Grrl Power #46 – Yoga Hwarf!
If anyone is just joining us and is unsure what’s happening in the last panel there, jump back a few comics to Sydney’s lunch.
I felt kind of sorry for Sydney while I was drawing this one. She had brief moment of glory then it went rapidly downhill for her, but the sudden realization of what nearly happened and the subsequent adrenaline crash was too much for her.
And even though I’ll specifically address this on the next page, I’ll say it here cause I know people will ask “If Maxima can catch a bullet, why is she having trouble with decidedly sub-sonic barf?” Basically she has to be ready for it. Maxima’s powers largely exist in a pool that she can shift from attribute to attribute, so if she’s caught off guard, her reflexes are only slightly better than a regular person’s. Plus it’s funny.
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Ooh, 5-star spicy barf with extra kick… Gunna need the hazmats to clean that up.
All things considered, I reckon a lot more than hazmats will be needed. Probably easier just to landfill the entire building and start over.
Heh!, Maxie’s only weakness, VOLCANO VOMIT!
Her reaction reminds me of Pain from Luci Phurr’s imps……he ate a “Cold War” jellybean, threw up in the oval office wastebasket and they declared it a terrorist biological attack….
Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
I think Sydney just did.
Nope. that was a ground strike, much dirtyer!
Well, we know what the people running from the bank are thinking. “Game over, man!”
Also:
Max: The hell kind of super power is that?!
Sydney: That wasn’t superpowers, that was my lunch…
Max: O_O
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Maybe her superpower is the ability to barf fire? :D
Far, for worse than Combat Halitosis…This is more on the scale of Godzilla’s Death Breath.
Umm, Let’s see. She added the three hottest sauces she could find on the shelf. wouldn’t that make it 8 Star spicy?
BTW the Hottest one I’ve ever heard of in RL is Dave’s Insanity Sauce. A fried of mine told me about it. I’m not into the hot food but he is and he said it was concentrated to 50,000 Scoville units.
From comic #30 I think she stopped at that ring of fire stuff.
That Dave’s Gourmet Insanity is only 50k Scovilles 8D
They also make a private reserve version that is 500k Scovilles.
Still that doesn’t reach chemical warfare levels for that you need one of the Blair reserve sauces. Those START at 500k Scoville.
50k isnt even hot. and as for 500k, there was a limited run that was sold that was pure capcasin at 16million scoville units.
Actually I dropped a zero accidentally. I was trying to write 500K. But I’ve never heard of 16 million k so I admit that beats it. As I said I’m not a fire eater and this is the hottest one I had heard of.
That was PURE crystalized capsaicin. IIRC the description included the warning “Gloves,mask and goggles required”
Yep and I’ve had a nutter of a friend eat it. And yes the bottle came with gloves, tweezers and face mask.
On NCIS- Ducky what’s the COD?
“Gibbs, It seems his diner was a tad . . . Over-spiced.”
“Miss David, your opinion.”
“Hezbola, Hot curried goat, Ducky. I’ve seen it before.”
“No my dear miss David, this is I fear an act of domestic terrorism.”
cue music.
Well yeah. I think only his years of exposure to hot stuff prevented him from getting poisoned.
Still that was the first time I saw him sweat, tear up, get red in his face, etc.
He never mentioned how he managed to go to the toilet the few days after that and I was a bit amazed his lips/inside of his mouth were not bleeding.
sigh, ppl as a whole are never good at chemistry, 5 star spicy + 3 other sauces would only average out. granted i think it was inferred that the 3 sauces were hotter. normally when you have “this is the hottest sauce in the building” and then add other things too it you only make it milder.
You also have to take amounts into account. take 1 drop of 4 star and 1 drop of 10 star and yes you get aprox. 7 star, add half a bottle of 10 star…..
Well, you could also argue if the hot sauces were organic or chemically made. There’s always the possiblity of artificial chemicals combining in the sauces could make a mustard gas type of reaction.
Not the boots! Awesome!. I love that look Syd had right before she erupted to.
too*
Wait, is that a gun holster on Maxima’s left? Why would she have one….
Because it fits in?
Or because she can?
or maybe it hould just look cool
She said something about the air force a couple pages back… Maybe it’s a required standard issue…
Unfortunately it’ll be quite a few pages before I get to address this, but the quick answer is that she’s a cop, cops carry guns. People are programmed from the moment they’re plopped down in front of a TV to be scared of guns, people aren’t inherently scared of being pointed at, even if they know that lasers can come out of that finger.
Oh, I´d be scared by being pointed at knowing that this finger can shoot laser any moment.
But I´d have a very simple explanation why she needs a gun: To fight enemies on range.
I mean what good is being made of steel and being super-strong when you´re attacked by a flying.. whatever. (Dragon for example?)
Maxima can fly. if you look at her cast page you can see her other powers include: Armor, Speed Strength. and what looks like energy.
Well the gun will be less destructive then the finger tho
Enter “Pull my Finger” joke here
The whole “cops carry guns” thing isn’t a global truism. They don’t generally here… though it is becoming distressingly more common.
Unpleasant but not lethal.
The EMTs will need respirators to carry out the perps.
(Super Dave, after one of his stunts failed, asked the ambulance driver to take him straight to the cemetary.)
The Stanley Steemer (r) guys will clean that right up. They have those high volume fans also.
(Dave will probably rename them to avoid legalisms, although it would be a compliment.)
{Rug
MunchersMasters}PS: Thus far, Sydney’s secret not revealed!
But……
Can she remove her tube from a crime scene without Maxima noticing? Helping?
Hopefully the bag o’ cash wasn’t anywhere near That.
You know, I don’t think it’s mentioned again after she went inside the bank, she prob forgot it on the floor.
Maybe she picked it up when she returned for her car? (A few years later, in real-time.)
On the plus side it means there won’t be any witnesses when Maxima asks Sydney about her mysterious tube.
Did Sydney get any on the bank robber she pulped in pages 42 – 43?
Based on the intervening pages I don’t think Maxima moved Sydney all that much geographically speaking.
Can’t help but wonder if the vomit has corrosive power?
“My face is melting!”
Sydney didn’t move at all (except for her eyes) until she barfed. At which point everybody mobile was running for clear air (funny, I didn’t see any bank employees leaving… unless they left via another exit).
End of page 43 Sydney is lying in top of robber 1 then Maxima picks her up.
Page 44 Maxima puts Sydney down on her feet without seeming to have moved her any real distance.
End of page 44 gun is fired, Sydney does not move except to flinch and vomit.
I am assuming that robber 1’s feet are just behind Sydney but that is not a given.
So it is a possibility that the perp is in “Front” and may be either in the splatter zone or ground zero – good reason to be put in either solitary or with the hard cases to make them more cooperative, Geneva convention be darned.
It sure might feel that way.
I gotta say, Panel 5 Maxima would make a great addition to the rotation for the top of the page. Along with Page 42 Panel 6…
Poor Max, guess she shifted those points out of superspeed too soon.
RE: Guns, if you have the strength, speed and reflexes to catch a bullet, you don’t need a gun to fight at range, just a pocket full of ball bearings or a handy car.
But being covered in a bucket of gold paint does not automatically inspire respect, guns get attention.
Heck, I’m reminded of a character I had in the Marvel system ages ago. Due to lucky rolls his combat stats were all the the incredible to monstrous range. He carried a gun with rubber bullets just to have a way to stop a normal without putting him in intensive care/the morgue.
Looking closer at that holster it appears to be holding individual bullets. Standard issue sidearm for Air Force would be the M-9 pistol, if that’s what she has, that should be a spare loaded magazine (two actually for Law Enforcement duty), not individual rounds, unless she’s carrying a revolver for some reason, or has spiffy super bullets that need to be seperately identifiable while fighting squidzilla.
As Maxima will put later, it’s not a standard issue firearm, since she doesn’t fight standard issue bad guys.
Looks like the actual gun is holstered on Maxima’s left (on the right as we see her), just visible behind her chest. Which makes sense (assuming she’s right-handed): that gives an easier RH cross-draw on the gun, as well as a LH ‘cross-draw’ for the ‘special’ rounds that keeps the RH free for the gun. Of course, this assumes her ‘assets’ don’t get in the way – I seem to remember at least one fictional character having to heavily modify her holster for that reason!
I think if the gun was holstered low enough that wouldn’t be a problem, but then the barrel of the gun would poke them in the hips. Any large chested gals out there want to film themselves reaching across and grabbing a gun or just a stick or whatever feel free to direct message me on twitter. :)
I recall that the suggestiong for large breasted women in my concealed carry course was one of the various hip/waistband holsters. The standard military holster would be a belt holster, just like a cop. (Okay, fabric instead of leather, but you get the idea.) But since Maxima’s entire uniform is pretty non-standard, why should her holster be any different?
In Laurell K. Hamilton’s ‘Anita Blake’ series, one of the books mentions that Anita wears an uplift bra because if she wears a minimizer bra, her breast gets in the way of her draw.
new reader here and i’m not too clear on halo’s superpower. but so far i know she can eat toxic waste.
Sydney/Halo’s powers haven’t been revealed yet. This was just some spicy Thai food mixed with fear.
I will admit I did not like this page as I really do not like vomit. Although I no longer have a phobia of vomit but still. Just as long as it is never shown I should be fine. BTW vomit is in no way funny.
Well I didn’t draw the barf on purpose. It’s implied barf.
Good do not want to make this into a horror comic. I may be over my vomit phobia but still very much afraid of it.
Well it does contain hydrochloric acid which can actually etch steel (in higher concentrations of course). So fear of it is not totally unreasonable.
Hmm ok, I just now had the will to look up what the phobia is actually called and I found it to be emetophobia.
Funny thing about phobias is they can change in intensity over time. While I’m not truly phobic I find my fear of hieghts is much greater now than when I was younger. One job I had required me to climb a ships mast to the very top while it was docked at a pier. Imagine being over a hundred feet up on a slim metal post that rocked back and forth (or side to side depending on the waves) with a safety cable you have to detach every third rung. But it didn’t bother me then. The only thing that gave me pause is when the PA shouted “Scram the Reactor!”. But there was nothing I could have done so I just finished the job and climbed back down. today heights bother me especially if I’m near an edge but even in a tall building I can’t help but think of the possibilities of falling out or the building falling down.
Ah I guess my phobia got less intense. Well that one did any way but another one became very intense. My other phobia is the fear of rubber which oddly in my case includes flubber. In fact having a massive panic attack just from watching flubber is when I first noticed that phobia. That fear includes stretched rubber bands (the non stretch ones are not scary), those rackets with the ball attached to them, T ball T in which the ball is connected to the T with a bungee cord, bungee cords specially the ones with hocks on the end.
If you saw the video about nylon mooring lines it would scare you. You see they stretch quite a bit before they part (with catastrophic results). Which is why you might notice much smaller lengths of nylon line tied to them hanging loose. If the small one get tight that means there too much tension and the line could part. Picture a sailor hit below the knees so hard it takes his legs off.
Alright! another Squid!… i was an EM, how ’bout you? and yeah i know THAT fear… now try it AT SEA AT NIGHT, because both the primary AND secondary sets of bulbs in the aircraft warning light goes out… Scaaarrryyy!!!
Actually I was a Yardbird. :) And a painter, on a ship anywhere work can and is done a painter comes behind to cover up exposed metal such as in that case the antenna on the mast. Had to surface prep and paint the welds and mounts for the cable and antenna.
BTW I feel for you on that one. Yardbird was one of many jobs I’ve had. Been in a few hairy situations at times too.
My dad was a hull specialist back in the early 50’s. Back then they were less specialized. He used to have a picture of him and three other guys sitting on a yard in the afternoon eating lunch and smoking, the mast next to them has a marker 125 ft. (above the waterline), sandwich in one hand cig in the other.
I’ve seen that, it is not pretty. Lucky for him he was able to jump high enough. He said it was like playing jump rope with a rotating sword.
I’m not sure who I should feel sorrier for. Sydney, Maxima, or the bank people.
On another note, I love the way you draw! It’s pretty awesome!
oh most definetely the bank people they still have to work through the rest of their shift with Sydny’s vomit on the floor and i have a feeling the janitor wont go anywhere near it for fear of the loss of his sight
Speaking from experience the bank will probably close for the day while the evidence is gathered and the employees will be interviewed and given the option of taking the rest of the day off.
maxima. syd is apparently not very affected my the hot sauced, maxima has it on her shoes and the bank people had some distance to get away
Wonderful! Just love this comic :D
Haha, Sydney is like me. Swears like a pirate!
It looks like the indomitable Sydney is human after all….
Yup. Very much the point of this page.
And that was how the bank got declared a Superfund site.
Aw based on this page and pg 42, I thought for sure Sydney’s mysterious super powers were breath-related. XD I forgot about lunch.
time for new boots Max plus I hope you had them laced all the way up also with how those people are reacting i hope your boots dont melt and im kinda worried as to what going to happen to the bank floor will it burn a hole in it if so the whole super hot chillie eating thing couldbe a minor power of Syd’s
at the very least the carpet, if there is one. Will never be the same.
hahaha biological weapon grade vomit. love it, give me 200 barrales of the stuff! I hope this is a dubble page week.
Not a double page week, but I’ve taken the whole week off of work. First half of the week is vacation out of town, but I’ll have a good 5 days to rebuild my buffer that I lost running up to A-kon, so someday hopefully I’ll get out an extra comic every so often.
I claim that Sydney does have a super power of her own.
I’ve seen someone eat food that was actually laced with the equivalent of pepper-spray (was a bottle with a pure capsaicin crystal equivalent of 1 ml then dissolved in oil). The bottle came with a face mask, tweezers & gloves. You also didn’t want to be close to the food since it was indeed eye watering.
But that is not the superpower I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is that that level of capsaicin can be toxic and Sidneys reaction was finally something that tastes a bit hot.
Poor sydney. I hope someone has some milk or something, for Maxima’s sake.
I love the face on Maxima in that fifth panel. I doubt its a regular one, but its one I can see Sydney pulling a lot.
Still, so many oddities about one girl, Maxima is going to have to question her now. And I bet Sydney will forget to cash in the comic book store’s money now.
Milk on an acid stomach is not really a good idea. Acid sours milk instantly. Bicarb and water would be better.
The caseins in milk neutralize the capsaicin in Monicas barf.
Chalk would be better.
Well a pound of zip-zorb would do the trick to but who the hell would eat that? The capsaicin is now on the floor and her stomach is full of Hydrochloric acid because the food in gone but the stomach doesn’t know that. This is why you stomach burns after you barf.
You also feel it in your esophagus, which is not designed for acid–which is why acid reflux can cause such problems over time.
Sydney has chemical warfare powers?
Nope just lives up to her family name.
(google Scoville)
Sydney’s Vomit Is the only know weakness of Maxima !
And now we know what it takes to get an emotional response out of Maxima.
Wouldn’t it be a goofy turn of events if THIS incident was not how Sydney’s powers were revealed?
I think she’ll be found out just as she is about to leave.
Is there a third robber? A getaway driver? If so, there might be a bit more action.
I love the pacing in your strips – there is a tangible sense of the passing of time, yet at the same time you aren’t dwelling on unimportant details.
It also shows in your comic timing, which is first class in my opinion. :-D
Don’t over think the above too much – you seem to be making these decisions very instinctively which is in my view, exactly the right way to do it.
Looking forward to the next strip already.
Thanks! This all plays out in my head like it was an animated cartoon. Trying to figure out exactly which moments to snapshot and lay out as panels is definitely a skill unto itself.
finally! her secret super power is revealed! atomic hurl!
First of all, the strip’s title made me laugh out loud.
Secondly, this makes a great way to clear the room so that Sydney can talk to Maxima in private. Quite brilliant!
Thanks and thanks! I may have something a little different in mind though.
So, question, though not really related to today’s comic. If the contents of her tube can only be a certain distance away from her at any time, what if, for example, the tube was in a helicopter and she fell out of said helicopter, would she just be suspended there?
I think the tube would fallow her unless some one closed what ever opening in the helicopter she fell out of.
Yes.
I think the ‘force bubble’ would support her weight,
but it would also exert her Weight on the tube.
I can only imagine a situation like that will come up eventually. :)
…comic physics – clearly the most dramatic/amusing (depending on circumstances and perspective) effect would be for the helicopter to be pulled down and follow her to the ground…
=D
Soundfs like it could be awesomely entertaining. Or, how about a high speed car chase – with Sydney in one vehicle and “The Cylinder” in the other?
THAT should be put up on my bionical weaponry list aside with my dog’s fart XD
Then please GOD, keep them in different cities.
I love this comic, sydney is awesome. i just wish it was updated more often! :(
Thanks, I’m working on getting faster. Bear with me.
This comic’s good enough that I’d have that complaint if it was three pages a day ;)
ROFL!!! oh, now that is like tear gas. someone needs to have recorded that reaction from Maxima! it would probably get so many views wherever it is posted on the net!
I guess it depends on where the security cameras are placed. If one of them got a clear shot of Maxima reacting to the barf, the other team members may have blackmail gold.
lol, didn’t think about that. perfect blackmail for the team if they get a video
Dabbler is the most likely one to find the video clip and hold it over Maxima’s head. Just my opinion.
Dave – Love the comic, keep up the good work!
Try not to let the endless nitpickers get to you. I recall a webcomic called LAST BLOOD having an endless flamewar (to the point of the writer almost using profanity in the comments sections) over whether or not the zombie apocalypse could in fact have totally destroyed civilization in a mere three days. The writer kept assuring us there were reasons, and they would be shown in good time, but people kept nitpicking and nitpicking.
/sigh
Turns out he was entirely right on every point – we were just so impatient we couldn’t or wouldn’t wait until it was revealed at a dramatically appropriate moment IN THE COMIC.
Stick to your guns, and keep writing as much as you can. If we didn’t like the comic we wouldn’t be here.
THANK YOU!
everyone of the nitpickers that are going beyond “i love this comic soooo much i wish it was more frequent”
can just stfu imo.
if once a week isnt enough for you.. FIND MORE TO READ lol i have over 50 comics that i check periodically (i do a lot of work on my computer) whenever i have a break and am looking for a laugh. a couple are 7 days a week, some are 2 or 3 a week most are weekly, hell some are monthly. and hey ppl, don’t forget there are SUNDAY comics in your local newspaper that either are only in color that day of the week, or not even in the paper the other 6 days. DEAL WITH IT!!
rant over :D
I still feel amazingly bad for being one of said nitpickers in that other comic. The fact that his zombies could *sprint*, for hours at a time when they caught a scent from 20 miles away, just didn’t come up for months and months. During which time we were all trying to correct what we thought were mistakes.
I’m surprised he put up with it all to be honest.
That’s one of the problems with this format. If you put out a 24 page comic, people read it all at once and don’t have time to nitpick in between pages, but with a once a week comic, they’ve got tons of time to think about every line of dialog and all the implications of any action. Some times that’s helpful to the writer, sometimes he’s got that stuff covered but if he says anything in the comments, he’ll give stuff away. I’ve wanted to chime in on some of the threads that get going but if I even acknowledge particular comments I can spill stuff.
If I was a uber powerful being (I’m not, honest, just an ordinary guy here) I would be screaming not the boots too. I don’t care how fast you are, you got a nice pair of boots, you don’t want someone puking on them.
With Sydney’s barf, one would have to deal with possible corrosion.
Like I said earlier hydrochloric acid can etch steel, boots would stand little chance against it.
Not to mention with leather the smell just might be impossible to get rid of.
+2 spicy boots of tear gas?
Yeah…But Maxima would have to wear the +3 clip of nose plugging to wear them & not be effected.
And never fight a Chinese dragon, he’d eat them. :)
Capsaicin Combat boots!
kingdom of loathing pastamancer new equip item yay
The horror! :o
XD
Bullets are easy compared to barf…or baby poop. I’m with @Hecter on this one.
Or farts of the mildly lactose intolerant. my uncle does sulphur farts that cause the same reaction as Sydney barf.
dam i think we know what her super power is spicy breath of death !
On a side not I had to get Maxima’s face for my avi…It’s too funny to pass up. I hope you don’t mind me doing that….*runs off giggling*
Heh that’s great. Anything I put out there people are welcome to clip for avatars and whatnot. I’ll know I’m really successful once I start seeing creepy porn pictures of my characters crop up at Hentai Foundry and what not. :)
Hmmm… porn creepy? Never saw it that way unless you are talking about certain types of porn. Yes some porn is out there but to each his/her own. I see nothing creepy about wanting to see attractive females getting busy or nude. Yes even toons which have no imperfections and exaggerated features (no I not into giant boobs) like hair down to their feet or unlikely skin shades. And they can be from any mythologizes or fantasies.
Don’t get me wrong, I like me some cartoon porn, but there’s definitely stuff out there that’s… well, weird.
Rule 34. Enough said.
Yes I know exactly what you mean! Every time someone defines what is the far end of the spectrum someone else goes beyond it. Personally I’ve always been against censorship in any form and this is one reason why. If you ban naked boobs but allow and encourage bare feet is this fair to people who don’t have a foot fetish? I didn’t even know feet could BE a sex object till the internet came of age. FEET? On my (insert unoffensive term for male genitalia)? Talk about fungus among us. And I will never in a million years understand Di**girls or tentacle porn. How can you censor 1 small area but allow everything else or allow graphic bloody violence but nothing beyond a kiss?
As far as I know, tentacle porn came about exactly because dicks were banned.
Dave… Will you post the next installment Monday or Tuesday?
It’ll go up Monday. I know a lot of people are off work (including me) but I’ll be taking the time to catch up on all my webcomics. And draw this one of course.
I wonder how long it took to fill the hole in the floor where Sydney barfed the magma Vomit from Hell…I’d be willing to bet it’ll never be completely full again.
Surprisingly, that’s the only NORMAL thing Sydney’s done so far. “Not the boots!” Really? THAT’S the first thing to come to mind, Maxim?
hey comfy boots that can deal with sonic speed and look decent are hard to find
Well done. You got a LOL out of me, and that is hard to do.
What about the boots? Oh. THEN, I scrolled to the last panel. And LOL.
Thanks! I get a chuckle out of myself when I’m drawing these sometimes.