Grrl Power #54 – The terror… OF SCIENCE!
We haven’t seen Sydney in a few pages, I thought we should check in with her real quick, besides people were asking where the tube was. This page answers that as well as why Sydney would be reluctant to show Max what’s in there. Despite her innocuous daydream, she assumes it means a one way trip to Area 51. Possibly 51a.
I struggled with the panel of the scientist poking Syd, it was either that or him calling to someone off panel to “warm up the saws” or something horrid sounding, either way the reaction panel was going to stay the same, and I thought it was funnier the more placid her fantasy was.
I know some people aren’t down with 4th wall humor, the progression of panels on the top was originally going to be a single panel but then I realized Sydney wouldn’t think about what’s in the tube in ambiguous terms, so in order for her thought bubbles to make sense, I broke it up as it is now and it makes me chuckle every time I look at it.
Also, I’ve posted a doodle I did at STRIP, the Dallas webcomic con, as well as a more detailed picture of Maxima’s gun over at DA.
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hehe,, i like it,, soecialy the ankle cuffs on the ”experiment” panels,,, knowing all they need to do to refrain her from leaving is keeping the tube or rather its content from folowing her :)
Last panel is awesome expression.
Is this the list she was referring to when talking to the tube “have you forgotten about the list?!?”
Yup. Turns out there’s a physical list. I imagine it reads like one of the journals from SE7EN.
I am going to guess she is writing the license plate number of that SUV down in the last panel.
It looks like half of “THE LIST” is already filled.
I am pretty certain that ‘THE LIST’ is longer than you think.
That little notebook is probably just the current volume of a multi-volume set.
Agreed Sidney way to hyper for “The List” to be just that one book lol…!
*as I make a note to find her source for those books* ;p
This page almost made me choke on my sandwich twice…I think that’s a new record right there. Great work!
For the little it’s worth, I like this page as it is. I think you made the right choices.
The comic’s coming along nicely. Have to admit, I didn’t make the connections RIGHT away, but then I thought ‘Hey, Maxima seems familiar somehow… and Anvil… and…. Dabbler… waaaaaait, I KNOW I’ve seen her before!”
Glad to see you’re trying new things and, hopefully, having fun. Your work rocks.
Not familiar with any of them from before Jace, though I have seen Dabbler used in Wereworld with permission and credited back to Dave here so I knew she had been around longer than this series. Just not familiar with any previous appearances. Care to enlighten us?
No “Breaking the 4th Wall” here Dave. She’s keeping it all in world. ^_~ I assume she can’t just take it out of the tube and run for some reason, maybe it glows and floats over her head [innocent look]? Wouldn’t she be able to unhook the strap and just remove the tube though? All of those tubes I’ve seen are either flimsy or you can do that.
I guess I was a little confusing. I meant I’d seen the characters in pin ups before. Ages ago. On another site, which I don’t think is there anymore… I looked for it the other day.
Oh. My. GODS!!! I was laughing so hard at this comic, people approached me and asked what was so funny! Good thing it’s lunchtime now or I would have been busted for reading comics during working hours. Love this comic!
I love how her idea of “horrible experiments” is for a doctor to poke her with a pen.
He was probably expecting tongue-fu and head-gnawing as I was till I scrolled down.
Juuuuust in case Maxima’s psychic.
hmmm will she become a super VILLAIN when she gets around to “dealing” with THE LIST
*snickers*
On another note, have several containers with cloth straps, they seem to have removable / adjustable connections to the container so you can adjust for peak carrying comfort..
I do suppose what make Sydney sooooo funny is the fact she doesn’t stop and think, that part of her brain is MIA :-P
If you think about it this is Sydney we are talking about, her punishments may range from a kick for something like shooting her to catataclsym for cutting her off in traffic.
Hmmm… Good for the most part, but second-to last panel wasn’t entirely clear to me at first; in my experience, coaxing a strap out from under a car wheel isn’t all THAT impossible. A padlock or a comically bent metal pole would drive the “Trapped!” vibe home better, i m o.
(Of course there is a simple solution for Sydney… The tube itself isn’t the problem, it’s contents are. So all she has to do is open the tube, remove the contents, and walk away.)
But if the contents are noticeable when it/they are out of the tube Sydney might not want to draw attention to herself at this time. (“Did you see a girl with something strange leave?” “Sure did, she went thataway!”)
That and I can’t imagine Sydney successfully sneaking up to the tube and opening it, without causing some sort of amusing drama. ;) (Just walking over and bending down is way to pedestrian for her. Changing into a ninja outfit and trying to crawl under the car (starting at the other side of the parking lot) is more her style.)
Yeah, she could probably get the strap out from under the tire if she calmly worked it back and forth, but this is Sydney we’re talking about.
Or just unbuckled it.
Getting the tube free is the easy part. Escaping a superhero with super speed is a whole different story.
that is very true even though max cant doge fear vomit
unless she is ready for it…
Let me explain, Maxes powers are a kind of a Energy pool, for example she can;
Boost her speed to max, but that takes points from Str, Flying, her nuke, and her personal body shield
she can then switch her speed down and split all of her energy into Shield and Nuke, then switch to Shield and flight speed.
she can also max out flight speed and her body shield is tough enough to not get hurt from wind resistance/Friction heating,, but then shes kind of weak, her “Speed” is almost human normal, and her energy blast is kind of in the 9,mm range
Basically, if you have ever played a Sci fi Game that has real time energy management, from a limited but perpetual power supply, that kind of how her powers work.
the cat in the bath reaction is the best!
i think the problem with the strap is more that the tire is on top of it,(…i think… looks like it is to me anyways) gotta agree the scientist scene is funnier this way… and i can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been said before… though odds are Sydney will end up being called paranoid by Maxima if she is a psychic(i doubt it otherwise she would already know whats in the tube)
… Unless whatever is in the tube makes Sydney immune to psychics. Ya never know.
But I also doubt that Max is psychic, if only because her people skills seem to rule against it.
would you have good people skills if you heard every thing people thought? especially if they keep thinking along the lines of “GOLD CHICK GOLD CHICK GOLD CHICK”?
Excellent point.
Or what passes for thoughts in most men’s minds when confronted with a woman of Max’s stature.
Gold boobs gold boobs
She doesn’t really need to be psychic to know that’s what they’re thinking.
More like the problem Power Girl has: “BIG BOOBS! BIG GOLD BOOBS!”
Which would set Maxima off… at least vocally
just because Sydney’s paranoid, it doesn’t mean their not out to get her.
as for the tube strap under the wheel, how about changing into a ninja, hiding under the car, propping up said car with a few bricks and removing the wheel?
Ok Boss, you dost owe me a cup of coffee on account of the STRIP doodle causing it to spew forth from mine nostrils and upon my cat. :P
Hahahaha, that had me laughing as hard as the comic itself did!
One: Even worse, the examining gown is really itchy, and the table is extremely cold! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Two: Why am I imagining Daft Punk being in the observation room?
Or it could be one of those cowns with no back and a very cold table. Now that’s uncomfortable!
I do think ya aced this one. I do got the coffee on my shirt from the examination. :D
Heh my cat is still mad because he got caught in the coffee snort.
Well played Dave – I like how you portrayed her pseudo-dream sequence–the faded blue wash carries it perfectly.
On a side note, I think it’s great that you adapt your comics to the reader feedback (e.g. “where’s the tube?” “What’s with her ‘Tongue-Fu’ grip?” etc), while still keeping to the overall story arc.
oh Syd you and yoru wild imagination but yes thiat person obviously deserves to be on the list on a side note Syd is very much chaotic good
Hehe, nicely done!
And yes, I’m adding a “DunDunDuuun” to the third panel in my mind. ;)
Also it would seem that Maxima wants a few words with Sidney too, later on. And took measures for her not to sneak away while she’s busy with the robber. And the solution is as easy as elegant.
I’m starting to like that tube more and more. It seems to be bound and determined to do what it wants, as WELL as simply drive Sidney nuts. I really look forward to seeing what’s inside it. XD
4th wall for the win, oh deadpool, how we love you, also, good choice going with the poking rather than the actual horrific ideas, funnier this way ^_^
Catch 22!
Using the Powers she’d have no problem moving the car!
Didn’t expect her to be wearing pink toenail polish…
Is it just me or are her toes really strange? I’m wondering if she has troll feet as a result of her powers, or if it’s just the style. I don’t mean to be rude if it’s just the style.
I wouldn’t say it’s style so much as it’s kind of first-drafty. My girlfriend inked most of this page and she’s not an artist herself (yet) so she’s only as good as my pencils. It is kind of stuffy isn’t it?
*giggles* ok this is tooo funny .. I’ve been following Sidney and Max for a bit now but had not posted! But today’s strip was way too funny not to!! I love this story line and how you have developed the drawing sytle as well as the characters that you have developed so far :) keep up the good work and the laughs .. As I wait excitedly for the next one!.. Oh the lab panels way too funny I like +
I noticed something… we all realize that Sydney is rather… ~lacking~… in certain aspects of the feminine form… but if that list has been in her back pocket this whole time…
…does that mean her butt is even flatter than we’ve been lead to believe? xD
But seriously, love the page today… *Prod* but is it just me or is that ‘standard’ secret scientist getup he’s wearing? I mean, Even down to his hair…
Can’t be. If her butt was any flatter it’s be concave. She’s still cute though. ;)
Even cuter in the hospital gown :)
I like how he put little daiseys on the hospital gown. Realy cute
I think she’s cute too. I’ve always found her body-type more attractive than Max’s but that’s just me.
I cannot argue with this… *just waiting for new page*
Not sure if anyone else said it yet, but happy almost aniversary of Grrl Power. Maybe we’ll get to the plot now =P jk
Hah hah yeah today is the actual anniversary. Seems like time well spent.
Ack! Happy kinda-sorta late anniversary! BWOO BWOO BWOO BWOO!!
Happy sixth anniversary!
(Just happened to be passing through on an archive-dive, and spotted the coincidence…)
Two things:
1) I love how the ponytail stands straight up like a cat’s tail in the panic-face scene.
2) The generic Mad Scientist…
This page rated A+ Double-Good!
can’t wite to find out whats in it
The poster case with the detachable strap was a couple bucks more than this one, but hey, when is she ever going to need that feature, right?
That’s Maxima’s car, right? I figure that’s the only way she can be sure it won’t leave before she gets done with the robbers. Besides, it looks like the sort of thing an MiB might drive, not that’s she’s either a man or in black, but you get the point. Actually, I suspect that everyone else who was in the bank during the robbery attempt including the employees has left, so it’s her, Sydney, the reporter, and the hazmat team called in to clean up Sydney’s barf.
Could be the robbers “getaway” car – nobody’s going to be using that any time soon, and it probably wouldn’t be towed right away. Maxima could have just picked it up and moved it on top of the strap. On the other hand, you may be right, it does look like an “official vehicle”.
Taking a good look, it seems to be a two door car. Not something the Mib would drive. My thought is it’s one of those little cars whith a monster engine inside. Someone with Maxima’s reflexes could probaly use that kind of car to it’s maximum potental.
Looking at the mad scientist poking Sydney, dosn’ t one of those people looking on in the background look like an alien?
They ALL do.
The Mad Scientist just as much so, IMO.
To me one of them looks like a Roswell Grey, while another looks like the “Cigarette Smoking Man” from the X-Files.
You missed UltraMan and the Psyclops.
Well keep in mind this is Sydney’s daydream. I probably missed an opportunity by not doing crazier stuff in the background.
No, I think you did the ‘mad scientist’ scene just right. Any more and it would detract from the scene and Sydney’s reaction to it.
Why do they always assume that they would be taken away to be “studied by scientists” or whatever? Especially in a world of superheroes?
Because that’s what would happen in the “real” world. This comic is a reflection of that reality (though a distorted one) as all fiction is.
Why? Why do you assume that in case you were strange, you would be locked up in a secret science laboratory for evil experiments? What if you are just left alone? What if you become a celebrity?
In this case, this is particularly weird, because let me repeat myself: in the comic’s universe, superheroes are an existing, real entity.
The issue being the SOURCE of her powers. Some would most likely want to know how it happened and try to replicate it.
Given our current culture, I would guess that becoming a celebrity (in case of real-world superpowers) would be by far the most likely outcome, more so than ending up in Area 51. Millions of people obsess over the lives of the most colossally boring celebs, imagine if there was actually someone interesting for us to obsess over, we’d go freakin’ nuts.
Which for someone like Syd might be even WORSE then being poked with the back of an ink pen.
Because of the way humans react to anyone who is “different”. Look at history and current events. People who are not “normal” are attacked, segregated and even killed just because of their differences. Some would call them demons or witches etc. Do you really think a society that has trouble accepting gay marriage would accept people with “God-like” powers? unlikely
That’s not really comparable. If society had spent most of the past century reading millions of comic books about gay marriage and flocking to see blockbuster movies about gay marriage, and buying gay marriage action figures, etc. like they have about superheros, then society would probably have no problem accepting gay marriage either. The difference is that supers already have a long history of acceptance in society in the form of fiction, which would lead society in how they are “supposed” to react to supers in real life. Furthermore, if that’s not enough, that very same fiction is filled with lessons about all the bad things that would happen to the normals if they ostracized the supers rather than admiring and accepting them. For that matter, people don’t ostracize everyone who is different. Elite athletes, for example, are hardly ostracized, though they are about as different from us regular couch potatoes as aliens, they are worshiped, and they are probably the closest thing we have to superhumans. That is a much better analogy. I think the reaction to real supers would be very similar. Particularly if the supers all had huge boobs. Is anyone in their right mind going to ostracize chicks with huge boobs? Not likely.
Amen brother!
based on some of the amine I’ve seen girls and women with small boobs
Do you really think a society that has trouble accepting gay marriage would accept people with “God-like” powers? unlikely.
since society usually ends up killing anything that’s not “normal”, how do you kill someone with “god-like powers”?.
If you actually studied history, you would see it would depend on how the individual is different and how it reacts.
There are lots of “freaks” and outcasts that may not have become celebrated but managed to live in human history. Circuses are a primarily example. People did not kill the “freaks”: they put them in a show. Not the most dignified way to treat them, granted, but they survived and even made families.
As for “God-like” powers, what kind of God? Are we talking Testamental God, with ressurecting the dead and 7 day plaques?
Then, depending on behaviour and circumstance, the person in question starts a religion, become the antichrist or both.
Or are we just talking general gods, like, having complete control over the sea? Then that person is going to end up being fearfully respected and valued.
Or are we just talking about people capable of otherwise impossible things? Super-strength, speed, that sort of stuff?
Utilised one way or another. Figuring out how to get that ability would be great, but it would be even greater if that unique ability was utilised.
Really, it depends on a ton of things. You can’t just generilse humanity or “society” (which society? American? Midwestern American or Californian? Or what would happen if it was in Moscow? Or Zimbabwe?).
It really depends on the cultural strings hit upon.
well,, with teeths like hers,, she could probably gnaw the tube free real easy :),,,
or she could go all sidney again,, take her car,, ram that one,,, get out,, grab the tube and drive off,, hoping max will decide that the perps are more important right now then sidney,,, making her show up at sidney’s comic store later for theyr,,,, chat :)
Years (and years and years) ago there was a TV show named “Candid Camera”.
One gag was to park a car on a $20 bill (when that was REAL money!) and see how
people tried to take it.
One woman gently pushed the car with hers. $20!!
i always liked the one with the teeny-tiny VW Bug with a modified 75+ gallon fuel tank, the attendant is pumping the fuel while the driver says that “I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be back in a jiffy!, just fill-r-up to the top, for me would you, please?!” then the looks on their faces as they try to find the “leak” because no car has that big of a tank so it MUST BE a Leak… right?!”
Well, the fact that the two paramedics are out of the ambulance. I bet that max is still in there and that someone randomly moved the car onto the strap. Her reaction is also a sign that she has a special connection to the thermos in its intirety. If she were to try and remove the strap by cutting or force it would most likely cause her pain or discomfort. I think it would be awesome though if she could use her body to move away and pull the tube free or pull off somekind of “Force” ability and lift the thermous mentally. I could easily imagine her in a cool costume and the items in the thermous moved into a steel ball or what not and whip it around like a flail while she does martial arts or something.
No way is that random – Maxima, having figured out the connection in previous strips, would never have just left the poster case just laying on the ground in the parking lot. Also, it seems to me that the actual case itself is not an artifact, but rather simply some mundane object she purchased to contain her magic artifact(s), although I’m just assuming that (probably because it doesn’t look ancient or alien or artifact-y at all)
Nope, not random, but it probably looks random to ordinary passersby, which I’m betting is why Maxima did it that way. Sydney knows better of course, hence the List.
I didnt mean the thermos itself was special but that the artifact inside causes a physical connection to whatever its touching and connects that to the user/owner of the artifact. I merely thought that her reaction was to the artifact having presseure put on it like it was her foot or like when someone steps on a cats tail. I mean she cant understand everything the artifact reacts to or how it works exactly so the list is more like a cause and effect log so she knows what to be careful of. Thats just my theory anyways.
No the list has been talked about before. Its her “black book” the people she wants to get revenge on. Though it is possible it doubles as such.
for Sydney’s sake i hope that car is parked cause this could get really messy if the tube gets wrapped around the drive shaft
I guess that if it gave Sydney super strength she could just carefully life the vehicle and retriever her artifact.
Maybe if she put that car on THE LIST in advance …
“Lift” the car not “life” it.
On the cast page, what do the symbols next to the pictures mean? Is there a list somewhere? Of course, some of them are easy to guess, but others, not so much.
Dave’s mentioned putting a legend for the power symbols, he just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.
I worked on that a little today. It doesn’t quite look like I want but then part of me wants to go in and make the power icons bigger and more complex so that they look like something out of WoW. I’m sure you guys would rather I spent my time on the comic though. :)
Can I vote for “both”? Yeah, I know I’m a jerk. :)
Hey, it’s not like he needs sleep… :)
I put up a listing that Dave said was basically correct in the comments on this comic
Thanks! That’s helpful. I was thinking that last one for Sydney might be telekinesis. That might be helpful in getting the car moved if she has some way of accessing the powers, even partially, without taking the object(s) entirely out of the case.