Grrl Power #60 – Operation Cover Our Asses
Ok, long comments this time, deep breath. Harem’s teleport is one of the better ones out there. All the ones in comics and shows that I’ve seen have the limitation of not being able to teleport blindly into an area for fear of teleporting into something solid. It seems like a super easy way to kill Nightcrawler would be to fill his room full of rebar. How often does he check to make sure no one’s done that before TPing blindly into areas he’s familiar with? Heck you wouldn’t even need rebar, just a bunch of sawdust and a fan. Try not being dead with some wood chips all up in your brain and organs. Anyway, Harem has to have a passing familiarity with her destination, I mean, she has to know where she’s going, but her TP has a safety on it. She gets a split second of clarisense before she teleports, basically she can feel out her destination and she can make little adjustments before she commits. She can’t really scout an area with it, she can’t see or hear anything before she arrives, just tell if there’s something in the way. While this seems like the sort of thing that would allow her to hang out with Nightcrawler and… actually, off the top of my head he’s the only teleporter I can think of, but she would be able to hang out with them and make fun of their feeble TP skills, but unlike all the others, she can’t take anyone with her. Clothing, equipment, easy, but no people. Possibly nothing else living.
The EMT Black Box isn’t a literal black box, that’s just branding. It’s obviously easy to pop out a memory stick on the thing, it’s just something that this company requires.
This page felt a little directionless to me, I think it’s a victim of trying to too much on a single page. I wanted a panel of Maxima looking disapprovingly at the amount of cleavage that Harem has hanging out before giving her flak about uniforms. I probably could have made the middle panel a POV shot from Max holding the memory stick up in front of Harem’s open, yet fashionable shirt. Not being able to see her teleport out isn’t ideal either. But this page sets up quite a bit, not the least of which is the interview, which will hopefully amuse, and also shows that Harem is at least a teeny bit immature, being the youngest on the team and all.
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Do you think sydney is exaggerating a little bit?
Uh-oh…
Awesome work, as always.
Um… Nightcrawler is dead, in the manner you mentioned. He was fighting Bastion. Bastion placed his hand in the space Nightcrawler was going to rematerialize in. Nightcrawler manages to rescue the girl Bastion was holding hostage by teleporting away, but that is his last act, with Bastion’s arm stuck in his chest.
Ah, well, there you go. I haven’t read Xmen (or whatever title he was in) for quite a while.
Nightcrawler wrote an autobiography. It’s called “Mein Bamph”.
just for information’s sake the Marvel character Vanisher power works similar to Harem’s because the fade’s out of one place and fade’s into the new one so if it’s a filled area he can reverse. Also that is why he makes no sound when he teleports. The only other Marvel teleporter was the one in New Mutants that was a galactic teleporter damned if i can remember her name though.
Lila something or another, and I don’t think she was one of the new mutants, but rather Sam’s GF.
Lila Cheney, usually protected by Strong Guy.
also, Nightcrawler (used to) enter a different dimension full of demons and shadows when he teleported, forcing the air to leak out from it (for the brimstone smell and bamf effects), showing that he should have been displacing space instead of materializing into it. Oh Marvel, if only you could keep track of things…
Then there was Blink from the Age of Apocalypse and the Exiles. She could open portals for the team to go through.
And speaking of Nightcrawler. One of the Exiles was his daughter with the Scarlet Witch in a different reality. Basicly a female Nightcrawler but instead of teleporting she opened micro-portals into the dimension he teleported through and channeled the energy into her “Hex Bolts”
I think it’s stupid that it works this way…
The idea of teleporting (or beaming) is that all the atoms or quarks and strings will “disappear” (they don’t really disappear) and appear at the exact same location with the exact same atomic “partners” they’ve had before.
I assume you’d kill anyone by teleporting yourself inside them, because there atoms will all get pushed aside or even disappear…
In the DOOM game universe that’s called telefragging.
Yes … and it was as fun as hell! Almost as much fun as sneaking up behind them with a double-barreled shotgun when they were battling a couple of Revenants …
Also, panel 5: Shouldn’t it be “He needs to make it look like *it* stopped recording as soon as I kicked the EMTs out.”?
as i see it the way it stands is that she is saying that she wants to look as though she turned it off
That’s exactly what Max intends.
However, the grammatical error (“I” instead of “IT'”) makes it sound like it’s Max herself recording the conversations in the ambulance, not its black box. Which would be weird.
You could always make it “I stopped the recording”. That would imply creating a record of her turning off the recording at the time she mentions.
That would work too.
Yeah, I’m sure it might aggravate some people, but I’m not super concerned about proper Oxford English in the dialog. I love (parts of) the West Wing, but the dialog does all come off as if it was written to be clever dialog from people who have amazing facts and figures at the forefront of their brains at all times. I want my dialog to feel a little more organic and natural. Actually I really like the “retroscripting” as seen in Dr. Katz and to a lesser degree Archer, but that’s harder to do with dialog bubbles.
Nor should you DaveB since this is about how people speak in normal situations. Most do not elocute in that fashion. Colloquialisms would be the norm as are sentence fragments. Did you know that people normally speak in incomplete sentences? Any who do are abnormal. Keep on truck’n!
There are two types of errors that you need to distinguish:
1) Errors that do not confuse meaning. e.g. The intent of “Me and John went fishing.” is clearly “John and I went fishing.”
2) Errors that confuse meaning.
The “I” instead of “it” error is the latter. If I were Harem, I might not have understood. Unclear orders are very bad. Colonel Maxima should know this cold.
To your mention of too much in a single panel, I obviously don’t know or understand what your outside commitments are and your style and flow for the comic are your own. However, I feel like this comic could be broken into two or three pages relatively easily and maybe decrease the feeling of clutter and create an opportunity for more panels. I will admit that I make this suggestion with reservations because as much as I have been enjoying this comic, the once a week updates and the need to introduce the cast has made it feel like the comic is dragging its feet.
So, to sum up my rambling, my suggestion would be to have made this page two pages and post them on two separate days.
I’d love to be able to post twice as often even if it didn’t move the story forward twice as fast for that very reason. If I could draw larger on each page and have more stuff like non-dialog driven glances or just like an establishing shot of something, that would be ideal, but I’m barely getting these out on time as it is. And Rage comes out this week, so that’ll take up a little time. I’d love to say that after the holiday deluge of games I’ll be able to draw more often, but games like Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer aren’t the kind of things you put 20 hours into and then you’re done. Plus at some point Diablo 3 will come out, so it’s all kind of open ended. I will say though, that when I’m grinding away at some multiplayer game these days, I do get pangs of guilt about not working on the comic, which is a good thing. CoD:BlOps was my big distraction before I started doing the comic on a regular basis, but I’ve probably put less that 10 hours in to the multiplayer in the last 6 months.
Given infinite time I’d love to break this page in two though.
JEEZ Rage is this week?
Totally forgot about that.
To the Steam Store! AWEH
That is false. Blizzard will never release Diablo 3. It has becoming nothing more than a way for them to draw hapless gamers into buying whatever new expansion set they are releasing for WoW.
Preordered Rage on steam already.
And as for Diablo 3 ?
Probably not until next year !
Oh .. and I’m loving the Harem character(s). :)
It seems like you are often wishing you had time for glances or more pages, so I’d say go for it. It may slow the pace for day to day readers, but I think over all you’ll be happier with the final product and I think it will add a lot more to the world and the characters and make pages like this seem less dense and forced. Also, you won’t have to do so much explaining in the comments.
Oh, dear.
As the saying goes, “The job isn’t finished until the paperwork is done…”.
Looks like Max and co will be doing A LOT of paperwork before Arianna’s little ploy is 100% done.
Let me grouse about the art for a bit. I was going to make this part of the comment but it was long enough as it was. This page was just killing me. Some of the art on it is ok, but in that first panel of Max, her eyes look too close together. I seem to have trouble with proportion when most of what I’m drawing is cropped off. Also I was having a ton of trouble with her in that bottom middle panel too. It took like an hour to pencil, I don’t know why, it was draw a bit, reverse it, whoops that’s skewed looking, fix that, reverse it again, now the eyes don’t look good. I scrapped the whole thing more than once and it still looks weird to me, like her nationality has suddenly switched to Inuit or something. I don’t know how much that stuff stands out to people (unless I draw attention to it) Like every artist, I’m sure, I scrutinize my stuff with a level of detail that probably no one else does but that stuff still sticks out to me when I walk away from this page for an hour then come back and look at it with semi-fresh eyes.
Since these pages take 10-14 hours to do start to finish, after a certain point, there just isn’t time to go in and start fixing stuff that I’m seeing for the first time. Welcome to working on a schedule I guess. Oh well, part of improving isn’t just doing better art, it’s also doing less bad art so hopefully this stuff will trip me up less and less as I go on.
Looks fine to me. Then again, I’m no artist.
I think the art is great myself. Maxima’s eye’s wern’t too close together, You were just drawing her at an angle and that’s why you see it that way. By the way love the look in Maxima’s eye’s on panel seven. Like major crazyness was about to come down her way,
about getting proportions off when doing partial shots, would it be feasible to do a quick sketch of the person uncroped to use as a reference for that page? or would that wind up taking to much time?
I actually did that eventually. I kept messing with it until I finally took the pencils from those bottom panels of her that I’m not entirely pleased with and scaled it up for the top panel, then adjusted where she was looking and re-inked it, which I guess magnified some of the issues that I have with the bottom panels. Oh well, onward and upward.
That’s quite alright…there have been a few times that I thought I noticed stuff slightly outta whack, but I couldn’t quite tell what. d: I have been called and artist, and I am very picky about my stuff so I sympathize.
an* artist, sorry….half past four AM and WAAAAAAAY past beddy bye for me XD
Also looks to me kinda like Sydney may be the primary recipient of all that PR Arianna has just created. Max might have done most of the ‘work’, but it is Sydney’s interview that is getting out there first.
Gee, what a shame.
It would also seem that Sydney has completely forgotten her plan to “FLEE!” from imminent experimental prodding.
Well, in general the best way to resist abduction and experimentation would be to become too high-profile a target: They can’t abduct someone famous without causing a ruckus.
Though if Sidney’s thought that through, I’d be surprised. I think her ‘Hey, I get to be on TV!’ instinct overrode her ‘FLEE!’ instinct.
Makes sense both ways. Sydney is not exactly a shrinking violet once she gets started.
Yeah, and from the look on the reporter’s face, Sydney is offending sailors and ex-cons again …
From Wikipedia:
“He possesses a limited unconscious extrasensory “spatial awareness” ability which prevents him from teleporting into solid objects within his immediate vicinity, but this ability diminishes the greater the distance he teleports. Because teleporting into other solid matter would cause severe injury or death, he will only teleport to an area he is familiar with or that he can clearly see at the time or has seen in the past. His power automatically displaces liquids and gases when he “arrives”.”
…uh… regarding Nightcrawler, I meant to add…
I remember one adventure where Nightcrawler did multiple teliportations in water with no ill effect. So I think with the saw dust he would just displace it. mind you the rebar would hurt.
Wow that must be new. I read every issue of X-men from about issue 160 to 330, plus the first… 60 issues of Excalibur when he was on that team and I don’t recall that ever being mentioned.
Well the gasses kind of goes without saying or he’d be atomized the first time he did it from the atmosphere, didn’t know about liquids though.
in the Wolverine and the X-men cartoon when he teleports in water he winds up carrying the water around him to where he goes.
It’s one of those things that the writers never remember unless they want it to be relevant to the plot.
Like how Wolverine’s supposed to be invisible to machines (something Marvel hasn’t apparently remembered in around 20 years).
say huh? Half the boy’s body mass is metal. How the *&%^# is he supposed to be invisible to anything with a sensor?
I agree with you on that adamas. However I have to admit to seeing that notation about Wolverine before, didn’t make sense to me either but…
That was Nightcrawler who was invisible to machines but never completely, only about 90%
No, Nightcrawler was “nearly undetectable” when in areas of dark shadow. Wolverine was just flat out not supposed to show up on any form of mechanical detection like IR cameras, motion sensors, or metal detectors. Marvel tossed both ideas under the bus some time in the 80s.
I think that’s just because it hasn’t been the case in about that long. As I recall, that applied to all of the then-X-Men, as the result of the storyline that ended up with the world believing them dead, when in fact they’d gone to Australia (y’know, as people do when they die), and the effect ended when they passed through the Siege Perilous at the end of their time in Australia.
Were the two guys on the stretchers scoping Harem’s backside when she ported in?
Also – Hehehehe… I called it on Sydney. I just knew the reporters would find her before Maxima got done in the ambulance. (Getting out the popcorn and leaning back. This is gonna be good…)
Yeah, I saw this one coming too, boy is this going to be fun to watch.
Lol, Maxima just swung into FULL damage control mode. The second she said “Turn on Channel 5” Adrianna hit Panic Mode but I expect she will be in damage control herself in about 0.6 seconds. (like the old joke – “I can do 0 to Bitch in 0.6 seconds. Don’t push IT!”)
If, at this stage, Arianna’s head starts spinning around on her shoulders ‘Exorcist’-style, I personally will be more than satisfied. ;)
Were the guys trying to look up Harem’s skirt or were they looking there when she popped in?
DaveB said that she can sort of check out the general area of where she is telaporting, that might cause a energy field disrupton around where she would appear. It’s probably noticable, so they just looked where the energy disturbance was and there she was. The fact that they got to look up her skirt was a happy coincidince.
I think she actually appeared somewhat behind them.
I think you are right on second glance (I thought they were checking her out at first). If you look close you can see Harem’s leg is behind the stretcher when she fades in. The little bit under the word bubble on the left threw me for a second before I realized it was the security strap and not Harem’s leg.
Umm did Syd get the tube out from under the car? Because I’m not seeing it.
Doubt it, The news people probably zeroe’d in on her first thing after they saw that thing on youtube.
Two bank robbers were taken down my a civilian and a Super. The Super is not talking at the moment.
They didn’t need to see the YouTube video. They’re just following the story.
The reporter gal was in the bank when it all happened, so she already knows who she needs to talk to.
I just read through the bank robbery sequence and I know who you are talking about, but that’s not her. The reporter has a diffrent hair style and blouse on than the lady in the bank. Sorry, but you are wrong.
We shall see. Either Dave is being a bit inconsistent or they simply brought her some “on the air” clothes – the reporter gal had already called for a camera crew/van when she talked to Max, which would be there momentarily. It’s only been a few moments since Max went into the ambulance – other news crews wouldn’t have the big time advantage that she gave her crew and are quite unlikely to have arrived yet.
It’s supposed to be her with on air clothes. I don’t know what my sudden fascination was with turtlenecks when I was setting up the bank scene but she’s ditched that for a jacket and a better shirt. I guess the time frame is a little compressed. Of course it’s been like 2 months since the page with the reporter asking for the interview but it’s probably been less than 2 minutes since then in comic time. If the van pulled up right as Max got in the ambulance then she could have switched jackets but yeah, I could use a continuity pass I guess. Sorry if it’s a little confusing.
Oh dear, hurry up Colonel, grab Sydney before she says a bunch of crazy things!
Hell, in that case just grab the tube and run in the opposite direction. Kills two birds with one stone, heheh. XP
HaHaHa! that’s a great idea!
I fear she may be too late to do that. LOL
Hahahaha! Oh man, I can visualise that happening right now! I’m going to be laughing all day thinking of that, thanks!
same…mainly with Sydney’s fingernails bringing up curls from the asphalt as she tried to (unsuccessfully!) regain some control over the situation, cussing all the time and setting peoples’ heads on fire! XD
Yay! Back to Syndey! Also, grats on an uninterrupted 60 pages!
I can hear the though bubble now ” Oh for the F#&*%ing love of Pete doesn’t that girl know how to shut up.
and “She is on the list!!! Wishing she is dead after she is done with her training!!”
Guido
Can’t wait to see the interview! :) With Sydney’s frenetic gesturing and breathless ranting it should be quite entertaining! Glad to see my comment https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/311 bear such fruit. I love the fact you take ideas (offered freely) from we the readers. It gives us a sense of sharing in the creative process. Have you considered a little merchandising? A t shirt with Sydney going ballistic on some poor bank robber would sell well I believe, Especially if you put captions like “Beware of Nerd Grrl!” etc. :)
Well the interview had always been planned as it’s one arm of Arianna’s PR blitz. Well, she didn’t plan on Sydney getting interviewed, but then, no one plans on Sydney. But how could I not have that in the comic? I haven’t fully written it yet but I think it should be pretty entertaining. Also I think someone had mentioned the conversations in the ambulance being recorded, that was planned for also, but yeah I definitely don’t have a monopoly on good ideas, if stuff comes up that I haven’t thought of or that’s better than what I’ve thought of I’ll definitely use it. I guess I can credit whoever gave me the idea in the comic comment.
I’ve definitely thought of doing some shirts. I don’t know who to do them through though. I need to find someone that can do 1 off orders and can handle the fulfillment cause I don’t have time to blow 4 hours on the weekends shipping stuff, assuming I even got that many orders, which I wouldn’t at first of course, but it could get to that point and I don’t ever want making money off the comic getting in the way of making the comic. Cafe Press? Etsy? I know Topotaco does a lot of stuff for webcomicers, but you have to be invited to sell through them.
You could try Blind Ferret. I know they are hosting other comics, and I think helping with handling the stores for them, but no too sure on that. Sohmer and Lar would probably like you since you are 1) keeping to a updating schedule B… 2) you have a great deal of people who are reading the comic for still being in the ‘just started’ age range 3 or C) i just felt like having a third point mark.
Ooh, Blind Ferret has some heavy hitters swinging for them. Dunno if they’d be interested in a small fry like me, but I may drop them a line. I imagine they’ll say come back when you’ve got 40x the traffic but we’ll see.
You might be surprised. The process to make t-shirts is not that complicated and in most cases it’s pretty much automated. You might be surprised how inexpensive it can be to make them. You will have to supply the art to their specs but a dollar is a dollar and once people see the t-shirts your readership will multiply.
Don’t know about 40X the traffic. Judging from your TWC ranking and the number of comments each page is generating (this is at almost 110 after just over 24 hours), I’d say you are attracting a LOT of attention.
Am I reading the comic right and Heram is Max’s Daughter(s)?
No. She’s being sarcastic
Oh darn that would have been cool.
i like how you gave those two injured guys a real nice view
course i say this right after ive been reading a few hours of manga so im bound to nitcie these things lol
first panal in the middle when harem teleports in
nitcie = notice
I love the “Not Bonnie!” “Not…damnit!” from the guys – I always like to see various small side activity happening alongside the main stream of action. I think Max will want Sydney on her team just to make Arianna’s head explode – talk about a PR spin control nightmare. XD
Yeah, the little asides like that do more for character development than anything else IMO. I don’t think comics use that stuff enough.
Agreed.
A lot like some especially good comedy scenes, where there is one thing going on upfront, and something totally different happening in the background (which the people upfront are totally unaware of).
Personally, I think what makes THAT kind of situation funnier is when the side stuff is more relevant to what is going on or the main plot line. Like if it was amystery and some random kid comments on a weird object while the sleuth’s looking in the wrong direction and the almost-inevitable henchman/sidekick hears the kid and starts talking to them. Then, depending on how you have the characters, the ‘head honcho’ sleuth could ignore his helper or tell him to actually look as he moves off, the wrong way, missing a valuable clue depending on the situation…. ^^; to me, that seems amusing. But then again, I tend to think through situations in pictures so….yeah
Sorry if that’s kinda a bit much, but that WOULD be an interesting scenario to see; if nothing else, Harem could see something but if she’s the youngest maybe people don’t QUITE understand what she’s getting at, and later down the road go “Oh sh*t”….?
The second guy could have said “Not Bonnie either!” Of course, they might have gone with: “I always seen us as more ‘Butch & Sundance’…”
If Sydney is doing what I think she’s doing, the ability to break a television station’s censor button ought to be a super power.
*Censor’s head explodes! Bank Robbery heroine implicated! Film @ 11!
“I’M MELTING!!! I’M M-E-L-T-I-N-G!!!”
With regards to teleporting, There is an anime series call “Toaru kagaku no Railgun”(A certain scientific Railgun) where one of the characters can teleport herself and objects, but the location she arrives in displaces molecules so she doesn’t get trapped. She demonstrated the ability pretty nicely by knocking down a building by running down a corridor and teleporting its windows at an angle into its support pillars (hence displacing the molecules and cutting the stone pillars in half) before porting herself out of the building.
And that’s not even the worst trick I have ever seen a ‘porter come up with.
There was a series I read some years back (name escapes me) that played off the idea that teleporters had to add and subtract momentum vectors instinctively when they teleported an object. If they didn’t, the object teleported from Miami to Alaska would appear and suddenly go thataway at quite a high speed due to the differences in planetary velocity at the two locations – to say nothing of orbital to ground porting…
Being able to port a large rock at the enemy *and* make it materialize traveling at .1c was exceptionally useful when the main character got caught in a war zone.
Wow .1c would go through half the planet.
Harem definitely has a bunch of cool tricks that she can do but I’ll wait for them to show up in the comic. :)
Don’t forget the awesome OP trick that is TELESPAMMING!!!
If she doesn’t already know it, she should learn martial arts, or sword skills or something.
Harem’s bio says she’s developing a martial art that utilizes her teleportational ability as well as her clones. It is quite possible that each of her clones uses different arts and weapons.
There may have been a space battle involved at one point. Some of the tricks the main tried towards the end of the series were a little weird from what I recall.
They never did say if the teleporters in that universe had upper limits on their vector control. It was known that they had interstellar range however, so if you figure all the vectors acting on a package from somewhere near the galactic core arriving on Earth safely you might well end up with the ability to kill a planet if a teleporter ever went rogue.
But the point I was trying to make was that, depending on the exact method of porting involved, teleporters can be some of the most dangerous supers out there. Harem does not seem at this time to have one of the earth-shaking variants of the power, but I’m sure she and the team have come up with any number of lethal tricks.
Well, there’s the Vernor Vinge novel The Witling. It features an entire race of teleporters whose ability exchanges a volume of material at one point with an equal volume at another. They can use this volume to transport themselves, and/or other material, but momentum is conserved. Their long distance transportation grid consists of carefully spaced out pools of water. People are submerged in pods, and then the pods are exchanged with an equal volume of water at the destination pool. Also, the teleportation ability is used in combat to bring in material from far distant places specifically to take advantage of the conserved momentum. A witling, btw, is someone who lacks the teleportation ability.
That’s the Journeys of McGill Feighan, by Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. The teleports you mention were called “Flingers”, because that’s what they did — they “flung” objects and people to places they had a good focus for, anywhere in the Galaxy. That focus depended on the individual. It could be as limited as needing to visit the place beforehand and memorize it well enough to visualize it, or they might be good enough to work from coordinates and a holo projection. It varied mightily by individual and training. They could fling up to 907 kilograms (basically, 1 English Ton) anywhere — but they had to learn how to adjust for the relative momenta of the starting point and the destination, by adding or subtracting energy from the “energy dimension” until the object would arrive at a relative rest. They could also tell if there was something blocking the destination point and abort the Fling. They could use their Talent as a weapon, by adding kinetic energy to a small object, like a rock, marble, or ball bearing, aimed very precisely. Or to a large object…up to a ton, of course. It was a very good trilogy, one of my favorites.
…when you talk about Flingers and moving cargo, I think of Anne McCaffrey’s Talent series where it’s basically super-strong telekinetics/telepaths transporting things through space. And it’s even along a similar line as the displacement, but only so much everything HAD to be cleared, and the Talents HAD to know where it was going. The way the books did it, was an actual physical presence had to be made or a really good holo, to get the memories and control right. (: I would DEFINITELY recommend her books, she’s got a lot of good ones. ^^
I agree Anne McCaffrey’s Talents series is a great read, and the end(epilogue) of ‘Pegasus in Space’ shows that the teleports go through space and time (a colony ship sent fourty lightyears away is visible in minutes, meaning they arrived fourty years earlier).
I didn’t get to read the whole series straight through, more’s the pity :/ I read the first one which I am thinking is Pegasus in flight, and then The Rowan, Damaria, and I am hoping Mom has Damaria’s Children in there somewhere before Lyon’s Pride, since she’s the one with all the books. but, odds are it’s in a box somewhere if she has it, so *shrugs* but I haven’t read all the Pegasus books T_T
That’s how I look at teleportation. Otherwise any beaming in ST would run the risk of contamination from the particles in the air. However in Star Trek there was still a danger of materializing into a wall or floor.* Why intraship beaming to some time to perfect. But since they have only done so with a single electron. *Probably had to do with molecular density vs quantum flux generated to move matter out of the teleportation field.
“Controlled phasing” may be related in also called “controlled dispersion” of ones molecules and even atoms to pass through other objects. Of course the main problem is accidentally having an electron smash into a nucleus starting a chain reaction–limited but still destructive. The other is losing that control in the dispersed state just sailing apart.
Also didn’t Nightcrawler literally move from our dimension to a “hell” dimension then out to where ever else in our world he wanted to go? That the dimension he traversed was smaller than in our world too?
Also we knew it was coming—Sydney calling attention to herself on live TV. “Spin control, spin control now!” Shouts the lovely and coldly calculating chief of PR for special operations Arianna.
Maxima looked fine to me DaveB. I am an artist but you are the one drawing it. And artists can be notoriously finicky and perfectionist. [Just look at George Lucas.]
I also like the calm picture of Sydney you have up now.
It turned out that Nightcrawler’s dad was the basis for Satan and the dimension he went through was a quite literally the extra-dimensional prison that he and his followers were banished to.
Yeah, I read that comic. the drastic change of art style half way through really pissed me off.
So thats who the red telaporter in the X-Men movie is.
Possible since they’ve pretty much boned the continuity. I haven’t seen first class so *Shrug*
Yeah, they mention it and go into some detail of Nightcrawler’s heritage in the newer movies. I got to see it in theaters, and my mom has the rest of the movie series, I believe, with Hugh Jackson as Wolverine. I never really got into the comics or anything, though I am curious…but I have books and rl crap too, unfortunately >.< to the rl stuff, not the books XD I am more of a novel reader, this is one of my first webcomics…it's a good one to start on! :D
Every generation of artists inspires the next, but it’s weird to think I might be someone’s “first” (or nearly).
When you’re accepting the Eisner award for your webcomic, be sure to mention “that one webcomic I used to read, Girl Pom-Poms or something.” :)
XD you’re welcome…..? to be more specific, I have seen one or two pages before, but this is basically the only one I had actually tried to keep updated on ^^ there was another one I had glanced at to kill time, but then I got into it seriously…I don’t remember the timeline for this one compared to that one, but I liked the idea (or else why would I even bother to comment and read this whole thing cold? lol) and so am sticking with this comic (: and I doubt I would win an award for ANYTHING, let alone a comic when there’s stuff like this out there XD
and the horror of the idea, implying I would read anything with pom-poms!!! o_0 lol
@Night-gaunt ^^;;;; yeah….but I was close!! lol
You mean Hugh Jackman?
Which was one of the most moronic things X-Men has ever done.
Seriously, it beats out the time Sabertooth joined the team in shear stupidity.
Heh.
Maxima: “Oh crap! The GM advanced the plot while we were talking in character! Damm NPCs!”
Sydney: “Who are you calling an NPC you gold-plated hussy! You’re a DMNPC if ever there was one! Besides it’s my damn comic strip!”
That face in panel 7. you did a great job depicting her emotions.
The comic feeling rushed is what happens when three things are going on at the same time. I thought it was deliberate, as a dramatic element…
Yeah let’s go with that. Everyone ignore what I wrote earlier. Direct your attention to the flashy thing.
Ohhh flashy!
shiny….? SHINY! lol
As Capt. Tightpants said “Oooh Shiney”. :)
Also, a lot of what you cut out as far as this page is concerned is implied anyway. If it were animated it would have been easier to show her eyes flicker down, etc. etc. Personally, I think you made great decisions, and I hope you think your audience smart enough to connect the dots as to why Maxima wants Harem in uniform. Teleporting on the other hand has the freedom of being on or off screen. If we’re not waiting for the character to appear, and it doesn’t add or take away anything to see them appear/disappear, I don’t see why it would be important to show it.
on a different note, I know you’ve mentioned you’re working at it, but keep working at being consistent. Max looks almost flat chested compared to Harem in this strip, when really it should be the other way around, cleavage or not.
[quote]I probably could have made the middle panel a POV shot from Max holding the memory stick up in front of Harem’s open, yet fashionable shirt[/quote]
Probably would have been better. As it is, Mom sounds all military and not too concerned about how much is covered. However, you only have so much space, and you might have to sacrifice the “not…” joke in that case. There will likely be another case where you can stuff in this idea [and the boobs of course].
I have my comic up https://frizzencomics-bordetodeath.thecomicseries.com/
put your website in the “website” line and your user name will be the link.. its a little less intrusive :D
how do I do that?
If you Log out by the comments box, when you log back in, there’s a field for website.
Like this…
Oh wow, oh heavens XD the evil teacher from the Wizard of Oz!!! couldn’t resist clicking* lol…hahhhhhh
you sure its up? the page says its not there.
This comic and the discussions are inspiring me again. Anyone have any recommendations about good programs for drawing and doing artwork like we see here on the computer?
The script I have, I just can never decide on which program or programs to use when generating the drawings involved. Or would it really be better to draw it out by hand and then scan it in to add color and such? Opinions anyone?
Depends on your style, what you want to do, and how much your willing to spend/ability to torrent. Some people prefer drawing by hand, scanning and doing finishing touches via computer, others do all the work solely on the computer.
If you want to use a computer, grab a Wacom tablet, for the program, Photoshop is what most people use, but Manga Studio is cheaper, and a little easier if you’re doing a comic.
Inspiring others is the best compliment! :) That doesn’t quite make sense grammatically but you know what I mean.
Well, I can tell you my process. I use a program called Paint Tool SAI. I almost hesitate to recommend it though. I use it because it is hands down the BEST program for drawing. Note I didn’t say making comics in, just drawing. The translation between wacom tablet and screen is unmatched by any other program I’ve ever tried, and I’ve pretty much tried them all. However I don’t know that I can recommend it for a few reasons.
One, it’s not being developed any more. You can still buy it (from a japanese website, there’s an English version of it here with a 30 day full functioning demo).
Two, it is lacking in some fairly vital tools. It can’t do text for one. I do all my lettering/panels in Illustrator, then export it as a high res PNG file and just pop it on as the top layer. It’s also missing a polygon lasso tool, which makes some selection work frustrating. It has a lasso tool and selection/deselection brushes and a magic wand of course. It seems like a small omission but it’s aggravating.
Beyond that though it’s absolutely amazing, so much so that honestly it’s totally spoiled me on other drawing programs. To me the lines in photoshop are wiggly, you can’t quickly select 40 different brushes, etc. Manga Studio is another good option but I can’t use it cause it won’t work properly with the font I use for dialog, and the lines it produces are jaggedy crap. At least to me. Paint Tool SAI is so beautifully antialiased and is smooth no matter what zoom level you’re using that programs that can’t match it aggravate me, but Manga Studio really does have a nice set of tools if you can get over it’s learning curve.
Well, if anyone wants to judge the worthiness on the script, head over to Scripped.com and look up a story titled “Blunt” by “Brellchild”. That was the first incarnation as a Girl Genius fanfic – I am working on a re-write (removing and changing certain things) to avoid copyright problems so as I can actually post it to the net as a webcomic.
Budget is a little tight at the moment, but I will look into those Wacom tablets. Those look cool and very much like something I would love to use.
As to the programs themselves, thank you for the recommendations. I’ll have to check around and see what I decide works best for me.
Another reason to look in to SAI is it’s only… 6000 yen, so $55? But like I said it’s not a complete package, you’d need something for lettering. I’m sure there’s more than one webcomic out there being produced on a pirated copy of photoshop or Manga Studio though. As for the tablets, you can get Wacom Bamboo for $60 if you’re really strapped – eventually move up to their Intuos line which has far more sensitivity. Wacom is really the only game in town when it comes to tablet hardware. I wish some other company would step up because quite frankly I think they’re overpriced.
You know, Sydney is probably the biggest threat to Arianna’s plan out there. She’s familiar enough with superhero tropes to realize all the things that were “off” about that robbery, and she’s smart enough to figure out some possible reasons. Add that to her impulsiveness, and she might blow the lid off the whole thing without even realizing it.
Curious thought about Harem: can she teleport without creating a double?
Also love the line “I want one of you in uniform at all times.” Awkward situations? Not for Maxima. Love the subtlety!
Yup, she can “unteleport” one or even 4 of her so there’s only one left. She can then ‘spawn’ any of them, or the one remaining can teleport and between 1 – 5 can arrive at various locations.
Just got an image of Harem “VROPing” in a fight and all 5 Harems drop onto the bad guy’s head.
I’m eager to draw her in a fight. :)
Would the enemy be able to go straight for the actual harem and knock her out to take down all of the clones? Could she make new clones it one of the others is destroyed? Would it hurt her, being that its actually her, only teleporting? Come to think of it, since its teleport based, wouldn’t all damage be shared between however many of her are there at the time? Can she partially teleport? (like teleporting just a hand, or an eye, or an ear for spying/sabotage)
Personally I think with her abilities the pain thing is possible since they are all linked. But it is possible that the “Real” Harem could literally be any of the 5. She could simply choose which of the 5 to act as the “Base” and absorbs the other 4.
if you check the profiles they are all the real harem (damn she must be a good multitasker). most people would have trouble with just a second pair of arms (or using remote system going two places at once). she can manage 5 full individual human action/behavior sets at once. also in the multiman vein she gets hurt, teleports to a near location a HEALTHY body, unteleports the wounded – no more pain unless all the bodies are in constant existance in some location or other. btw how much veriance can she manage between bodies as she teleports? does she get one dressed then store it in those clothes or does she generate clothing on the new form as it forms if the bodies are created as she teleports? powers are starting to sound more like cloning at distance than actualy teleporting. if a new body is formed each teleport what determines its form example teleport a to locate 1, what determines if a is gothic heram or fashionista heram or blood punk heram or military heram, while b teleports to location 2? if a is military heram what stops a from apearing with a little extra muscle mass or accidentaly arriving at 2?
All shall be revealed! Eventually. Harem’s fun to wrote for, so expect a lot of her once I get Sydney to the base. But minor spoilers I guess, she can perform wholly independent actions with each one of herself. When a regular person is seeing two things at once, like a different image in each eye or looking at something through a transparent TV screen, it’s confusing but Harem has 5 separate visual cortexes to process the information. Similarly, she has 5 different motor cortexes, so she can juggle and use chopsticks at the same time as well as someone doing those tasks separately could.
Ahh, ok, makes sense now. I was just thinking, if she was in danger and she’d have to first create a double, then “un-teleport” the original one, it would be a very bad disadvantage.
So she not only controls where she ports, but also whether she splits up or not. That’s a wild power!
“I want one of you in uniform at all times” is now my favorite Quote of the Month.
You know thinking about that. That rules “Army Brat” out as one of the personas. Just saying.
Not sure what that dress style would entail really, other than paramilitary, and she could probably call that punk as well. I guess punk would have non-uniform code compliant hair and piercings though.
… Which only raises the question of what Harem would then do to her uniform(s) to individualize it/them.
Whatever her “uniform” ended up looking like … I”m guessing it won’t be boring!
It might help if we knew what the Uniform even looked like to start with. The only thing I’ve seen across the entire team is the Chokers. And even when it showed Syd as a member of the team Anvil and Syd weren’t wearing them.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/60
I am guessing Maxima’s current get-up is a uniform. Whether it is actually the TEAM uniform or a version therof or something else entirely is the question.
Holy crap I forgot to draw them, and Maxima’s is the wrong color. I’ll have to fix that page this weekend.
Dude, chillax, that was like your 4th page. I just figured the choker was a Max thing not a Team thing until you showed everybody on the couch. Speaking of which…where’s Dabbler’s pants, or is she wearing Daisy Dukes? (Not that I’m objecting)
Panel 5 made me laugh out loud.
“Not Bonnie!”
Yeah, Mr. Amorphous and Achilles have sort of a buddy cop thing going on.
I think Max could use a love-interest maybe the absence of which causes her grumpiness. It should be a secret to the rest due to the embarrassment factor. Picture Max girlish and flirty, not good for her image but hilarious. :D
I see Max as the type to date somewhat effeminate guys. Not a girly guy, just not a “manly man” type of guy.
Yeah right, Max is a rabid feminist, which mean the only guy that has put his hands on her is her masseur (male term for a male massage therapists without the therapists part. )
and given how strong Maxima is, the Masseur probable have super strength and incredible durability as well, or is fast enough to dodge if she throws a punch at him.
and that if it’s a guy that works as the massage ‘therapists’ for the teams.
Feminists, even rabid ones, aren’t necessarily misandrists (man haters). Sure they’re probably a fair bit pickier when it comes to their selection of male friends, but it doesn’t mean in any way that they’re lesbians.
ahh thank you for correcting me. In hind sight i think i was confusing the two.
Have to agree with you on that. My mother (of 5 kids) was a feminist and loved 1 man her whole life. She worked a “Man’s” job in a job that ultimately contributed to her death, did the maintenance on her own cars, fixed things around the house but at times she could be embarrassingly feminine (at least for her eldest son). She was the smartest person I knew (despite my brother scoring the highest SAT in his class). Funny story her best friend once beat up 2 cops and got away with it even though she was barely over 5 feet. I have known many male and female homosexuals and neither my mom nor her friend were even close. Why is it when people ask for equal rights someone has to call them names? Sorry about the rant but prejudice is a hot button issue with me. BTW if you decide Max IS gay I will have no problem with it (which is why I did not use gender pronouns).
Too early to really say what Max’s love life is like. She’s military, which is not noted for show and tell, nor for approval of sex in general. The conversation with Harem also argues for a pretty conservative attitude on the subject. But we are speculating on very little evidence, and are unlikely to get much more for some time.
Now the theme I would find amusing is the strong man reversal. We have king kong type ordered around by little girl. So why not real strong woman threatened by wimp boy? I’m not sure it would really work, but…
Depend’s on how the relationship’s dynamic works out. there are some very strong minded women out there who in the home situation just want a place where they don’t have to be the one in charge all the time and can just relax and be calm, or some have a bit of a submissive side that they can only show to the one thy trust.
I don’t care what anyone says, I think the artwork is brilliant. And that last frame was totally brilliant!! I love that grrrrl. :o)
Same here! I’ve loved DaveB’s artwork since I first started reading him. I would say he is one of the better webcomic artist out there.
Thanks guys! I reserve the right to dis on my own stuff though. :)
Most true artists do. The best artists are perfectionists who never feel their art is as good as it could be. Which is why some of the greatest artists were emotional wreaks,
Just don’t go cutting off your ears, ok Dave?
Why do people always bring that up?
I need those to keep my glasses on.
I have that problem sometimes….I hope you’re right Gamesman, means I might be coming along pretty darn well then, if good artists are such perfectionists. ^^; Ah well, the point is to improve, yes?
Part of what drives people to become better at what they do is the feeling that they CAN do better. The trick is to balance self-doubt and ego so you can function well enough to produce. Not the easiest thing in the world.
y-e-a-h, I think that’s where my problem is at the moment. See, I don’t want to get a big head since I know I tend to get on peoples’ nerves if I am excited by something, especially if I did it, soooo…y-e-a-h, I don’t want to end up as a jerk so I try not to go to far with the whole confidence thing. ^^; enh henh…thanks though, I will remember, with everything else in this benighted world, it all has to do with balance (: and I ALWAYS feel as if I could do better…one reason I don’t think I am as wonderful as people sometimes say I am XD to me, it’s a touch ironic, but hey…,.I have a weird sense of humor to most *shrugs*
I appreciate you, DaveB, giving us some insight into your labors.
Other teleporters include Amelia Vought (an acolyte of Magneto and ex-girlfriend of Xavier’s, who can teleport herself and others in a cloud of mist), Magik (Colossus’ blond, demon-summoning sister who can teleport through magic-like “stepping discs”), Pixie (who has wings and hallucinogenic “pixie dust” and who learned to teleport from Magik), Gateway (teleports people using a bullroarer), the deceased (and, for a time, ghostly) mutant kid named Jeffrey Garret, Greyhound from PS238 (who is good at teleporting others), Raven from the teen titans, Blink from the X-men, Age of Apocalypse and Exiles (who teleports and makes portals and can “shatter” people spatially), the Tomorrow People, and one of the Genoshan mutates who used a computer to teleport people and make sure he go the coordinates right.
You forgot Abyss who was basically a walking portal into his and Nightcrawler’s daddy’s dimension.
Cable also had a electronic telaporter system
So does Deadpool.
I would add the EVO–Breech, from “Generator Rex” who creates portals and even her own pocket dimension working for Van Kliess. One sick puppy she is.
Yeah it takes power to steal an entire CITY and keep it in her own personal dimension
Okay, stumbled across it, loved it, bookmarked it. Now all caught up though. (sighs)
Sydney Rocks and I am taking points re: her rants. I have a temper like hers, but a far more limited vocabulary.
Yep, teleporting is tricky. If ‘porter is just jumping somewhere, he needs to deal with the arrival zone. Even if you port into “empty” space you need to push the air away thus creating a “chpoook” sound announcing your arrival. So, unless a character have unparallel power and control of his ability, blind teleport into rebar would result in death, since it is human flesh will be “pushed away”, as lesser density substance.
The solution is to perform a double teleport – a spacial swap: while the hero teleports his body, at the same time he teleports matter from his arrival zone away, leaving a nice statue of himself if he happen to land into solid block of concrete. Still, teleporting from hundredth floor to the ground level will bust your eardrums.
Anyhow, teleportation is for lamers :D Cool dudes use riftwalking, creating door-like look-through portals for few seconds. What is better than create exit-window behind your back and give yourself a nice shoulder rub? Or turn your pockets into bottomless bags by tunneling them to your weapon warehouse? This method has its downs, of course, as well as a number of offensive applications.
Given that teleportation falls under “A Wizard did it” to begin with, I don’t see why it actually has to have any of those limitations.
A misconception there.
1) Even in real life real scientists don’t care much with things they don’t understand, as long as they can describe them accurately enough. Nobody on a planet knows what the hell “electron” is, we just know the way it behaves. For all we know it can be a little magical fairy. And it is fine as long as we know what to expect of this “electron” thingy.
Therefore, stating that “wizard did this” does not lift necessity (or possibility) of explaining how “this” works, what limitation “this” has and how it interacts. So, even the most wild wizardry has *rules* and not just a random effect generator (it would be kinda impractical if you never know what a spell does, right?).
2) Fictional storytelling is an implied contract between the author and the audience. Basically, the tellers says: “Well, this world is just like our Middle Ages, except there are dragons and magick”. Or, in case of this comic – “This world is just like ours except there are bunch of superheroes”. And by saying “just like ours” the author has no need to explain what is “ground”, “sun”, “flowers”, “air” in his world, since we all know these things and know how do they work. The author only need to introduce fictional elements to the reader. BUT! There is a catch here: when author copy-pasted common things like “moon” and “sun” into his world, he also silently sneaked in the mechanics behind them – gravity, day/night and seasonal cycles, social relationships (family, governments), etc. And it is authors responsibility to see that his artificial fictional elements don’t contradict the setting. And “modern day” setting definitely includes “scientific thinking” paradigm, which dictates that new phenomenon (like super-power) must comply with established facts.
Hmm… i’m too nerdy today. :D i hope i explained my position clear enough.
not a problem…I wish I can sound that intelligent most days XD mainly my brain’s just: ————— blip————————————-…etc and so forth d: I swear, if my brain was connected to a heart monitor, people would think I was dead ^^ ah well, I have my moments sometimes lol