Grrl Power #41 – Mothra is a moth dummy
I like that picture of Maxima in the last panel. Every other picture I have of her up to this point are pinups of her looking tough. One of the things I like about doing an ongoing comic is that it makes me draw stuff like Maxima looking consternated. Sydney has that effect on people I guess.
Oh, and I should say thanks to my girlfriend for inking about half this page. She’s not an artist (yet), but assuming I do clean enough pencils, she can ink them while I work on another page. The problem with working digitally is that final pencil cleanup might as well be the inks, so I tend to do fairly lose pencils. But we’re developing a process that will hopefully yield more than one comic a week. Possibly as many as 1.3 comics per week, hah hah.
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.
LOL, how can anyone not at least smirk at her profanity she’s like an artist with a paintbrush, it’s just so inspiring XD
7 panels!?! i smell us a thursday comic!
also i love the side eyes in panel 4 and 7 and come on porcelain swan collector ! who cant laugh at that one?
Damn she’s an artist at that stuff. Do you have a random curseword generator on your computer or do you think this up all on the fly?
The look on Maxima’s face in the last panel was a nice touch.
Yeah, especially as she seems to be looking directly at the reader, rather than at anyone on-panel.
just to point something out.. artist/author name david barrack.
I think they are referring to Sydney’s Swearing being an art-form, and Max looking AT the camera in the final pannel
I’m with Maxima…. I miss the Air Force too.
Plus, after hearing Sydney calling the robber everything but a white man, I’d have that “Just shoot her and get it over with so I can kick your a$$” look too.
Gonorrhea milkshake, I have got to remember that one. Might use it as a Steam name sometime, lol.
Can we please list “swearing” as her super power? It has made more impact so far than the mystery tube.
Saw your post about the “lawer” spelling mistake – bad luck! I’ve never used photoshop so I don’t know how it works, but can’t you check the text for errors in another application before you cut-and-paste it?
(And on a related note – in the last panel, “allready” should read “already”. Sorry.)
Son of a… alright, something else to fix when I get home. Yeah, I really should type out all my dialog in some web app so I can see the inline spell check, and then copy paste it. I guess that way I could store all my comic transcripts in Evernote or something.
And thats why Quark express was such a killer application in the print industry for so long.
Text stays in a separate file and gets linked in …. mind you I have been out of the industry so long I have no idea whats out there these days.
InDesign would be Adobe’s current version of that type of product.
It might be worth taking a look at the upgrade prices from Photoshop to the CS suite if you want it. (But it’s probably overkill just for a weekly webcomic.)
Oh man, InDesign would be terrible for comic work. It has such limited export options, is a memory hog, is unstable, I don’t think you could do word balloons easily, it does have a spellcheck but it’s not inline.
CorelDRAW on the other hand… could do all of those things. Hmm. I used to be a big proponent of that program when I was doing more design work. It just never gets any attention or press cause of Adobe’s shadow.
Bottom line is, there isn’t a single program that does it all. Photoshop, and Manga Studio, are the best all in one options (and possibly Illustrator depending on your art style) but each lacks a lot of tools, and Manga Studio is super hard to use IMO, and produces terrible looking lines. Seriously if I won the lottery, I wouldn’t go buy cars and houses, I’d hire up a dozen programmers and make the best comicing program possible. Paint Tool SAI as a base for the illustrating, a dialog editor with inline spellcheck that let you drag and drop each line on to a page and automatically wraps a word bubble around it, tools for perspective, speed lines, zip tones, textures, ug, I have so many ideas for it.
I wonder if there’s a way to get a group of Webcomic/comic artists together and hire someone to create an open-source product for you. (I’m not quite a good enough programmer to start that type of project myself…)
I don’t do comics, but I have used the image-editing program called GIMP, which seems to have a metric buttload of features, more than I can even try. All I needed was to resize an image to use fewer pixels for an Icon, I know it does a lot more than that.
https://www.heathrowe.com/spellcheck.aspx
Photoshop does have a spell check feature. It’s right there. You’re welcome.
….lol
She has a mouth on her the size of Taxes.
The size of *taxes*? How big is that?
No idea that was a saying my mother used to use if she saw some one swearing a lot.
taxes? as in IRS as in april 15th? :P sure ya dont mean Texas as in that big ole southern state? lol just sayin
Oh boy…
I sense an eruption about to occur. Sydney seems to be nearing the breaking point where she doesn’t care about anything except clobbering the skuzzball any way she can. I would not want to be near ground zero when it happens…
Halo’s ‘birth’ appears to be only a few panels away…
You misspelled “gonorrhea”. I volunteer my services as copyeditor. Let me know before you put one up and I’ll come in and take a look. I didn’t notice the one on the postcard because I wasn’t actively looking for it. :)
Gah! Stupid words and their… hardness.
I also volunteer my services, as I have actual experience with the position, albeit with only my alma mater’s school newspaper.
Aww poor MAx she doesnt know what to make of the fouled mouth sailor talk of Syd but Syd’s on the right path best way to diffuse tension is comedy
I love the second to last picture. there’s her expression and the chaotic flailing of arms which makes a great contrast to the other panels. Just great work simply :-)
Totally awsome if Sydney suddely runs out of frenzied energy and pulls an aikido move on this guy. That’ll catch Max off guard too. lol
Is she reaching to scratch his eyes in the last panel, or is she summoning that which resides in the tube? I hope it’s the later…
First time commenter, but I’ve been reading this for a few months … can’t remember where I linked in from, though.
The text crossing panels one and two has “aficianado” which should be “aficionado” or “afficionado”.
I missed the “LAWER” the first time on the card, but spotted “liquify” which may also be correct according to one of the comments.
There was a character on Glen Cook’s Black Company books who wouldn’t swear but her subordinates would listen closely as she went on a tirade to see what she came up with instead of profanity.
Gitrdone! lol the instant Syd gets free it’s Halo time…
This is the best part of monday. Also, some things. Cause everyone loves things. Where are the sailor and nuns? Would love to see their reaction to this. Brings a new meaning to cuss like a sailor. And the nuns, because, well, see first thing to pop into your head. And technically she isn’t “cursing” so if you add that into your imaginary thingy it adds some funny. Also apparantly the 2nd robber and Maxima haven’t noticed each other yet. And trying to imagine what “snerk” actually sounds like. And that’s all my things for now! Will return with more random thingys later! Cause I like thingys!
And did that link for emergency exit work for you Dave?
Maybe a halo actually forms around the top of her head and decapitates the robber… Now imagine reaction of Maxima, robber, 2nd robber, sailor, and nuns. Especially the nuns.
though i would think by now that the nuns have died from hearing the sheer size of her vocabulary when it came to insulting him
except, like I said, she has yet to say any actual “curse” words, only colorful language thus far.
problem with that is neither sailor or nuns entered the bank, besides the nuns would nutrilize the situationnun-fu then restrain syd and preform an exorcism on her.
Maxima and the guy with the pistol have noticed each other, but he’s not doing anything that puts anyone in any immediate danger, and she’s far more interested in Sydney and the tube. It might be irresponsible heroing, leaving hostages scared on the floor, but Maxima isn’t Superman, as long as civilians don’t get hurt, she doesn’t really care how this goes down. The other robber doesn’t know what to do. He may not know what her abilities are but it’s obvious she’s not concerned that he’s armed. Right now he’s just trying to get some money in the bag and then who knows what the next step is. Probably use hostages to cover an escape? Everyone’s playing it by ear at this point.
Another first time commentator.
I’m enjoying this comic so far but one small niggle… How did the shotgun from the previous page change to a handgun?
GaH!. Pistol-grip. >.< Ignore me. I'm having a bad day.
*snerk* “Leaky sack of colostomy jelly” is a damn good one. Her insults just keep getting more and more creative!
I also can’t shake the idea of an EE/GP crossover, as the characters from EE, assuming you read the original archive, would get along quite well with Sydney, IMHO.
Eddie would have either a.) turned it into a game whereby somehow the gunmen would have freaked and ran away or b.) hit them with his hammer.
Eddie from Emergency Exit: Hey guys, what’s going on?
Maxima: Bank robbery.
Syd: Profanity
Robber: Shaddup you. (bonk Syd on head)
Eddie: You no hit lady! (much bigger bonk on robber head)
Maxima: Did you just pull a giant hammer out of your hair?
You forgot the coolness enhancers and the chicken-themed villain.
This is the best stream of swearing I have read/heard in quite a while. :p
“porcelain swan collecting”? “ecumenically vague”? “weasel molesting banana”? I think she’s starting to run out of steam until Mr. Hostage-taking Bankrobber recharges her with that insult about her punches.
Weird, I’ve made a few comments that never got posted. They didn’t go into spam either. Anyway, my response the first time I posted this was basically that the word bubbles going off the edge of the panels are suppose to show that we’re just getting snippets of her ongoing tirade. “Weasel molesting banana” isn’t the most hurtful comment sure, but “Weasel molesting banana herder?” That’s gotta cut to the bone. At least in Sydney’s mind.
Hm. I always thought the phrases separated as “weasel molesting” and “banana-gonorrhea milkshake”.
Go for the eyes Boo! Go for the eyes!
We all read that 1.3 comics per week as 1 to 3 per week right >:)
More like the occasional week with 2 I’d say.
Sigh… I need a sarcasm/joke font.
You mean the tag doesn’t work for you ? :P
It didn’t work for me either [/sarcasm]
Totally unrelated to anything being discussed here, but on the cast page there are icons next to each photo that show what I assume to be power levels. Is there a key somewhere as to what these icons mean?
P.S. Good story and great artwork, kudos to you!
I’m obviously not official, but I’ve worked out what most of them are, I think:
Maxima:
Flight, Armor, Strength, Energy Beams, Speed
Halo:
Flight, Energy Beams, Forcefield, Teleportation, Telekinesis
Dabbler:
Martial Arts, Energy Beams, Forcefield, ?, Sharpshooter, ? (The two questions are somewhat ambiguous between them. Superintelegince, psionics, and gadgetry are possibles. Sorcery (and possibly others) are apparently not shown, so none of these lists should be taken as complete.)
Anvil:
Super Strength, Kinetic Absorption, Martial Arts
Harem:
Self-duplication, Teleportation, Martial Arts, Superstrength.
Oh, I forgot one:
Peggy:
Sharpshooter.
(And apparently their ranks are as of sometime ‘current’ in the story: In the beginning setup, Maxima refers to Halo as ‘Corporal’, while the bio lists her as a Private. So obviously she gets a promotion at some point. Or Maxima made a mistake, but that doesn’t seem to be her type of mistake.)
Yeah the comic starts with a flash forward (that or everything is a flashback, it’s really splitting hairs to make that distinction as far as the storytelling goes I think) but I imagine that their ranks will be revised a little when I get to that part in the story. Originally I was thinking that anyone with super powers would join the team as an officer, sort of like a genetic R.O.T.C., but that really doesn’t make sense in a military or police organization – having powers doesn’t make you command material, Sydney’s an obvious example of that, so I’ll have to revisit everyone’s ranks when it’s time.
It makes sense that you’d put them on the command-track, but start at the bottom. (Which would likely mean 2nd Lieutenant: That’s what you’d be fresh out of West Point. A non-com seeing that rank will know that you outrank them, but it’s all book-learning, and they have more experience than you.)
Actually, thinking about it, what is probably the best fit is Warrant Officer: They outrank grunts, but are lower than regular officers. That’s the rank a technical specialist would have. (And a random ‘Super’ would, in my thoughts, be a technical specialist on their own powers.) They are expected to be experts in their own field, and to advise and guide their superior officers on that topic, but not expected to be command material outside of that topic.
Ah, that’s good to know about the warrant officers, that makes sense. It’s hard to find a wiki or a FAQ anywhere that breaks that stuff down in a terse and concise fashion.
Well, I just used Wikipedia. ;) But I mostly knew what I was looking for: What ranks were ‘officers’ and what were ‘grunts’. I knew that college-educated recruits go in as officers and others went in as grunts. (And that ‘grunts’ only rarely make it into the ‘officer’ category through straight promotion.)
There are always “Mustangs”.
Yep, there are. But they are typically the exception, not the rule. (There’s nothing to say you can’t go from grunt to officer, but most don’t.) Mostly because of the way recruitment is done: Grunts are recruited with the promise that it’s for a limited time, and then they will get college money. Officers are recruited as a post-college career track. A Mustang would have to be someone who got in as a grunt, decided they liked it, and didn’t want to leave for college, and also showed they had what it takes to be an officer.
Haven’t we already had this conversation somewhere before in an earlier page comment section?
Yeah but I’m still a little unclear about all that stuff, might as well gather up as much info now so I don’t to go in and retcon stuff.
Well, these comments are being used as a sort of second-rate forum at this point. One of the hard parts about that is that we can’t have a separate thread start up that can be referred to.
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of forums as a comment system for webcomics, I think the separate registration process is a barrier to entry, but everyone has their preferences – however for certain topics like this, I can see the advantage of something like that. Obviously anyone is free to start a discussion about it elsewhere and invite people to it, I don’t know where you’d do something like that, maybe the CMX forums have a “talk about whatever” thread. I’m not a member of their network so I don’t know if they’d frown on it.
Forums and comments can often be complementary, serving different purposes to the fans. Comments are on a specific update, giving direct feedback on that update. (And have a low barrier of entry for the majority of the users.) Forums can help build a community, and allow discussion of larger issues that aren’t specific to any one update. The higher barrier of entry is offset somewhat by the longer-term commitment to discussions that some are interested in. (And by the fact that you have much more of a fan community, instead of just random people talking together.)
Every webcomic should start with a comment section. Not every webcomic has the following to support a forum. It’d say that this comic is probably right about on the threshold for forum status. Not bad for a comic that still hasn’t finished introducing it’s main characters. ;)
I feel that this format here is more helpful than a forum, because it feels more immediate. A physically separate forum might make topic threads more difficult to follow – at least for beginners like myself.
“Grunts”, are Infantry.
Yeah making a Key is on my to do list, but DStaal is basically right. It was difficult coming up with icons for mental powers so some of them might be revised.
I was thinking of having Dabbler’s extend down off her graphic cause she has so many low level powers but as amusing as that was to be it presented some layout issues. Those are intended to be a sort of “at a glance” guide anyway.
The duplication of some of the powers helped. There are only a couple confusing ones, anyway. (The Martial Arts fist threw me for a bit of a loop, but having it on three people meant I could narrow it down.) The ‘squiggly lightbulb’ I have no idea what you are trying to convey, but I figure the last of Dabbler’s is most likely superintelligence.
Yeah I think that one is for super IQ. The problem is how do you make icons that distinguish, in icon form, telepathy from high IQ from empathy from clarisense, psychometry, etc. Even if you spend a long time thinking about it, it’s not going to be immediately clear without a key or a mouse over tooltip like you get in an MMO or something. I’d like to do that but those graphics already have javascript on them for the bio pop-outs. I’ll have to revise that page at some point but in the meantime a key is the easiest solution.
(Just thoughts here.)
I’d build from smaller icons. Brain + Radio Waves = Telepathy. Heart + Radio Waves = Empathy. Object + Wall + Eye = Clairvoyance. (That one’s busy, but I think could be done in a simplified enough fashion.) Object(clock?)+receding + Eye = Psychometry. (Could also just use a receding eye.)
I don’t understand what the gunman is doing with his weapon in the fifth panel. Is he spinning the gun?
Yeah he’s kind of twisting it around like… Homer listening to Ned Flanders talk, it’s like a “hurry up” motion. It worked better in my head.
Worse. Hostage. Ever.
I’m waiting for Maxima to do something.
“Do you want me to hold her while you two make your getaway?”
(That seems the best move. Too many people around to engage the perps inside the bank.)
((Maxima has a ‘surprised’ icon in the cast photo area. From a future strip?))
(((Leave Sydney, take the tube. {Sad Trombone.mp3} )))
Fook me…. they’re gonna be too demoralized to keep it up much longer. I mean it’s bad when the hostages are laughing….. Yet I get the feeling she hasn’t even begun to tap the true gems of her vocabulary/
What happened to his shotgun? Ah-hah! Gotcha! :P
Hmm, something looks off with the woman int he first two panels, she wasn’t drawn quite right, but I can’t tell what is wrong.
Well, she’s supposed to be Asian, maybe half Asian, so maybe I’m racist. Heh, or like 95% of artists, I’m terrible at drawing Asian people that look Asian. Also I think her chin doesn’t stick out far enough, so it makes her head look a little… wobbly.
If I had a decent amount of drawing skill, I would draw Asians in an anime style.
(I mean, it’s that or look like I’m being obstinately racist.)
Looking at it again, I think her face is a little too long and her hair doesn’t seem to cover the space her skull should occupy. She seems to have a longer face with shorter skull than everyone else, save the guy right next to her, but he looks like he’s supposed to look that way. (Tiny brain cavity.)
Just trying to be productively critical.
At the risk of being a back-seat driver, will the next comic start moving things along? This is three comics in a row of basically the same thing.
Be careful what you wish for!
It might be a strip showing
the guy at the comix shop
Wondering why she’s taking so long.
Hah hah we’ll see him in a bit, but yeah, it’s fair to say this is the last page of tirade for a while.
Also, I know this is a bit painful being on a weekly basis, but my goal with the comic has always been to build a good archive since I knew the update schedule would be slow, I don’t want to skip any good jokes or set up for the sake of jumping along with the plot.
Go at your own rate. We may gripe, but I would your best work than your fastest.
Arrgh! “…would have your best work…”
In the interest of panel saving – as you have mentioned previously. I think you could have lost panels 1 and 4 in this strip and maybe it would have read better if the order was changed so that it was 3, 2, 5, 6, 7 with Syd’s rants spilling across them all, like they are in panels 1 & 2.
Yeah, that definitely could have worked that way. I’m slowly getting better at composing what’s inside the panels as I go, the actual panel layout is a separate art. I tend do think too much in storyboard form, like I’m setting up shots for an animation – or really, I see the anime version of this in my head, and I’m trying to cut it down into snapshots of that show, which I’m sure has really cool sound effects, and H. Jon Benjamin doing a voice somewhere in it.
lol she swars even better than an irishman an english man and a scotts man put together lol i love it
And nobody noticed the power aura building up around Syd’s hand yet.
What power aura? Oh, you mean the diffusion-backlight effect, like what’s around Maxima’s head as well?
(Speaking of: Um, so how did they get in front of a window? Maxima was at the counter, turned around, and took a couple of steps forward… Unless the counter has a bullet-proof glass shield that’s highly reflective, but if that’s the case why is the clerk scared?)
Yeah that’s “bloom” to use a video game term. Light bleed from a much brighter background. This bank is sort of set up like one near me, the tellers have two counters, the one facing in to the bank for walk in traffic, and one behind them with a big window facing the drive through line with all the suction tubes.
Except it also outlines the window…
Made a tweak to the .CSS – those nested comments were getting Inception deep, thought we were gonna bump in to Leo.
How much did this tweak change? I ask because the top half of the five navigation buttons underneath the comic seem to have been covered up.
I’m using Firefox 3.6, if that matters.
Hmm, that shouldn’t have had any effect. I just changed the left margin of the comment box from 20 to 10.
Bluh, that did break a lot of stuff. No idea why. I’ll unbreak it until I have time to fix it better.
No problem here with the newest Internet Explorer browser.
A related thought, maybe expand the maximum width of the comment & news section to fit the whole section, like the width of the comic + the “who’s who” box … that way when you get a lot of nesting going on, they don’t get quite as narrow ?
i take it u saw the movie Inception? well for those of u that havent its a good movie…. as is Machete…. minigun on motorcycle for the win
wouldn’t the sustained recoil toss the bike like a ragdoll in the dryer?
Awww sure you don’t wanna go deeper? :)
Nice innuendo there. :)
The Claw! It comes!
Only 3 hours until monday, and roughly 8 or 9 until I’m up and ready to read the new comic!
Except I now realize that today is Saturday, not Sunday! Making tomorrow Sunday! So only… *doing toe and finger math*… (it’s too late and too far into summer already to do math)… 24+8… 36ish hours left! About! Probably less! Huzzah, less than 36ish hours left! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Also, if there is anyone else interested in history here, on Monday the history channel is showing something it just made about Gettysburg. They only used reenactors but it looks amazing, and they picked the best song possible for the commercial. Here’s the link on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwNJS8dwkYs&feature=related
They should fire all the holleywood actors and hire these reenactors, especially the guy at 20 sec. He sure looks like he’s preparing to charge into enemy fire. More expression in 10 seconds than some actors show in an entire movie.
that’s some excellent tourettes there sir! lol, I bet you had fun making all that up! or… it just came naturally… then I’ll be worried…
Me or Dave?
Random speculation (because that’s what Bunnies do):
Maxima is a (very far removed) alternate universe counterpart of Tedd Drew Verres. The hair, the glasses and the shiny skin (Tedd glows sometimes, yet to be explained), it all fits!
http://www.egscomics.com <– For those who have no idea what I'm talking about.
Something is very wrong… it has been more than 36ish hours, but no new comic… NOOOOOOOO!
I believe there is some sort of public holiday in America today. Perhaps this has something to do with it?
Yeah, long holiday threw me off. New comic going up in just a minute.