Grrl Power #492 – Don’t tell her spots are gauche
I did way too much research to try and figure out how to write Sydney’s squee word bubble. Ok, not “too much” but given how little I know about how to write music, it took longer than it should have. As it is I doubt I put enough of those horizontal bar things to make the note actually ultrasonic. I just stopped when I ran out of room, so hopefully it doesn’t bug the people who can actually read music too much. Ideally it’d be a very very high “e” if I knew what I was doing. I was shooting for 57va, also apparently known as cinquantisettesimo.
Pixel happens to be a gigantic were-jaguar, a fact that will surely come up on the next page, so I’m not sure what else to day about it here. This is something that is fairly incidental to her job as one of Arc-LIGHT’s artifact experts. It doesn’t hurt, obviously, than she can defend herself when the artifact she’s studying decides to summon a gaggle of zombie vikings or whatever the day to day of her job entails. Zombie vikings are definitely on the table though.
Oh, I don’t know what her collar is made out of (that bell doesn’t have a ringer in it in case you were wondering. That would drive her and everyone around her mad.) but it’s probably got a slat in the back that lets in expand. It’s probably a fair bet she’s not wearing a bra though, cause it would have to literally be magic to accommodate that change in volume. Of course, if magic was real and there were people living in the world who could radically change their size or dimensions at will, it’s kind of unrealistic to think there wouldn’t be magic clothes out there.
Edit: BTW, Pixel being a were-cat has nothing to do with Heinlein’s story, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, which involves a cat named Pixel. I was totally unaware of it until this post on the previous page. Weird.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
Check out Wearing the Cape: Team-Ups & Crossovers. Sydney’s first Crossover! I’ve made a dedicated blog post for it, please comment there.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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I honestly did not realise Pixel was a girl. Like… I’m not sure I thought she was a man, just gender was “_____” and had insufficient data up to this point.
So yeah, you could imagine my surprise.
Heh.
Possibly an elf from Order of the Stick? :D
The reason why an OotS Elf seems so ambiguous about gender is because they don’t like to show the one “stick” that would answer that question…
Or that main elf from “LFG”
Psst. Krona is a girl too.
Never confirmed, left open for imagination.
Pretty sure DaveB talked about her in the blog and used female pronouns.
All vehicles are girls, it has been confirmed.
And Exalted uses She as the general gender of use because Power is She. [Never question it]
Actually, that’s just White Wolf’s policy. They alternate pronoun genders from one example to the next. It’s telling about our society that people notice the female examples, and gloss over the male examples.
“en-dat-ass-en” that is just off the hook awesome.
Well he remembered the tail this time, and made a point of showing it off…
Enbooben. I just can’t say enough about how much I’m laughing right now.
Because…. enbooben. I think that might be a better onomatopoeia than ka-pants.
Congratulations DaveB.
Enwolfen was pretty good too
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2178
What about Ka-BUN!
Enbooben is better. Enbooben will always be better. Sorry.
So that’s why her ARC collar has a bell.
makes complete sense
Just for appearance: it has no ding ding, by the way, you are very welcome for that link :D
To get that worm out of your ear, try this :D
Pixel can play with my bell anytime…
Damn, you made this float to the surface from the evil pit of disco… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAqnM1PP5E
Yeah, was thinking of that song as well :D
Nah, that sounds like some rubbish cover that some knock on UBoob mislabelled (on purpose) as being Chuck Berry to get the traffic
Nope. Nope. Nope. That really was Chuck Berry. Look around a bit & you can even find some recordings of when he performed it live in front of audiences.
Yeah, but that one just didn’t sound right
in your post, you put “so I’m not sure what else to day about it here.” in the second paragraph. Technically it’s not in the comic.
A wizard di… Err.. Krona did it!
How did this freaking end up a reply here? Anyway (presuming this goes where I click this time) Worth noting that Dave implied it’ll be covered next page.
I have a minor quibble on one art issue. Two pages ago showed Pixel with purple pants about the same color as Harem’s hair. I understand that comic tradition states all pants that grow with the wearer have to be purple. However, they are now several shades darker than in the previous purple pants panel.
(However, they do match the color in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2356)
Your post has quite a lot of P in it.
Your comment made me remember an old riddle: “Where is one place that even the King goes on foot?” The answer, of course, is “to the bathroom.”
So no only does O.B. Juan have a lot of P in his post, but the King also has a lot of it on his shoe…
A passing car was lighting them up two pages ago? ;)
You forgot to point out they get tighter and shinier on this page
I mean… She got bigger. Not much of a surprise that they’d be tighter.
As far as the shininess goes, it could feasibly be tied in to the material’s makeup. Getting stretched out could cause it to apparently absorb less light / reflect more light. Also on the table; as her shape/figure has been altered by the transformation, coupled with the tightness of the pants now, they could simply be reflecting light in a more perceptible manner.
Scientists have, in fact, developed a material that mimics the irridescence of butterfly wings and, because the light reflecting properties are dependant on its structure, it does indeed change colour as it gets stretched. The fashion of the future, they tell us.
Sexy giant pink catgirl with spanking fetish.
You are very cruel, Dave.
Spanking fetish?
I’m going to need some sources for that. For.. reasons.
For spanking to, I take it?
page 485, the same page Max melts the main meanie’s head
O right, that one.
That sure got new context knowing that she can look like this
Okay, NOW she is the hottest thing on 2 legs.
As much as I apreciate female muscle I think she was hotter as a human.
As a human without the jacket. I loved that panel!
They ARE in New York. If they get done early Pixel can head back downtown and make a guest appearance in a certain Broadway Show.
Lion King? o_O
I was thinking her day-glow fur color would be more suited to CATS, but yours might work too.
Now we just need Sydney to get accidently were-fennec’d – it would fit her perfectly.
I’d argue pretty strongly that Sydney’s spirit animal is a ferrret rather than a fennec >.>
Then again, it could be a. . . BADGER!
ill bite…
we don’t need no stinking badgers.
Hey! Clover takes care of her personal hygiene very well spank you very much
Ferret’s a bit obvious, and both ferret and fennec fit, IMO.
Also be funny if she got werefennec’d and ended up *shorter* – before counting the hyooge ears. :p
Is it just me or have Pixel’s pants been changing what shade of blue they are? They seemed lighter earlier.
I can’t remember what show I saw it on but scientists are now predicting that the clothing materials of the future will have a similar structure to butterfly wings and change shade as they stretch or compress.
With that said, though, they were the same shade several pages back so it’s clearly not that.
Don’t sweat Sydney’s squee. I read music, and your having the were-jag remark in the previous frame that the sound was ultrasonic, followed by your musical notation for Sydney, made perfect sense. It also made me LOL.
All these weres makes me think:
Can a super be turned into a were? And how would this change their powers?
How terrifyingly strong would a were with actual superstrength be?
Both an interesting question and possibility…
Sheer delight… https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2187 and https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2205
If you made Sydney into a were-spider she could use all her orbs at once!
…And still have a leg left to stand on…
I think the first 2 panels should have been cut to have a better flow from the last page…or we see the three lined up, Harem makes her joke, THEN pixel embiggens.
I like to imagine that Sydney emits a constant background squee that Pixel can only now hear.
I buy it.
Sydney is going to entirely break at this rate, supers, then revealed supernaturals, and everything she could possibly wish for.
Sheer delight… https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2187 and https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2205 misposted above…
Yeah, it keeps getting better, not sure how she can handle it.
lol, that’s right: Furries don’t ruin everything! I can’t help but notice that despite everyone asking about a pink-furred jaguar, only one person’s pointed out that she often works with someone who pointed out that reality-hacking hair colors is easy. I see this going, “Hey Krona, I don’t suppose pink fur-” “Oh yeah, easy.” “Wait, why are my claws teal?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about Pixel.” Oh, and a were-cat who’s good with artifacts; very nice Gold Digger reference Dave. ;)
Other than the obvious furry fetish reasons, why in the world would her were form suddenly have giant breasts? First of all, cats don’t have notable mammaries (essentially just nipples) so it isn’t because she’s a cat (unlike her tail and ears which are because she’s a cat), and in her human form she is modestly endowed so why would the suddenly become HUGE in her were form, they may be bigger because she is herself bigger, but they should remain in proportion (and actually in animal form it might be that they would become smaller as – again – the animal in question doesn’t have any).
This is actually a similar question to why would supers have no hair below their heads? Why? What about being super – other than the obvious 1990s, early 2000s era utterly hairless fetish fashion – would make all metas hairless? It makes no logical sense. You may as well say that all metas pee grape juice, or are futa, or are automatically bi-sexual, or allergic to any material that isn’t skin-tight spandex, or some other nonsense that has no reason besides pure fetish.
The mutation angle doesn’t work either, as Sydney herself pointed out when discussing mutants in the comic.
When making something up, you need to ask yourself “Why is this like this?” There should be some reason completely other than “Because I think it’s kewl!” (you can do that once in a while, but if you do it too frequently it just becomes stupid). Same thing with your character’s need motivations, especially villains. It the motivation is “Because they are EVIL!” you have failed. Nobody thinks they are the bad guy, they all feel that to some degree they are justified in their actions – even a sociopath doesn’t think they are evil, they simply don’t even consider the question because no one else matters.
Things to consider for the future.
If Pixelicious actually turned into a pink panther, would buy that nonsense about the breasticles, but she turned into an 8 foot pink humanoid-panther
It’s been noted earlier in the comic that supers (at least, those who are not device-dependent) tend to have an appearance that plays to an idealized norm of human beauty. Once you’re already a giant were-cat, you’re outside the norm, so you end up defaulting to the sort of appearance that people who would be attracted to furry, clawed women would find appealing.
What would be interesting would be to see if this is, in fact, historically true, as well. It’s worth noting that human beauty standards have varied tremendously over the centuries. If we discover that, for instance, metahuman women in the 1920s tended to be rail-thin flapper-types, or that in the Renaissance they tended towards the Rubenesque, and that male supers in the Victorian era all sported beards that would make Chuck Norris weep for his lack of masculinity, that would have some intriguing implications for the nature of super-powers as a whole–that the appearance of metas is literally being influenced by subconscious human desires.
This is my own personal fanon, but it does fit the world-building thus far.
That’s an interesting speculation…
She’s a giant were-jaguar with pink fur and teal claws. When compared to those changes, I care not for why she suddenly has large breasts. :P
DaveB replied to this thread that he actually has a reason for it.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2373/comment-page-1#comment-496344
If you want to use “fridge-logic” on her breasts, we might also want to point out that felines have 4 PAIRS of nipples…
…in which case, Pixel’s shirt would continue swelling – most of the way down to her waist.
…I wouldn’t have argued with DaveB drawing her that way, especially while she’s still wearing a tank-top shirt…
Fred Perry would approve.
A character with the reverse problem of one of his were-jaguar characters? Perry probably would…
https://gold-digger-source.wikia.com/wiki/Sheila_Silvear
Technically, that means that she has the same situation as every other Were-creature in Gold Digger, since Sheila’s reversed transformation is specifically unique to her.
Someone’s kicked out of the A-team. Wait, wasn’t she the one that suggested it?
It was Peggy. The sniper. And she talked with the… burocrat? and Sid.
No, that was Peggy
She’s merely on detached duty…
DaveB
Could we have at some point in the future a “splashart” of each of the “main characters”?
I think that would be awesome
A full update of the character listing using existing art would also be cool – with *very* brief character descriptions akin to the Who’s Who in the upper right…
I was about to comment how much Pixel fits my tastes last page.
This one makes me sad. :'(
Why? Pixelicious is still Pixelicious, she just has an extra form
an extra form that give her Max’s body. I think it wouldhave been better if she stayed sleek when she went were.
Wow… Just wow… you did the note in an super high pitched E key… nicely made pun good sir.
… that must hurt a lot once you change back all that growth.
Okay. That last panel. I laughed. About the same pitch. Hard. I need to go get me some throat lozenges now. >.>!
“if magic was real and there were people living in the world who could radically change their size or dimensions at will, it’s kind of unrealistic to think there wouldn’t be magic clothes out there.”
Plus you have a fabric-kinetic guy who makes super-clothes…. :)
What is WITH Sydney? First the werewolf and now this. Does she have a furry fetish or what?
Well, I imagine meeting a real werewolf would be pretty neat. And she’s seen quite a bit today.
If everything you ever dreamed about suddenly became real, how would you act?
Some day we will go more than a couple pages without a new character or new abilities being shown off, but that day is not soon. Not that it isn’t well done! But constant surface level information on new person after new person, ability after ability, has led to serious arc fatigue for me.
I was reeeeeaally hoping the furry fetish would remain in check…
This is taking things a bit too far. Between the out-of-nowhere hyper-sexualized amazon body to the nonsensical color scheme, you turned what was a potentially interesting character into the most stereotypical furry fetish design possible. This is literally what Furry Force was parodying.
Well…
Are you new? Have you seen the designs on main characters Max and Harem? Let alone Dabbler? Funky colours, big breasts, lots of crazy powers that can be pulled out unexpectedly. This is what the comic is.
I’m surprised Dave went here, but it’s not really any worse than threatening to really make that one guy a colony of spiders in a human suit, or Vehemence’s power set. And compared to weeks of reading about vampires, a hot pink panther-lady is a return to the craziness that is this strip’s wheelhouse.
This is how Dave himself describes his comic on this very site:
“What’s all this then?
Grrl Power is a comic about a crazy nerdette that becomes a superheroine. Humor, action, cheesecake, beefcake, ‘splosions, and maybe some drama. Possibly ninjas.
Updates Mondays and Thursdays.
Rated PG-13 for violence and gratuitous cheesecake (and beefcake)
Rated R for language. Seriously, Sydney has a filthy mouth.”
I would say a giant pink busty furry fit right in here.
Cue the Theme Music…
Oh, wait, only half right. This one fits better.
Why does her body drastically change into a large well endowed Pink Cheetah lady? How is she pink? WHAT IS THIS PLACE!?
Kitty Hulk!
Her head’s not small enough.
No, you are thinking of poor Guido, aka Strong Guy
“Kitty Hulk”…?
:P
Does that mean she’s associated with Orville & Wilber…?
(…groan…)
I’m surprised you didn’t go for a “ker-fuz” or “ker-grow” Gold Digger reference.
He already went “ker-BUN” with Kat
Well, that was unexpected.
Don’t worry, there are still enough interesting characters around. Just look at the current A+ team: A reality hackerette, a superpower multi tool heroine and a quintuple teleporter.
Now I kinda wanna have a bar joke.
*sigh* I really need to watch out for the “Click here to cancel reply.” message when I want to reply.
Original directed at this comment
A reality hackerette, a superpower multi tool heroine and a quintuple teleporter and a pink werejaguar walk into a Bar… please add to this joke
A reality hackerette, a superpower multi tool heroine and a quintuple teleporter and a pink werejaguar walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?” The guys sitting at the bar answer, “Cause I know I don’t have a shot with none of them!”
Or . . .
A reality hackerette, a superpower multi tool heroine and a quintuple teleporter and a pink werejaguar walk into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?” The customer answers, ” Because that girl over there just turned me into a horse!”
Sorry. I’m no comedian and these two are all I could come up with. ☺
Sydney walks into a coffee shop and ask for a cappuccino, the bartender serve her the ice cream and giving her chopstiks ask “will you want fries with your soup?”
Over her shoulder Sydney yells: “Krona!!”
A reality hackerette, a superpower multi tool heroine, a quintuple teleporter and a blonde walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and asks, “Is this some kind of joke?”
That would be 220Hz. 420Hz is a bit over an A-flat most of an octave above middle C. (Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch_notation )
I did the math, and got a pitch of 84 385.28 Hz for the particular E note presented in the comic. That is well over the 22.1KHz cutoff for ultrasonics, likely above non-magical jaguar hearing range, actually.
For the collar, a good solution is using a magnet pair or other fastener to tighten a slack loop, which then detaches midway through to loosen to the full size, then get reassembled later.
Considering how long we’ve been seeing pixel I kindof feel this twist is a bit lack-luster, also don’t see why she feels a gaint pink cat woman would be more effective at scouting than any of the other three. Honestly with the name pixel I was expecting her to be something similiar to Krona, or a Pixie.
“BTW, Pixel being a were-cat has nothing to do with Heinlein’s story, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, which involves a cat named Pixel. I was totally unaware of it until this post on the previous page.”
Really? Dude, it was mentioned out since the very first time Pixel appeared, 63 pages ago.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2139/comment-page-1#comment-443749
Although Dave does try to read every post, I think the volume of comments has long since passed the point where that is possible. If wishing to also both write and draw a comic of this complexity.
Aside from that, the linked comment was of the type that the reader thought they had spotted a reference:
Where an homage or name-drop is intentional, Dave does confirm such (if he spots it).. Giving the commentator the thrill of having been the first to point out the link.
Conversely though, Dave does not tend to burst peoples bubbles, if they call it wrong. So even if Dave had read that comment, it was wrong. Neither was it Heinlen, who inspired the character, nor can Pixel phase through walls.
Given that every new character (and even situations they find themselves in) provoke several such guesses, many of them stretched, there would be little reason to think further on it. Let alone memorise the point.
I did read those comments, although I did not feel drawn to click on the link (given Dave had not confirmed it to be relevant), yet did not think of them, when reading the above comic. Nor would I have expected Dave to have done either.
I do have two friends with superb memories, who might have mind, under similar circumstances, such as you clearly did. But not everyone is so blessed.
I don’t think I said that Dave should have done anything you listed, I was remarking how fast were the readers to spot the apparent connection, and at the same time given proper credit to the first one doing it. Also the first reply to that comment made clear the connection, no need to follow the link.
As regards your last, I disagree. It does not say “Like Heinlen’s cat…” or otherwise indicate that it is making a direct reference to the novel character’s actual powers. It is just relaying an anecdote about a household pet.
Further the second comment does draw a connection to the reference source, by virtue of giving congratulations for making the link. But then goes on to talk about phasing again. Which simply corroborates the overwhelming impression that the cat(/person) in question phases, rather than uses normal cat techniques. Even the title of the story supports this (although I do appreciate the play incorporated in it).
All of which serves to distance the novel mentioned from being anything like a were-great cat.
Note that I am not doggedly supporting Dave here. I am just pointing out that what seems blindingly obvious, if you have all the facts, is not necessarily so, to everybody else. What I can say though is that Dave does not hesitate to give credit for inspiration, whenever he has drawn on some specific source. So there would have been no reason for him to do otherwise, in this instance.
Of course it is possible that Dave was subconsciously inspired by it, had he ever read the novel. I know that I very likely have, as I read every Heinlen novel in the library, and got them to order the ones they did not have. Yet I cannot recall the details of that one, as it was a long time ago, and I do not have it in my collection. But if we cannot consciously recall something, we cannot give credit for that.
If Dave thought ‘Pixel sounds good for this character’ that may have been such a subconscious prompt. Alternatively though he may have chosen the name as a variant on Pixie (the kind of route I would likely have come from, and have mentioned before) or, more likely from Dave’s influences, from something of a technological origin. Given the common computer use of the word. If so this may be connected to her artifacts, and is not something Dave could comment on, at this time.
Besides which, the obvious inspiration, which others have pointed out already, is the Pink Panther movie. And it may turn out that The Cat Who Walks Through Walls was itself inspired from that. Given that the latter was published in 1985, whereas the Pink Panther was released in 1963.