Grrl Power #480 – No relation to Captain Caveman
So if I recall, the passage I misread which inspired the idea for Elsbeth was something like the character opens her spellbook and pulls something out of it. It turned out to be something you could reasonable expect to keep in a book though, like a bookmark or a warrant or something, but my mind went to, well, what you see on the page here.
Actually my initial idea for Ellie was that she could pull basically anything out of her book, assuming that at least 2 dimensions of it fit within one of those pages. Then as I was writing the page I realized I needed to limit that ability slightly, cause what would keep her from pulling out the Wand of Orcus or some other game ender right away? Or, I don’t know, all the individual parts she needs to build a nuke or whatever. So she does have some significant limitations, or rather, the book does. I’ll get into those as she continues to appear in the comic. Regardless, she’s pretty handy to have around. The one thing I’ll say is that it does have to be a real thing that actually exists, but in a world of superheroes, magic, aliens, demons and epimeliads, that’s not much of a limitation.
I don’t know why I gave her multiple braids, but I guess they’re not so hard to draw. Maybe Sydney will have a french braid in the next arc.
Also, as I was drawing this page it occurred to me that there’s virtually no chance that Gault wouldn’t be walking around without some basic adventurer gear on him, including a mana potion or two of his own, but I guess he was busy preparing the report on the situation with the Sigils and left his mage overcoat in his other magic closet portal or however he got here.
Be sure to check out Wearing the Cape: Team-Ups & Crossovers. Sydney’s first Crossover! I’ve made a dedicated blog post for it, please comment there.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
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Oh come on! Now everyone has hammerspace except for Halo?
One of her mystery orbs might actualy be a hammerspace portal.
or have the ability to replicate certain powers, if she scanned Elsbeth’s book and got her own comic styled variant it would probably be fairly powerful…
And fairly weird, fairly fast…
What do you think Sidney would go for first? Infinity Gauntlet + Stones? Iron Man/Rescue suits? Batsuit? Eye of Agamotto? SO MANY POSSIBILITIES!
Whatever is the shiniest and most dangerous……
definitely the iron man suit….
With the Infinity Gauntlet. And all of the Lantern Corps rings.
ehhh, I think Sidney is super aware of the ultimate power McGuffins such as the IG being bad news and ultimate defeat to the user. I would like to think she would stay away from that, however she would probably have a fully charged LC ring for each finger.
Yes, she’s smart enough to know that, and the good thing is thaOOH SHINY!
skip the ring collection.
White ring, right hand.
Black ring, left hand.
Course, if you can manafest those two powers at once…. well.
I’d go for blue and green. Blue amplifies green thus super charged green :D.
OR she could go for the rings of the Mandarin. The real Mandarin, not the bogus one from the movie. The Mandarin’s Rings were elemental based in the original concept (which predates captain planet btw) and could easily give her more non lethal offensive powers given her creativity/lore knowledge.
The rings of ‘true love location’ and ‘living happily ever after’.
I feel like, given her current overexcitement over the physical, her true love could easily be a let down right now, Yorp. Let her get that out of her system and she’ll find him(?) when she’s ready.
I’m guessing you haven’t heard of the Magic ex Libris series by Jim C Hines? Libriomancers use their magic to extract items from the fictional worlds of books.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007P7HPWC
Precisely what I thought of, though those items were pulled out by insertign hand into the book, and pulling items from a portal to the location described in the book. I loved the “I felt desert air on my hand” description when a lightsaber was pulled out.
They were lucky they didn’t pull out a cauterized stump where their hand use to be
That sounds as though there could be an interesting book of spin-off stories describing what happened to the items’ previous owners when they needed to use those items but found them to be missing….
And cross-over stories, when the victims find out, then get a way to come, through the 4th wall, to extract their vengeance!
I loved that entire series. I hope he writes more of them.
Funny thing they have numbers for items like escalibur. Too many escaliburs in fiction with different powers xD
I love that book. 50/50 on if I’d really want it (not counting people coming after me for having it).
So, do I go for “M” for “Money”, or D for “Dollars”, or would that be under “O” for “One Million Dollars”?
Hmm, probably doesn’t have things like that…..is there a quick search or do you just have to know where these things are in there?
No, it will be under bullion, sub section gold or silver
It probably works like a Bag of Holding: you think about what you need and it brings it your hand, or, in this case, opens to the appropriate page
I wouldn’t see much purpose in that since one would already have the book that could provide a person with almost anything he or she would want to spend the money on anyway. While money does have its purposes, it’s also good to remember that it has no intrinsic value. Furthermore, pulling too much money from the book would be a good way to maybe not necessarily wreck an economy, but to do it some serious injury.
And get arrested for suspicion of Forgery or some other illegal activity
One other thing to take note of. Is what is in the book stuff you put in there already, or does it manifest what you are looking for through other means? If by other means, does it create them from your understanding of something or does it go by literal translation? Does it pull it from another place in reality and if so is that considered stealing if it didn’t already belong to you? Or does it copy something from reality and when you put it away it leaves no traceable evidence (e.g. bullets/casings)? So many questions need to be asked before you try to use the book for personal gain.
See, now this is one of the reasons why Yorpie Snax™ are good. Obviously I am fully entitled to them, as they are my snax. I can haz as many as I wants!
I tried Yorpie Dollars™ mind, but they did not have a very good rate of exchange for cheeseburgers.
If anyone is thinking of starting a “Can I haz Yorpie Snax™” meme, please don’t.
LOVE the flock (?) of biohazard symbols flying around Kat’s head!
Yeah, was going to comment on those :D
Status effect indicator!
I think that’s a creative variation of the old “tweeting birds” effect that are used in cartoons.
I think Kat may have been watching “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” recently.
Just be glad she didn’t edit in ‘BFG’
I can’t help thinking those two middle mana potions were provided by the wizard Meyer from Erlen.
You mean flasks? :P
of all the superhero/magic girls in this series she i would like the most as a gf cus she is awesome in a way i really like.
STOP GIVING SYDNEY IDEAS ABOUT HAMMER SPACES!!!! Poor girl will start bugging Ellie now
Given the amount of Totally Cool Shit™ Syndey”s seen in this fight, I suspect a priority list will need to be drawn up in order to determine who needs bugging first. Tough to beat Leather-Clad Were Dire Honey Badger or Martial Arts Kick Boxing Were-Hare, but Elspeth is right in the running, to my way of thinking.
The way Sydney’s mind ‘works’, #1 spot will always be the last thing that caught her attention :P
I love this book…
It already has a ‘ball and chain’, I am afraid.
How come it’s always “ball and chain”, and never “chain and ball”? Never mind me, I’m just in one of my weird moods.
Actually “chain and ball” is used quite a bit more than I’d thought. Googling them “chain and ball” returns about 215,000 hits, while “ball and chain” has about 358,000 hits.
Stupid Google, proving me wrong. =OP
I’m digging Elsbeth and her unexpected “power.” #TropeMesher
I love that she went to “Assault Rifle” and it didn’t just produce your average AR-15 or AK-47 pattern common rifle, but a fricken expensive SCAR with a beta-c mag.
But is it the right weapon against the manequins? A few holes doesn’t seem enough to stop them. Grenades may cause collateral damage in this location. Some large caliber hunting rifle perhaps?
Pushback to keep them from getting a grip on her
Shotgun. Ever shoot a tightly packed head of cabbage at ten yards with a 12 gauge shotgun? Doesn’t matter what load, bird shot, buck shot, slug, you get coleslaw spread all over a 50 foot area.
Better make it a auto shotgun in case you miss the first shot. You realy don’t want to let them come into melee range unless you are a were dire badger.
With a shotgun I’d be using flechette rounds… https://www.antipersonnel.net/sdllc/005.html
not sure flechette round would do a lot of good against self-repairing golems
But it would be good for a debate or argument. You can certainly get a lot of your points across, very quickly.
They can reassemble if dismantled. The one Clover uppercutted into rubble might stay down though. Speaking of wich, it looks like they are made of clay or stone in wich case I doubt any type of ammo would be effective against them.
They’re called “Cactus juicers” for a reason. Fire a few flechette rounds at a cactus, and all that’s left is juice. However, a manikin is made of somewhat tougher material than a cactus…
That’s what i was thinking, maybe a chainsaw would be more useful?
No idea why people are saying panel twelve looks like a penis: giant grapefruit sized balls and a two-inch dick? o_O
People seem to act Freudian on the internet, chances are it’s related to their browser history.
I get the same thing every time I link to Die Antwoord’s song “Evil Boy.” Some people just have dirty minds, I guess.
Limp Penis.
(There’s a comment I never thought I’d post on a forum, except possibly as an insult).
Give that penis some crutches so that it doesn’t have to limp about.
Ok, we’ve got the book. Now, there’s the bell and candle?
We’re two thirds there if you count Dabbler as the Belle
(Although arguments could be made t give that title to all of them, of course).
The candle is in the attic reliquary. They are in New York. If the building exits onto Wall Street, then the Stock Exchange bell would be close at paw.
I really like this page. Clever.
Hmm, handy book, but I think I prefer Bulma’s system.
We are Capsule Corps!
So did anyone else make a ‘dictionary = spell(ing) book’ connection?
Well, couple people have mentioned dictionaries
Ba dish.
Elsbeth. We have any MTG fans here?
That would be Elspeth, though it’s clearly just a regional variant and barely even sounds different.
PHALLUS IMAGE ALERT!
How many phalli do you know of (personally or otherwise) that are only two inches long? o_O
How cold is it?
Grower not shower?
Let me tell you about my friend “Stubby”.
Well, there’s John Bobbitt…Lorena’s husband.
O.o
Is it just me or is the rifle upside-down in the 2nd to last panel?
Or the book, rather.
Nope – the two round bits at the bottom are the dual drum magazine, which mounts under the rifle.
The proportions of the rifle’s stock are slightly off in the second from last panel so that might me whats throwing people off.
Maybe Dave just copied it from a stock image :)
I actually tried to find a stock image for a reference and it tough to find a image of the FN Scar at that angle.
If you can’t find a stock image then how about a breech image?
so Elsbeth, she wouldn’t happen to be based off of Eslpheth Triel would she?
A younger relative perhaps…
I kinda doubt that as Elspheth is 1. dead in her chronology, literally killed by a deity and Elspheth belongs to the MTG universe not the Grrls verse
That’s an awfully ornate dictionary. I guess anything magic usually is, wouldve been funnier if it was a plain old Collins or Oxford paperback that got accidentally enchanted tho. Then Elsbeth could look like a sexy librarian instead of a sexy battlemage!
Okay, do I have this right?
She thinks of item, book opens to the page.
She reads the item, other side suddenly has it to be taken.
It can’t verb.
It has to fit within the page or fit to be pulled through it.
The item has to be simply defined. No “wand of armagedon”.
Nuke is out because those things are bigger then you’d think, wouldn’t fit in the page…
Possibly you have to be able to adequately visualize the item for the book to open to the page, that would explain why it’s a magically broad spectrum antidote and it came with a straw.
It would also be why it’s exactly that gun, because that’s what she was picturing.
Fission-based nukes may be bigger than book, but what exactly does prevent her from pulling out antimatter-based bomb? Of course, really carefully, as those are very sensitive.
Inability to envision technology beyond her plantary level in sufficent detail.
Dabbler might, if bonded to the book, be able to pull out an additional copy of anything she’d ever made, under “ray gun”…. but that’s because she can visualize it in sufficent detail.
If you can’t picture it clearly enough, you can’t get the book to open.
No PS4. Not even a gameboy. Maybe if you design chips for a living, you could properly visualize some of the basic ones, save yourself an hour or two on a breadboard.
If you take the visualisation to that extreme, then Elsbeth would need to be a master gunsmith, in addition to being a mage. Given that Gault was surprised by her drawing the gun out, and he knows her well, then that seems to be unlikely.
Although it may be down to the complexity issue. Memorising a schematic for an assault rifle should not be too hard for a trained mage to accomplish. But the same thing for either a PS4 or nuke may be too complicated. At least for a ‘I need this NOW’ situation. Especially one where you need to ensure that every part is remembered correctly.
Messing up the schematic for a nuke could be… problematic.
Tactical nukes will fit in a 152mm or 155mm artillery shell. That would be able to fit in the book.
I was thinking the same thing. Well, without recalling the exact dimensions, off the top of my head.
The artillery piece though, to fire it, now that is not going to squeeze through the book.
If she tried to get an item labeled ‘Magnum’ what would she get?
1) a gun
2) a large bottle of Champagne
3) Tom Selleck
4) a birth control device
What about an ice-cream bar?
Hadn’t actually seen the full ad before
They are missing out on an obvious ad campaign. “Magnum ice cream. The taste that will blow you away.” Or get Clint Eastwood to advertise their packages. “Do they put six ice cream bars in each box or only 5? To tell you the truth I kind of lost track myself.”
And now that I search on it, there are Magnum Boots, Magnum powerline products, Magnum Shampoo, Magnum diet supplements, and Magnum drywall products. (don’t confuse those last two)
What lovely pussies. Nice bird too.
Relevant but NSFW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2A002Em8Yw&t=3s
Made me think of Jim Hines Libromancer books. Set in a world where specialized mages can draw objects out of books. Limit is that it has to be able to fit through the frame of the book, and the mages own stamina.
Plus, if you dive too deep into the book it might start reading you.
Same with a few dozen other commentators…
Exactly what I was thinking. Great series.
don’t let Sydney look up tentacle monster in that book to try and hold the attackers…i somehow think those would be real in this universe…and Dabbler would instantly find other uses for it…
Look up the book Libriomancer basically the same ability with only slight limitations.
Look up two posts above and you will see someone posted that same thing
“Has a large “Book of Holding” chained to her waist for some reason”? I would think that at least a few of the reasons would be fairly obvious. For one, it makes it extremely handy and hard to misplace.
But if it kept Elsbeth inside itself, then there would be no risk of it misplacing her. So I think there may be something more to it than meets the eye.
You mean it might be a transformer? =OP
Also, would it have an air supply?
Only if stored items occupy a four dimensional space. From what we know of it, a two-dimensional space seems more likely. Without time affecting Elsbeth (until she is conjured forth again) there would be no need, or way, for her to breathe. Thus obviating any need for an air supply.
But, if that is not the case, see “scuba gear”.
The bendy straw didn’t come out of her pistol-in-a-bible book. She just always carries it for personal reasons.
Yup, was thinking that as well, like really, who doesn’t carry a few bending straws around with them? o_O
The next time we see inside.Sydney’s arts and crafts pouch it will have bendy straws.
Oh.
RIGHT.
OBVIOUS ANSWER HERE!!!!
Ladies and guns, my true weakness
A bit more traditional than mittens and bullets.
What if the book just teleports the item to her? The mana potion and antidote can from some random mage’s stores. The assault rifle disappeared from a military base somewhere and appeared in her book. If she were a main character (or a character in a game system), it would make a great hook for adventures. She looks up Archmage’s Staff. It comes out of the book. That Archmage might be pretty upset.
Might explain all my missing pens and pencils.
And socks. Definitely socks.
Nah the socks are the Keepers.
As I understand it, socks develop black holes and collapse into an alternate universe.
And I suspect they’re not all that happy about it. Unless they’re Cat-Snakes.
Someone else may be upset if she retrieves an item labeled ‘grenade pin’.
Not for long.
Why is it, that in nearly every flashy game and story everywhere, Magic is associated with red and purple? Is there something about the red hat society that I need to know?!
blood. bright, shiny, fresh blood. and purple for arteries.
Oh, dear…
Welp, that’s it for you then – mind the kindly old ladies with fashion flair.
It sounds like you have a personal issue here? Don’t worry, if autumn colours don’t suit your complexion, or ritual style, then just pick out something that compliments your eyes. Personally I find black hard to beat. It is a classic, for a reason.
How about black and gold, for a real touch of class?
Just realized, but there is a problem with how Elsbeth is grabbing the rifle. She obviously has no training, or plans to give that gun to someone else. Otherwise she would be holding the handle instead of the stock end and front of the magazine feed slot. Speaking of which, where is the magazine? That rifle is unloaded, which is the proper way to store a weapon.
Its not unloaded and there is a magazine. Its a different color from the rest of the weapon, brown instead of gold, but I recognize a drum mag hanging down below the feed slot for the clip.
*double* drum mag, hence the odd hole in the book.
Oh, the drums are almost the same color as the coat they are in front of. Heh, camouflage.
her gun doesn’t need a magazine, it comes with a whole BOOK! :)
Found that drummer for you, https://instantrimshot.com/
ty!
She’s still pulling the damn thing out of the book, that’s why she’s holding like that
Yep, she’s withdrawing it, and I bet she goes to a standard tactical stance beore she rearranges a brain pan….
Agreed. Elsbeth is following best practice, for pulling a loaded weapon out of a confined space. Namely avoiding holding any part which is near either the safety or the trigger. Once it is clear of any obstructions, she can adjust her grip, and stance, to one suitable for aiming. Only when she is ready to kill something, should her finger go on the trigger itself.
Personal Thoughts:
Gault would have come to the council chambers expecting a civil discussion and political bickering as you stated earlier in the comic, civility is rather enforced in the council chambers. So he may not have been expecting to need his gear. So he threw on a coat, grabbed his reports on the current state of things and showed up at the council chambers without much more then that. After all you don’t walk around with a double barreled shotgun or a pistol unless you’re expecting trouble normally.
This is also why I assume people who carry around a gun are paranoid and expecting someone to come out of the wood work and attack them. Police always expect trouble, its the nature of their job, for example.
I am not paranoid. However, I am cynical and pessimistic, and it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it….
Fair enough, though you’re still expecting trouble to come find you. So I still stand by my main point of not carrying around gear all the time unless you’re expecting trouble.
But I won’t begrudge you that thinking line, its one I follow myself. The “Its better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.”
As a cynical pessimist, my stance is that if you need it, someone’s already attacked you with a weapon, at which point you’re at a disadvantage and having a gun won’t do you much good in general.
Most criminals don’t just randomly attack people, after all. They’re motivated by a desire for money or power, usually. If it’s power, intimidation is enough. If it’s money, they’re better off not carrying anything that’ll get them a potentially greater sentence or more police attention. That’s why, for instance, most burglars are unarmed. Bad enough getting arrested for burglary. Carrying a weapon just puts them in jail for longer and gets it confiscated.
I am glad to have lived life not being scared enough to carry a gun all the time. And to have lucked out and have never needed it. Likewise for all my family, and my neighbours, and everyone I worked with, through my life, and their families. With the odds being rather stacked in our favour, of course, by living in a part of the world which does not have an out-of-control gun culture.
It doesn’t seem to be a ‘book of holding’ only, though. Above ‘mana potion’ is ‘mana’. So unless mana comes in a solid substance in this universe (energon?), it holds more than the physical.
It seems to be a dictionary. If it’s a “book of holding” and not a “book of providing,” that probably means each dictionary entry is a separate storage space. Could be she uses the listings as mnemonic keys to access the appropriate pocket, associating each space with a keyword to keep them all organized. Wouldn’t do to go for a rocket launcher & grab a pair of scissors instead, after all.
Your comment has nothing to do with the ‘mana’ part, though. You just kinda went on a tangent of your own. I said it wan’t ‘only’ a book of holding.
If the book does create stuff, yet is not limitless in power, then it may draw the mana, necessary to do that magically, from the environment. Additionally Elsbeth, as a mage, may be able to transfer mana from herself to the book. That entry then being the means by which she monitors how much mana remains in the book. It could be listed under one of the usage examples “This book contains X mans”. With the variable dynamically updating, depending on the current level.
Possibly she may be able to reverse the flow, and draw mana back out. But, even if that is not within the books remit (which, as you say it does not seem to fit), she can always tell it to create a mana potion, which would probably be an efficient use of the stored mana, without too much wasted on the container.
Other than ‘mana potion’ already being an existing item, sure. I hope we get more info on the book. It seems like a nice toy.
So I mean… what happens if she picks “mana” instead of “mana potion”…?
She hears this on continuous loop
I didn’t even need to follow the link to know what it was.
Though personally I’d think she pull out a sega dreamcast.
And above that (or on a previous page), I would assume there would be “man”. I wonder what she would pull out with that?
Actually.. there was a book series called I think.. Libramancer. The magic of the world was like this. You read books a lot, love them enough you could reach INTO the books and pull out things that would fit through as if the book was a door. Only what would fit through ithe open book. Sci fi books could get you ray guns, fantasy could get you magic gear…. and reading vampire romance might get you bit and turned into a vampire that would keep you from using the book magic because you ARE magic rather then using it.
Yes, several people have mentioned that on every page of the comments!
In the ‘Kongoh Bancho’ manga, there was a woman who could actually BECOME the book characters she read about. Scary power, right there.
That would be interesting if every transformation required reading a full book.
I like this one already. Practical magic for the girl on the go. That book seems handier than some purses I’ve seen, if a bit unusual (a disguise spell could probably hide it fairly easily).
And purple eyes, no less…
Oh my God, I love this book.
I’m just glad you didn’t stick with mages needing things like wands and stuff. i mean its cool for beginner level mages but to have to keep it with them like that is so annoying. like how many times did harry almost die because he was disarmed from having his stick-wand. its ok for beginners but master classes shouldn’t be limited to that. hell i’d settle for it being a usable item but not necessarily needed. i know dabbler uses magic but she seems to be higher tier mage/tech adventurer. knowing her she has macros. so i didn’t know how well it was spent and lilith is seems at least above beginner but lower than instructor class. if we were going fighter level i’d say she was an adept or expert if i stretch it.
What happened to the age old tradition of long mage daggers for both magic channelling and combat?
Can she look up nouns that have been verbed? Or verbs that have been nouned?
… Ok, I didn’t look through the comments already about this, so I might be late to the party, but…
Is it just me, or does the indentation/receptacle/whatever in the book in the second-last panel look… suggestive? Like… the two round parts at the bottom and a thick rod-shape sticking up from between them…?
You are, in fact, late to the party. The party is in fact over, the red cups thrown away, and everybody involved would like to get some sleep please.
Balls. :/
We’re all tired.
So very, very tired.
*stacks the chairs on the tables*
*wearily mops the floor*
[singing] Tomorrow never comes…
If that’s so, then when will the sun come out?
If they had to insist on the actress doing her own singing, couldn’t they have hired one who could sing? o_O
Or what is wrong with dubbing over with a real singer? They do it in other movies (did you really believe Scot Baio sang his own songs in “Bugsy”?)