Grrl Power #59 – Camaraderie
Notice that Harem didn’t actually answer Arianna’s question, just gave her a bunch of stuff to worry about.
I may need to rethink how I’m going to do crowd scenes because wow this one took a long time to draw. I worry about having to draw groups cause that lounge will be a common set piece in the comic once I get Sydney there. Like any sit com I’ll have a few sets that get reused, at least I’ll eventually have a collection of backgrounds I can draw from so that’ll help a little.
It wasn’t until I started coloring that I realized that I had lined the couch with redheads. Since I know people will ask, the one in the flannel shirt is the aforementioned Brook, who we can assume from earlier dialog is Mr. Amorphous’s girlfriend.
Edit: Wow it’s Tuesday and we’re already on the second page of comments! I shall do the happy dance. Also, don’t forget that there’s a forum now over at 910cmx.
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Who is brook? She has a collar which seems to be distinguish someone as a super but I do not recall any previous explanation other than her connection with amorphous and she does not appear to be in the cast section.
Brook is another hero on the team, but I think she’ll probably be sort of a tertiary character. Her hero name (at the moment) is Heatwave. I may change that since there’s at least 2 other heroes/villains named that in DC and Image I think. She’ll eventually get a spot in the cast page but I don’t know how heavily she’ll feature in the story. The thing about the base here is that this will be the main base for the super heroing thing, that is, there’s a persistent staff here (partly composed of the main cast), and it’s the main training facility for heroes who will eventually move on to teams across the country, so we’ll see a lot of people come through here, not all will stay. (Which also gives me an excuse for lots of cameos :)
You could call her heatstroke….just my couple copper pieces.
Well I’m making an assumption that Brooke’s powers are heat based and that you don’t want to go with something like Celsius or Fahrenheit so here are a few suggestions. Sirocco a hot desert wind in the Sahara that reaches hurricane speeds might be appropriate. You might also consider Flarepoint, I know Flashover is the more correct term but I like Flarepoint better. The heat point at which materials spontaneously combust in a fire and it rages explosively out of control. I have other ideas but I don’t like them as well and personally I think Flarepoint is best of the three.
actualy i wouldnt recomend using sirroco,,, as its most likely copyrighted by NCsoft and paragon studio,, as its the name of a high profile villain in city of heroes/city of villains
I’ve always found that “Flare” makes for a good name for a fire/heat based hero.
There’s already a webcomic about a heroine named Flare. It’s based on the old Champions game and a print comic of the same name. Probably not a good idea to use that one, though her powers are light based.
Well, not saying a good amount of comic book magic couldn’t fix it, but since brook’s collar has an H on it that would indicate her superhero name should start with an H. Just noticing the trend.
I think brook is Anvil’s real name. As they look the same.
Actually Anvil’s real name is Kenya. Kenya Cassidy. I’m apparently afflicted with the same condition that Stan Lee has when it comes to alliteration. :P
Ya I read your bottom message wrong I thought you said green shirt and not flannel. Not sure why I read it wrong.
Two things – first the reversal shot from the the fourth panel to the fifth panel is just excellent. I don’t recall where I read or heard this but one of the old artists who did paintings for NASA in the 1960s mentioned that his senior project in some drawing class was draw a chair leaning against a wall at a 10 degree angle as seen reflected in a mirror at a 15 degree angle.
Makes my brain hurt just typing it.
Also, the thumbnail of Leon made me suddenly think of Leon from “Titan Maximum”. Any relation (other than Darwinian)?
Never heard of that show actually, it is a good expression isn’t it?
Don’t worry about doing crowds. Pull a “saturday morning cartoon.” Generic crowd gets no detail. Just enough shape to allow the reader to know that is a crowd and not a blob. Main/special characters get your usual degree of work.
Love the looks on Arianna’s face in frames two and four. Oh, and I’ve been reading this for a while now, but I think this is the first time that I commented. Great work.
First off, seeing Arianna get flustered over the fact that things are NOT entirely under her control makes me happy. If this keeps up, I may learn to not actually hate her. I’m trying really hard right now, but the PR/lawyer thing has me bouncing off my prejudice rev limiter. If Dave can make her come off as human too, I will begrudgingly forgive her.
Man, I came off as a self righteous twit there.
Sorry.
Just a wee bit there. We’ll let it slide this time, seeing how you called yourself on it. lol
Bah – teach me to try and get fancy. Leon: https://photobucket.com/images/titan%20maximum%20leon
Gotta love that shit-eating grin in panel 2
LOL,,,, i love harem’s atitude,,and dabble’s grin,,,and frankly most of the page,,, funny,,, only got two comment,,, i beleive there should be some punctuation after the Hey bite me on third square,,,and am not sure what to make of anvil’s gaze,,,i mean,, is she looking at the popcorn,,, or down harem’s clothes?
In an attempt to have a variety of personalities on the team, I want to try and make Anvil generally a good person. I mean… they’re all basically good, but there’s a lot of wiggle room within the umbrella of “good”. Of anyone on the team, Anvil is probably the closest to being able to lift Thor’s hammer if you know what I mean. So that expression is just her being amused at Harem. She wouldn’t join in on making fun of someone getting owned in a video herself though.
That and I’ve noticed that very strong people tend to swing toward either the “Might makes right” or the Gentle (Until you tick them off) Giant. I’d figure Maxima would’ve made sure if Anvil was the first she wouldn’t be on her team for long.
I can confirm this, as someone who is large (6’5″, 300lbs+) and fairly strong. People in my size category generally either learn to control their temper very well (i.e. Gentle Giant), or end up doing time for hurting people, whether accidentally or on purpose.
:)
I hear ya, buddy. It’s because social repercussions are relative to size. Best example I can think of is a high school couple. The girlfriend gets ticked off and slugs her boyfriend. Most of the time, he laughs it off because she can’t hit hard enough to cause any harm. So, for her, violence is acceptable. Say a guy of equal size gets into a punch-up with the boyfriend. They both get into trouble for brawling if anyone around cares enough to report it, or if one of them goes berserk, pulls a weapon, and escalates the danger of the engagement. Now, let’s say someone as big as you or I punches the boyfriend. We’re going to jail for a long time because we’ve just broken this kid’s face. Because we can do so much damage easily, we tend to be taught from an early age to be careful and mindful of our own strength. Personally, this is to the degree that I don’t feel I’ve ever gotten to cut loose in a fight and give it all I’ve got ever. I’m actually a little scared to see what would happen.
The flip side of the same coin is the stereotype in fiction that the big guy is always the dumb one. False. I’ve actually come across studies which directly correlate IQ with height in Caucasians, but I’m getting off topic. Big guys, because they’re taught to be careful, don’t make hasty decisions if they can help it. They look at a situation from as many angles as possible before they make up their minds to ensure no harm is done. To the observer, it seems that we’re slow or dumb when in fact we’re exercising patience and giving a problem its due consideration.
Does Harem call everyone by their first initial? She calls Amorphus and Arianna “A”.
Yeah, I came up with that as I was typing it. She’s the youngest member of the team, I figure she’s got to have a few annoying quirks.
Plus it doesn’t hurt to eliminate long names when you’re making speech bubbles :)
I’m looking forward to seeing how Sydney will interact with the rest of the team. Her introduction to Amorphous, in particular, has potential for some awkwardness on his part, hehehe :D
He sees her and the first words out of his mouth is “Not the tounge!”
Or, don’t bite my head!
Oops, forgot the double quotes around my string literal.
@banchou
could be harem uses different quirks for each copy to avoid anyone suspecting them of being the same person.(or i could be completely wrong and taking a shot in the dark, which i probably am)
According to the write-up, Harem tries to … “individualize” (dunno how else to describe it) her various selves in appearance. That she also tries to vary their speech patterns seems entirely reasonable.l
7SeaLord another word that can be used in relation to Harem is “individuate” her duplicates. I like her goth maid one myself. But the whole gang is quite colorful. (That is just their hair and skin) Not even counting their personalities. So Dabbler as an “IQ off the charts” makes her passing not only Herr Einstein at 200-250 but even the monstrously brilliant, but little known William James Sidis (1898-1944) estimated to have had an IQ of 250-300 or more. At 11 years old he was giving lectures on multidimensional forms. Rarest of the rare. [The new SyFy series “Alphas” have shown several human mutations with different kinds of intelligence not seen before.]
Duplicators are treated in different ways. For some they are just physical projections that don’t last long and the primary is unaffected like Multi-Man from The Impossibles. H-B cartoon from 1966. When holding an object he can multiply that too in appearance.
I don’t actually think anyone has ever been recorded as having over a 185 IQ. I believe the IQ scale is logarithmic, so someone with a 160 IQ isn’t 60% smarter than someone with 100, I think they’re… 6x smarter? I’m having trouble confirming that, the Wikipedia article doesn’t talk about how the numbers relate to each other. Also, (in humans anyway) as IQ increases, so does the incidence of other mental impairments. Not always obviously, Einstein is an example of a functional but crazy smart person, but you can read articles all the time about autistic kids that can do astrophysics.
Of course, this ignores the issue with quantifying intelligence in the first place and the non-standardization of IQ tests. Harem’s just using the term colloquially, Dabbler’s performance on the IQ tests she’s taken were probably all over the place. Overall she’s very smart, but in areas of math and physics, she’s… I wouldn’t quite put her on the level of Data from TNG, but basically it’s just another language. Wormhole physics is just a tongue twister to her, but she’s still very green with anything involving culture references, hopefully to hilarious effect.
Nope, IQ is linear. Taken to the literal extreme it is the ratio (“quotient”) of the subject’s intellectual age to their biological age. but that only applies to kids. For adults it is a bit more complicated.
IQ is a normal distribution centred on 100 with usually a standard distribution of 15. Not logarithmic.
The number is about what percentile you fall in.
175+ is ~ 1 in 3.5 million (so ~2000 worldwide)
190+ is ~ 1 in a billion (so 6 or 7 worldwide)
Frankly it is not a hugely useful number in my opinion (except for boasting / pissing contests / understanding why everyone around you seem to
be idiotsthink differently than you).As for Dabbler IQ tests usually try to be as culturally neutral as possible.
The distribution is based on the bell curve with 100 as the center or median so you can no more have a 200 I.Q. as you can a 0 I.Q.
An IQ below 0 or above 200 isn’t impossible, just asymptotically rare. As the other poster mentioned, at any given moment there is about 1 person above 190 and 1 person below 10 living in the world. There are also more people living in the world now than have ever died, so whoever that 1 person is has about a 50/50 chance of being the smartest person who ever lived.
Extraplanar aliens probably throw off the figures a bit… they can very well have a different mean and a different standard deviation.
The “more people alive now than have ever lived thing” is a fun trope but it’s not true. There has been quite the population explosion of late due to modern medicine, vaccines, and mechanized agriculture (basically cause of science). It does depend on when you say humans started to exist though. If you count back to about ancient Egypt, then you’re about even, but Babylonian and Chinese culture date back further than that. https://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.asp
An IQ of 0 is what a rock has if the brain functions at all it rises above 0. The truth of IQ is it really isn’t relevant to true mental ability. Much of the test is subjective and culture based ( I’ve taken them a few times due to a childhood of abuse) and is not indicative of success or academic achievement.
While a bell curve of 200 [honest] coin flips will center at 100 heads and can’t get above 200, a real world bell curve is normally biased in one or more directions. Thus if we say the average income is $50,000, we see a chart that starts with very few at zero rising to the largest number at, say, $40,000, and then tapering off until we have just a few in the billion$.
Our IQ bell curve is not so biased and so the theoretical curve is often used. But there is still that open tail and IQs above 200 do happen, tho one has to question how accurately they are measured.
actually the iq is defined to be a bell curve, so it’s completely biased…
IQ tests are standardised with an average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, however this is periodically re-standardised as the scores creep up over time. If you apply the current (2000) standard to 1932 results of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales for the USA the average IQ is 80. This is known as the Flynn effect.
Hi! I love what you’ve done with this comic so far. ^_^
IQ was first used to measure the intelligence of children, and is expressed as a percentage: A child’s “functional” age divided by their real age. For example, if a ten year old is taking high school classes (age 16) her IQ would be 160. A 13 year old who has a BS degree from college would have an IQ of about 170. At the other end of the scale, a 20 year old who “done gradiated from the sixth grade on his third try” would have an IQ of 60.
(If you can identify the three characters I referenced, you win an internet cookie. ^_^)
IQ tests like standard testing is a legacy of Eugenics that remains with us. We see how useful they really aren’t. Even adjusted for ethnic and class bias it is still limited to what is being tested for. And some things just don’t test on them. Like emotional intelligence. Not everyone is smart in everything. But it will be interesting to see how Dabbler works. I know I am. Pins and needles.
Exactly, IQ might be pretty good for measuring or rating some mental attributes, but it is not an absolute, and there are things that it just cannot adequately cover.
As a crude (but classic) example from the movies (certainly, there are real-world equivalents, known as savants), consider Dustin Hoffman’s character from ‘Rain Man’. He might be considered as having a low IQ, but in very specific respects it is actually very high. A simple linear rating just doesn’t cut it for someone like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan
i remembered watching this 20/20 episode 12 years ago about him
his IQ was around or over 200 :D
Working somewhat backwards, the 20 YO is Jethro Bodine of the “Beverly Hillbillys”, I’m thinking the second would be Doogie Houser, and no clue what the first one would be from.
matida.
With super smart characters you’ve gotta watch out for:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless
Though being an “ADHD Genius” could explain why she might only apply her over-tech to interesting stuff like crime fighting instead of tedious stuff like politics or health care ( alternatively a dislike for meddling on a large scale could cause that, or for a third option maybe she does apply herself to world improvement, though i can’t actually think of a comic-book genius that does that.)
It’s pretty likely that Dabbler has a split IQ anyway, where she’s super in some modes of reasoning and non-super (but still abnormally smart) in others.
… And POSSIBLY 1-2 areas where she might even be dumber than a bag of hammers. Super smart does not necessarily equal omniscience, after all.
according to my educational psychology textbook the IQ test was designed to measure how successful in school a child should be. It was never meat to be applied to anything other than school, although lots of people try to.
Very funny page, and welld rawn too.
Also: Love Harem already.
So why don’t Amorphus and Achillies rate bios?
Also, are those googly eyes on the skull in Harem’s hair? ‘Cause that’s comedy gold.
Yeah Harem isn’t a serious goth, she just likes distinguishing her different… bodies with different fashion tropes. So far the ones I know she’ll have are goth (obviously), the strawberry blonde is basically her au natural, which she calls her “farmer’s daughter/girl next door” look, then she’s got Vogue, who is the clothes horse, and 2 more which I haven’t decided on yet. I’m open to suggestions. In the running are “co-ed” which I’m not really sure how different that is from “girl next door” maybe a slightly sluttier fashion sense but I don’t know if that’s distinct enough, also “Biker chick”, “girls just wanna have fun”, “army brat”. Also Goth probably has some tattoos which I didn’t have time to design, I reserve the right to retcon them in. :)
Harem in first panel could also pass as otaku cosplayer. That dress and skull in hair made me think about demon girls in anime The World God Only Knows. For another dress set I recommend (japanese) high school girl ;D
I figured she reads Eerie Cuties.
thats like a near perfect mix of the 2 sisters in EC! i dont know why i didnt notice that lol well done
I recommend at least one “smart girl”/”business woman” type for Harem, particularly if she’s supposed to have a broad set of skills across her duplicates. Either that or combine it with a kind of “Faceman” persona, someone who seems professional but is pretty mischievous by nature.
Yeah her Vogue one kind of covers that. Nice jewelry, silk button down shirts, etc.
She’s a walking, talking Malibu Stacy. The girl must have one helluva wardrobe. LOL
I can imagine how much fun it is for them to keep track of her as well.
You could go for old-school punk (Spiked hair, enough metal to make make a car out of etc.)
I suggest a nerd-grrl for research, report filing and reading the mission info.
With a side order of ‘naughty librarian’ look.
You just *know* Harem is going to, or already has, inspired a fan-base of drooling males. We only just met her, but I think she would be just the sort of personality that would enjoy being a huge tease… and if she studies psychology at all she could learn a lot of interesting things about people based on which personae they respond most to.
mmm,,, i would say a sport oriented look,,maybe sport bra with open jacket,,, and athletic pants with nike,, a ^ponytail,,or maybe sometjing more like tennis player,,,or skatergirl
There’s a pretty distinct look in the NW that I’m not sure how its defined. Hippy punk maybe? Anyhow lots of repurposed clothes (re-sewn often into something completely different), tattoos, either natural or multihued hair (often with feathers) and a spash of steam punk doodads/voodoo stylings. Depending on the person is can range from soft lines to clean ones, from grungy to high end.
Just saying. you know. Incase you need some more ideas for styles.
Well whoever suggested Coed probably meant schoolgirl, which could be similar to the “girl next door,” the “girls just want to have fun” or even be something like a “catholic schoolgirl” depending on how you interpreted it. Sounds like a request for Fan Service to me, not that I have anything against that. ^_~ Going for distinct personalities I think “Biker Chick” is a very likely candidate. Not only distinct from the others you mentioned but also from anyone else on the team. “Army Brat” would be a lot like Maxima and unless Harem has a hero fixation I can’t see her personality going there (as you’ve described it). I like the idea of her “Vogue/Fashion Model” persona, that’s eye candy right there lol. Which leaves one possibility open for suggestion IMO. Someone suggested a “Nerd/Scientist” look, possible I suppose but your description makes me think she’s more interested in fun and new experiences, etc. She might just decide to dress one of them as a “Chinese” or “Japanese” girl. The eye shape you’ve drawn is pretty close and if she’s that into making them different she could either say she’s half Chinese or have minor cosmetic surgery to make the eye shape match. Now that would be unique and different for one of her identities.
As may have been mentioned before – Poor Sydney – That break-room is not going to be doing anything for her self-confidence levels.
Is it me or does Dabbler’s grin kinda say “I want to study her dentin!”
Gods! Every picture I see of Dabbler, I just love her more and more.
What I want to know is who is the red headed chick in the blue plaid shirt, she looks like a super but she’s not on the bio sheet?
That’s tounge-flip man’s main squeeze, Brooke.
Dabbler’s salmon-colored tankini threw me for a minute.
I was seeing it as skin at first.
I see Anvil is pretty when not in battle.
Does she have a ‘Mood Face’?
Ha! Thing 1 ! Somewhere Thing 2 is actually working.
Just remember Dabbler is purple and green. Captain Kirk’s dream. ;)
Dave, I love how you chose the tounge-flip for the when you show the screen in panel 5. No wonder pink-Harem is wanted it rewound.
Nice one. Arianna REALLY thought she could keep her little Black Op secret?
Also looks like Sydney will be very well received when she meets that bunch.
Given the grin Brooke seems to have while watching Amorphus get beaten up I think I can guess who is used as the teams punching bag to test new moves.
You mean Anvil? >.>
Well it’s not like either one would be hurt. I think Amorphous would be for Holds and Takedowns and Anvil will be for strikes.
Goth Harem?! Yes please!
I like Harem’s dark gothic look, I REALLY like it. ^_^ Also Dabbler looks very cool. XD
How many hands does Dabbler have?
I’m assuming 4 hands.
I have a philosophical question about Harem.
If 1 of her copys dies, will she be able to rebuild it by simply making another copy? If this is the case, she is virtually immortal, keeping 1 copy back in the safe base, and sending another one out on something dangerous (or all the others). If those get killed, she’d simply make a new version of herself
I’m nowhere near thinking about that kind of story arc yet. I haven’t really given it much thought actually. To me that’s a trope I’d like to avoid, along with other overused ones that appear in superhero comics all the time, stuff like the guy with the mechanical arm gets his arm chopped off every other issue, just cause it’s only slightly inconvenient for him and not some character altering event. Similarly, Wolverine gets run through on swords and has all the flesh stripped from him every 10 pages cause it’s no big deal to him. Why doesn’t Sabertooth do that to Storm? Oh, right, cause then something in the comic might change, so then it’s Wolverine’s fate to be vivisected every 40 seconds cause the only impact on him is that he has to go “Arrg, it’s the worst pain I’ve felt since breakfast… cause I had Taco Bell for breakfast, am I right guys?”
Good choise, would really hurt this comic if you started to overuse stuf.
Still, it’s nice to think about it.
I agree, that is a good choice. In my opinion it should be that if the original Harem is destroyed then Harem’s copies would go with her.
Alternativly it could be that, while Harem as a whole would survive the death of a single copy, it would cause huge mental (to lazy to type the hard word) trauma, as a part of her literally dies
Nothing to say this hasn’t happened already?
After all we don’t know how her powers manifested nor why they tend to have some different quirk or personality trait.
That and it could take a long period of time to re-create a “deceased” duplicate, like healing from a broken bone or something.
If the hair dye, tattoos, and piercings all last through recombines, then she can’t be making ‘new’ copies every time. She’s re-sending the same copies, and injuries to one copy stay in effect. (Tattoos and piercings are injuries. Wolverine wouldn’t be able to have either, as they’d heal away.)
You might have it that if she keeps a copy ‘inside’ for a long period, it’ll eventually reset to her base form (slowly), but that would take more than a few days, or possibly weeks. (And, of course, it’d undue all the customization she’s done.) That’d let her take advantage of the ‘heal via cloning’, while having significant downsides preventing her from using it randomly.
(Which is the in-story reason for why Wolverine gets hurt so much, usually: He doesn’t care. He doesn’t need a defense in a fight, while Storm does.)
well,,, i think most likely scenario are that wghile she can create copies,, she still has an original her,,, and while her copies can die,,, since they share sensations and the rest,, well lets say that while one of her clone diying would not kill her,,, well she would still feel everything her clone felt,,, wich would seriously traumatize anyone.,, so she would be very protective of her clones strill.
Think of the very first superheroine with multiple bodies to have one killed. Triplicate girl from thge Legion of Superheros Who went on to become Duo Damsel. possible the only instance where the duplicate was never replaced that I know of. Since it was so long ago, back in the silver age, they did not deal with the emotional trauma of having a body killed. Decades later they had a storyline where she met the same villain and could not face him. We were given a story about the emotional trauma she experienced when her third self was destroyed. Very well done and probably the most realistic take on what would happen in a situation like that.
In Harem’s case it’s a little different. She literally has one mind that is controlling five bodies at a time. This is not a case of splitting into multiple personalities and then re-integrating. In a way it would be like she lost an arm or leg but in a way it would also be like she died herself. She would actually experience the death of one body as a death though she would live through it. That’s a trauma I wouldn’t wish on anyone. At the least I would say Post Traumatic Stress and quite possibly the shock could cause secondary effects in her other bodies like a heart attack or coma. Definitely not in keeping with the tone of this series and I hope you never decide to explore that.
well, in Marvel’s Argents of S.H.I.L.D series, there was an inhuman who had the ability to make copies of herself. the copies had their mind entangled with the original body, she feel everything the copies feel, and (spoiler alert) one of her copies dies. She felt the pain of herself dying but actually not dying in the end. She was really traumatized after that.
Well, sounds like someone has read Robert Kirkman’s invincible. Or maybe you referenced DupliKate on accident…
As for why bad shit always happens to Wolverine: I enter my obligatory but half-hearted defence here. Wolverine is the badassest Marval character out there even if he does “die” an average of once an issue.
Actually neither, but I think I saw a cover to an Invincible that was basically just of a skull with a few strips of burnt flesh on it, which made me immediately think “oh, he’s ‘that kind’ of invincible”. As for people that can make duplicates, seriously when has that not happened? I know it happened to Madrox in ‘canonical’ X-Force (assuming there haven’t been 20 continuity reboots since then), and it looked like he was getting killed by the dozens in Ultimates 3. I think even Triplicate Girl in DC got one of her 3 offed, which might be the DupliKate thing you mentioned.
Also it’s funny to think that people regard Wolverine as a great fighter, but in reality, if he didn’t have his regeneration, he would have gotten killed 3 issues in. People wouldn’t think of him as a very good fighter then. “This one guy joined the team and was all “I’m the best at what I do.” Well apparently he was really good at getting stabbed with swords.”
I harsh on Wolverine, he was always one of my favorites.
I believe officially, Wolverine has developed his own martial art in which he uses his own body purposefully to entrap enemy weapons, and leverages his healing factor to ignore defense and increase damage output. Kind of makes sense. Otherwise, with the amount of experience he is supposed to have and the amount of martial arts he is supposed to know, he would definitely qualify as worst fighter ever.
Yeah, 130+ years old, trained as a samurai and spends half his time either with foreign objects in him or in repair mode. I like James but YEESH!
I’m wondering when we will see the others in action?
Is Dabbler maybe a (permanent) “guest” in your comic-reality? since I recalled seeing her, or some character resembling her, maybe even a alternate reality version, (as hitwoman) in Rann’s “Wereworld”. (and there it is stated that she belongs to an artist named Dynotaku) S
So is she the same or an alternate? And if she’s the same is this before or after previous employments?
Dabbler, Maxima, and Anvil are characters of mine that I’ve had around in one form or another for over a decade. A character with Sydney’s powers (which you guys obviously have yet to see) existed at about the same time, but I never really had the character nailed down, just the idea behind the powers.
So yeah, you may have seen them in some form depending on what parts of the internet you hang out on, and the Dabbler in Rann’s Wereworld is my Dabbler, and since she’s a planet hopping adventurer, and is also considerably older than she looks, I’d consider the stuff in Wereworld more or less canon.
just leaves the question wether this is before or after wereworld in Dabbler’s life? Dimension-hopping (in webcommics) can lead to paralel dimensions with different times (and variations in passage of time I presume) so you could hop from scifi to magical darkages and so on maybe even a rewinding world like the guys from Red Dwarf (tv)! It’s just that I remembered it and got curious… and Rann has gotten me back reading wereworld and he has a certain sucubus to thank for that ;)
This is probably far enough after Wereworld that Dabbler won’t mention it often but she’ll make a few references to that and other fun pop culture things on occasion. As far as time travel/dimension shifting goes, I have a slightly atypical view of the universe for my… DaveBverse… (shudder) but mostly because I want Dabbler to have some massively intelligent thing she can rattle on about, I think it might (superficially) be a good explanation for our actual universe and cover all the craziness that tends to appear in sci-fi/comics.
Ahhhh at last! My sweet, delicate Anvil…..
Funny Hiulgrin should mention the name ‘Dynotaku’. I saw a what was probably a finished prototype drawing of her, tall and muscley and gorgeous…. Pretty unmistakably Anvil. Even said ‘Anvil’. Perhaps I missed a step somewhere in the process, but…. What is your relationship to this ‘Dynotaku’ individual? If you request I could find the image and link its location to you.
An excellent update as always. The difficulty of the work was worth your perseverance. Keep your head up.
I’d try and be coy about it, but Dynotaku is the name I’ve used online for about 17 years now. When I decided to do a webcomic, I looked around and saw that basically everyone uses their real name on them, so I did the same, cause hopefully there won’t be anything in this comic I’ll be too ashamed about, hah hah.
am i the only one who finds anvil the most attractive o_O
Harem is the dream of every guy though
Hence her superhero name, something Maxima takes some umbrage with, given her feminist slant. Of course Arianna loves it as it is something that would quickly filter into the public mind.
Nope you’re definitely not alone there!
Is Brook and Harem related or something because both Harem’s and Brook’s necklace are the same?
I mean is Brook a body of Harem?
Who is Brook?
Brook is the one in the flannel and Amorphous’s girlfriend apparently
They’re not related, as far as we know. It seems as though one of the conditions of being a ‘registered’ Super in this world is to have a collar with a stylised version of your Super-name’s first letter on it. So Maxima has M, Anvil has A, Harem has H, etc. As Dave says in his reply to Scott (06:10, 26.09.2011 (no connection to myself!)), Brooke is a minor Super currently going by the name of Heatwave. It looks as though repeated initials get stylised differently, and possibly in relation to the relevant power, but only Dave knows whether that’s to the Super’s design or the registrar’s.
(A slight tangential aside: in Dabbler’s cast mugshot, she’s wearing what looks like a leather collar with cross-lacing and not an ‘official’ initial collar. This might mean that if your Super-ness makes you easily visually distinguishable from a baseline Human you don’t have to wear the collar – in which case presumably either Maxima isn’t distinguishable enough or she just wears the collar to avoid the fuss. Or it might just mean that Dabbler was ignoring the rules when the picture was taken.)
The chokers on the gals are Maxima’s concession to Arianna. Max flatly refused to dress the team in anything resembling spandex for multiple practical and feminist reasons, despite Arianna arguing about branding, who was already thinking about comic books based on the team, toys in pristine blister packs and shirts sporting logos. The compromise was the choker with something resembling a logo on it (though we’ll see later that the members have proper logos as well). Stepping out of the comic world, I can say they’re there because I think chokers are super sexy, but Arianna’s branding reason is how I’ve worked it into the world. Dabbler just happened to sport her own collar, it has 4 X’s on it which works out pretty well for a succubus in our world, where the highest rating is XXX. As Dabbler would say “Pfft, you don’t know hard core.” I don’t know what the guys will be wearing. While there is a market for chokers on guys, I think they’ll have some kind of patch on their jackets or something.
Arianna is an interesting character to me from my perspective, that is, someone doing a webcomic and who knows, maybe making a living off of it. While her intro casts her as a bad guy or sorts, mostly she’ll be concerned about things like branding, which is funny since the things that she comes up with like chokers and t-shirts are things that I may literally make and (try to) sell. I didn’t include her as some sort of meta reason to have those products as it seems entirely realistic that this new force would have some need of PR direction, but all her talk about branding does straddle that line between our world and theirs. I don’t know if I’ve articulated that well at all. :P
Stick with the chokers. I think Maxima would insist on it. ;)
(Otherwise, you’ve got some unfortunate implications along the lines of ‘collars’ for women.)
Other reasons for having both male and female Supers wear chokers could include ‘brand identity’, and practicality. If all of the team have chokers, that becomes a sort of uniform for them in a scenario where orthodox uniforms might not be suitable – for instance, standard-issue military-style jackets like Maxima’s could cause problem’s with Dabbler’s secondary arms, or could interfere with powers such as fire or self-camouflage.
Sydney is going to feel out of place when she gets there. Everyone else will tower over her and average 3X her bulk. But if they are real friendly even Sydney might quiet down after 6 hours of being around other supers.
Other names for a pyrokinetic as in “Flamer”, “Pyrostarter,” “Flameout,” Combustion Vixen,” Hot Stuff,” “Backdraft,” “Sizzler” and so one. Some more for you to ‘chew on’ BarryB. Feel free.
Who is BarryB? That’s not the first time you’ve referenced him.
Sorry I occasionally mess up things. I blame my medication. (Really-statins affect the mind.) I meant *DaveB.* Much apologies to you.
Hah hah no worries, I kind of assumed you meant me based on context.
I suspect that being “the small one” in any group is a condition that Sydney encounters …well, pretty much constantly. Could go a long way towards explaining some of her personality quirks.
The thing is, you want to watch out for “the small ones”. Because they’re the ones that tend to be the most dangerous. (“Paging Fullmetal Alchemist, your sister in spirit would like to meet you.”)
This is epic, heheh. Worth waiting so long for, honestly. I’m hoping it gets back to Sidney and getting her into the group soon so we can find out just what the heck is inside that tube of hers, but this side part is definitely a nice background touch to the story.
And then it got shipped to World’s Funniest Superhero Videos, hosted by Bob Saget.
awesome page! the Harem arrows seem much funnier to me than i can understand, and Arianna’s eyes in panel 4 are hilarious.
heat based supper names? Night-Gaunt’s Sizzler idea sound nice.
I put the arrows in for Harem cause she definitely has the oddest power set, even if you get that she can make duplicates, it can be confusing that there’s only one mind sharing all that input, that’s why she says “I’m watching it now” even though the one saying that isn’t the one looking at the screen.
“Sizzler” would make me want to cover her in BBQ sauce, and not for the reasons you’d normally want to cover a voluptuous redhead in condiments.
Presumably part of the reason for having Supers wear the collar: not only does it let people know they’re dealing with a Super, it also lets you know which Super you’re dealing with if some have shapeshifting or duplication powers.
True and you would want the bad guys to be thinking that till she sizzles them with her power frying them in their own skins and their eyes explode out of their heads. (If she goes too far that is.)
I understood why they were there, just not why they make me giggle every time i see them.
Another heat based name that would be good is either Efreeti (or the alternate spelling Afriti), a fire based version of Djinni (Genie).
Ever since the 1970’s when spandex was used in TV shows everyone thinks spandex is what they wear. No, as in “The Incredibles,” they are space age, and fashionable blends and new materials. Never spandex. Primitive stuff.
The Djinn were black flameless smoke that could change into any form. “Giant black beings…complex of eye and wing…” Not a good fit IMO.
How about an acronym like HEP for High Energy Plasma? I know it doesn’t resound. HELL for High Energy Leading Lady? Or HELP for High Energy Lady Plasma? (Use that Beatle’s Song.)
I realize that you have a huuuge fan base already (based on the number of comments), but I did want to say that “Grrl Power” is definitely on my favorites list! I just finished reading all of the comics to date, Excellent! Your art work is great and the story (so far) is fabulous! You had me almost literally rolling on the floor. Definitely laughter-tear generating.
I’m definitely a fan of Sydney’s. Anyone who can swear enough to embarrass a sailor has my vote for super-hero of the year!
Thanks! I’m please with the number of fans so far, I’m still in the amateur league as far as lots of other webcomics go. (Of course I’m comparing myself to strips like EGS and GWS)
I haven’t really kept up with GWS, and haven’t heard of EGS before. I’ll probably get hooked on both of them now though! LOL. Don’t sell yourself short though, I think your art and story really are top notch. I think your work compares very favorably to others I follow some like “The Abominable Charles Christopher” (https://www.abominable.cc/), “Wapsi Square” (https://wapsisquare.com/), “Jackie Rose” (https://www.jackierosecomic.com/) and many others (sorry, don’t know how to do those direct links like you did LOL). There’s a lot of others. My point is that your work is great … :)
I have a question. Are the green things on Dabbler’s head her ears or like a moth’s antennae? Because they look to be groing from her eyebrows on the couch.
Ears plus. You’ll see eventually. But yeah, basically ears.
Never liked the idea of ‘destroy the original’ (a.k.a star trek) method of teleporting. It means a person have to die (multiple times) to use their power. That and the idea of taking apart and putting back together a person seems ridiculously complicated. Better to just use the ‘jump though hyperspace’ or worm holes methods that keep the body intact and in its original form. I like the multiple bodies hive mind idea though.
I’m to comment. But I’ve been Grrl Power quite a while. Nice to see the story is picking up steam (in a glacially slow weekly comic.( I know. I’m spoiled. But having excellent color artwork makes up for it.
In regards to Star Trek destroying the originally, The Next Generation and Enterprise actually have touched upon what really happens. It’s not destroying the original during teleportation. It’s streaming the original at the subatomic level from one location to another. It’s much like how the Stargates from the Stargate TV series work except that you don’t need a transporter on the receiving end.
Harem fashion ideas
Bicker chick: Black leather everything, spikes and chains. (Might be too close to goth girl)
Retro Girl: Bell bottoms and tie dye, straight hair with a head band. (have fun with hippie dialog)
Country Gal: (my favorite) frayed Jean shorts and cowboy boots, White t-shirt with flannel or denim jacket and sometimes a cowboy hat.
Princess: Always in a dress, blond hair with lots of sparkleiss. (might be to child like)
Cheer leader: (not what you think) Team jersey and hat with no loyalty to any one team or sport.
Harem is such a fun character, I feel like a little girl playing dress up.
ooh i like the retro idea. tie dye looks awesome!
So Anvil is Amophuos’s GF?
No, Brook (panel 4, second from the right) is. Anvil’s the one on the far left
No, Brooke is. She’s the one in blue flannel, sharing popcorn with Dabbler.
Ya sorry I thought the message said green shirt and not flannel.
whos the red head next to dabular in panel two grabing for the popcorn
Brook
You know, you’ve got together some excellent superhero type characters that I’ve never really encountered before, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens when things get serious, but a part of me keeps thinking this group is ridiculously overpowered. The enjoyment of a good old-fashioned mash-up between hero and villain is in the sense of desperation created by both sides putting all they’ve got into the fight and neither really gaining much of an edge, and once everyone’s got their knuckles bloody and the reader can’t possibly think of how things will get more intense, the writer finds a way to further up the ante. In this case, everybody starts out so bad-ass that I can’t think of a villain team that would give our heroes a run for their money, nor can I think of that extra oomph or ace up the sleeve you throw in midway that completely changes the game. Dunno exactly why I’m saying all this except I love the writing and have always wondered how a good writer goes about creating one sense of intensity after another without it getting old.
Probably Dave doesn’t want to screw around with the whole power inflation thing where superheroes gain more and more powers and fight bigger and bigger bosses until it gets totally stupid and has to be reset. This team is basically a “war machine” in many ways — probably coming up against similar super powered “war machines” of various unfriendly origins. In this world, supers seem to be big business – with all that implies – rather than a bunch of superpowered jackasses basically just running around individually creating chaos.
I have to say, I’ve been into manga/anime since long before you could just walk into a Borders and pick up 200 titles. I remember watching unsubtitled 17th generation VHS tapes straight off Japanese TV of Ranma 1/2, Baoh, Choujin Maris, etc, not having any idea of what’s going on but loving it anyway. That being said, it’s fair to say that the ever escalating battle with tension grinding dire straights is something that I’ve seen so much of that I’m a little sick of it. Not that there won’t be dramatic battles, but they’re not going to go on for 400 pages “to build tension.”
The team does have a lot of power and training, resources, etc, but of course you don’t know how powerful the villains are. (Or what percentage of the comic will even be fighting)
My bad. I wasn’t thinking about the typical DBZ 30 episode power up between each fight when I wrote that. More like your typical Wolverine or Deadpool comic. Their powers are already established, and they pretty much get beat to hell and back in each issue, but there’s still something about the portrayal of action that keeps you coming back for more. That’s kinda what I was angling toward. Of course, if action is a backdrop for corporate (super-fueled economic dealing) conspiracy, humor, and social interaction, I’m game :)