tie crosses over both of the other portions, rather than over one and under the other.
(I am currently wearing a tie in a Trinity knot :P Tomorrow will probably be an Eldredge knot…)
Eldredge knots are coooooooooooool. I never wear ties, though, so they’re kind of lost on me.
If you must wear a tie, wear a clip-on. You never know when someone will want to try using it against you as a noose.
And never wear a bowtie! Unless it’s one of those novelty clown ones that spin like a propeller :P (anyone who mentions Doctor Who gets a virtual kick between the verticals!!!!)
Improbably long scarf whoops bow ties @$$!
YES!!!!!, and floppy hats! :D
OH YEAAAAAH!
(The giant Kool Aid pitcher comes crashing through the wall)
“All right! Who said that? That’s MY line!”
“Gives Gojira it’s new shot glass.”
All these things like roads, education, energy, food, and manufacturing sound great for the country but you know he’s secretly building a super laser or something.
Nah, that’s narrow thinking. Think Doctor Doom or Lex Luthor.
An ongoing share of the GDP, maybe manufacturing components that go into most electronic devices (and the associated possibilities), possible diplomatic immunity or at least somewhere he can’t be extradited from, establishing and making use of embassies worldwide, controlling a country (possibly from behind the throne rather than on it), possibly working “his” country towards a seat on the UN Security Council.
Heck, why build the super laser in secret? It could be developed as part of improving Galytn’s defence infrastructure, along with Batwing equivalents (and, remember, his company would own the infrastructure). Why not add a team of superhumans (and now you know why he was so impressed by Maxima – recruitment!). It would probably take only a little manipulation for Galytn to act according to his wishes, while disclaiming personal responsibility.
Work the country up to developing the right software and/or hardware, and clandestine world control is within reach!
What’s more … I’m starting to use exclamation marks, I’d better go take my medication.
My guess is that this particular chunk of Africa is jammed full of rare minerals used in electronics. A few of the major video game console manufacturers caught hell for inadvertently buying “Conflict Minerals” a few years ago.
Obtaining a cheap, legitimate source of these minerals could make a manufacturer a serious profit boost.
He said straight up “A few billion in, dozens of billions out in the long term.”
Since that’s a pretty sweet return on investment, and money is an excellent motivator, there’s no real reason to assume any skulduggery. Except, you know, dramatic license, etc.
I was born in Africa and know the history of my home…. so many Warlords have fallen for this trick its not even funny…
And yet, more warlords pop up every time to put one down: the only time you stop is when you run out of bullets, and then you simply reach for the trusty knobkerrie and play the warlord-drum solo :D
Almost all African warlords happen because someone in a first world country want it to happen. One of the first African countries (I forget the name) to get its independence from its colonial overlords (The Dutch in this case) was handed over to this tall fellow who everyone assumed would be a good little puppet, the moment he took office he did everything he could to shake off the Dutch interests that had been and wanted to keep draining his countries riches. About 10 months later he’d lost all European backing and a local General suddenly had heaps of money and was attempting a coup. He was tied to a tree and shot a short time later and the Dutch ruled the country with the puppet general instead.
Also you are giving off a very South African vibe… or do I have my wires crossed?
Slightly: mum is Rhodesian, and she still has family over there, and some who fled to South Africa
HAH that’s funny, many people from South Africa who can have been trying to flee it :P My one cousin got to England (Royal Marine), another married an American woman (has a farm in Maine) and I’m in Asia :P
Why do I have the feeling that Deus is going to become the Big Bad. Provided that there is not going to be either a or a Dragon-in-Chief – which, in Deus’ case, would probably be pretty scary.
Urgh. …either a or a Dragon-in-Chief…
I give up. A bigger bad or a dragon in chief. On TV Tropes. Look it up, if you dare. x)
Or possibly we are looking at a Greater Scope Villain, or a Man Behind the Man.
And, drat, there went my night. The genuine magical time trap that is TV Tropes.
TVTropes?
Call my boss, tell him I’m gonna be late. And tell my wife….I love her.
I think it’s more likely that he’s being set up to be A Lighter Shade of Black. Sure, he want’s to rule the world, that just means he’ll fight even harder against those who want to destroy it.
I get the odd feeling that Deus is just a distraction of some kind.
Or, better yet, he’s gonna become a key-fundraiser for ARCHON. If they do the whole fundraiser thing.
I’m seeing a Arianna x Deus frenemy relationship in the Batman x Superman style. They are friends. But it’s hard to tell sometimes.
Thought Ari had that going on with Maxi!
Is Bats going to be cheating on Soups with Aquadork? o_O
Do not worry, Dabbler will keep Max occupied.
Well, the way DaveB plays with the tropes, Deus may very well be an actual good guy…The likes to play the trope of the Big Bad personality archetype. After all, the big difference between a nutcase & an eccentric is how much money they have.
For everyone’s sake, let’s just hope he doesn’t team up with Ariana somehow :DDD
If they team up, I’m not sure anyone would be able to stop them.
do not underestimate sydney ever……eeeevvvvverrrrrr
Keep in mind, the Batwing isn’t produced on a government contract, so they only come to about $17,000 in raw materials.
I call bullshit! There’s no way it’s that cheap seeing as it basically is a flying version of the utility belt. It has any kind of missile you can possibly expect, and then there are the missiles for situations you CAN’T predict but have anyway for no damn reason.
It depends on whether Bruce builds it himself. And I’m betting he uses a lot of off the shelf.components. Why build and design an engine when you can have Wayne Enterprises buy one from GE for you. Same goes with avionics and other components, like missiles, guns and.ejection seats. The F-117 Nighthawk used components from several different aircraft, like the landing gear from the F-15. Still, it depends on how the Batwing stacks up to actual military jets. The mass produced but relatively low production F-22 Raptor has a fly away cost of $335 million. If Bats build something just as capable by hand, you can probably double.that. Granted, he can afford it.
Problem is, how much of that cost is true ongoing costs (once you designed it, it should should still cost that much, the cost should come down) and not continued ‘kickbacks’?
Not to mention outright profit. Probably anywhere from 50% to 90% profit. Nobody checks the bill.
Yeah, that’s what was meaning: someone added an extra zero or two and the accountants don’t bother checking too deep as long as the paper work looks legit
I’m not sure about the components for his planes, but back in the 90s there was a comic that specified that Batman uses McLaren engines in his cars.
I’m going to call it. Deus is some sort of long-lived person. Not necessarily immortal, but someone who doesn’t age or something like that. Like how elves are usually portrayed, immortal to but blade and poison kinda thing.
I’m getting that feeling, too. He’s got a much wider sense of time. I mean, why plan so far ahead unless you yourself can reap the benefits?
Either way, I’m seeing a heavy influence of David Xanatos and Dr. Doom in the inspiration for this character.
*odd look* All his plans so far provide benefits within his lifespan, they’re just not instant gratification. And plenty of people plan for things beyond their lifetimes – either to ensure they are remembered, or to make sure their kids, grandkids, and further descendants are cared for. If you aren’t planning in decades, you’re going to be in trouble when you try to retire…
Does Deus have children? It hasn’t been established yet, so I’mma guess not.
‘To ensure they be remembered’
Also, possible he’s planning a ‘just in case’ – he’s still plenty young enough to father children, maybe he has designs on Maxima.
The way he pawed at that monitor during the press conference? Very good chance of that being correct :D
If he has kids, he doesn’t seem like the fatherly type – he was bragging about his array of lovers last comic. I don’t doubt he has bastards here and there, but he probably just throws money at them and ignores them.
“The best way to defeat my enemies is to outlive them.”
~Dracula
Then the moon went out. We all looked upward as a dark shape covered it, descending, rushing toward us. Morris shrieked shrilly as it fell, changing shape as if dark veils swam about it. And then the moon shone again, and the piece of midnight sky which had fallen came to earth beside Jack, and I saw that vision-twisting transformation of which Graymalk had spoken, here, there, a twist, a swirl, a dark bending, and the Count stood at Jack’s side, smiling a totally evil smile. He laid his left hand, the dark ring visible upon it, upon Jack’s right shoulder.
«I stand with him,» he said, «to close you out.»
Vicar Roberts stared at him and licked his lips.
«I would think one of your sort more inclined to our view in this matter,» the vicar stated.
«I like the world just the way it is,» said the Count. «Pray, let us begin.»
Yep, the best person to have on your side to help prevent the apocalypse is biggest baddest you can find.
Thank you for riminding me how good that book (and Zelazny in general) was. Have discovered that Neil Gaiman wrote a short story set in the same theme called Only the end of the world again. Worth a read if you enjoyed Lonesome October.
You link is broken
Only The End of the World Again
Fixed it for ya.
When I read The Count saying, “Pray, let us begin.”, I can’t help but think he’s being misquoted – I think of him as meaning, “Prey, let us begin.”
You could be right that he’s long-lived, but I doubt he’d have that as a superpower or due to belonging to an elvish race. But given his wealth and influence, and the existence of supers, he’d doubtlessly attempt to recruit someone that can extend his lifespan into his service or track down some magical artifact with the same effect somewhere down the line.
Actually given some of his past statements, he probably is already “immortal”.
And it was probably due to a mystical/alchemical mishap that it was bestowed on him.
Along with his scar.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/797
For reference
My main critique is that ‘Galytn’ doesn’t sound like a plausible African name at all. Really, you could’ve just looked up the Swahili, Lingala or Kongo word for ‘might’ or ‘magnificence’ or something and that would’ve done the job just fine. Instead you invent a name that can’t possibly come from any of the local languages. >.>
Who says it had to have come from one of the local languages? o_O
Why would General Indinge name his country after… some variation on the English word Gelatin? >.> If he’s leading his region into secceeding from Zaïre/Congo, would you expect him to name his country in some foreign language?
Really, it’s just a very uncharacteristic name. Take a map of that region of Africa and count how many toponyms end in a consonant (hint: very very few). Then count how many of those end in anything resembling -ytn. I’m pretty sure the number you’ll end up with will be zero, even when being very generous regarding the ‘resembling” part.
I went through a bunch of names as I was writing this, and yes Galytn doesn’t sound terribly African, but to be honest I was having trouble coming up with anything that sounded good that also didn’t sound like I was making up some stereotypical African sounding word. My basic white guilt filter may have been in play, so they way I rationalize it is Deus suggested a new name for the country when it was recognized by other nations.
Fair enough, but this really messes up the suspension of disbelief for anyone familiar with the DRC. It would’ve been fine if you didn’t connect it with a specific real-life region of Africa, but now it makes it seem like you picked something quasi-random and didn’t bother informing yourself too much about Congolese history/culture. Maybe as a compromise you could’ve picked something French-sounding instead (French being the colonially introduced lingua franca of the Congo, still one of the most widely spoken languages in the region to this day)?
Also, you know the character better than I do of course, but “Galytn” doesn’t sound even close to cool/respect-demanding enough for a country name picked by Deus IMO.
“Maybe as a compromise you could’ve picked something French-sounding instead”
Galytn translates from French to the English name Galen, according to Google Translate. Maybe that’s someone’s name – either the warlord or Deus’s.
Or, it’s just text in one comic so far. How about changing it? Suggestions, anyone?
Well, I speak French and I can assure you it’s not from the French language. Maybe Google thought you misspelled it and substituted Galen instead?
The surname explanation sounds possible, though.
If there are ANY spies sent to Galytn,should they resemble two certain spies from MAD magazine?
Nah, “Spies Like Us” (the movie, not the shitty band :P) :D
Nah, make it Val Kilmer’s character from Top Secret.
Ooo yes, another classic :)
+1 for the simpsons title :D
It makes sense to me. He is the king of a tiny portion of land in an area that is probably barely above medieval levels of production going by the description of what deus is offering to do. A basic makeover from Deus alone would so vastly increase what his nation is capable of taking in and putting out (assuming this place has something valuable to trade, I doubt it has nothing or else he wouldnt be there) that it WOULD make him one of the richest men in africa. Or if not in truth, then it would seem that way because his personal wealth would increase many times over and more than be enough to make him happy. So long as he understands he will become a locally rich puppet king. I know nothing of business or running a nation, but even I can see where this deal will lead. Deus will control the economy, the infrastructure, and in time the army as he is the one with all the money to pay them. That means he is king there, not this guy.
There has to be something valuable about the country and/or the land to attract Deus’ interest. Otherwise there are plenty of other small nations he could choose from.
And competing with Asian Industry? That’s a tall order unless he has access to a large amount of natural and human resources, including fuels like coal or oil, to be financially profitable. Plus, it needs to be a coastal nation in order to have a proper Port and shipping.
If this is the case, if the land is that valuable, neighboring countries are going to be fighting over it. Which is going to eat up money as well in defense and/or financial appeasement [sharing the wealth].
Hmm, personally took that line about competing with Asian Industry as simply, without his cash injection (monetary enema) they haven’t a chance of ever make a profit of any kind, not that they would be competing directly for the Industry in Asia (which covers pretty much everything, from electronics to automobiles to fashion to phone call centres for your local bank)
The place has to be somewhere in the north-east part of the DRC.
1) The area has large stocks of various minerals, metal ores and diamonds to exploit.
2) It is located near the equator, so is located in a prime location to launch his orbital super-laser, (built from the resources listed above)
3) It is a volcanic region, providing him with a location to build his obligatory secret lair inside one of the volcanoes.
sounds about right
DRC of our reality has uranium and precious stones among other things, and considering DRC in this comic’s reality wants the territory back, I’d say it’s a safe bet to say that some of those natural resources are to be found in Galytn as well.
Remember what Batman said in the last episode of the JLA “pilot”, the entire watchtower (which considering it costs about $1000 per kilogram to put something into orbit, plus the cost of building the thing in the first place) must cost in the tens of billions and was a “line item in the aerospace budget”, I don’t think hiding the cost of new Batwings is all that difficult.
Now maybe he had Superman/GL put the thing into orbit, but that station is HUGE. Who even built it? It’s got to at least be the size of an aircraft carrier, and substantially more complicated.
Why would it cost that much to put it in orbit? I mean, couldn’t Superman just fly ‘modules’/ pieces of it on in to orbit. Heck he could quite possibly assemble the thing in a day or two with the right instructions, and a simple tab A into slot B and twist construction
Honestly, that line was so stupid as to be meaningless. Here are the things I can come up with off the top of my head that shows how dumb it is.
1) Designing, building, assembling and launching that space station would cost enough to bankrupt america, let alone wayne industries. Unless his company is worth somewhere in the hundreds of trillions, he isnt hiding that as a line item in his budget.
2) Who built it and how did he manage to keep it secret that wayne industries was funding it? There is no way the hundreds to thousands of people that had to be involved in every step of this process could have been kept entirely in the dark and had no idea what they were building, who it was meant for, and who was paying for it.
3) Unless superman really did fly it piece by piece, and the conversation they had made me doubt that, then the entire world had to be aware of this station as it was being built. You cant hide spaceship launches. And the various nations have the ability to inspect earths orbit. Thats not going to be invisible.
Bottom line, there is no way he could afford to fund this project himself, there is no way the world didnt know it was being built, and there is equally no way the people building it were kept completely in the dark. Lex alone would have easily been able to smuggle in loyal minions to work on the project, there is no way to secretly vet that many workers, giving him access to the project from day 1.
Aquaman has much much more wealth than anyone else on Earth, think of how many treasure ships have sunk over the centuries, and realize even the Marianas Trench isn’t too deep for him. When the adult Titans were coming back together as a team (late 90s early 2000s) Nightwing said his money was a bit tied up at the moment to fund an HQ, Tempest (the former Aqualad), left briefly and returned with several chests full of gold, etc. which funded a new Titans Tower.
he didn’t age any, and plans long term..
I’m assuming immortal? the ego and name fit
This is now…officially…my favorite character in the strip. Far outdistancing all the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ revealed so far. Here’s strongly hoping we don’t “Mary Sue” write him out of the story because of fan response, or misguided ‘Zomg, the goody goodyies haven’t kicked his butt yet’ thinking.
Because let’s be totally honest. Evil, entertains. Good, is boring. Boring, dull, foot dragging and soul devouring. And for those of you sheep saying ‘but Dabbler’s GOOD!”…we don’t know her that well. Yet. :)
Not that evil isn’t entertaining, but I wouldn’t say good is always boring necessarily. Take Sydney. She’s…odd…but I think ultimately she’s much more a good person than not. But she’s nothing if not entertaining.
So…the team is going to go up against an entire country at some point in the future, is what I’m getting out of this.
:D
I want someone, anyone, to point out flaws in this plan.
Also, on a completely unrelated note, can I use this Scheme in a story of mine?
It’s a common theme in many genres mostly Sci Fi though. Elements of it appear in many classics. The Cross-Time Engineer series by Frankowski is a favorite of mine.
I’ve got a geographical conundrum related to today’s comic. It reminded me that Tanzania is to the east of the DRC. I have always wondered why aren’t Tanzania and Tasmania pronounced with the same accented syllables?
That is because the people in Tasmania speak with an Australian accent. :) Tan-zan-i-a is emphasized on the first and third syllables. Tas-man-i-a is emphasized on the first and second syllables.
The Batwing is more likely to cost in the region of $100 million-$200 million each, the cost of a F-15K/F-22. I suspect he has them built on a production line, or has at least one being built at all times. Fighters are not quick to be built, but he always seems to have quick access to one after his current one has been blown up.
Re: the map
Denmark does not use Euro. We use Danish kroner.
…and China does not use yen.
…and Poland doesn’t use euro. Its złoty here – “zł”.
You’re right, China doesn’t use Yen, which has the symbol of ¥, however it does use Yuan, which has the symbol of ¥. They are not the same currency, but they use the same symbol.
Also, “Yen” isn’t even “Yen”, it’s “En” but for some reason westerners say “Yen” when we say “En”.
I apologize for us Yenglish speaking people.
Actually, in Japanese, “English” is “Eigo”… forget “Engrish” it’s just “Eigo”… Don’t ask, I don’t understand why it’s that either… What’s even weirder is the Kanji for America is the same as the kanji for rice…
Don’t we sell a lot of rich to Japan or Nippon?
Then why do you have the Y there?
*he says, casually whistling and pushing Gaelic under a sheet*
The Y isn’t in there in Japanese at all… it’s written in hiragana as えん which is “EN”, while it is possible to have just an N sound, which is ん that you see there, there is no just Y and there is no YE a holdover from the older Hepburn system of Romanization. In Hepburn, え which is E (no Y sound), is romanized as YE instead of E like it should be.
I say “should” because the standard approved by the Japanese government is the aptly named Kunrei-shiki system, the name literally means “government-mandated”. In Kunrei-shiki, it’s “en” not “yen” because there’s no Y sound used, and there wouldn’t be, because Japanese is a syllabic language (English is phonetic, not syllabic) and there is no “ye” syllable, and no way to construct one.
Oh, there’s also two Hepburn systems… Old and New… The newer version also writes へ as YE where as Kunrei-shiki writes it as HE. This means that in Old Hepburn, you cannot reverse transcribe へ or え from the romanized form back to Hiragana as there’s no way to differentiate between the two in the Old Hepburn romaji.
er correction, the OLDER version of hepburn writes へ as YE but I don’t know what the newer one uses… either E (which doesn’t really solve the problem) or as HE (as Kunrei uses).
Here’s hoping for a Sydney pic for February’s V-Day :3
I would like to um…. Second that…. Yes…
for the love of god no one show this comic to trump
Forget Trump. The Rockefeller family has already been there, done that (& willing to sell you the t-shirts for it) for quite a few generations.
Deus reminds of of Dio from Jojo in that last panel. IT SCARES ME SO.
Work heck!!! I’m still wondering how he got his face slashed, in some countries a mark like that is a sign of respect and honor. Yet in other countries a person with a mark like that could be a thief or a person of no honor, it all depends on location and the people involved. It also brings up a whole lot of questions….
It’s a tattoo.
Knots are passé.
This is what’s hip now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBb9O-aW4zI
This artisnal goods movement is becoming self aware, we need to shut it down!
Just want to clear something up. Already said it in reply to someone else, and I correctly predicted that there would be this confusion for people. China’s currency is called the “Yuan”, which uses the symbol ¥ symbol, while Japan uses “Yen” which also uses the ¥ symbol. They are not the same currency and are not even remotely the same value. For instance, at current, 1 US dollar is Chinese ¥6.57 while 1 US dollar is Japanese ¥117.31.
Being Japanese and living in America, I do a lot of online shopping in both Chinese and Japanese stores for things I can’t get locally. The rule of thumb I use is 5 Yuan to a dollar and 100 Yen to a dollar. Generally it’s a bit higher than that, but it works out for me because I end up over estimating how much something costs in US Dollars, and so my budgeting works better that way. This way I end up with surplus.
I would like to stress that it’s not so much that US Currency is worth more as it is that’s what it exchanges for. If an apple costs $1, you can expect an apple to be around J¥100 or C¥5. So it works out about the same. To get the US dollar is worth a rediculously large amount of money and actually goes further, you need to go to a non-industrialized country whose GDP is laughable. Oil can only be bought with US Dollars, and so US Dollars are worth disproportionately more in such countries.
Someone probably pointed this out, but you committed an “it’s” in the reply Deus gave in the first panel, at the beginning of line four. No apostrophes are used in possessive pronouns.
This message is brought to you by Grammar Third Reich. “Grammatik über alles!”
Whoops. Fixed now.
This message is brought to you by Grammar Third Reich. “Grammatik über alles!”
What I don’t like are those who link Nazis to strict grammar. Think Prussian for that. Nazis tortured and murdered millions so cheapening their horrors for your dislike of being reminded about grammar I find repulsive.
I am expecting someone to buy a country. In some of my fiction one did, in the Congo region.
Russia uses “₽” sign instead of “руб” to denominate ruble.
Since 2013-12-11
Ref: https://cbr.ru/today/?prtid=voterub
Regarding something mentioned on Deus’ name…
He strikes me as the kind of person who would go and pay the changing fee to make his legal name Deus Xavier Machina.
Depending on the state, the fee might not be all that much. After reaching 18, back in 1998, I changed my name to something more easily pronounced by Americans, and it only cost me $50 for filing it and $20 to get the application notarized. It ended up going through the courts as a law suit. It was New Name vs Old Name in the court records. Kinda neat… I basically had to sue myself to get my name changed.
At the time, I was living below the poverty line and I could still afford it by just eating mostly ramen for a month.
Wow, ‘depending on the state’ can be significant. I’ve had a good dozen or so documents notarized in my life, all but one at banks (that last being one attorney who had his staff notarize a will), several of which I was not an account holder.
Total cost for all of them (also individual cost…)? $0.00. Zip, zilch, nada.
Of course, my state probably charges $3,000 for the filing fee…
Money really is the ultimate super-power.
Ugh, he’s even more smug and slimy than Lex Luthor…
But, he has such a luxurious head of hair, that has to count for something, doesn’t it? o_O