Grrl Power #72 – Punk Busted
Maxima’s oh so mature disciplinary action here, as has been pointed out in some of the previous comments, isn’t something she’s allowed to do – good news for anyone in any of the services in the real world obviously. This probably isn’t over for either of them but we’ll get to that later.
So Harem has one mind for (up to) 5 bodies. There’s a little confusion over how that works, and while she can do disparate things, reading 5 different books at once or eat, exercise, watch TV, etc, there is a sensation threshold at which something happening to one body will spill over to the others. Knocking her funnybone, even getting tickled, hearing a really funny joke, or any number of other situations. I’m sure you can think of plenty, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing many of those over the course of the comic. Getting flashbanged would be interesting, while it would blind and deafen one of them and disorient them all, it wouldn’t blind of deafen the rest of them (assuming they were out of range) If she saw herself get flashbanged, through a strong window or something, the observing one could spot for the blind one, although from 3rd person she’d lose a considerable amount of coordination.
Oh also, new month, new year and all, if you’re so inclined, give me a vote at topwebcomics.com. I’ll try and have a vote incentive ready in time for the next comic, but, you know, vote for this one too. :)
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Clearly, the solution to this problem is to go commando from now on.
In Harem’s case, at least one of her dups might routinely do that anyhow.
Small problem with that. She likes to wear short skirts. I know some of you wouldn’t mind, but this is a goverment operation so that’s a big no on.
Not ALL of her dups wear short skirts. I count two in the above sequence that didn’t.
I didn’t say she wore them all the time, but most of her bodies have short skirts.
Based upon the clues given us, I suspect that the girl with the
white hair is going to be named “Jigawatt”, or some variant
thereof. With a name like that, her powers would almost have
to be electrical in nature.
Lets see… purple eyes, purple teleporting, two have purple hair, one has a purple skirt, geez, if I didn’t know better, i would say the girl likes purple…
speaking of our ambulance prankster, where is the blonde Harem during all this?
Legally, Max could be in serious trouble, but if we assume a friendly superior officer and/or a good lawyer, this can probably be classified as a impromptu training exercise, establishing the abilities and weaknesses of Harem and identifying what needs attention.
In that sense, it may well be classified as quite successful. The assumption [here at least] was that the bodies were entirely separate and damage to one does not bother the others. Here we [& Max] see that damage to one causes damage to the others, possibly in reduced amounts, but still quite disturbing amounts. Any hostile may be able to take out all 5 harems by shooting just one. Harem will likely need more protective armor, training in how to react to danger, and assignment to less dangerous roles.
I think I need to re-read Dave’s assessment of her powers…. but from what I understand her 5 organs called brains are connected quantum-ly, so the connection can’t be broken by anything less than fission, or Harem herself. In other words, it could be entirely possible that all 5 bodies would have to be killed at the same time for her to “die”, because as long as one of those “brains” is functioning, she has control of a body, and her powers. Which means in theory, she can teleport, and make another body.
OTOH, due to the limitation of her powers (5 bodies) and the seemingly permanent nature of any changes that occur to them, its also likely that if a “Harem” were to die, it would stay dead, until she made a new one from scratch.
In this way, Harem could simply have a copy somewhere safe, in the event of an emergency… never really in danger.
The Shock of experiencing “Death” could well kill the other bodies or drive them comatose. One mind with 5 bodies, even with 5 brains, can suffer overload that way. Dave’s already said that “above a certain threshold” all the bodies share sensations (which probably eliminates romantic moments while talking to the Brass ^_~) so I would think anything that killed one body would qualify. That’s a lot of Psychic Trauma.
It might depend on how her duplicate died. If it was something drawn-out then yeah, serious, possibly lethal trauma all round. If it was something ‘never knew what hit her’ then she might simply have one clone less than a second before (which could be traumatic in itself but not as bad as ‘I just bled to death’).
re-touching the unknown does the body heal if deformed for a period and reformed mentioned before it is an un defined side of her power, also bleeding out would give her time to brace prep for the death and adapt the sudden loss would hit harder.
Incredible.
Just three words:
That. Was. Hilarious!!!
Well, here’s the way I see it. This is just my two cents, and not to be taken seriously in the slightest (Like about…oh….98 or so percent of what I say)
1: Maxima can’t punish her in any way shape, or form, legally. She can be quite a nuisance to Harem’s future employment etc, but can NOT punish her in any actual direct format without resorting to paper pushing, which I suspect Maxima hates just as much as gender stereotyping, as her power does not exactly…assist with throwing around rules.
2: Harem deserved at least a minor punishment, and the shock from this might at least force her to take things a little more serious (“Oh, I can teleport! I’m invincible!” no longer appears to be plausible, as Maxima managed to literally perform a takedown on all of them, albeit by accident, but what if somebody had sniped one of them instead?)
3: Any confinement punishment…really doesn’t work on a teleporter.
4: The fifty lashes bit stereotype only really works if…y’know…the person can’t just teleport at the last possible second to the same location, scream out in non-existent agony, and repeat 50 times.
5: The Pushups stereotype, I’m not sure, but if you think about it, Harem could just get all of her five to look exactly alike, and then teleport two into a switchoff simultaneously whenever one body’s near its’ limits, and ta dah, issue resolved, no longer a problem.
6: Murder/death sentence/etc. This latest comic has proven that it’d work, but that’d burn away a super (Not to mention an important character) and those are rare. Reason: If they can share pain, the shock of one of them dying is likely to be a killing experience, although I could be mistaken and it could just be traumatizing, still…
7: Prank War. Do you really want to get in a prank war with a person who can literally be in five places at once? When you’re their superior?
8: Strict Rule-Utilization: Again, I don’t think Maxima’s really a paperwork addict, but this could be one of the few punishments that could really effect Harem. “All of your clones must be in uniform now”, for instance, as a punishment would tear through Harem’s joy, and at the same time, be 100% within the rules and -advised- by them. Heh, I wonder what it’d be like to have one of them be in the dentists office, getting a tooth drilled while, at the same time, the rest are all being forced to perform activities that require attention. Does the anesthesia effect the group mind?
9: Demotion/Transfer: I don’t think Harem would really care, although I could be mistaken. Transfer to a more directly militant group would have somebody without any direct control whatsoever over her having to deal with her, and that’d just be a waste of time
10 Oh dear lord why am I still typing this?: Harem can’t really call Maxima on this (beyond yelling), as the only evidence is somebody who Maxima now has…y’know…major blackmailing potential on…who, and I may be mistaken, is absolutely scared brainless at this latest action from Maxi, and isn’t likely to say anything any time soon.
Am I the only one who noticed that Sydney is making the universal hand gesture for ‘really-really big boobs?’. I was suddenly and solely able to hear Sydney’s as-yet unspoken dialogue…. And I REALLY hope there’s a ‘meanwhile’ blatantly gang-signed segue so we all get to enjoy what she’s ACTUALLY saying while Einstein’s ever famous ‘quantum-shared-sensory- wave perception principle’ is being so expertly demonstrated for us here.
Here’s what I think she’s saying tho! :D
Sydney: O $%^&ing M ^&*#ing GEE! She just flew the %$^& away! How the $%^#? She can’t POSSIBLY $^&$ing be that @#$%ing fast with $%^# like that! Did you see the size of those #$%^ed things?? Who the #$%^ has #$%^ that @#$!ing big? Those CAN’T be #$%^ing aerodynamic. Do you think she has to correct her trajectory for those things? I mean it’s BALLAST for #$%^ sake! And perfectly round?? It’s just not #%#@ing fair! Oh i’m a superhero and these are my #$%#! For REAL? Is that part of her powers? Hey you! (~Sydney points at ARCSwat trooper~) Can big #$%^ be a power?? Do they come with the powers? I bet Uncle Ben wouldn’t have said ‘With great power comes great #$%^’. She’s the #$%^ stereotype! They gotta be #$%^ fake! There’s just no #$%%@&$ed way! What is this?? A #$%^ing comic strip?? Seriously yo! Hippies get all the $%^&.
I.N. do that again, and you should be hunted down and “ATOMIC”ed. Here I am, I can finally breath after laughing myself out of my chair. And you go and channel Sidney.How could you do that to me?
BTW DaveB, Your one hell of a writer. And I bet you get “Suggestions” on what to put in your teleprompter, from reading all of the comments. You just ROCK!
Got a good chuckle out of me.
A.) You can’t atomic The One Freeballer.
B.) I’m surprised more people didn’t.
However the spiritual conduit wasn’t perfect as it was after 3 in the morning and she wasn’t coming through in complete crystal clarity. And besides that, we both know that whatever Dave comes up with for her is gonna be seventeen times funnier. BUT a geek can dream, right? I love this girl. Not quite as much as Anvil. But there isn’t another girl like her anywhere that i’ve read. Sydney is a gem. Or maybe a Jem?
Ok. You have made your case. Just dont look behind your closet door for an hour or two. I need time to reset my suits ‘Field’. So I can get out of your house with out scaring your sister to much. ;)
And I agree, Sidney is a great girl, But Maxi is more my style. She wouldn’t know what to do if ‘I’ started to chase her. :0
I think the vice like grip on your balls she would apply would suffice to stop you.
or the grip she’d apply to thy tounge, just before driving you into the ground like a tent stake.
The “Red Ranger Secret Gelding Grip?” <–Reference Night Court
I’ll always fondly remember watching Bull squish a bowling ball with his bare hands.
Loved the show, thats where I got the idea from.
A) One basic rule of fiction is “don’t sweat the fridge logic.” If it flows well and gets the right response, it’s good. Holes that make someone think, “waitaminit” later (when they’re getting a snack from the fridge) are safe to ignore because explaining them would take FAR more screen/page time than it’s worth.
Want a real fridge logic question? How does Max get from point A to point B at super speeds without leaving the shredded remains of her clothes at point A? She’s tougher than steel and faster than a bullet. By all rights, any known fabric should burst like a balloon, or at very least catch on fire from air friction.
Answer: that’s just how it works.
B) LOVE the chyrons across the bottom of the screen.
As Dabbler explained in the QnA, Tactical Telekinesis. It would extend to her clothes. I’m sure that was one of the things she mastered early on. You only have to vaporize your outfit once or twice before you start making sure on a nearly unconscious level to extend your field to keep them intact.
And as Mike explained right now (relatively):
Don´t sweat it.
Good thing I’m not reading this one at work 8D
I’ve just plowed through the ‘back issues’ of the comic I didn’t have time to read.
Strip #69: About the stormtroopers/spacemarines without helmets . Keep it a standard in settings with civies. Purely psychological, if people can see a face the situation doesn’t seem half as bad as it might be.
Strip #71: People commenting on what the skylight windows should be. Only requires 2 additions to a standard window, reflective foil coating (also handy to keep the place cooler) to prevent visual observation and vibrators to prevent people listening in on conversations (mainly through pointing a laser there). If you really want you can get RPG proof glass. The rest of the defense is the military base that the building is on.
The big thing people forgot to comment about was/is that Maxima destroyed her IFF (at least I assume was in the phone) in strip #70 and she just flew into restricted airspace (military base) as an UFO. The wedgie is good for a reprimand that little stunt should get her an official warning and possibly a fine.
Most of us have decided that the IFF transponder is in their neckbands, since that is the one thing they all wear as team ID.
So if we see the grunts wearing helmets we all gonna die huh?
Love it,but where is the white haired Harem in Whos Who?
Yeah I wasn’t sure if I wanted either of those faces representing her from now on. Not that I couldn’t change it later I guess.
Okay, Panel 1, the TV in the background, that made me laugh out loud.
Thank you.
BTW, since Harem tries to give her different duplicates different personalities, the one who took the brunt force of the wedgie, is she trying to emulate Maxima? They both have purple hair and the same outfit.
Or is that their uniform, and she;s just supposed to be a militaristic personality?
No she didn’t dye her hair in the time between when Max told her that she wanted one of her in uniform all the time. That’s just her “Punk” version. Kind of a loosely defined rebel/piercings/weird hair color one that could fit in at a rock concert, a biker rally or some underground club easily with minor costume adjustments. As Meripihka points out just below, I am fond of the color purple. I’m actually debating their dress uniforms be a very dark purple so they stand out from the other branches, but I’m not sure if that would make them look more like highly decorated lounge lizards. I’ll have to mock it up and see.
But yeah, that’s their uniform… apparently. It’s what I’ve drawn Max in forever and I was thinking about revising it after I had already drawn her in it in the comic, something a little better suited to urban deployment maybe, but it’ll do for now. It’s possible Arianna might tinker with their public appearance a bit later on though. :)
that makes two of us… about the purple I mean.. XD
Note that the controller I hold in my hand is purple.
nice.
For dress uniforms, Jackets of deep royal purple would be very sweet. Something along the same color as the purple heart medals.
Given how many of them have purple hair (or are purple) of different shades, you might want to stay away from also making their outfits purple. Making a character who is all one color is one thing, making a bunch of characters that are all one color might not work as well. Also, it tends to clash with the oddest things (like possibly Anvil’s hair)
I once knew a young lady obsessed with the color purple. She wore it all the time. One day we were talking about it and she said she got a lot of joke over it. I told her to, “Just tell everyone Prince had a yard sale.” For the next three months her greeting to me was “Yard Sale.” She loved the joke.
HA… you think THAT’S “obsessed”.. I’ll top that… a few months ago i helped a friend remodel the showroom in his newly opened brick & mortar store called “The Purple Store”. if you’re in the Seattle, WA area go see it it’s on Hwy 99 a mile or so north of the zoo. they also have the online version at https://www.thepurplestore.com/
Sooooo muuuuch puuuuurrrrrppppllllleeeeee…..
To quote Sydney, “FLEE!”
I’m beginning to think you like purple. Because there’s a LOT of it around here. (How did I never notice?)
Wow… first time I have seen a critical hit with a wedgie…
it super effective!
Unfortunately this anwers the question i had…
Harem should REALLY avoid stepping on Landmines.
I don´t think the other four would like feeling their leg ripped to shreds.
wow! an atomic wedgie, squared. I agree with Marscaleb the TV in panel one is amazing, I about fell out of my oh so plush work chair laughing.
Happy Purple New Year All!
Okay, I’m enjoying the strip so far and see the gears shifting gradually up.
But I’m confused about the leg and foot in panel #7. I take it that that’s the leg and foot of the Punk (short, purple hair) version of Harem that’s getting the atomic wedgie. But the color of the pants leg is brown, not green as one would expect. Sorry, hate to nicpick, but it took me a few go throughs to figure out what was going on in the chain reaction. I like the idea, but maybe some names/astrixes/indicators for the multiple bodies would help if you redo this page or the joke occurs again.
Again, I do hate to nickpick, but I do want to help in the feed back department.
Otherwise, enjoying the strip so far.
In panel 7, that’s the foot of “Farmer’s Daughter”, the one who was laughing on the previous page. She teleported from in front of the TV up to the roof and the wedgie threw her off and she stumbled into whatever that is on the roof.
Looks to me like a helipad
well if you don’t know what it is then who will?
Hopefully whoever built the building does. (It’s supposed to be the edge of a helipad but I’m sure there’s any number of things wrong with it.)
Huh??
Okay, let’s back track.
I had to go back to strip #59 to get an estblishing shot of who is on/near the couch.
Is the redhead (Farmer’s Daughter) one of the 5 Harem bodies? That’s not really clear. The “indicator collars” are dificult to make out. And she doesn’t seem to have a speaking line at anypoint between #59 and #72.
I get it that the main/original/base? Harem ported from the couch to infront of the TV and then out of the room altogether. But there’s no clear establishment that “Farmer’s Daughter” is a Harem body, nor what her pants and shoes look like in this (#72) page. In the Cast page, there’s a pink haired Harem body, but we can’t see how she’s dressed.
Again, I hate to nicpick and am just saying I found this page difficult to read. I think the chain reaction wedgie idea’s hilarious, but the lay out execution was confusing to me.
Of course, it’s difficult to have a natural story telling flow if you’re introducing characters in a scene but they’re not saying or doing anything primary in the scene. But once they are involved, Farmer’s Daughter Harem for example, we need to know who’s who, at least by name “on screen” as it were.
Flame-hair white skin in plaid shirt is Brooke/Heatwave. Thing-1 shirt is Harem.
I’ll agree that the page layout is not ideal, mostly because of having to fit the whole chain of events on to a single page. 11 panels on a page is never a good thing to do. I’d love to stick to no more than 5-7, but – page #59 has a big arrow pointing to the (supposed to be strawberry blonde) “farmer’s daughter” that says “Harem”, also each of her faces (with the exception of the white haired one) shows in the who’s who module on the side, but the white haired one has another big yellow arrow pointing out that she’s another of Harem’s bodies. The main weakness of the page (besides the crammed panels) is that you don’t see Farmer’s Daughter in color, she’s always in that purple field cause she’s TPing in or out – but of course, it says in the Who’s Who that she can teleport and that same purple effect is seen in previous pages when she does it. If I could have done this in two pages it might have been clearer but I think given the limitation of the format it’s about as clear as I could have made it.
Okay.
Now I’m just more confused.
So…..I’ve got two options:
1) Keep mum and just enjoy the comic and appreciate the fact that illustrating is NOT “easy peasy”.
2) Take up the mantle and be the annoying Devil’s Advocate.
(grins and gets the atache case…)
Alrighty then…
I’m probably more confused now because:
– I only know of one cast of characters list/pinup for the series (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/cast) and don’t know where the names for the Harem bodies are coming from. (Other than “Thing #1″, which is on the tshirt of who I’d been presuming is Daphne, the main/original Harem body/”Farmer’s Daughter”, with the long pink hair. Or are you calling the redhead in the blue flannel shirt “Farmer’s Daughter”? Page(?) 59, panel 1 has the long haired, goth dressed Harem (Deshantis?) with an arrow indicating she’s Harem, but not the redhead. Page #59, panel 4’s redhead (not the buxom and green topped Anvil) is sitting next to the long pink haired, “Thing#1” and the “Also Harem” arrow points only to her (“Thing #1).) So what am i missing here?? When/where is the blue flanneled redhead introduced by name as a Harem body??
– Or, if I understand Adamas’s post correctly, the blue flanneled redhead is “Brooke/Heatwave”. Where’s she introduced as such.
Is there another strip where these characters already exist and I just missed that somewhere??
Harem is confusing for sure, so here’s the deal, her name is Daphne DeShantis, her hero handle is Harem. The names Farmer’s Daughter, Vogue, Goth, Punk, and Co-Ed are all just easy ways to reference her individual bodies, since that’s how she styles/dresses them. It’s also confusing to say that Vogue is doing something, cause it’s really Harem doing it, only using one of her bodies that she likes to dress up nice. If one of them eats something, it’s actually misleading to say that they all taste it cause there’s only one mind receiving the input, but all of her mouths might start watering. If she burns one of her hands, she’ll instinctively jerk away from it, and by she, I mean all of her.
Does that help at all?
Oh and Heatwave hasn’t actually been introduced. She’s just background at the moment, she hasn’t even had any dialog. The only reason people know it’s her is cause I said it in the comments, but by just reading the comic, you wouldn’t have any way to know it’s her, just like I didn’t introduce the white haired black girl in this page yet, or the guy standing behind Harem/Daphne/Co-ed in the bottom left panel.
Ooohkay, that explains things now. (RTFM, or in this case RTFC) (lol!)
You really just had to invent the most dificult comic character possible didn’t you?
Heh heh yeah she’s up there isn’t she?
Sooo … if a really nice guy kissed her on the cheek, all harems would blush fircely ? :)
What if Sydney did it ?
Or Joel ?
Haven’t seen him in a bit.
Well, Harem isn’t much of a blusher, but yeah if an appropriate situation came up, that could definitely happen.
considering how she landed in the ambulance “Not a blusher” is an understatement of positively British proportions.
Oh I don’t know .. it’s more about the emotions involved in a kiss, than the act itself that makes people blush. Besides, Joel is such a charmer, he’s be sure to make her weak in the knees. :)
Harem + Joel !! ftw
A suggestion that MIGHT help cut down on the confusion factor as regards Harem. Use hyphenation when referring to her. Rather than Goth, Vogue, etc., refer to them as Harem-Goth, Harem-Vogue, etc..
I accept that, from your perspective, this may make the names too long (ie. take up too much printspace). Another possibility may be to allocate numbers – Harem-1, Harem-2, etc.. In fact, given that this is a military-escue operaion, this procedure may be used sometimes anyhow.
Keep up the good work.
we started that way then droped the ooo harem to ooo with ooo = co-ed(schoolgirl), vouge, GND(thing 1), punk, or goth(layla) dependant on which body discussed.
I’m surprised Vogue did not wince like FDH when she shoulder-boobed Leon and Anvil bopped her on the head in comic 64.
Guess the rule with Harem is: Just take it as it comes and accept that it will be funny.
Well there’s a threshold. Someone bops you on the head, you can ignore it if you want, generally speaking, but if you burn your hand, instinct takes over and you jerk away from it.
Sorry, but I had to chirp in here. I just wanted you to know I have had no difficulty following Harem as I just think of her along the same line as the Borg. And I also didn’t have trouble following the line of pain! I just wanted to give you a thumbs up so you didn’t think your line of reasoning was convoluted. This is my favorite web comic of all time!
I want to be a superhero……….. or evil.
Thanks! I assumed most people could follow it, but I can easily see why some people would have trouble with it.
I think this is my favorite page of the comic. Harem’s faces are priceless. I also didn’t have any trouble following the action. Just need to keep in mind who’s who.
Who is the black girl?
The one in panel 8.
Haven’t introduced her yet, she’s supposed to be tertiary but I suspect we’ll see quite a bit of her later.
We think her name is Jiggawat.
Reserve I would say, or support. Note the different pattern and color of choker.
It’s like a Rube Goldberg of pain.
Also, who is Goth Harem having lunch with?
I too loved that first panel, the guy typing out the scrolling news bar is having fun with this!
Panel 9 looks odd, it looks like Harem in White is getting gobsmacked with her one boob, as well as reacting to the bang on her knee. Or is that just supposed to be her shoulder?
And maybe Max isn’t supposed to perform physical punishment like that according to the letter of the law, but on the other hand Harem already made Max look like she is guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer, and as Harem did it she IS doubly guilty of conduct unbecoming and insubordination (actually kissing ‘prisoners’ under restraint, and making it look to others that Max was the one who did it), plus perhaps other charges (the framing of a superior officer for something that makes both the officer and the service look bad is likely something that would get you a CM, maybe even prison time). So if the UCMJ was followed, Harem would be in a serious load of trouble – this sort of ‘schoolyard punishment’ is probably far more appropriate rather than the punishment detail or even court martial that would otherwise be leveled against Harem.
Besides, these gals are so far off the scale that on the one hand trying to level ordinary punishment against them would likely be futile not to mention unenforceable, and on the other hand their abilities are so unique and useful that you wouldn’t want to drive them away over what is basically schoolyard antics.
This are not normal soldiers, they are not in a regular unit, and attempting to act like they are would be doomed to failure.
Not to say some pencil neck bureaucrat wouldn’t try.
So in an environment like this; it wouldn’t surprise me if leaving it up to Max to handle discipline as she sees fit would probably be normal (a special exemption to the UCMJ for offenses below a certain seriousness, part of joining ArcSWAT would include signing an understanding of that). Although the mundane brass may feel an atomic wedgie and the chain events that followed is still fairly mild for that offense – but would probably feel that as long as Max has retained a reasonable level of discipline and that the unit still has a reasonable respect of the chain of command in general and a respect for Max in specific, they would likely leave it to her discretion.
I was thinking they could go under the term goverment contractors. It would give the higher ups a C.Y.A. effect, and also them to give ranks to the people with powers who aren’t in the milatary.
Massively parallel wedgie!
OMG.. I just had that thought that that would make the most Awesome song title… or maybe band name…
though.. this was a bit irresponsible of Maxima… what if one of them had been operating heavy machinery or driving. Someone could have really gotten hurt… to DEATH!… that said this is and will always be one of my favorite comics for this page alone
Why would Harem drive anywhere? She can teleport
She can’t cary large objects wile telaporting. Plus it’s fun to drive.
And… hate to point it out but in the forth panel Maxima has the lines for the collar… thing… she wears but not collored in so she is wearing it.
Yeah I was being a little loose with the colors there cause she was supposed to be blurred.
Flash Banged . . . Any Relation to Flash Mobbed? ;-)
it’s the slag for a Stun granade, lots of noise and light, little physical damage.
Just thought I’d tell ya Dave the butts on your girls are very nice an d i supose i could make a poke mon refreence here and say Max uses wedie attack and is super effective but im sure som one already did awesome update buddy
LMAO Wow i love the Diablo Reference that was amazing woke my kid up i was laughing so hard >_<
Hmm. Can only one Harem teleport at a time? That might make for an interesting limitation…
yea I think that would be interesting, but I think its more along the lines that she needs to focus on where she is going. So either she has to pre-establish which clones are going where, or determine how many clones are going to the same spot.
problem is that would negate any use in combat and the profile sayes she has such a style in the works. more like she forgot two of her were in that location and max got punk before she could adjust and get out of there.
Not realy, it just takes a split second to telaport. All she has to do is time her moves and telaporting properly and she could kick some serious ass. Maby not a heavy hitter like Maxima, unless she put some serious planning into it. Sydney might be able to give her some pointers on that. She seems to think about those sort of situations a lot and probably can come up with a few options.
i don’t think Sydney would be a good mentor or fighting… Max had to tell her NOT to tuck her thumbs into the inside of her fists when punching someone, as she’ll likely break her thumb if she actually CONNECTED with anything. based on that, I’d say like typical girls (no offense intended) she’s never had to fight anybody, so she doesn’t know “how” to fight. other than what she’s picked up from reading comics and watching movies… NOT good role models to learn from to say the least…
What I mean is she’s always playing RPG’s and reading comic’s that she can see the potental in many situations, in other words she can give pointers in stratigy.
seems to take longer than that to me between talking while in transit and the time it takes to check an area shes vorping into (as dave said she goes partway scans destinat then finishes solidification of arriving body).
I can’t help but feel sorry for Harem, even though she was naughty! :)
I like the googly-eyed “skulls” Goth Harem has in her hair.
I also vote for more purple! :D
The skulls remind me a lot of the ones in the old webcomic “Mine’s Bigger”, a story about a necromancer elf chick with big tatas getting in a tower-building feud with her new barbarian neighbor. <_< The skulls are relegated to the task of containing said tatas.
There are probably better ways I could spend my mornings…
None of them would be funnier than this though.
Besides, starting the day off laughing is a good way to begin the day.
This page is also a good example of why I keep recommending this webcomic to my friends.
Keep it up!
Thanks I’m glad you guys like it so much, but it kind of makes me nervous about doing pages that aren’t rife with comedy. I do want to have to occasional flashback or piece of character development that isn’t like something out of sexy three stooges.
Don´t worry about it.
You can´t be hilarious or comical all the time. In fact, i do not think that would benefit the comic very much.
You said once that you don´t want to switch from comedy to tragedy every two pages, but you should do that on occasion at least. Trust me, a serious comic is as captivating as a comical one.
All I want to say is:
Don´t force it. As long as you have ideas that are SO hilarious: Bring it!
But don´t try to be funny at all costs, that would not be beneficial at all.
Just look at Looking for Group; Although Richard is absolutely hilarious, and can change the mood af a whole Page with a single comment, the Comic itself has a rather serious context (at least now. In the beginning is was nonstop laughter). That goes so far that one of the main cast even died recently. But the quality of the work itself is absolutely great.
You are just as great as Lar & Sohmer (at least in my opinion), so don´t worry. If a page doesn´t feel funny to you, don´t try to make it funny. Just make it serious, and let the readers decide. I can´t imagine anyone will stop reading, just because they didn´t like one page, and if the comments show that everyone wants a nonstop freakshow, fine. Next update will be funny again.
Yeah, don’t sweat it, Dave. When it comes to balancing Serious Stuff and Comedy, just don’t try to force one when the situation or the plot calls for the other. The rest will take care of itself.
Witch brings it to the point in two sentences.
Dang!
And here I thought I didn´t have the bureaucracy-gene.
Guess all germans have it, if they want to, or not.
Know what you mean.
Whereas we Australians have the opposite – say in three words what most other people would take three sentences to say. ;)
I think slapstick works better if it’s used only occasionally, otherwise it just gets exhausting. This sequence is totally brilliant, and then Arianna’s expression in the last panel cracked me up again.
OMG! It’s a domino cascade of pain!
A chain reaction even! Took me several reads, but I got it now.
Maxima gives “punk” wedgie causing “farmer’s daughter” to “mis-teleport” and hit her foot.
“Layla” yanks her leg back reflexively from foot pain caused by “farmer’s daughter”, hitting her knee.
“Secretary” grabs her knee from “Layla’s” pain and loses her balance, hitting her head on a cabinet.
The chain reaction continues, leaving “punk” unconscious and twitching in agony. CLASSIC.
Also Panel 1, Newstype, totally hilarious.
Hah hah “Layla.” I totally forgot she has the skills in her hair when I drew Goth the first time. Or maybe I remembered it subconsciously. :P
If that’s the sequence, should panel 3 follow the atomic wedgie? Whatever is happening in panel 3, Punk starts to respond to it before getting the wedgie. And I can’t figure out what’s happening in 3.
No Max was juking towards “Farmer’s Daughter” (with the “step” in panel… let’s call it 2.1) making Harem TP that one out, and while she was busy doing that, Max vipped over to the other one of her standing behind them in Leon’s office
You missed that Schoolgirl/Secretary was grabbing her knee AND her foot, which lead to her hitting her head because she couldn’t get her hands up in time.
(And since when is git NOT a misspelling?)
the first thing i noticed is one of the 5 harems is missing, specifically the one that actually left the lipstick marks (the blonde).
Yeah finite space plus I think I got the point across.
Awww but it would have been funny if she fell into Leon plus it would have tied into the whole teasing bit you mentioned in an earlier page.
“I’m sure you can think of plenty” ????
You had to say the words !! OF course i can think of plenty.
I mean, she IS called harem.
The perfect match ; you have 5 women fulfilling your needs, and you need to concentrate on only one and all are satisfied !!
the best win/win in ages
(what? you all thought about it)
(i hope)
Yes, yes we did.
Ya know, it just occurred to me that Maxima does indeed have a hidden sense of humor. Her character description, plus the way she behaves in public, kinda give her the impression of being a ‘stick in the mud.’
Yet look at what has transpired. Her ‘addressing a discipline issue’ was an atomic wedgie, a joke for a joke. Me thinks there be hope for the stick in the mud yet.
Not to mention she’s probably using this as an excuse to work off some of the embarrassment she suffered from Sydney when she couldn’t drag her out from under the vehicle.
As much as I’d like to pity Harem, she did kinda have that coming lol Also got to wonder what happened to Harem #5… by my count the blonde Harem is missing.
She just has a problem with people ogleing her body before her transformation and after, and thinking of her as a sexual object to be concered and not as a soldier who does her job realy well. She just want’s people to take her and her position seriously.
I was rereading the archives, and I realised that Sydney in panel 1 looks exactly like when she tells her friend about Maxima on page 50, talking about the pants, the gold skin and the huge….
Yeah I was about on hour 10 of coloring when I realized the screen had nothing on it so I cheated a bit. :P
Its perfect for me, in my mind, no one is paying attention to the fact that Sidney is telling the world on live television how huuuuuuuuuuge Maxima boobs are, which I think is hilarious seeing Maxima’s thoughts on the subject.
By the way, I can’t help to notice that Harem’s description says she can teleport and make up to five copies.
Is it playing with words or does it imply that there would be an original somewhere we haven’t heard/talked about ? or is the “original” part of the 5 copies ? If it was specified somewhere else I’m sorry, but I thought it might be interesting that there’s a secret original somewhere no one knows about :)
Yeah it’s sloppy wording, but I was trying to force myself to be as terse as possible. I guess it should probably say “for a total of 5 bodies”
LOL anyone else catch what the guy in the news room put up on the feed (it’s funny but the joke falls apart when you know that the guy with the button is a Producer the guy doing the messages on the news feed is a graphic artist who either aid or had paid for him 10,000 just to learn how to do that)
panel 5, missing choker on Max. Just thought i’d point it out.
I’m just curious what does Harem/Daphne look like when all her copies are assimilated and she is one being? Also what matter does she use to create the extra forms?
her look would depend on which body she choose to leave active becouse they are each at least semi premade and “stored” in some maner or she would have to buy and dye the hair every time she made a copy, however the maner of “storage” is as yet officialy defined as — IT JUST IS —, I personaly believe this may be a psycic event mental energy materialization. same explinate as for the source of her clothes.
Basicly Harem is an energy being who can project herself in to five locations at once and make those projections into solid matter.
no esper human with the mental ability to solidify imaginary constructs of herself up to the limit of her minds proccessing power (at current total of 5 bodies). basicly creating them where she want and decreating any she wants to effectively change her possition. if this is what dave to use in explaining her power.
The “farmer’s daughter” is Daphne’s unmodified form (thus the “thing 1” t-shirt is quite fitting) as I understand it.
I by no means wish to sound impolite – I love this strip! I totally do and hope it comes in print soon. – but I can’t for the life of me figure out Harem’s body in the bottom panel…I get the shoulders and skirt but then there’s some skin, a buckled thing, some striped thing…? I’m a little lost and have pondered that frame for ages since it’s release. Lil help?
That would be her Leg.
Boot, stocking and the reat.
Yeah it’s not an ideal angle to be honest. Like Toidillov says, her knee is up and she grabbing her knee and foot at the same time, pushing her shoulder up into her cheek. I should have drawn it just a bit further out so that you could actually see her foot, that’d probably make the pose easier to parse.
Don’t worry about it, just concentrate on the next page and do more of the great work you’ve been doing.
I agree with this – Keep it coming. :)
Besides, it’s funny to see Maximilia being a little impish for once .. perhaps showing her true age as well ?
(she looks pretty young, even with all the authority going on)
Probably around 28 or so, maby eaely 30’s.
as a Colonel I’d say she’d be closer to 35 then 30, assuming she entered service right out of high school.
Nah, she was an enlisted person before her promotion, the effect from being the only one in charge of a new unit needs to be “taken seriously” by OTHER military units => the C.O.’s ranks must approximately match… therefore Max got promoted to match. her Cast page says she enlisted, and “NO General or Admiral is going to TAKE orders from an enlisted person, they GIVE enlisted orders…”
SOOO… the powers-that-be made her an officer, and to play the Politics Game and not ruffle too many feathers from other officers they only made her an O-6 (Colonel) rather than a O-7 (General). that, and it keeps her advancement options open for when the military gets enough Supers to warrant two or more units, of which she’d be promoted up to General and placed in overall charge, with unit CO’s under her.
Not sure how the USAF handles promotions between Enlisted to Officer. It could be she was a “Mustang” . It just seemed to me that 30 would be a bit young to make Colonel unless she skipped a couple grades along the way.
One way to jump ranks fast is in combat and Maxima may have seen a great amount of combat. Probably some of them blacked out for security reasons.
Very likely, A LOT of them blacked out for security reasons.
I need to work out the details, but she basically went in as a “pilot” even though everyone knew she wouldn’t actually be flying a piece of hardware. I don’t know what that path actually looks like. I assume she enlisted as soon as she could, so she never went to college, or maybe did college concurrently, but basically distinguished herself repeatedly in the field, but also got into lots of fights over stuff like having to wear a skirt as part of her dress outfit, things that kept her from advancing as fast as she would have otherwise. When “offered” the position of running field-ops for ArcSWAT, she negotiated herself a promotion in the process.
if she was a Pilot, actually flying or not, then she STARTED OUT as an Officer, NOT an Enlisted Person… and the term for THAT is that she was “Commissioned” (as an Officer) not that she “Enlisted” (that implies she was an Enlisted Person, not an Officer…) semantics i know, but in the military those distinctions ARE IMPORTANT, as it determines things like who has to listen to who when two Oficers of equal rank have a disagreement over some point, the “true” Officer will almost always be the “winner” and the Mustang will usually be the loser… not always, but there IS still some discriminatory behavior towards those “uppity Enlisted pukes that think they’re as good as us true blue pure-blood OFFICERS”… it’s stupid, but it’s still there.
now if you say that she started out as an Enlisted, the the only way is to have been thru some sort of enlisted-to-officer program, and she would typically been made a Warrant Officer first, with maybe a slim chance of making a “true” officer rank, Warrants are in kind of a weird spot on the rank scale… to an Enlisted they are Officers, but to an Officer they’re still enlisted… it’s confusing really. there ARE some programs that DO go straight from Enlisted to true Officer, but the requirements are even stricter than the Warrant programs are.
the concurrent college thing is a viable path, basically the civilian applicant signs the contract that says they have get xyz credit hours in subjects xyz, with a minimum grade of xyz, in a specified time limit to KEEP the pay-grade/rank of Ensign/Lieutenant (whatever they get Commissioned as, per the contract) as well as other stuff… if they fail the courses, or they pass, but not good enough grades as specified, or whatever else, then they are stripped of officer-hood and serve out the rest of the contract time as an enlisted person…
Ah, good info thanks. So she could have been commissioned as a 2nd Lt. and still done college at the same time. Though given that she’s not widely known about, I wonder if the military has a college school/program that would allow her to remain somewhat anonymous, instead of sitting in a class with 300 other freshmen, all with camera phones.
she could have enlisted as a normal e grade but with colledge degree and been pushed though green to gold program by SF that wanted her out of there AO. SF would have given her heavy combat xp with limited general mil attention and starting her as a NCO fast tracked her shift up the ranks.
Okay, after letting this sink in for a couple of days, here are my thoughts.
1: Funny. Funny as all getout. On that level, loved it.
2: The problem here is that it kinda legitimizes what Harem did. “You have to admit, it was a good joke,” she says, and under other circumstances, it might be…but framing a superior officer for the sexual molestation of prisoners in her charge is truly serious business. The Atomic Wedgie treats it like a joke…and infuriating joke, but still a joke and not a crime.
3: Still hilarious.
4: However, it should be followed up by making Harem bring all five bodies together and stand them at attention while Arianna explains exactly what she did, what kind of charges she could have ended up facing (and still could), and what kind of sentence is standard for that kind of crime (since she seems to be completely oblivious to that).
5: Followed by a month of latrine duty, and making sure she’s getting off incredibly lightly.
6: But lest we forget: hilarious.
2: …an infuriating joke. Damn it.
Well considering Max was “Failed upwards” into this position, the rest of the service probably thinks of the unit as a joke at best, an embarressment at worst. After all, Max herself got there by hitting superior officers.
What could you do to superpowered beings to punish them?
Send Harem to latrine duty?
Like that is going to happen.
Punish her for every joke (she is 19, after all), and she will quit.
Threaten her with a dishonorable discharge?
So what?
Dave already established that superheroes are rare, since supers can make much more as … invulnerable battering rams without the need for heavy machinery or safety.
Heck, if Harem would go dark side, she could be an unstoppable killer.
No, i think special treatment for special people is in order. After all, we woldn´t want to see them realizing how much more fun it is to take out all mediocre humans, now would we?
I agree that punishment is problematic, but in this case Harem doesn’t even seem to realize what she did or how serious the consequences could have been and still could be. Someone with that much power who doesn’t think about consequences is a loose cannon on deck.
On the other hand, if she’s part of the team now, it must mean something to her, so I think she’d choose to serve out a punishment detail if the alternative were a dishonorable discharge.
The important thing is that she understand why this is such a serious matter. If she can’t, she has no business being on the team, and even given the rarity of supers, they’d be better off without her.