Grrl Power #434 – Pinvy
As a thoroughly suburban individual, the idea of nice restaurants with apartments above them is foreign to me. It’s common in New York certainly, probably in most urban areas really. I just mention it cause when I googled “restaurant row” for some architectural ideas I was surprised to see a bunch of pictures of 2-5 story apartment buildings instead of what I thought I’d get which was a street with a bunch of stand alone restaurants on it.
I haven’t done much with the team interacting with fans yet, partially because drawing crowd scenes is a pain in the butt, even if they’re mostly implied. But still being famous is part of what superheroes would have to deal with, especially in the Grrl-verse, though really, the Avengers would probably have to deal with that stuff too. They might not get booked on Conan as part of their regular schedule like Arc-SWAT will be, but getting mobbed by idiots wanting to take selfies with them, even if they were in the middle of a fight would be a thing they’d have to deal with.
Sydney should be cold. Everyone else is wearing jackets. That’s just something that happened as I was drawing the page which is why it’s not mentioned in the dialog at all. Not that I don’t do rewrites as I draw the pages, but there wasn’t really any room to mention it. Not that NY never gets warm, but it’s definitely colder than where she came from. Yes Dabbler is wearing a lot less than Sydney, but imagine for a moment that succubi have a fairly high tolerance to the cold, expressly for the purpose of being able to show a lot of skin even when it’s snowing. Not “immune to ice lasers (iaser? iasei?)” tolerant, just relatively comfortable even when skinny dipping in icy water.
Edit: I forgot the lace pattern on Gwen’s dress and also her back tattoo, which I think we last saw on page 88.
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Pity them. I know from experience that no one has it made.
I was going to write, “No love for Gwen and Pixel?” But based on their comment, I guess they’re better off.
They are ‘support crew’, no one is interested in Alfred’s signature
Considering that Alfred is asuperhero in his own right (not to mention a highly trained and decorated ‘retired’ secret agent)… I WANT!
Yes, it might turn out to one of those extra valuable rarities… Good call.
The problem with Alfred is that so few of the people who know him for being more than Bruce Wayne’s butler that “fame” doesn’t even really get into the picture at all. EVERYBODY knows Batman, but who really knows Alfred (except Batman, Robin & Nightwing)?
bat girl for a start
That was the point
For someone as versed in covert ops as Alfred is, his anonymity is probably something he treasures. Especially as compared to what his boss goes through routinely.
As his first line of defense, invisibility (in the social sense) is pretty hard to beat.
(sarcasm)Wallflowers of the world, Public Demonstration Time!(/sarcasm)
Like that’s gonna happen…
Well, obsessed fans and crazy archenemies can get pretty darn tiresome. Seeing what Bats goes through, Alfred probably counts himself lucky that he avoids those things almost completely.
Well he did give his signature to Clark Kent…
But did anyone see Batman giving his autograph to Bruce Wayne?
Yes, seriously, people strive for the spotlight, but the spotlight has cross-hairs in it. My few brushes with fame made me very uncomfortable.
I am also very worried about when some hostile humonkuloyd (great name for a villain) shows up at the comic store looking for Halo and poor Joel’s there….
Da, Halo will soon envy her teammates who get to hide when the cameras go off. Especially when she finds the first photographer in a tree outside her window.
Also, well done backgrounds, but I think we’ll all understand if you choose to have the next scene be in a sterile lab while studying the orbs.
I pity that first paparazzi
I don’t.
Considering the way some of those hosers act, they deserve everything they get if someone goes postal on them.
Sydney mails them to Abu Dhabi, sharing the baggage compartment with Nermal?
Now why do you want to be that cruel to Nermal, forcing him to share the baggage compartment with paparazzi?
Eh, Nermal’s a jerk.
You mean like super-valuable first-person-perspective photos of being attacked by a superhero cop that will be splashed across tabloids for decades and bring in a boatload of money to the victim paparazzi in question and/or their next of kin?
Rule one of anti-pap tactics: target the camera first, and ensure you completely destroy (fire, followed by water, followed by acid, followed by industrial electromagnet; lather, rinse and repeat as needed) any film/memory cards they happen to have. Remember that a full cavity search may be required to find all the recorded evidence.
Oh, and it should go without saying, but do this in a secluded space where you’re not likely to have witnesses.
Do it right (i.e. without directly attacking the pap-rat, only their recording devices), and you even don’t look like a bad guy.
Targeted PPO blast at just the right power level to vaporize the recording device leaving the person holding it too stunned/shocked for words, but otherwise unharmed?
Hmmm, Lighthook to grab the tree-papp’s camera equipment, then the PPO…
PULL!!
THEN the paparazzi starts to excrete fecal matter when Sydney glares at him…
Targeting the camera first “used” to work back in the day, before wireless connectivity of everything. Check out the Eyefi Memory Card as an example. These were around in 2005, before the boom in high-speed Cellular data transmissions. They provide redundant backups to another device within 90-ish feet.
I shudder when I think of the term “professional” paparazzi, who are used to having camera gear being wreaked, will likely be using such off-camera redundancies.
Hmm, maybe the brown orb projects a very powerful, but localized EMP blast. Say bye-bye to all your electronics.
Sydney: Oh, so that’s what that does. You guys okay?
[ Unintelligible male voice ]
Sydney: Well, that’s your own damn fault! You shouldn’t be try to hang outside my window. I could have grabbed something that was really powerful, like this one. Did you know that my first name for this was going to be the Molestorb. I can demonstrate if you want.
[ Unintelligible male voice ]
Sydney: That’s right! Run and don’t come back!
Heh.
It’s probably not EMP. If it was, Sydney would have noticed its effects on her cell phone.
I bet the paparazzi won’t bother most of the ARC-SWAT members since they mostly wear uniforms. Nobody cares for pictures of the same thing every day.
Yup! As Daniel Radcliffe has proven. During the run of “Equus”, the paparazzi were outside the theatre every single night. Just to troll them, he would wear the same hat and jacket every single night, and zip the jacket up so they couldn’t see what he was wearing underneath it. As a result, every photo looked like it was taken on the same night, and thus, the pictures became unpublishable after the first few days.
Heh. Now that is a clever solution. My respect for him has just gone up a notch.
I must confess that I felt it was a poor decision to cast him as Harry Potter originally. His acting skills were simply not up to the more demanding scenes. It would have been better to compromise by either not matching the look or the nationality.
Kids learn accents really fast (I know from first hand experience), so a vocal coach could have an American sounding spot on. Plus there are both more Americans, hence a larger pool to search. And they are exploited, as actors, at a much younger age. So I am sure many would have been better trained than their UK counterparts, on average.
As it was, I know that J.K. Rollins was the one calling the shots, and respect her for standing by her decision. But it did result in bringing me out of the moment, several times, where his talents fell short.
One that sticks with me is a highly emotional moment, where you would normally expect to see the actor’s face. However it was obvious that the director realised Daniel was not up to it. So had to shoot the scene from behind. Which worked quite well. But was forced enough that it leapt out at me why he had done that.
But, all credit where it is due, Daniel worked hard at studying his art, and brought himself up to speed for the later movies. He does have talent.
Even going to the extent that I was well into watching a Frankenstein remake before realising that he was playing the lead role. Weirdly enough that was the part of Egor, rather than Frankenstein. So the makeup was extensive. But his features were unmistakable, once I made the connection. Thus it was his acting which prevented me from making the association.
She’s already ran into them, Just this “morning” remember? Flock of them camped on her yard.
“Quit camping my spawn!”
The one outside her bedroom window will get to experience what the lighthook was originally going to be called and the reason for it. Trust me, he wont be wanting to share that experience nor pictures (nor likely to ever be able to sit down ever again).
Better yet, just tell max that she was on his list and he will end up [Redacted] in various [Redacted] with several [Redacted], never to see the [Redacted] ever again.
…only, that encounter will be photographed by another paparazzo, and those pics will end up on the ‘webs, earning Bedroom Paparazzo the dubious distinction of being the Molestorb’s first public victim and earning Sydney a bit of well-deserved (but worthwhile) non-judicial punishment.
Valid question: what’s the distance of the lighthook at maximum range? I’m fairly sure that would make EVERYBODY understand the limitations.
If Sydney can get stuff out of the fridge, without getting off the sofa, she has sufficient range for all meaningful tasks. Anything beyond that is just getting greedy.
Peeping is illegal. And since she has the capability to catch reporters in trees attempting to peep, the paparazzi won’t do such more than once.
A “Badgers!” maneuver can startle one into a nasty fall.
I think badgers maneuver would be considerably less startling than the lighthook appearing in front of them in the form of a human digestive system from the lower half…
Is it ok to like the comment pic much more than the page itself?
It’s ok…Really. It takes all kinds to make a world, right?
(snigger)
“Turns head 180 looks at MidnightDStroyer, goes back to watching Dabbler.”
Not at all, that page sure showed Dave who’s bitch he was :)
Gwen would probably be colder than Sydney. Those bare shoulders make me feel cold.
Isn’t she indoors?
Yup.
Ahem,
That would just do nice things to certain *ahem* areas of Gwen’s, shall we say, anatomy. Which is why she is both indoors and has her back to us.
Curse you Dave!
A succubus exposed to cold just gets a two-point bonus to seduction.
I see what you did there.
I get it. When Jane Russell made a 3d movie the byline was ‘She’ll poke BOTH your eyes out!’
Convenient Nipples?
I believe we call that a “Circumstance Bonus”.
+2 for mild chill.
+4 for “mid-winter in Minnesota”
+8 for Cow morph…
But if Sydney wasn’t prepared for the cold weather, and therefore isn’t wearing anything to prevent her “points” from showing…
Heck, she’s a member of the “A-team” – she might not be wearing a bra at all.
We have seen her wearing a Star Trek bra on the first night (just because someone is less than a D doesn’t mean they don’t still have sensitive nipples, or, as you alluded to: still have ‘points’ to make in the cold)
…Dora? Omg, that little kid now has her own coffee business. Each cup comes with a free jellybean.
and a map too. :P
Jellybean? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
Meh, don’t see Sydney being that cold. She’s wearing layers in the first place. Also, what time of year is this anyway? Spring or summer? Spring might be a bit nipply, but it’s noting layers can’t fix anyway.
I like the design for halo’s t-shirt. I know most panels have her hands in front in some way but you did leave enough visible to make out what it looks like,
You could see it better last page (plus all the comments about it being inspired by Quake II)
Sydney needs to be careful not to get too familiar with her fans. She’s probably the member of the team who’s the easiest to capture or incapacitate if she’s off guard.
and the one most likly to swear bloudy vengence on anyone who trys
Remember the guy who tried to mug her?
Or the ‘bankrobbers’?
If that gets out nobody except super-loonies will be stupid nuff to try and kidnap her.
You just had to say that, didn’t you!
Yes Guesticus, he is referring to you.
Leon anonymously leaked the bank robbery footage to the internet. So, yea, it will take someone with big balls to take on Sydney. And that just gives her a large target!
And, after they try, the size of their balls will no longer be a thing.
Her balls are still larger, and she has more of them, even before the beat-down. Afterwards, well…
Hmmm. I wonder how tightly (and low-power) the PPO can be controlled. I’m picturing a 1cm diameter beam, set to “burn” rather than “explode and catch fire”.
In one HERO system RPG (which allows for VERY customized designs of powers and spells), one especially demented Player came up with a special attack spell for his wizard-y character – ‘Detonate Scrotum‘. (Inflicted lots of damage, to which inorganics, females and certain non-human species were totally immune).
As the Character supposedly said “If I’m not allowed to breed, I don’t see why anyone else should.”
Know this from personal experience do you?
Nope. Accounts of the group’s misadventures used to come up regularly on the HERO Games Forum.
That’s one expensive called shot bonus. :D
all i gotta say is Kender Mage, wand of wonder failure stats, and a 20-sided die with a perverse sense of humour.
Wonder if the girlfriend was the style change lady she seduced. It would be nice for her if she actually got some after becoming infatuated.
i think you’ll find it greenie the alian waitress she met in the club
The girlfriend was Greenie
I dream of Greenie…
she`s a greenie in a bottle…( of whiskey)
I dream of Greenie-ER, I mean, I dream of Jeanie with the silvery white hair…
:P
Well, sure and Gamora, now^^
Apart from She-Hulk, probably the most famous Greenie around……unless you count those pesky Orion slave-girls…..and they probably would seduce Dabbler, not the other way round!!
Amusingly, according to the Star Trek Expanded Universe, the Orion slave girls… weren’t. They just let the males of the species think they were bubble-headed sex toys, when in fact they were the puppeteers.
(Of course, in other sources, the female Orions weren’t stupid, but the male Orions did their best to keep the women ignorant in order to better control them; the concept that the women were secretly controlling the men, didn’t start to appear in the novels until sometime during the TNG era, and is probably based on the “fact” that the females had mind-affecting pheromones, something that was established as far back as TOS. So this one is YMMV with a vengeance.)
Didn’t Sidney sign things at the store when the reporters invaded? She didn’t put her real name on those I hope.
Probably she did – This is an issue Arianna needs to address…
no she sined them the mighty holo https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1675
or at least the mighty l———————————————-
The few times people have asked me to sign stuff cause I bump into them at a con, I’ve had this issue that Sydney did. I don’t have a superhero nickname, but I realized signing it like I sign a check is probably not the right thing to do, so I had to make something up on the spot.
The girl in the comic shop probably asked her to sign it as “The Mighty Halo” so she didn’t think about it too much then, but now she’s presented with the issue again so she figured she should ask someone about it.
I’ve read that Walt Disney’s signature was developed in-house, and that he had to practice drawing both it and Mickey Mouse, so they would look like the public expected…
and it had to look like it said ‘intel inside’ when turned upside down
What? “DaveB” is your signature, you big silly.
+1
Or DaveB short for Kate.
Heh. I had an idiot boss a good number of years ago who actually had a stamp of her signature. Like I said, she was a real idiot. I hope she learned the hard way that a stamp of her signature was a really poor decision, but only because she was such a tool that she really deserved to learn that lesson the really hard way.
Pixel looks extra cute tonight :D
I don’t know if it is the restaurant lighting, but she is looking a little Oompa Loompa orange in this scene.
Of course it just might be a side effect of being in New York. Others from that city have been known to show that same coloration :)
No, that’s simply because the majority of the rest of the cast are relative-albinos
If she’s going to change it her signature she should add it with a “MONTH/DAY/YEAR” to make it more valuable overtime for her fans.
or just a # number
It is also best to address it to a named person, of the requester’s choice. That cuts down on speculators pushing up the price on resale. The people who profit from that are the middle men, rather than the fans. Plus the sentimental value, of a personal dedication, is way higher. So the fan is more likely to keep it, unless they fall on hard times.
Lasers. The plural is lasers.
Yup. It’s a noun formed from an English acronym (“Light Amplification through Stimulated Emission of Radiation” = “LASER”), hence it pluralises the way a regular English word would.
Don’tcha just hate it when they spell it with a “Z” instead of an “S”? Drives me up a wall!
Oh those just use Z-ray emissions, rather than stimulating the boring varieties.
*places paw, under chin, in a wise, and thoughtful, pose*
Sometimes, that’s the Xtreme Kool Letterz trope in play. (No, I’m not going to link to TV Tropes. You can thank me later.)
One of my pet peeves is when someone pronounces “nuclear” as “nucula”. In Latin, “nucula” is the word for a small nut. Which makes squirrels “nucula engineers”, and “nucula fission” is something you can do at home with a nutcracker.
Thank you.
In return, let me pass on a warning about that nucula engineer. It is actually planning on plunging the world into a “nucula winter”! It is just trying to fool you into thinking it looks cute. Whereas, in reality, it is the Evil Squirrel Overlord!
I was trying to come up with an acronym for “Ice Laser” so Ice Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Ice. Which makes no sense, but it out it didn’t occur to me that the upper case i and lower case L look the same on a sans serif font. The wordpress editor uses a serif font so I didn’t see the issue.
How about CASSIP?; Cold Amplification by Stimulated Suppression of Ionized Particles
Actually, you can use a regular laser for that. That’s what they use to cool materials to the coldest things ever (for science).
Basically, scientists can use a laser to trap particles, and suck the energy out of them
When in doubt about how to pluralize something, simply refer to the humble octopus.
Hence: laserpodes.
I prefer laserpi or laserpussies.
The latter being derived from one octopussy
, which becomes many octopussies.
“Laserpussies” sound terribly uncomfortable for everyone involved.
It brings to mind cats with lasers for eyes, or a very uncomfortable condition on a woman’s nether regions.
On Kickstarter, I recently backed an RPG called Laser Kittensabout “tiny kittens [who] learn to control their lasers and grow up to be awesome cats…”
Especially uncomfortable for their male “partners”…
But it is the ultimate in rape deterrent.
Pixel looks like she envies them. The doleful eyes, combined with a pout.
*aww*
No no, I must not weaken. I must still dislike her.
The alternative explanation is that is just her normal big manga eyes, and she feels like puking.
Don’t know, she looks like she is shrugging to me
Looks like she’s leaning against something with her hands in her pocketses, to me.
Her expression is a little odd, but I’m not sure it’s a pout. It almost looks like she’s holding something, like a toothpick or lollipop, in the corner of her mouth, but I don’t actually see anything there. Or it could just be that her face is at an angle to us as she looks at Gwen.
(Oh, and I think the “shrug” is just her leaning against the window.)
That is a toothpick in her mouth (too small to be a lollipop stick)
Her shoulders seem to raised to be slouching against the window
Sydney you can stand next to all the supers in Archon, yet still be the most desirable!
Sydney is so cute <3
+10
Well, she’s either wearing two shirts or one long sleeve shirt, and just because she’s from a warmer place, doesn’t mean she can’t take the cold. So I don’t think you need to worry about that at all :p
Exactly. I’ve lived inTexas for 43 years. I hate heat. I start suffering around April/May, and usually suffer until October. OTOH, I’m comfortable down to about 32 degrees Fahrenheit in tshirt and shorts, and can’t remember the last time I wore a jacket.
It’s hit 22°C here today. Air conditioning is on in the office and I’m still all sweaty :-(
Some people can take heat, I can handle the cold. I’m comfortable up to 16°C with no wind chill and then I get warm.
I’ve been known to ski down a hill in a blizzard, slowly stepping off layers as I go, ending up in just a T-shirt because any more was too warm.
I’ll happily walk around when it’s snowing, wearing no more than most people might wear in the middle of summer (shorts and thin T-shirt)
I visit my family who live north on the north sea coast and they go out wearing ten times more than me…
Tl;dr: some people just don’t feel the cold
(Which is a shame as I have a nice collection of really comfy jumpers that never get worn)
And some people are more sensitive to cold. Though I would rather be cold than hot. For comparison I consider 26c comfortably cold and 20c to be much too cold.
Where on God’s Green Earth do you live?! Death Valley?
Ummm… David, you DO realized that 22 Celsius is 72 Fahrenheit, right? And the central US has had a several-week-long heat wave (temps between 35 and 40 celsius); a little unusual for June, but we get it every summer.
What is that in Freedom Degrees?
I work outdoors some days, and last Winter, when we had a week of -10°F weather, I was out in my short-sleeved T-shirt and khakis, and working up a sweat.
I’ve got thick blood.
I’m one of those freaks equally comfortable in shorts and T-shirt at either 32°.I have been known to ride a bike 100 miles when the air temperature over the blacktop was 145°F
Dry heat and air flow allow the body to cool well enough to ignore the worst of it, providing you keep hydrated and electrolyted.
I think it’s more like acclimatization. The first time I visited Colorado I went for a walk with my father along a mountain trail. It was a summer day with plenty of sunshine. He and I were bundled up in coats and layers and we were being passed by natives in t-shirts and shorts. That’s the largest difference in attire I’ve ever experienced, anywhere. The thin air takes some getting used to.
I was talking to a Texan friend last night (who insists that he should only be described as such, rather than “American”), and he told me it had reached triple digit temperatures, in Austin. Poor bloke, his blood must have been on the point of evaporating!
It’s very rare in Austin (I live in that area as well) that it doesn’t hit 100 plus, usually by early June. A mild summer is one where it waits this long. In 2011 we had 69 straight days of 100+ weather.
Sorry. Was misremembering (both good and bad). It was 27 straight days of 100+, but 90 total days for the year of 100+. Both were records.
The 69 had stuck in my head because it had been the previous record for most 100+ days.
You guys have it easy. It’s 40c here on daily average and it’s always humid. Global warming is much more apparent here especially since the city architecture sucks and creates the heat sink phenomenon.
South East Asia
Forget my last comment. I mathed wrong and thought 100f was less than it is.
Your 40c is about 104f. If you have humidity then you do have it worse than I do. I grew up in The Galveston area and 90 there feels worse than 100 in Austin.
When I lived in Athens OH, which is in a river valley, on really hot days the humidity got bad enough that you could see your breath–it looked like winter breath, but it was so much worse…
I once elected to help a friend move from KCKS to Phoenix, Arizona. Travelled through New Mexico and found it delightful, then went though Flagstaff (which is pretty high up in the mountains) south to Phoenix (which is quite a bit less above sea level). Fun trip, but Phoenix is essentially a big concrete slab sitting in the middle of the desert… it was ridiculously hot that day (over 120° F). The following day my co-driver and I headed back to KC, and we left at 6:00 am – the sun was just creeping over the horizon.
The temperature on the bank’s marquee said it was 115°. At 6:00 am. Just at dawn…
But hey, it’s a dry heat…
…which serves to dehydrate a person soooo much faster…
I live in KC; did the Worldcon in Phoenix (late August – early September for those who aren’t into SF). Temp at home when I left was 99, when I arrived it was 110; but the humidity in KC was 35%, in Phoenix it was 9%. Actually more pleasant, as long as you didn’t go out into the sun… If you did, you needed a cold drink handy as soon as you went into the air conditioning… ’cause you were going to sweat you clothes wet if you didn’t drop core temperature immediately.
You and I are birds of a feather, Tom. I’m not a fan of t-shirts, but even mid-winter is “short-sleeve shirt and jean shorts” for me. Though that might be mostly because I’m a computer geek, so I spend most of my day in an air-conditioned office, instead of outdoors.
I have some relatives who live in Alaska who came down for a visit in mid-August. I caught them bare-ass naked in their hotel room, standing in front of the air conditioner on full blast, still sweating bullets. (By comparison, most hotels in Alaska aren’t even equipped with air conditioning, or at least they weren’t the last time I was there. On warm days they just put a box fan in the window.)
You should warn your relative to keep their clothes on! Especially in hunting season. Americans are all to likely to shoot birds otherwise!
Well, time for me to go off and cook one of your more distant relatives. The vet kept me on my low-fat diet, so it is chicken and rice again tonight!
*gives tail a subdued wagging*
Sydney isn’t cold because she’s hopped up on cap, duh.
Damn, unless Pixel is Ace (AKA: “the true neutral of sexuality” :-) ) Gwens comment is totally insensitive.
Actually, even if Pixel IS Ace, it’s still totally insensitive.
Why is that insensitive? She was talking about being in the public spotlight
I agree with Guesticus in wondering why it is insensitive. Although I can see the issue is about the sex side of the equation, rather than the public exposure. But they are both in the same boat, in being ignored by the crowds (with the implication that neither are found to be sexually attractive, by the same). Yet both have niche appeal (goth and manga fans respectively). Finally it is not like Pixel is deformed.
I see it as sharing a … mmm… excluded moment, rather than degrading Pixel.
Perhaps I am missing something and need to be put on a sensitivity training course?
You on a sensitivity course? Nah. You are actually hyper aware. I’m not sure how Ace works out to sexually neutral though.
It’s from ‘asexual’, although whether ‘asexual’ and ‘sexually neutral’ is up for debate in my mind.
Probably because Ace’ just don’t care about sex (and there is more than one type of ‘Ace’)
Except they aren’t being ignored because they aren’t attractive. Thy are being ignored because they aren’t famous (yet). The ones getting the attention were involved in the press conference.
Agreed that is the primary cause (they are not supers, mainly). However the sexual angle is also clearly present, given the incessant line of questioning. So I was just exploring that angle, as presented.
Thank you Jackmitch, kind of you to say.
Oh, seeing as they’re in New York, I presume that’s a shawarma restaurant? :-)
Looking at Sydney ‘s shirt, I wonder if the symbol on it is her new “trademark” courtesy of Arianna.
I believe you may be right, as its color scheme also matches her com-choker
It is, Dave mentioned it in his blog, under the last comic page.
And much speculation on it’s similarities to Quake II was made
fame is like an keysword. Blunt, hard to handle and, sometimes, with more spikes pointing at you than towards your enemy
Fame? Nah. It’s an empty purse. Count it, go broke. Eat it, go hungry. Seek it, go mad!
Some of those restaurants, clubs, shops, etc. will actually occupy multiple floors of a 6-story building. (Most buildings in NYC which aren’t stand-alone houses or skyscrapers are 6 stories because anything taller needs a water tank.) Some of them will actually be the basement; the business entrance will be down a few steps from street level, while the residential entrance will be up about twice that many steps; those will pretty much be exclusively bars and restaurants, and there might be two of them under a single residential building. Either way, many of them inside will be long and narrow, the same width as the smallest storefront you’ve ever seen in a strip-mall, going back past a nice long bar or counter and two-person tables to have a half-dozen four- and six-person tables past the end… and still have a back room or kitchen beyond that. Some will be so deep they’ll actually traverse the entire (short) block, where there’s a blank face on the side of the same building facing the next street, or there might be just a loading dock.
Restaurants that have a second floor, that second floor will almost second floor will be almost exclusively seating, and might be used for private parties. Some ground-floor restaurants extend to the basement rather than the second floor, or possibly even both. Bars and clubs with a second floor will usually have a smaller bar on the second level, big enough to provide readily-available drink service but leaving as much space as they can for dancing/seating. And some clubs… have the entire building, including the roof.
Maybe when Sydney visits Boston Varia can show her a little bar she knows. It is just below street level and is run by a retired baseball player named Sam.
I’d still be looking for the bar run by Mike Callahan, if it hadn’t been blown to hell by a mini-nuke. Since then, I’ve been looking for a tavern run by Jake Stonebender.
Well, stop looking in New York. Try Key West!
Sydney would accept in a shot. She would be hoping to ask Beast if he could introduce her to Wolverine!
Didn’t he move to Seattle?
Oh, you are thinking of the middle part of his career, when he was a radio psychologist, right? Which you are perfectly correct, that he returned to his childhood city. But in the later part, after his mutant gene expressed itself, he moved to the X-Men mansion, which is in New York.
So he would be bound to do his socialising in his favourite bar!
I don’t know about everyone else, but I find Sydney more attractive than any of the other characters. Granted, I like them small, cute and geeky with a violent tendency. It’s been that way ever since I realized that my favorite character in every anime is the Tsundere. And Sydney definitely has the tsun going for her.
This is not to say I don’t think the rest of the girls are attractive. Just that if you put them all in a line, and said (solely based on looks) to pick one, I’d pick Sydney every time. I may learn to regret that decision when it comes time to eat food (I like some heat, but she’s on a whole different grading system), but the rest I could handle.
“…but she’s on a whole different grading system”
Yeah, the far upper end of the Scoville Rating…Literally.
Exactly. I can handle a ghost pepper without crying like a baby, but try to feed me a handful of them and I’m going to start to whimper even before I put them in my mouth.
I have friends who reads GrrlPower and we discuss a lot of stuff (they don’t read the comments) and we’ve had the “Waifu Discussion” (as we do for just about every series), where we debate which character would be the best for a long term relationship if they were real. One went with Peggy, I went with Sydney, and another went with Arianna. It was a lengthy discussion to say the least, but we all agreed that in the long run, most of the powered characters wouldn’t be the best for the long term. A quicky or short-term, absolute fun. But the grow old together, sit and do nothing stuff…not so much.
We do a bunch of conversations like this. We’ve debated which super hero’s significant other is the best for their super, which super power is the best for the world we live in (it’s technopathy btw), and even plotted how entire series’ would have gone had one choice been different early on in the series. It’s a geeky way to have discussions over beers.
On the last page,it was made mentioned that the author is cagey about what city Archon is based in.
Perhaps it’s in a Midwestern part of the U.S.A.???
Also if the author needed to give birthplaces for the ARC team,I came up with some ideal places…
ARC-SWAT MEMBER————————-BIRTHPLACE
Maxima Memphis,Tennessee
Harem Ann Arbor,Michigan
Heatwave Louisville,Kentucky
Gwen Salem,Massachusetts
Pixel Lucado Norman,Oklahoma
Stalwart Houston,Texas
Achilles Texarkana,Texas
Anvil Fer-de-Lance,Louisiana*
*Not familiar with that one?? It’s loosely based on the info here:
https://gijoe.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_G.I._Joe_character_birthplaces#Louisiana
The others,I’m sure of-especially Sydney!!!
As a resident of Ohio, specifically Columbus, I will have to strongly veto the inclusion of Ann Arbor on the list.
And in a geographical sense, I have long questioned being labeled as in the Midwest. The Mississippi is generally used as as the divider between ‘east’ and ‘west’ in the US. This puts Ohio in the eastern half of the US. But I guess the state politicians have reservations about labeling their part of the county in tourist brochures as being in the ‘Middle East’.
That label dates back to when people still remembered “the Old West” as being the western parts of upstate NY, the Pittsburgh area, and such, in the days of the ‘French & Indian Wars’…
Harem is canonically a farm girl. So I don’t really think she can be “from” Ann Arbor, although I suppose she could have been born there.
Heh, possibly. As in one of her bodies is referred to as being “Farm Girl”. But that is a nick name description of her image, as opposed to necessarily being a commentary on her origins.
Harem is more likely to be from somewhere like New York, which has a large community of Irish decent. Given that we know she is a fair part Irish.
Wait, didn’t she say that she grew up on a farm? Fairly sure she mentioned *vorp*ing back there on instinct and then having to pay a hefty taxi fee to get back again
Oh yea, you are right. Dabber’s Science Corner #2. It says that in the final panel.
mmm, wait…
*puts on deerstalker hat*
The second-to-last panel shows Harem teleporting to what looks like a New York city rooftop. So…
*plays violin, for a while, badly*
New York Irish cop falls for a hippy love child. They settle down together and decide to start a roof-top farm. Where they cultivate a crop with a high local demand.
It … explains so much!
I definitely remember that Daphne DeShantis grew up on a farm. I don’t remember Harem being specifically identified as Irish. Is “DeShantis” an Irish name? Maybe it’s an alteration of the Italian DeSantis.
There are enormous numbers of Irish-Americans all over the USA, not just in NYC. Add in the families whose roots are part Irish, and part French, Polish, German, Italian, whatever, and you have a big chunk of the US population.
And yes, some of them are farmers.
It was revealed in panel 2 of this page. It has enough of an Irish ring to it that it sounded ok to me. Although the real test would be how it sounds to an Irish reader.
Do you all have no objections to those other towns and cities listed as potential birthplaces for the others listed???
BTW,
Maybe Harem did come from a farm,miles from Ann Arbor,Michigan??? Who’s to say?
P.S.
Check out the link I’ve included…!
Heh, Fer-de-Lance would seem to be an unusual place of origin, if it does not appear on any map. Given that Fer-de-Lance is a highly venomous snake though, I am not sure I would want to visit, it sounds like it could be life-threatening! Anvil would be safe there however, as no snake could bite her, to inject the poison.
Sadly US geography was my worst subject at school (our geography teacher left, because it was a small school, which was closing down, and so we ended up with a PE teacher, who had never studied geography. “OK, lets open the text book and figure it out together, shall we?”).
Thus any clever nuances will be lost on me. For instance beyond Elvis (and other musicians) having been from there, I know next-to-nothing about Memphis.
I did have a chuckle at Gwen being from Salem though. That history I know well.
That “Fan” of Sydney’s looks odd to me….. not sure why… just odd, like she’s stealing Sydney’s signature for some nefarious purpose
He kind of reminds me of Jimbo from The Simpsons…!
She has distinctly Vulcan eyebrows, and is covering up the tops of her ears with a hat. I find the emotions she is displaying make me uncomfortable.
Sydney has alien fans?
Yes. Needless to say, they want to hug her and win her heart!q
this was a lovely page, but I am a little disappointed. I found the mini comic of you getting slapped funnier then the actual comic.
Heh, well the page attack was really funny, so that is not bad. Whereas the comic itself is a character and setting development page. Plus is firmly setting the latter. So the jokes are more low key ironic observational humour. They are there to give you a wry smile, and it worked for me.
No laughing for me though, on the main comic, as I felt too sorry for Sydney, at being put in the spotlight on such personal matters. Likewise for the two who were excluded. But it makes me feel for them all, so it left me satisfied.
I figure dabbler could manage a basic protection from elements spell that keeps her comfy regardless of weather. That or some futuristic nano-coating material that is invisible to the naked eye but keeps her warm
Poor Sydney, she’ll get more proposals(not the formal kind, well mostly not) than she can handle, and she’ll never be able to pick the genuine ones from trophy men
Looks like Gwen and Pixel are not part of the proceedings…!
Aside from monitoring Halo’s in-flight ‘transport’ capability, probably not.
Kinda like the inverse of passengers on a VIP run.
Sydney has an entourage!
The ideal solution to Maxima’s promise of “there will be no whisking away”. Which only left the alternative of studying Halo, in her native habitat.
Again, support staff, unless something really major happens, it’s unlikely the public will ever know they are in Archon
Have you considered a background artist or a colorist?
I’ve considered it. Don’t know who’d want to do it though.
*sticks paw up*
Me me, pick me!
*shoulders slump and ears droop*
But the backgrounds would look like those in the under-comic.
That whole no-opposable-thumb thing really cuts into my drawing time too.
*glances down at his hooves*
I lose a lot at rock-paper-scissors too….
*flickers an ear mournfully*
I thought you had Keith?
He is part-time. That does not necessarily automatically extend to wanting a full-time post. The change in life-style does not always suit everybody. It is correct not to make such a presumption, unless the desire has been expressed, by the person in question.
Well, you’d have to PAY a person, and people like Cheyenne Wright DO like money. It does mean you’d could do things like up your weekly page count, though. You should talk to the Foglios about this – they’re experts at this stuff.
Alternatively, use something like DAZ3D for your “stock sets” like the main base, comic shop, Sydney’s apartment, etc.
DaveB: Hmm. The “Halo” symbol on Sydney’s t-shirt is okay, but I recommend that the vertical bars be moved closer together, be slightly offset in height; and the halo swoop be angled and colored with the colors of Halo’s orbs.
Right now it kinda looks like she is into Texas Football. Just sayin’.
Or Quake II.
Yes! I knew there was something else of which it reminded me.
Why do I get the feeling Halo actually cut her response short:
Halo: “…these two! And that’s not to mention Anvil, Peggy, Harem, Heatwave, Gwen, Jiggawat…”
Max: “Okay, I think they get the point.”
Halo: “…Varia…”
Max: “Enough!”
By the way, how did I miss the fact that the amputee is named “Peggy”? More to the point, did Sydney? That said, it is telling that there’s so much to the character that a name like that doesn’t turn her into a joke.
…Wow. You’re not the only one to completely miss the punny name there.
BRB, troping…
DaveB replied in a prior comic that the name was not a coincidence. And it gave him a chance to embarrass Sydney. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/925
I still love that one where Sydney can’t stop making references to legs/feet in spite of herself, and winds up cowering under a table in shame.
Yup, I do too. That is the one O.B. Juan linked above. Mind you, given that your time-stamps are relatively close her probably ninja’d you.
Wow noticed that maxima is looking a serious shade of bronze at night instead of the usual semi bright gold
It’s the envy.
Is it because they are in the Bronzk?
It’s the pinkish street lamps’ glow. Also explains why Dabbler’s tattoos are more pinkish than usual. Also why Pixel’s hair is pinkish…
::coughs::
Sorry, got carried away there…
Dave, you said we’d get a better look at Sydney’s shirt, but she spent this whole page WITH HER HANDS IN FRONT OF IT! Or turned away from the camera so we can’t see it all. Are you doing this on purpose?
Also, why are they out here getting mobbed by people anyway? I thought they were going to see Zephan.
They just got mobbed as they went in. Sydney landing the bubble right in front of the restaurant wasn’t especially covert.
It was probably more covert then the Osprey
The Osprey needs more room (81 m) than a New York street allows. Besides Air-Traffic Control would not allow a non-emergency landing of any aircraft on a street; Sydney and Max are very special cases. Hmm, how far are they from Central Park? That has a big enough to land the Osprey, but Max would have to secure the landing zone first.
Does Dabber’s body art glow brighter when she is in range of lust emanations? It seems a bit more intense in this scene.
I do have to say, this is probably one of the more aesthetically pleasing pages you’ve done. (I hate to say “Best” because, substantively, it’s not as good as some of the Vehemence stuff or the Harem Wedgie Domino Effect, but it’s a good sign of how much your artistic skill has improved over time.)
Thanks. Besides the backgrounds, I’ve been playing with the colors a bit. Since it’s night I pulled the saturation down for everyone outside (which is why Pixel looks so orange by comparison) and added a blue-purpleish overlay layer in places.
My favorite part of the page: when it slaps you. Hahahahaha
Is that to imply that you’ve gone a bit “slap-happy?”
;)