Grrl Power #50 – Fangirl Moment
Sydney’s a comic book nerd, so at some point of course she’s going to have her “OMG super hero for realz” moment.
I have to say, that picture of Sydney in the second panel is about my favorite one I’ve done of her so far – and actually that pic of Max isn’t too bad either if I do say so myself. Unfortunately while my art is slowly improving my speed isn’t so much. There are some scenes with lots of new backgrounds and characters coming up, so I hope you’ll bear with me while I experiment with ways of producing this thing in a timely manner, maybe more stuff like the ‘suggested background’ in the second to last panel there.
In the interest of moving the comic along a bit, I’ve condensed Maxima’s conversation with the police into a single panel sans dialog. Knowing my predilection for verbosity, I could make a whole page out of that and still have to cover it later in the story. Who she is and what her charter is is of course of interest to everyone, but that will come up later in a slightly more grandiose fashion in the near future.
Edit: BTW 50 comics and not a missed update yet! Am I a real artist yet? I can has career drawing comics? No? Ok, I’ll check back in 3 years. :P
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
All the Sydneys in this one are really good, although my personal favorite might be the panel three ‘dorking-out action-shot’ sequence.
And yeah the Maxima + Cop panel is appropriate for something with a greater reveal planned for later. It doesn’t stretch suspension of disbelief given the extent of the unknowns surrounding supers so far.
Total agreement on the Maxima + Cop thing.
Some sympathy for Joel. He sends Sydney on a simple errand, and it all goes Weird City on him.
Dunno – i kinda get the impression that he’s sort of used to weird things happening ’round Sydney…
As well as which, it builds suspense for the reader and gets Sydney even more intrigued. Not only is this woman all shiny and solid and super-speedy, but she does it officially! While that might lose her fan-points for not being an outside-the-law type like Batman, these are more than made up for by the realisation that she can pull rank on the cops.
Of course, from a purely practical point of view, this is mainly being written from Sydney’s point of view. We’re presumably going to be sitting in later when Max explains to her how the Unit operates (probably with unofficial commentary and obscure comic-based questions), so we may as well wait to hear it then.
Woot first comment! Anyways, I absolutely love Sydney’s personality, she looks like a kid on Christmas as she describes Maxima to him, like “omggeekoutonasuperhero! X3”
ahh… andor beat me to the punch T_T
Don’t let it get you down. You really don’t want to be “that guy” who has to post “FIRST!” ;)
Hmm Superheroine geekouts are funny.
*ALL* geekouts can be great fun! I do Computer, Computing, Math, cat, book/library, and language geekouts myself. The list started with three and grew. I think I will end off before I come up with–maps–another.
Of course Sydney is going to stumble over those “huge tracts” since she doesn’t have as much in that department.
And if the local cops are not familiar with Supers they will verify that ID Maxima is showing before letting her leave. Sydney isn’t covered by whatever charter that Maxima works under, so maybe it is just as well that Sydney didn’t open the tube.
Oh My Dude!
It’s a big, economy-size tube of whoopass!
Maxima probable still stands on the tube or holds it in her offpanel hand ,to prevent that Sydney sneaks away
You left Joel off of the who’s who again. Poor guy gets no respect!
Gah! You’re right. I’ve added him.
Joel, the Rodney Dangerfield of GRRL POWER!
or Kankuro(from Naruto) nobody respects him. at all.
… he wears his sister’s make up… and plays with dolls…
Yes…he does…but his dolls are like…Chucky on steroids….and maybe PCP, and other crazy bidness.
Joel who? I mean, there’s Billy Joel, but it’s not like he’s a recurring character in this comic.
Loving the strip. You are approaching one of my favorite type of comics from a unique direction. And I love that you call it cheesecake instead of fan service. I wonder if you are old like me?
I feel old. But that’s probably cause I had a huge cobb salad for lunch and I’m all bloated and immobile now.
Calling that stuff “cheesecake” is an insult to actual, literal cheesecake.
And now poor Joel is left wondering if the money even reached the bank. What did happen to that envelope? Loosing that money would be a nasty blow for the comic shop. (my hubbie worked in a comic shop, so I kinda know how things need to be done in a timely manner)
That seemed like minutia so I didn’t feel like slowing down the comic with it. I assume the bank is closed for the day so the money pouch is somewhere safe, probably under the seat in Syd’s car or something.
It may seem like “minutia” to you, but to our pair of struggling shop-owners (and their fans), that money pouch could mean the difference between solvency and bankruptcy!
Well she brought into the bank with the deposit slip in the bag so once the place was under police control it would have been found noted and put with the other deposits to be processed asap. Especially after Sydney cleared the place with her bio-hazard barf. Only those who had to go in there would.
The bank bag is now evidence. And, realy, I suspect that the bookstores financial problems are going to be replaced with new ones….
Lasat we saw it was dropped under a table along with that tube.
Dave my friedn I am in clined to say keep the quality up as I for one am totaly kosher with a once a week update as it give me some thing to look forawrd to every week but if you feel like giving us some extra goodies do like a sketch fridays show us the penciled verson of strip and then on monday we get to see the colored and worded version
Congratulations on the 50 comics! Only 106 more until you start making money on this thing! (Several successful webcomic artists have said they started breaking even after ~3 years)
I think the ‘suggested background’ in the 2nd to last panel works great, almost a depth of field effect. If the ground got a little blurrier as it approached the backdrop, I think it would heighten the “depth of field” effect.
Seriously loving your comic. Looking forward to more frequent updates when they become a possibility.
Of course, if you started drawing one comic per day, then at 106 more strips you’d be making money in a little over three months, right?
Loving it, can’t wait to meet the rest of the gang! give us moar!
Schweet. Loving the comic, twitching for the updates.
And panel 3 says soooooo much!
Given what we know about Maxima, it’s probably lucky she didn’t hear Syndey’s interrupted comment about “huuuuge–”
I’m just sayin’ is all.
Nah, if Maxima doesn’t know about/can’t have a sense of humor about her gazongas, I don’t think she’d get very far trying to interact with most of the city’s populace. She’s going to get stares and comments about those things anywhere she goes, after all.
According to Maxima’s bio on the cast page, she has a short temper and strongly resents the fact that when men look at her they only focus on her appearance. Apparently not much of a “people person”. It doesn’t mention anything about how she feels when women make note of her appearance. Perhaps she’s more forgiving in that case.
“OMG Superhero 4 Realz” is probably how I’d react, too…
“Tracts of land” ? oh boy was I wrong, I thought see was going to say boots.
So exactly how well-known is Maxima? I would think that given the rarity of supers and that she is one of if not the most powerful, and that she seems to have no problem using her abilities in public, that she would be pretty much known by everyone, from tv news stories and the like, wouldn’t she? As much as we already obsess over even the most boring celebs, supercelebs would attract even more interest. My point is that surely the cop would hardly need to ID her. Is there some other tall golden superpowered Amazon who might be impersonating her? I suppose that there are just some people (OK, a lot of people) who reflexively follow rules even when the reason for those rules no longer applies.
You’re right, everyone would know her if she had shown up before publicly. She’s basically unknown at the moment outside of military circles, but that’s not really being covered with the cop so I thought I’d save it for later when I can tell it all at once.
Also, it’s possible and common to write rules for this type of thing that would require them to show their ID, even if they were recognized. Think ‘form with required field for superhero’s 16-digit ID/license number’. Even if you recognize her and know who she is, you’ll still need to see her ID to get the number for the form.
That makes sense, because you’ve got to assume that if there are super powers, there are people will illusion powers and shapeshifting and you could get away with a lot of shit if you could impersonate any member of the Justice League or the Avengers or something.
You don’t have to go that far to find a reason. Just because that’s the way the computer looks it up is often enough…
Or, on a slightly more optimistic note, forms are often intentionally designed this way in real life to force people to do their jobs correctly. If you have to get the number, you can’t just wave people through, and you can’t just claim that ‘Oh, I recognized them.’ You don’t need illusion power to get that, just laziness on the part of the person who’s supposed to be verifying ID’s.
Ah, of course bureaucracy, the one force so great that no super power in the universe can hope to overcome it!
Galactus never had to deal with Bureaucracy he just ate them.
Sure, but only once he had filled out form 62B/44-1818 in triplicate – “Permit To Devour Planets for the Purposes of Energy Replenishment – Class 5” as required by the MBRPD (Multiversal Bureau for the Regulation of Planetary Devourers.)
Actually, having done guard duty in the military, personal recognition is the gold standard. (No pun intended). All the IDs and scanners and rigamarole are for when you don’t personally know the person. “mission impossible” aside it’s really hard to fool people. You’ve actually got a part of your brain, the fusiform gyrus, which is dedicated to facial recognition.
But it really sucks to be standing out there in all kinds of weather just to salute some fat-cat general and make him feel important.
Sorry, yeah, I knew that, just didn’t fully think through my example… Identification is rarely the point of that type of form. (At least, rarely the point of intentionally designing a form that way.) Usually that type of form design is because you want to log something, for further tracking or data-mining.
Of course, much of that is going to barcodes and RFID these days, but supers could work anywhere, and therefore interact with a large variety of different locations on an infrequent basis. Supplying dedicated reader devices to everywhere that might have to deal with them would be expensive, and likely not cost-effective.
Superman lands in downtown Metropolis, carrying a bus full of schoolchildren he just saved from going off a bridge. Cop says to Superman: “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t park that bus here. Well, unless you’re Superman, of course. I’m going to need to see some I.D….”
No, it’s ‘Ok, we need to do a standard debrief: Get the arresting officer’s badge number and signed statement now that the crisis is over…’
Actually, at least between the Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis, Superman has special law enforcement powers granted first by the city of Metropolis and later the President of the USA. Therefore he can make arrests, detain perpetrators, and so on like any cop. So in the above example he would simple have to give a report to his fellow law enforcement officers, most likely to the head of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, which handles any situations involving superpowered people.
Has anybody noticed that Dabbler is also in another webcomic called Wereworld ?
Yes. There is a reason for that.
“In the interest of moving the comic along a bit, I’ve condensed Maxima’s conversation with the police into a single panel sans dialog. ”
Yeah that’s what I meant last week! Good job, I think you’ve been able to find one of the parts you can cut without changing the story.
Btw, I like this page, more dynamic than the previous one, shows well the caffeinated character of Sydney.
Panel three is my favourite i think: sydney miming while on the telephone to illustrate.
I am absolutly loving your comic, so I hope you can has career drawing comics in much less than 3 years :)
I love it when I see people being extraordinarily expressive to people that aren’t present. At times it seems like they can be even more expressive than in person. Of course, Sydney takes this to its furthest extreme.
Hey, look at that – Joel does have a superpower after all. He has the ability to read the fan comments from the previous comic! This amazing 4th-wall-breaking superpower (like Deadpool?) allows him to bring up fan objections so that they may be explained. Very helpful, though maybe not so good for fighting bank robbers. (Or maybe it’s just a “coincidence”)
It’s actually neither, if you’d believe it. He just thought it sounded like an unlikely scenario and he’s used to Sydney being super bad at covering her ass when she’s up to something.
Hmmmm….(raises eyebrow suspiciously, writes something down on clipboard) OK, that seems….plausible….we’ll accept that explanation for now. But we’ll be keeping an eye on this “Joel” fellow just in case. (Puts folder marked “Joel” back in official-looking government-issue briefcase)
*Puts suitcase in Offical-looking safe*
*Loads official-looking safe into back of black, unmarked, armored van with government plates*
spreads wings, lifts black unmarked armered van to small cliff, tears off doors, pulls official looking safe in half, reverts to humanid seeming, opens briefcase to read note. ??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your Grociery List????!!!!!! WHAT THE SHARDS OF THE FIRST EGG!!!!!!!!!!!
Ha! :)
Classic!
I am getting the feeling Joel is not comfortable dealing with customers by himself. Wonder why?
I WAS thinking “tracts of land.” How did you know?
Totally thought “Tracts of land!”
AH! but did your mental voice say it in a Scottish/Irish ACCENT?… THAT is the question…
You know is it odd to find Sydney’s actions/expressions in this page to be cute/adorable?
Joel has a similar mind to us so it would be logical he would be thinking the same things here.
I’m glad you haven’t missed an update yet. just don’t start updating as irregularly as white noise does without any reason or warning, okay?
Sidney is an interesting character but a hard person to be around in real life. At least for me she would grate on my nerves after awhile. Glad its just entertaining fiction. Damn good stuff too!
Rilly? I was just thinking that people like Sydney are the kind that I have the easiest time getting along with. Huh. I guess that’s how different people are.
I hardily agree “normal” people are boring, they listen to boring music and talk about boring things. Same reason I find women (and girls) who pretend to be dumb annoying. I like to talk about anything and I’m interested in everything so my head is like a junk pile of facts and speculation most of which I can’t really talk to the “norms” about.
Same here, I don’t even listen to the radio, and most people have never heard of half the bands I listen to. I also have the junk pile in my head but I have a rather big dose of ADHD as well so I can (and do) switch subjects without logic or warning in conversation.
Ditto on the ADHD only it was almost unknown when I was a child. My biggest problem in school was waiting for others to get the point I understood almost immediately. All my teachers understood I was smart but not why I didn’t apply myself (there was also an underlying abuse problem) math was a breeze to me and I could write very good papers or prose last minute. Now we have treatments and help for what my oh so abusive father called “laziness”. Just proves that slowly (so f”ing slowly) we are getting better at dealing with each other.
We are probably about the same age then (born late 70s?). I didn’t have the parental issues so I am sure it went a bit easier for me, similar experiences in school though, I never took notes for any class and aced every test, and I was usually several chapters at least beyond where my class was.
Actually I was born 1960 (yes I’m old) and I never really did consistently well in school despite later attempts at college tests were a breeze but projects and homework were a constant problem even the regimented environment of a military school didn’t work as well as it might have. I will say the rest of my siblings all turned out much better than I did and I am proud of them and of any help I ever gave them. :) My sister once thought I had a photographic memory. lol
I can relate. Hell sometimes studying actually seemed to screw me over too.
I got put on Prozac when it was the neat new miracle cure for all personality dysfunctions. My mother took me off it when she noticed it slowed me down and made me more depressed. Thank goodness for moms who are nurse aides.
I was thinking boots, not “Tracts of land.”
(okay, totally thought of the land)
I think the ‘implied background’ worked out really well. The lack of detail in the distance draws the eyes to the foreground.
Loving the comic so far! Keep up the good work!
In this age when geeks seem to know nearly every connection, I am surprised that NOBODY has complimented you on the Monte Python reference!
So, I noticed no one had done this, so i feel i must. Third panel is incomplete. It should read “and shes has these army pants and gold skin and huuuuge hands.
Well, you know what they say about people with huge hands.
They need huge gloves.
The point was not to finish it. Adds to the humor you would like to deflate.
Ah yes… Monty Python quotes, the geek’s greatest weakness…. narrowly beating Star Wars and The Princess Bride quotes…
No seriously… geeks are as susceptible to the word “INCONCEIVABLE” as Roger Rabbit is to “shave and a haircut”.
So tell me… how many words into the counterquote did you get before you stopped yourself?
All of them, there was no reason to go any further after that.
EPIC King of Dragon Pass reference… thou I suspect it’s unintentional. Still epic. :D
When article A is referenced by both article B and article C … it isn’t really correct to claim that article C is referencing article B.
(“Huge tracts of land!” that is)
the amusing thing is criminals have actually BEEN this unobservant in RL- I know of one case where someone tried to rob a gun store. With (armed, because this is from the US) pol;ice inside. And had to walk around a police cruiser to get in the store. (IIRC, the robber didn’t survive)
I don’t get it. She doesn’t want him to know about her new superpowers but she tells him how she helped foil a robbery. Since she’s a weedy little girl in glasses, how would he not think that was strange and demand an explanation?
She did not actually use any of her superpowers in foiling the robbery.
(No, her ability to eat extremely spicy foods is not a superpower. At least, not in her case.)