Grrl Power #610 – Just a little off the top
This is the page where I draw a character giving herself a haircut because I liked her hair when it was short better. Also maybe foreshadowing some of Deus’s plans. My wife does this to her hair about every five months. Just… not with her laser wings.
Hey look, Deus can draw. No, he’s not an author insert. If he was, he’d be using a shmancy mechanical pencil and not a No. 2 like a savage.
At least, I used to use mechanical pencils. I’ve been all digital since starting the comic. It’s just so much faster. When you draw something on paper, and it’s the wrong size >cough< heads >cough< you can’t just lasso it and resize it. You have to completely erase it and redraw it like some sort of caveman. Anyway, I have an unreasonably large collection of expensive mechanical pencils I haven’t used in nearly a decade.
At least I haven’t lost all my meatspace drawing muscle memory. After I drew the eraser shavings in that bottom middle panel, I tried to brush them off with the side of my hand.
I actually forgot that February only has 28 days in it because 1) I’m a dummy, and 2) I haven’t gone to school or a regular job in years – for which I thank you guys for the support! Whoop woo! If I wasn’t married to someone with a regular job and didn’t post this comic on a regular schedule, I would literally have no idea what day of the week it is. The point is I don’t quite have a new vote incentive ready yet. I know the current one is mad stale.
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look at that. my queen looks just as incredible with short hair.
Almost the same style as when she was wearing the orc body, this time with the bangs and no shaved sides
Makes me realise why Deus wants to keep Sciona’s image up to date. His bragging would fall flat if he used a sufficiently older picture of her.
“You banged that? Nasty!”
I’ve always wanted to mention that I just love the fact that your name and avatar here come from an obscure little panel from the early days of this comic.
Woof!
[translation: Thanks!]
BUY MORE COMICS!
#16, Marketing 101.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-16-marketing-101/
It took me a while, but I found it! Thanks to Oberon for mentioning the quote.
‘Obscure’? o_O
Granted my second appearance was much more obscure. :-D
More like obscured! :P
And that was a very unsafe place for a doggie, your walker must have been a criminal to put you in harms way like that!!
Sciona apparently changes hairstyles rather frequently.
Most women do, it’s in the DNA, along with Shopping and Gossiping :P
Ah yes, I’m currently at waist length hair-raising I figure I’d go to past butt length this cycle before the big buzz.
Have you ever donated your trimmed tresses to Locks of Love? If not, it’s a worthy cause to donate. https://www.locksoflove.org
A very worthy cause. I shall bear it in mind, should I grow mine long again.
I’m definitely breaking some rule of character design in changing her appearance so often. I can cheat with the Who’s Who a bit, but I expect some professional concept artist to leap from the shadows at any moment yelling something about silhouettes while giving me a dead arm.
*psst… code echo, repeat, code echo… guys, he’s onto you…. don’t leap out and attack for a few days until he’s no longer prepared*
Bah, the Wasp and Iron Man change their look all the time.
That was actually part of their character designs like a kind of joke. Wasp is a clothing designer so thinks it makes no sense to keep wearing the same outfit all the time, and Iron Man is all about constant upgrades and change.
Although it does remain consistent with the theme of the thread. In that the looks are being changed due to the characters’ fashion choices, rather than due to a failure of artistic consistency.
Which I am fine with. It may confuse some readers, in the long run. But hopefully some kind soul will, in due course, add the major changes in her image to the Wiki cast list and we can point them at that.
And maybe provide individual pictures of each Harem, with their canon nick-names too.
*wags tail hopefully*
I don’t think that Wasp was a clothing designer at first. She was a bored, rich, socialite who took to the superhero thing for the kicks. Swapping her costume around constantly was as natural to her as not wearing the same gown more than once.
A bit like DaveB started out as an artist, before branching out to having his own fashion house.
Tracing paper is your friend, Dave. I draw a head wrong, I trace the rest of the body and transfer onto new paper, then re-draw the head. >.>! But. Big but. Digital is soooooo much faster. Not necessarily better, but faster. Like laser wing haircuts. >.>!
Phenomenal cosmic power, itty-bitty hair clip.
Brane Ripper? So essentially this? https://starvstheforcesofevil.wikia.com/wiki/Dimensional_scissors :)
Or the Subtle Knife from The Golden Compass trilogy.
:D
Hmm, her own laser wings can cut her. I am sure this will be tactically useful information at some point.
Most people (who don’t happen to possess a high degree of Invulnerability, that is) would need to be careful when trying to cut Sciona with her own wings. If they’re sufficiently tough enough, they could do a “Halo vs. Lee Press On Claws” maneuver on her.
Hair is a dead thing. Her wings might not be able to cut her living tissue, but her hair? I don’t see why not. And she might be able to turn on that on whenever she wants.
Skin is also a dead thing. At least the epidermis.
Hair was never alive in the sense you mean. However it is full of proteins. And smells terrible when it is burned. You can’t get DNA from them unless it is the bulb from which the hair is extruded. The bulb is a living thing. As skin is, our largest organ. But like with trees, always producing new cells as old ones die. Why we each carry billions of microscopic dust mites that feed on our dead skin flakes and other organic things on it and on the floor, etc.
Rather like Superman using his reflected heat-vision to shave his face — and Power Girl using her reflected heat-vision to shave her legs (Yes, thanks to Amanda Connor, that is canonical… ^_^ ) — without having to worry about burns…
And Sydney, singing her eyebrows off in a PPO forest fire.
I like the fact he has several hobbies. Seriously, this guy is turning out to have all sorts of depths & quirks to his character. Not just the smexings, but drawings of people, too! (That he’s slept with, apparently…)
There’s one thing floating around on my mind…and it’s probably been covered in a prior page’s comments, which I haven’t had time to read in depth, but… This guy is so ripped, I cannot help but think he’s a super, too…which makes me wonder what his superpowers are…
Well, being buff isn’t exclusively reserved as “the most common super power,” ya’ know…Bruce Wayne’s only Power is Super Wealthy (that factor being external to himself as a human being) but he’s as buff as all get-out. He’s trained himself to get the gold medal in every single Olympic event if he wanted to. Indeed, in his formative years, he lived on the mantra “I’ve got to be the best” for every subject he trained in. So Deus can be buff without it being a by-product of super powers.
Attempted to make that claim earlier (couple pages back, give or take) and it was rubbished, hope your idea gets good responses
Being wealthy wasn’t the super part, his intelligence and drive seem superhuman to put his body and mind into such superior shape that those he comes up against the best at what they do.
Except Deus literally claims that (to paraphrase) ‘being rich is my super power’.
Doesn’t preclude him from being an avatar of Mammon.
Good point. And a very apt one, at that.
Subtlety and Common Sense. I mean, he doesn’t *use* them the way people expect, but it’s all in making sure people don’t see what you’re up to.
And if anyone wants to argue that those don’t qualify as superpowers, look around. They’re rarer than you think. .)
Never mind sciona’s haircut, what about the seeming chunk she took outta Vale’s hair just now? It looks like that sort of cowlick on the one side got cut flat.
No, that was from earlier
Which is something that is kind of bugging me.
If Vale’s body is a shell for something within, and her face pulled back together why didn’t the hair regenerate *and yes while a living person regenerating hair would be silly, while it growing back out would make sense, repairing the cut part wouldn’t* but for something whose physical appearance is an external expression *bio-shell, hard light construct, eldritch imitation of life, ect…* the hair should just be part of that form and be just as repairable as the rest.
Not sure we’re meant to gather this much from it, it could just be to show that’s the same body she had earlier.
Though, there’s other reasons that hair could be trickier to reconstitute than skin or even eyes. I don’t think she automatically regenerates, based on hints in the scene where she was cut. If she has to consciously focus on each hair thread to grow/rebuild them it would be a pain.
Or, the full treatment involves some process she won’t do in front of Sciona (gives away too much information about her), and she has to keep her in check while she’s there.
Guess we’ll have to watch Vale’s hair in future scenes.
Well one thing worth noting is that hair is not alive. But more importantly, even if the regeneration is due to some major eldritch magic, Vale would need to have made the hair an exception if she ever wanted to change her hair style.
Otherwise she goes into the hairdressers, they cut a bit off, and it instantly regrows as it was before. And dyes would probably not fix either, for exactly the same reason.
OK there is the counter that ‘well she can change it by magic’, but that would presuppose that Vale has flexible magic, that can be adapted to her whim. Which she may not.
Even if she has to consciously ‘fix’ the hair like with her shell, why didn’t she? Unless that’s not part of the ‘package’, we still don’t know what she did to repair her face and bewb
Personally? Like the fact we can see that cut, shows attention to detail (and people would obsess over its restored nature as well :P)
Well in that moment when she turned around to face Sciona it looked like it was implied her bits and pieces of her face were being pulled back together by wispy eldritch smoke tendrils, and the eye even being *slurping* back together.
I can see making the hair an exception to stand out so she doesn’t come across like a solid hologram or something unless excessive damage is inflicted directly to her.
Three pages back, we get a shot of Vale from behind and her hair in the back looks completely undamaged despite the wing entering there. So either that’s an art oversight, or maybe Vale left it like that in front as a friendly reminder.
Good point, 2 and 3 pages ago it looked kind of like it stuck out there, but we didn’t get a straight-on view of that side like on this page. Here it looks cut horizontally, whereas Sciona cut it on an angle.
Errrr…
How many books are on shelf behind Deus?
He’s been around quite much…
The question becomes how LONG has he been around. 25 books, roughly, per shelf. Three shelves visible in the comic above, and the open book he holds looks to contain at least 800 pages. Assuming 1 page per memory and two thirds of the books used, that is 40,000 entries. Say two hours per event, and that is still nearly 10 years of solid fraternising. No sleep, no food or drink, just that.
…how sure are we at this point that Deus is even Human? Or isn’t at least augmented or post-human?
Well, Wilt Chamberlain slept with 20,000 women so….
We also need to consider that, out of all of those books & all of the entries in those books, how many of them has he gotten the signatures for? Just because he has such a long “wish list” doesn’t mean that all of his wishes have been fulfilled yet.
99% of the books are empty, they are just a prop
Why doesn’t your wife cut her hair with her laser wings? Even if there’s a lack of control, she could get the bulk of the work done and just use scissors to do the fine-tuned snipping. :3
….Best reason for a haircut ever. “OWOWOWOOWOW!”
…Fortunately, none of the heroes are likely to be IN that office (Besides Harem), otherwise…
If there’s one Harem seen anywhere, you might as well say that all 5 of them are there too…In mind, if not in body anyway.
;)
I’m wondering if each of those books on the shelves are part of his ‘little black book of sexual conquests’… not just the one book he showed Sciona.
Probably there’s a book which is an appendix or something also.
Oh I doubt it. If he was into cutting off momentoes, he would have scooped up all that hair, at the very least.
Magic is clearly a thing. I’m surprised she left all that hair where someone as devious as Deus could get it.
Besides, it’s bad form to collect samples while the subject is watching.
My comment was mainly about the appendix. ;-)
But, yea, Sciona has either taken precautions which would render her hair useless in vodoo dolls and the like, so is not bothered about it. Or, much more likely, it is another example of her anger getting the better of her.
Although…. cloning….
Although I guess since hair cells (save for the follicle) are dead cells, I don’t know if that would change anything.
I don’t know if you can clone dead cells.
What am I thinking. It’s Deus. Sure he can.
Slight correction. Hair is a chemical product, namely keratin. But it will have plenty of dead cells stuck throughout it. Likewise the bulb is alive, as someone notes in another thread. Those hairs which got yanked out by the root would have the bulb attached.
Current technology would not allow cloning from that. However a mad scientist probably could. Deus would be able send off samples to his laboratories. Can’t see any particular reason why though.
The clone would take about eighteen years to get big enough to do anything useful (even if just for his perverted pleasures), barring some super-enhanced growth tank. But even then Deus would probably be ‘naa, been there, done that’.
Plus it would lack any knowledge of blood magic, construct creation and the like.
If he could get a force-grown one though, it would have some use to supply a body, should he want Archon to think she had died somehow.
Not sure those hairs were yanked out by the root, looks more like they were just ripped further out, and even if they were, also looks like they staid in her armour (can still see them caught in panel Chop, and we have no indicator that she removed her pauldrons, or even loosened them, to allow those hairs to fall)
Assuming that Sciona’s hair is made of the same thing as human hair.
Good point :)
Yorpie is on pun overload. The ‘cutting off momentos’ thing he said is because I said appendix (a section or book which gives information on where things are in the rest of the text or volumes) with appendix, the superfluous organ.
I forgive him and let him live despite his puns because he’s a doggo and adorable.
Yes, that was my first thought too… all that discarded hair should certainly be useful both as a sympathetic link for magic purposes, as well as being a genetic sample that any mad scientist would value… even if Deus had no use for it himself (and he surely does), there are certainly a few people who’d pay handsomely for it.
Ok, I get the gag with the hair getting caught in the armor and all but I do have an issue. In previous pages we see the armor coming off like a Venom symbiote (oozing off Sciona’s body) but it goes on like MCU Iron Man armor with ratcheting and clanking, sliding plates? So which is it? Sure its a nitpick but it feels inconsistent and just a contrivance just for the sake of a gag.
To me panel 1 looks like both a mechanical closure and an organic oozing. You can actually see the purple stuff doing its job there. Whereas it appears to have gone by the subsequent panels, so either retracts, once it has helped position the armour, or perhaps it is absorbed into her skin.
There is no reason why Sciona cannot combine technology with symbiosis. In fact that clearly was a major aspect in her super-power copying construct. It had golem-like parts but, at the end, we saw that some sort of creature was inside it. Maybe another construct, or perhaps a symbiote or just a non-human pilot. Whichever though it showed a complex combination of capabilities.
Her armor seems to be mechanical, but the undersuit seems to be organic,
Just looking at panel 2 (and even 3) here, I would agree with you. But panel 4 shows the gloopy stuff retracting into the same unit as the rest of the armour.
So whilst it may well be an undersuit, it could be an organic ‘squire’, helping her to put her armour on. If it is an undersuit though it is integral to the rest of the armour, at least to the extent of being stored with it.
Yeah, it’s both: the ‘goop’ is clearly organic and covers her naked form while the armour goes over the top
Looks like Sciona is suitably dressed for night time flying. And maybe that is how Deus was able to predict that she would fly out, rather than teleport? With all those glowing lights, she should be easy for pilots to spot!
I wonder what the Vale will make her look like? *
Or perhaps UFO sightings are common enough nowadays that it will just let the glowing lights stand out on their own, and only conceal Sciona herself, if anyone gets close enough to see more than just the glow?
* And talking of which, is there any connection between the Vale and Vale? Is she the personification of the Vale?
Maybe that is why she liked watching Sciona expose herself? Silently chuckling about turning the tables on Sciona, for trying to expose the Vale previously.
Did I post it here or…I think I forgot to, so guess I can’t claim it now. Meh,
a few pages back during the “is she eldritch, is she a construct, ect…” discussions I thought, what if she’s a construct that is also an eldritch because she’s a natural construct. The magical energies of the veil coalesced into an avatar form due to how long its been running, the amount of power and information in it, like a magical version of “the ghost in the machine”.
Well, she did arrive via flying (well, smashing through the window), so logically she would exit the same way (butt then again, she entered the Vault via a blood pool butt left, assumedly, via *BINK*ing out, unless that’s just a short range ‘porting…)
It seemed implied she needed her wings for her natural teleportation as she did the cocoon inside and then vanish.
Didn’t think of it at the time, but I think we’ve solved the mystery of where Vale keeps her keys… in a general sense.
Uhh … in her head?
Who says that’s the only area with storage space?
Not me. By putting a “?” at the end of my question, I indicate that is my best guess. Given it is the biggest cavity we have seen, and had plenty of spare space.
Assuming a similar arrangement throughout her body, Vale’s torso would have a lot bigger volume. But that would also make it harder to find the keys. They could rattle around anywhere.
She would need to find somewhere to wedge them, where they will remain in one place. So a foot would be good. But rather hard to reach. So maybe in a hand?
You implying that her head is hollow? o_O
Will wear a black arm-band in your memory :(
Implying nothing. I am outright saying it was hollow. It had stuff in there but there were also big gaps. Nothing like a human brain that squishes in to every gap it can.
Or the Kirby crackle principle, it is a color or a thing so outside the human perception that all the mind can accept is nothingness so paints it over with black so as to preserve one’s own sanity.
Ahh like giant diamonds appearing to be a void or submarines sounding like whales impersonating volcanoes.
I’m glad to see that we are still at the #1 position in the Top Web Comics voting.
Please continue to vote, to show your appreciation of this sordid scene ending / the fantastic sex scene we have just seen.*
* Delete to your taste.
Thanks for the reminder, Yorp! I dont remember to hit that votey nearly enough.
Make it part of your regular routine: click the vote button before you click the comments button, it typically opens in a new tab for convenience
I love it when the villains are so well written they can be just as endearing and interesting as the heroes. Not enough writers put enough effort into making them real enough. Thanks, DaveB!
It is not surprising that two guys, risen from the dead, would feel an urge to obtain branes.
“Braaaains, brraaaains …. brrraaanes … aaaarrrrgggg!“
Oh for cryin’ out loud… I just got the joke.
His name is Deus.
He has an X on his face.
Deus X…Deus Ex…Deusex…Do Sex
Hardeharhar.
Oh come now, to suggest that was intentional would be like saying Peggy got her name because she had a prosthetic leg. Umm …
Normally I’d correct you on how ‘Deus’ is pronounced (Day-Us) but I like the double meaning for people who thought it’s pronounced Doos.
Although…
Day-us Ex
Day uh Sex
Day of Sex.
Ok I guess I did correct you anyway.
Ahh, I always mentally pronounced it phonetically. I thought yours might be an American way of saying it, but I see that you are correctly pronouncing the classical Latin.
So do American law schools require studying of Latin, or is that just a European thing?
Miss the old white wigs, they looked dignified and stately :(
No need to study latin, but there’s a lot of latin words used as part of the law. And we’re generally supposed to know what the words mean since we use them in our briefs pretty regularly depending on the type of law practiced.
For example:
Res Ipsa Loquitur
Res judicata
Res publica
A priori
Respondeat superior (usually used in tort law, like saying an employer is responsible for the actions of his/her employees)
In pari delicto
Habeas corpus
scienter (knowingly)
Ultra vires
Pro se (basically when you represent yourself)
actus reus (something I’ve mentioned many times on the forums)
mens rea (also something I’ve mentioned many times on the forums)
Corpus juris
de facto
de jure
per stirpes (like when you’re writing a will and distributing the assets to decedents in a certain way)
de novo
supoena duces tecum (well duces tecum is latin at least)
ex post facto
guardian ad litem
certiorari (like when you want a court to review a case)
But no, we don’t need to actually learn latin…. just the terms. Heck, even words you might think are english are actually latin, like ‘affadavit.’
Ahh, yes, you need to know when de juror is caught in Paris delecto!
You’re adorable. Also now I need to say what those terms mean or it’s going to nag at me.
‘de jure’ just means ‘according to the law’ (as opposed to ‘de facto’ which means ‘according to the facts, even if it’s not officially a law’)
‘in pari delicto’ which basically means ‘when both sides are equally at fault.’ (equally in the wrong)
By the way, the reason I know the correct pronunciation of ‘deus’ isn’t because of the law. I can’t think of any legal terms that use the word ‘deus.’
It’s because I know the game ‘Deus Ex’ and I heard the word more than enough times from commercials and reviews. Very underrated game btw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HEGyF6dyXI
Well if I lived in the Grrlverse, I would like to take out insurance against ‘Act of Deus’.
Thank you, now have the “Banana Boat song” stuck in head (you are welcome for the return :P)
The joke’s on you because I like that song because of the movie Beetlejuice! HA! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQXVHITd1N4
I’ve always liked it, but that is my favourite version.
Anyhow, in the Muppet version you can see the guy’s strings.
Deliberately chose not to use that version
In which case this is the appropriate counter. The correct protocol is to open each, in separate tabs, and set one playing, pausing a bit, then starting the other one.
One
Two
This site now sets off my anti-virus software for phishing. Does this happen to anyone else?
Magical being leaves behind hair that can be used against her using magic!