Grrl Power #779 – Sydney, a portrait in light
They’ve been busy while Sydney was gone. I imagine most custom stained glass window installations usually take a few months to turn around, but it’s pretty amazing what you can get done when you have a government agency backing you… especially when they’re a small agency not bogged down by a lot of red tape.
I’m sure there might be some groups who would be offended by imagery like this. Calling her Halo, with all that implies, is one thing, but the actual halo emitting god rays might be a step too far. Arianna’s policy is that if those people can produce an actual photo of a saint or demigod with god rays coming out their head, then she’ll listen to concerns about sacrilege or whatever.
Oh, and I thought I should mention one more time, Michael-Scott Earle’s Tamer 6 Kickstarter has 3 days left. If you missed Tamer 1-5, you can get them at his personal website, and if you’re an audiobooks kind of person, he has had the first 4 audiobooks rerecorded by a dual narrator team, so a woman is voicing the female characters, which is infinity percent better than listen to some guy read in falsetto. They’re available here for free, which is a pretty amazing deal, though it’s a pay what you want thing. Considering the price of audiobooks on Audible, a few bucks in the pay what you like field might not be out of order, but I’ll leave that up to you. The audio for book 5 should be out this week, if not today, so check back if you don’t see it right away.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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Wow! Something that was actually a bit much even for Sydney? o_O
well, when you get stranded on another planet, are forced to kill aliens to survive, time travel to the future and when you come back the place you used to work at looks like the church of a sect to worship you, yeah, a bit much
you Do realize Dave is not an idiot and probably plans for that blatantly heretical desicration of religious iconagraphy to become a smoking crater within the next 1000 or so pages right? Maybe sooner it it’s an actual converted church.
After all the .Cleansing is at hand…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-186-fingers-to-maximum-steepleage/
Send help, I can’t breath.
* Laughs *
^_^
Here you go…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Tpe-dbPQI
Whoa, looking at the background, that might even be the interior of the very same church!
Mmmmmmmm possibly relevant…..
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-207-ill-take-six-of-these-twelve-of-these/
It’s all shadowy at that level. . .
Ohhh Plot twist! He’s actualy an unstable instant fan of Her how thinks she’s a ______________ and the cleansing is his plan to clean the out the of that abandoned church in preparation for her Devine Presence! And is actualy harmless to her and her fans…. but let’s just say he’s Alfred only Bat ship crazy
I smell the influence of Arianna in this :D. I wonder how Syndey will react when she discovers it’s now a franchise, and she will be met with her giant stained glass self in every major US city?
“Hey, Sydney: remember the Arbor Day Incident you pulled at the store?”
“…Yeah?”
“NOW we’re even.”
Well, at least until she describes where she’s been for the “last 2 months”.
You can never beat the mind of an ADHD person.
She opens the door and finds a service is being held.
And now let us turn to the Book of Parker Issue 23, page 7.
And Uncle Ben said unto Peter “With great power comes great responsibility.”
OBJECTION! The church of Syndey uses original print runs and in the original comic the quote is said in narration. The correct transcription is therefore:
“Parker held his Uncle Ben and wept, for though he had powers great.
With great power comes great responsibility: a revelation which comes too late.”
great… we already have a schism in the church of Sydney
By the blood of Wayne, let there be Death to the unbelievers!
The Vertigo Death, Marvel Death, or are we just gonna do Terry Pratchett a solid and use his Death?
There is but one death and Neil Gaiman is her writer (though Terry Pratchetts Death is a very close second)!
What did you expect?
I mean fanboys will argue with themselves over the minutest details of their favourite work of art if there is nobody else to go to flamewar with.
Put one fanboy in a room for a day and there will be a schism between the interpretations of made during that morning and that afternoon…
Schisms in the church this early are *fine*. There’s plenty of unused churches for sale still.
“To whom much is given, much is required”
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned that with a giant fancy picture of her, it becomes much easier for Sydney to find while flying.
And that it can double as a Halo-signal in a pinch. Just jam a big spotlight behind it.
+1
I feel like a distracting smear of colored lights in the sky might end up being both the best and worst Sydney signal. No bet, first time it lights up she spends twenty minutes doing shadow puppet mystery science theater jokes in the clouds before remembering there’s an emergency.
+1 for both pointing out how poorly the Batsignal would actually work in real life, and simultaneously depicting ADHD Sydney doing shadow puppets like a cat chasing a laser pointer.
+1 is not enough
It was as workable a solution as existed when it was conceived.
Even when I was growing up, searchlight advertising was common where I lived.
Sometimes there were three or five different searchlight hubs at different locations over in The nearest city.
Once, when I was a child, I remember chasing “UFO’s” that turned out to be a 4-spot searchlight system outside a car dealership.
It was a heavily overcast night, with a haze layer just below the clouds.
you’d think if someone was going to pay for a stained glass window portrait than they’d have the person in a more stylized outfit than the exact same street cloths that they always wear.
That’s her official SuperHero outfit
I’m sure that as a very public superhero she should have expected to become something of a cultural icon, but it being taken this literally is at the very least profoundly unsettling.
….Icon ….
* big laughter *
^_^
He gets to ‘sponsor’ the other store. Computer games, electronic gadgets, and safe-house for newly-active AIs.
I notice she forgot to wear her choker today, so maybe nobody will recognize her?
She’s out of uniform…
I would assume if she’s off duty, so long as she has a cell phone they can recall her with, that’s sufficient. Technically, in the military, you’re ‘on duty’ or at least on call 24/7, but you don’t have to stay in uniform while not working. There are, obviously, exceptions, but not many.
I mean, hell, there are probably supers that could just telepathycall her in an emergency, so even a cell phone isn’t totally necessary.
No, her “official” super hero outfit is the camouflage outfit that’s bullet resistant.
I believe you are correct. I don’t recall any explication of the shirt she’s wearing at the moment.
Hah, yeah, she probably should have been at least in the camo pants, but that would have been tough to do in stained glass.
Well that much stained glass that fast is impractical if it were me i think it whould be easyer to just 3d print the frame and CNC colored plexiglass and glue to togather in a week or so.. (assuming you could hire every cnc shop on west coast to work on chucks if it at the same time)
I think putting colorizing chemicals directly in the glass is something that can be done en masse at a major glass manufacturer without too much extra work. Modern production techniques are often very flexible due to the need for varying production lines and not wanting to buy lots of extra hardware. I’m not saying that’s unilaterally true, I just think the old techniques are old and probably not the cutting edge.
(Haha, get it? Cutting edge? … I’ll see myself out …)
The colouring isn’t the hard part, it’s the cutting to shape and assembling. CNC is now an option, which speeds up the cutting and probably reduces wastage. It might be feasible to pre-fabricate the frame and attach the glass from one side, but I’m not sure how that compares to traditional piece-by-piece assembly for durability, ease of fitting to the building, or replacement of the inevitable breakages over time.
Probably just painted the glass, like most modern stained glass. Still a massive undertaking.
It’s actually not that bad, a lot of “stained glass” these days is colored transparent paint on glass.
And they do this deal where you paint powdered glass in binder onto a pane of glass, and send it through a furnace to fuse it. You can get photographic results that way.
So it wouldn’t be 5000 pieces and a lot of lead cane these days.
Give it a couple of centuries, when the Church of Halo has become a true religion, with millions of followers. Dogma gets established, power becomes entrenched, and the current leaders seek to cement their power. Then they’ll go around idealizing the focus of their religion, will depict her in flowing robes, no glasses (the Mighty Halo had perfect vision), gorgeous Super-style body, etc…
Worked for the Wyld Stallyns.
By the way – a new Bill and Ted is coming out next year, per Wiki 2020 in Film page.
Next page, Maxi is behind Sydney:- “Yeah, meant to give you a heads up about this…”
Just as likely they decided to intentionally tell her nothing because it’d be funnier that way.
All of Archon except Maxi would find it funny
That is definitely something Maxima would do.
But there would be cameras, lots of cameras. And at least one of Harem would be there for a semi-selfie.
form arc-light:
what you don’t think we can have cameras there? we will have UHD 3D streaming set up. and not even the dreaded squirrels will mess with it.
I was gonna suggest that, depending on the state, there could be a lot of licensing and use issues there, but then I realized that, whether it was previously mentioned or not, she almost certainly signed away the licensing rights to her likeness to Archon when she signed up. Also, as a co-owner (I think?) of the business, the business may be able to claim that right regardless of its status with Archon.
Licensing was specifically mentioned around the time Sydney realised how much her Archon pay cheque was.
And that Arianna clearly Has Plans for her ADHD mad lad(y)
Complete with Notre Dam style flying buttresses. I hope that means there are also large windows along both side walls, since that’s the main reason FBs were added to buildings, for extra support so you could have more large windows.
Actually it wasn’t the presence of windows—large or small—but the (vaulted) roof pushing the walls outwards.
The flying buttress did indeed allow large windows, that’s what it was developed for after the buttress system matured. However, flying buttresses also need more land, much larger architectural footprints, since the enormous pier was still a prerequisite.
If they are spaced down the side of the building, and not just as part of a large facade, you could set up stalls in between the butresses and have a mini comic book convention.
I’m sure somethings like that used to happen ;)
Partially true. Buttresses’ primary purpose is to help transfer the horizontal loads from the vault to the ground, whether they’re solid or flying. But flying buttresses take up less wall space and allow a lot more light to reach the wall (for a given level or reinforcement), thus allowing larger windows.
The FB’s on that building are probably entirely aesthetic. FB’s were developed before steel I-beams.
One of them is the Jimmy Hoffa buttress.
Yep, entirely cosmetic for the last century or two. As already mentioned, the buttresses are there to push back against the large spans of the vaulted ceilings. Steel beams and reinforced concrete accomplish that by enabling tension members, which aren’t possible with stacked stone, so you get a much more compact building.
There were some tension methods earlier on, like big steel rods on the truss members or through the exterior walls. However between the state of metallurgy, the exposure, and the scale of the buildings, it wasn’t practical (or safe) to depend on a series of giant low-grade steel rods to not rust out over the next several centuries. Also, it kinda spoils the look of the giant vaulted space.
Gee, I thought they might have been nacelles in launch position.
Dabbler could definitely arrange that. Don’t forget to include the thumping stereo system and the Steppenwolf disc, of course.
“I like to dream, yes, yes
Right between the sound machine
On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near
To the stars away from here”
Actually, until I looked at that just now, I had not realized how on-point that song was for humanity’s first FTL flight.
As long as she did not say ‘Holy shit!’ when she saw that xD
oh possibly “Holy me!” or “Me Dammit!”
Arianna will approve – it’s free publicity. Hell, Arianna may even have provided funding for it (possibly for a cut of the profits, perhaps…)
For Halloween, Sydney should do an homage to Sally Fields.
Umm, so what happened to it being Event Horizon Comics?
I suspect her co-owner realize that Halo’s face is more marketable than a cheesy sci-fi horror flik from the 90s. XD
It would require legal name change and recertification, though. Arianna would have had no problem greasing the skids for that.
Just have it be a DBA. Assuming Event Horizon wasn’t already a DBA for Syd & Joel’s LLC.
It does not bode well for this incarnation of the shop that the future does not include it.
Agreed, I loved the name. Most likely still the official name, but it’s trivial to add a legal DBA name, which is entirely appropriate if you’re going to pivot your public image even if your core business hasn’t changed.
That’s the exclusive members’ area at the back. The ‘old guard’ of regular customers from before all this ‘Halo’ business kicked off get complimentary life membership, anyone else is by invitation.
Looks like they scored a decommissioned church to move into.
Though I am with Sydney on the ‘………’kay’. Religious figure material she is not.
Also sorta surprised Arianna signed off on Sydney’s supposedly copyrighted superhero name being used with such theological connotations.
wouldn’t she need to give elgal eprmission for them to use her likeness?
Legal permission, derp.
It was quite likely a part of that big contract she signed way back when she first joined ARC-SWAT. ARCHON would need permission to use her likeness for all of Arianna’s merchandising schemes, which would necessarily include the right to “subcontract” out her name and likeness to the comic shop.
Why do so many people think a religion was created?
Over here in europe at least, churches are emptying so they get used as stores or doctor’s office
It’s a large space you can build floors in, in positions you want rather than be stuck with an existing floor plan. It’s a pretty good business plan.
Store being in a decommissioned church, not religious.
Putting a large image of Sydney up, not religious.
Doing it in stained glass, in a decommisioned church, hitting borderline religious.
Having her doing the archtypical Jesus ‘pose’ of having the right hand raised in benediction (though holding an orb) and with rays of light radiating from her namesake orb ‘halo’, ………’kay. Religious.
Yeah, this, basically. Any one of these things individually is like “Meh.” All three of them together and people start getting suspicious.
Church in my local town was converted into a very nice home. And it was a good sized church too, not some tiny chapel. Happens frequently in the States too.
(You can get anything you want at) Alice’s Restaurant…
…excepting Alice.
Clearly ironic usage, not iconic.
Not religious.
Please note, Tarne, absolutely none of this is directed at you personally:
— begin rant regarding religion and the objectifying of subjective butthurtedness
It’s religious if there’s a religion and it is deliberately intended to be a part of that religion. Period. End line.
Religion =/= medium (e.g. stained glass). Religion =/= style (e.g. symbolism/metaphor/iconography).
Religion == belief system, optionally worship (e.g. there are variations of Buddhism that don’t advocate worship of deities (seeing worship as part of the cycle of attachment), but rather emphasize emulating Buddha’s example).
Artistic depictions can be centered on religion for religious reasons (e.g. Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” or “Salvator Mundi”), centered on religion for “Cool Story, Bro”/fires the imagination reasons (e.g. Da Vinci’s “Bacchus” or “Leda and the Swan”) or non-religious/”It’s All About the Benjamins” reasons (e.g. Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” or “Lady with an Ermine”). By the same artist, in the same medium, in very similar styles, for totally different reasons.
The accurate statement about the comic store window (and similar examples) would therefore be “the symbolism of the stained glass window is reminiscent of the iconography of some Christian sects at some points in their history, as well as other uses of the same artistic medium.” But when “sacrilege” is accurately translated to “that evokes imagery I associate with a belief system I’m emotionally attached to in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable,” it loses some of its force, doesn’t it?
So, if the comic store is actively advocating worshiping Sydney (which they obviously won’t be . . . Joel would be possibly less inclined than any other person on the planet to put Sydney on a pedestal), then some monotheistic cults/sects would probably feel entitled to get upset by that and would be so entitled, but not (and here’s the point that’s often missed) entitled to do anything about it other than whine and moan impotently about their entirely subjective and self-created emotional distress, since it’s none of their business what anyone else chooses to practice as a religion, either seriously or as a joke (e.g. Flying Spaghetti Monster, Church of the Subgenius).
To quote Thomas Jefferson, in regards to the interaction of personal liberty and the law: “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
— end rant regarding religion and the objectifying of subjective butthurtedness
There is only one teensy tiny problem with your analysis.
If this went to court, because an existing religious entity claimed it transgressed on their imagery and style in a way that made it clear that it was intentionally a religion, AND the government in the form of Archon interfered in the slow process to make it happen faster THEN it is a government establishment that respects a religion…
Then it’s going to be a problem. Archon is part of the government.
If it’s a very temporary PRANK (say, the window is a big LCD billboard) then it’s a completely different thing.
A large, important location – check
Which is meant to stroke the hero’s ego – check
With a large, shatterable object – check
I think we are looking at the future site of another super brawl.
Yes, as someone else mentioned, this looks like a good place for a cleansing, which was previously noted to be at hand. It is, after all, the next one on the list to do, despite all the distractions from it since then, and having not really encountered anyone besides Math who resembles the would-be cleanser.
For whatever it’s worth, I’d probably gladly buy a sun-catcher of that stained glass image. It’s really cool looking!
Sun-catcher is when the sun shines through the window and it creates some sort of stunning visual effect inside the church, right? If so, then yeah, but it’d also be a mirror image.
A sun-catcher is a brightly colored transparent pendant that hangs from your curtain rod, and shines (reflects) light around the room as it moves. It can be a crystal, prism, or image.
They rented the old church maybe? I think ID Software did that.
Is it the building we see in the intro screen?
Seems like it might be the same building. Hard to be sure rereading the prologue.
Speaking of which, we have to be crowding running into the prologue story pretty closely at this point. At the end of Page 4 Sydney’s dialogue says “Let me back up a few months.” Well, a few months of main story time appear to have transpired by now. Maxima also refers to Syd as Corporal on that page, so she’s due for a promotion at any moment too.
She is only a couple of weeks into bootcamp, so corporal is a ways off
You’d be surprised what you can do with gels. I once saw a beautiful stained cathedral glass window border that was nothing but transparent paint on glass with opaque black paint for the “caning”.
And on googling, I see that I had seen two, because they were part of the same house.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Eddie+Wilcoxen%22+book&tbm=isch
https://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSi4vhpSJSVRIXdDOBT1jCFF1nX-v09-JKDvR6yAcCKTCJJD6LG
*kicks down the door* “LET’S TALK LICENSING FEES, MOTHERFUCKER!”
I think Arianna would have already handled that. Also I am pretty sure it will be more or less a normal all me a large comic/games store in side.. Maybe a bar and or arcade. The Joel most likly just rented/bought an abandon church for square footage and parking lot size.. As far as making that monstrosity if its normal stained glass yes no way they had time. But with enough money i can sure you could design and 3d print it in chunks in a week assuming you were willing to pay enough.
Or … maybe there already was a stained glass window there in the building and all joel had to do was replace a few details from baby jesus to look like Halo. It would also explain the religious overtone in the iconography.
And it would explain why the building was avaialble cheap in the first place. A stained glass window that size would bankrupt a small country.
Attempts to kick down the door. It doesn’t budge.
Falls backwards.
Ow. Ow. Lies on ground, swearing voluminously about elephant voogoos and church turds.
Odd angle shot, Joel finds her there, pulls the door open OUTWARD, of course.
Always glad to see a church in DFW area become useful, they are an eyesore.
FYI DFW has churches, mega-churches, christian broadcast stations (radio/Cable/Internet) and of course christian colleges. And they are not really popular for a variety of reasons.
That’s why there are so many, because they aren’t popular.
Kind of like that restaurant where nobody ever eats because it’s too crowded.
Heh. Thanks for that dose of reality.
I believe VultureTX is using a different definition of “popular”. Like, Trump is really popular but he’s also “not really popular”, right?
The megachurch I belong to here in Dallas is continually expanding into satellite sites in different local communities, as well as planting distant churches.
I’m sure that annoys people who have no idea what we’re about.
Megachurches are economic parasites with no other purpose. Multiple scientific studies confirm.
I won’t comment on their “popularity…”
1) Case in point, “Denied” is one such annoyed person, who apparently is so lacking in conviction as to be unable to use his/her/xer real name.
2) If such claims were true, then “Denied” could provide a scientific definition of that ludicrously unscientific term “economic parasite”, and a link to at least one such study. Should be easy, if the claim was truthful and scientific.
3) I happen to be aware what percentage of our tithes go to public works in the area – every year we discuss it while prayerfully considering the next year – so even were there such a study about some other church(es), it would not particularly be relevant to us.
A study about “average” or “typical” Muslim churches, for example, would tell you nothing about any particular one.
4) Here’s a link to several studies that DON’T say that. Not all of them are about megachurches, though. http://hartfordinstitute.org/megachurch/megachurches_research.html
5) Maybe “Denied” read something about a megachurch with vaccine skepticism and thought it was about economics?
He’s trolling you. Can’t blame him. You made it so obvious that you’re easy to troll.
As for what you’re about? I’d bet I have a better idea of what that is than you do. That’s kinda the central problem with organized religion in general. Loooots of self delusion and excuse making for the bad behavior of those around you.
Oh, and as to my real name? You google “JadedDragoon” and I promise you, any result you find is me. I’m the only JadedDragoon on the whole internet. How many “Dal”s are there in the world? Even if that’s your real name it’s not your full name. And even if you gave your full name… there would be a hundred more people with that name. So which of us is being more anonymous? Your self-righteous hypocrisy isn’t very christ-like. But it is quite typical for a christian.
I’m not trolling, just not willing to debate idiots like Dal. If people seriously can’t find the studies I mention then maybe I’ll take the time to gather the data.
ROFL. You can find me with a search for “dal splunk”. And I have no idea why my comments about Denied’s monicker invoked any self reference for you, JadedDragoon. I mean really, WTF.
Maybe ‘JadedDragoon’ forgot which account they were using to reply to you
Do notice I contradicted him in my response… Two posts above yours. Do you expect me to contradict myself? Is that your convienent view of my intellect? If so, that’s incredibly childish.
To address by point:
1.) And your real, full, given name is “Dal”? As giving a full, legal name is not required to post here, you’re creating a straw man requirement to engage in an ex post facto criticism (and ‘guilty’ of the same ‘offense,’ to the extent that’s relevant).
2.) Churches get automatic exemptions from property, income, sales, corporate, and capital gains taxes. Further, they are subject to almost none of the rigorous accounting non-religious non-profits must submit to in order to get tax-exempt status. They’re not, notably, even required to be non-profit. IRS code specifically requires a “high-ranking” IRS official as the minimum bar for someone to initiate an investigation, and then only on probable cause that the church is violating one of the few restrictions they actually incur (e.g. specifically advocating for/against particular candidates for office, as opposed to politicized issue advocacy, which is allowed). Not only do they not pay taxes, citizens can exempt part of their income from tax by donating it to a church they belong to and benefit from the services of, taking even more taxable funds out of reach of public use. In that sense, they could fairly (in my opinion) be called parasitic.
3.) This seems to fly in the face of your demand for scientific rigor (or does one side have less stringent requirements than the other?) as it is personal and anecdotal. Also of note: you don’t mention what the percentage (which you say you know) is, and under the law, your church wouldn’t have to report it to anyone nor allow anyone to review or vet its claim in regards to those “public works.” BTW, “public works” is usually used to denote works undertaken by the government for general public use — did you mean “public” in the sense of the church doing something that benefits the general public, as opposed to being useful mainly to the church’s members? The terminology seems to confuse the issue in this case.
4.) And the Hartford Seminary couldn’t possibly be biased at all in its aims or methodologies, of course.
5.) This one doesn’t really deserve to be dignified with a response.
As an aside, I will say that I don’t fully support an objective claim that churches have no purpose other than economic parasitism. They have religious goals (of note and worth subjectively to people who adhere to the same belief system, but nil value outside of that group), often have political goals (better or worse than mere parasitism, depending on whether one’s own goals mesh with those of the church), and sometimes have social goals (feeding the poor, proselytizing, etc.) of variable objective and subjective merit, depending on the person assigning merit to them.
I would agree with a qualified statement, such as: “For a person who is neither a member nor believer, a megachurch is an economic parasite, with no other subjective purpose.” I’d likely qualify that with “unless they engage in projects of general social good, such as soup kitchens, without proselytizing or requiring religious restrictions on who receives their largess, which doesn’t seem to be commonly the case.”
On the contrary, Woodrobin. Churches provide immense benefits to their communities. There’s always a few bad apples – but I can look at the data and see how important churches really are. Some towns simply wouldn’t exist without continued patronage of these churches.
Megachurches, on the other hand, concentrate wealth and rarely give back anything to the community. When they do it’s only for tax purposes or to give off a sense of goodwill. The amounts donated and efforts completed by megachurches are so paltry it makes Pablo Escobar look like a paragon of virtue.
I didn’t link the studies in question because I knew someone like Dal would pop out of the woodwork. If you actually look at his links the studies completed by Harvard are a load of opinion surveys. No actual economic data. The data also comes from Dallas, TX; home to some of the largest Megachurches in the world. I’d like to see any relevant conflict of interest information.
Anyone who wants to see the studies I mentioned can merely google “megachurch donations” “megachurch charity” or related terms. I can’t be bothered to link hard information just to have it countered by an opinion survey. Not worth my time.
You and I have a different perspective on the general utility of churches. I’m viewing them from an outside perspective as a polytheist, which is part of it. There are social networking and community binding benefits to socializing via a church . . . or a knitting circle . . . or weekly D&D games . . . or the neighborhood pub. The bit that chafes is the special privilege extended reflexively to just one type of social group.
(Well, as long as it’s dressed as a common iteration of same — try getting 501(c)(3) status for a Neo-Pagan or Rastafarian group, for instance, and the privilege will get a lot less reflexive really quickly, but a hate-group/lawsuit-machine named “Westboro Baptist Church” can skate through).
I don’t necessarily think that all churches are parasitic drains on their communities. I do think the proportion of amount of corruption to amount of power applies as much to churches as any other situation and, as Deus says, “Money is power.” Certainly, I wouldn’t equate an Albert Schweitzer with a Creflo Dollar or a Fred Phelps.
Some churches contribute benefits outside their own social circle (and the benefits to those in their social circle have merits as well). Some could be said to be a net negative. Many would be well in the middle ground of mainly being good for themselves (and nothing terribly wrong with that). But none of that really seems, in my own opinion, to merit giving them special exemption from so many rules and responsibilities of general applicability (paying taxes, not discriminating in hiring practices, etc.) in the way the United States has historically done.
As mentioned, most churches aren’t a parasitic drain. I specified churches for a reason. They can’t contribute because of their massive overhead. It’s commercialism by design.
I think the exemption is proper so long as the organizational structure stays below a set limit. Say, a maximum of 500 seats. Beyond that a church clearly has a financial incentive to expand at the expense of their religious duties.
I will agree that the way a religion is defined in the USC is somewhat flawed. However, I think the problem is not the legal definition but a lack of enforcement. For example, aiding and abetting or otherwise organizing a federal crime should disqualify a church for 501(c) status. That would disqualify both Westboro and Scientology. It would also disqualify the Catholic church (*coughmafiacough*).
But see here’s the problem: my proposed rule would NEVER be enforced. Regular 501(c)s are going around doling out money without any accountability. Never mind churches, these are full-on money laundering operations. When it was called out in 2013 – in the highly-politicized IRS audits of various political 501(c)(3)s (which aren’t supposed to be political, period) many politicians were raked over the coals.
Since then little has changed. I mean, the Clinton Foundation received a 130 million donation from the President of Kazakhstan but hid that donation on the Canadian tax books. Boo.
We can discuss what rules aren’t right until the crows come home. Until those rules start getting enforced… it does us jack all.
I specified ***MEGAchurches***. Figures the HTML code would eat my clarification.
FYI, Denied, – I specifically searched for “megachurch study parasite” which was your claim. No relevant hits.
So I asked for your definition. You replied with personal invective claiming I was “stupid”?
I’ve tried “megachurch donation study”, your current claim, but in two pages I find no relevant links to studies that jump out as claiming “economic parasitism”.
Care to try for something more specific, so we can have a reasonable discussion in good faith (heh)?
“Case in point, “Denied” is one such annoyed person”
Ad hom right off the bat. You don’t get to attack someone and then demand they produce information for your amusement. Not a damn word from you is in good faith.
1) Yes, and valid point. Published author, you can search for “Billy Steadman” for my comedy dragon westerns.
2) “Denied” specifically used that language, without definition, and claimed multiple studies, and there was no such study using that language in the first three pages returned by duckduckgo.
3) Against NO information and NO study, anecdotal information is completely valid as argument. However, there is no reason for anyone to take my word for it, and I did not include further details because, (A) I didn’t memorize them, and (B) obviously, there is very little point. For the most part, the anecdote was discussion leading to the final point, which should be intuitively obvious to anyone with any scientific training at all.
4) Those were various megachurch studies. They are what they are, most of them not relevant, as I stated.
5) I actually saw such a study, about megachurches and vaccinations, and thought the juxtaposition was ironic when compared to the original claim. So sue me.
By the way, I respect some of Denied’s other posts, and suspect we agree on much more than we disagree on.
Dal, you may need to see your religion from the perspective of outsiders.
Most “charitable” spending by religious people relates to support of their religion. The law allows them to treat as “charitable” what they pay for
– religious buildings, including mega-churches and little prayer halls
– pastors, priests and other clergy, and all their support staff
– religious education, including religious schools, seminaries and religious colleges
– missionizing and advertising to lure in new believers
– printing religious materials
All this religious expenditure is essentially “fire insurance” against their god’s wrath.
Even when religions do “good works”, I must allow them pray over me or bless me, before I get the free soup. The “gift” requires acceptance of their religious activities or participation in them, and is trade-marked with the religion’s symbols . In effect, it’s marketing the religious product, like any corporate charitable donation.
I’m Jewish, I have a sister-in-law who is a Born Again(tm) of the worst sort. She literally calls herself “Daddy G-d’s favorite child.” That level of narcissistic crap. She believes her personal relationship with Jay-zus provides a divine right to judge others and never, ever, ever be judged for anything, ever.
THAT BEING SAID… the majority of christians look at that kind of thing and wince. She’s the sort who makes them look bad. I’m speaking as an outsider, looking in on christianity. It’s the thing that’s responsible for the Ivy League universities, classical art and music (whose influences are still felt today. You like Rock and Roll? It was created by fusing African rhythm to European harmony), and many other accomplishments and charitable works.
And yeah, you “must allow them” to pray over you before you get the free soup. You also “must” thank them for giving you the free soup. It’s called “common courtesy.” They’re performing good works, and all they ask in return is that you tolerate the fact that the person doing something nice for you has beliefs that you personally think are silly and stupid (which says more about you than it does about them).
And it’s not even as if other religions don’t have their own share of hypocritical extremists. You want a good laugh, run a search engine on “Jewish Divorce Torture Plot.”
Thanks for your perspective ArchOne; I can appreciate the lack of dogmatic stricture people often reflexively apply to multifaceted issues.
I’m saddened by the commercialization of core facets of American culture. I fear that the multiculturalisms you mention will vanish from public view as raw financial might steadily encroaches upon idealism and moral value.
Yep. The Hindus and Muslims of India had similar (although unpublishable) opinions of Mother Theresa.
One-eyed – Christians seldom get to see their religion portrayed other than from the perspective of outsiders these days.
The Hollywood “minstrel show” version of Christians is where most Americans get their opinions…. that and whatever scandals happen at church number 351. The connection of religion to “wrath”, for example, is about a century out of date, plus or minus a few decades.
Most people don’t know that the word “sin” just means “error”.
Thinking that bad things that happen to you are punishment from God for failing to follow the Bible is like thinking that your engine burning up due to lack of oil changes is punishment from Toyota for not following the owner’s manual. Nope, it just statistically was going to happen if you don’t change the dang oil. Like it said in the manual.
Back when I was involved with church things, “public works” generally meant expenses not for the clergy.
That is, they included things like maintenance on the monstrosity of a pipe organ that was said church’s claim to fame. Most of the church members I talked to about that did not seem to have any comprehension on how that thing was completely antithetical to the teachings of Christ, as it was the number one reason non-christians invited to the church who declined to join that I talked to about why they didn’t trust the church gave. The church was supposed to be doing good things with all of their tithes, yet over 50% of them were going into that boondoggle. There was even an annual fund raiser explicitly for said beast, despite the fact that general funds were also used to pay for it, because general funds couldn’t cover it all.
This wasn’t a megachurch, mind you. As I understand it, megachurches generally don’t have any one thing that’s an over 50% of their donations costs, because they have so many ridiculous costs.
The benchmark for effective charity, by the way, is 85% or more of the funds raised going to the cause. This cause does not include overhead of any fundraising sites, such as churches. It doesn’t include paying for any paid fundraising events, or wages not specifically for hours spent on the cause.
The concept of a church puts charity into a murky area already, because exactly what is the cause is not very well defined, except in terms of fundraising. (The basic cause of any church is to recruit more people who donate to the church and claim to follow the tenants of said church’s religion.)
Basically, if a church wants to compete with a real charity for effectiveness, in the eyes of anyone but a church member, they enter the race with a stone ball chained to one leg. Namely, the church edifice itself, which the church needs to maintain. Most of the times I’ve seen a church manage to do it, it’s by using a shell game, wherein they have a separate charity for a specific cause. Even there, they cheat by using their church’s general funds to prop up the separate charity, so that it can have a lower overall overhead than it can manage on its own.
To do a real accounting, we’d need to add in all of the money donated from any source that was used to cover the charity’s overhead.
To be fair, I’ve not seen that sort of accounting given for any big charity that claimed an 85% or higher effectiveness. I’ve seen it for a few very small charities that pulled it off. Every one of them was dependent on one or more people being able to donate vast amounts of their time because of having somebody else supporting them, such as a husband working at a high-end job. It’s possible that standard is excessively high, and it really should be 70% or so. (The small charities I’m familiar with managed to all do over 70% effectiveness if you considered their donated time being valued at a reasonable wage.)
Obviously, the number for a bona fide religious organization is not going to approach the number for a pure charity. And, personally, I’d be in favor of limiting all tax-free charitable contributions to the amount that would be legal to transfer within a family. If you want to deduct the contribution,then only the first 10k (20k couple) would be free to the recipient, the remainder would be taxable. Same for churches and every other charitable organization, including universities, museums, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
I’m going to found a Meta Church that worships churches.
And somehow she’s wearing the exact same shirt depicted in the stained glass…
Almost as if the stained glass was designed from clothes Archon is merchandising for her.
Heh. Poor Sydney. She does NOT look impressed.
She looks unsure how to feel about it.
That’s why there are so many, because they aren’t popular.
Kind of like that restaurant where nobody ever eats because it’s too crowded.
Are you SURE that you didn’t actually travel into an alternate reality instead of the future?
I know it is not a secret lair but does it have a landing platform on the roof?
No landing platform, it’s a steeple…but maybe the large round window opens for her?
If it had a belfry with real bells at one time the bells would probably have been sold, but the belfry would still function as a tiny gazebo on the roof with a trapdoor into the building. They could replace the padlocked trapdoor with a larger hatch and put a card swipe lock on it.
Or just give Sydney a permanent parking space with her name on it.
A steeple is a tower with a sharply pointed top (as opposed to a ‘tower’ with a mostly flat top), which may or may not be present out of shot. If you’re referring to the roof shape, that’s a vault. Neither architectural feature offers much in the way of landing platforms, so your point stands. Although note that many towers and steeples are built to house bells, and therefore have a belfry with open or louvred windows that connects to the ringing chamber, and from there (usually) to the body of the church.
Well…I mean, if you want something to be forever remembered…a comic shop is KINDA awesome?
My first thought: The rent on that property is going to really eat into the profits.
Sydney & Joel will have to put all that excess floor space to good use. Theater in the back for the latest superhero movies, LASER tag on the top floor, LAN parties in the basement.
Well, the air-conditioning bill might eat the profits.
I take it you’ve not been in a church building of that type. While there may well be a mezzanine, or “balcony” upstairs, that whole volume is mostly one big room.
One big, TALL, room.*
Often, (I’d almost dare to say usually but I can’t swear my experience in these matters is sufficient), there is an attached building, often multi-story, which contains classrooms, offices, a kitchen and dining facilities, etc., but the part we can see would be the outside of the Sanctuary.
It could well have a basement, and that basement could well have a kitchen and dining space.
*Please, PLEASE, ask for assistance to fetch items on the top 10 shelves.
Yes, because nobody would ever remodel it to have more than one floor. And insulation.
It would be cheaper to build a new building than to properly insulate a building like this one.
Which is why there are so many available. Churches have migrated to buildings that look more utilitarian.
Actually, some storm window overlays and architectural insulating foam wouldn’t be all that expensive. Sorta ruins the look of bare stone in older churches (this one looks like modern concrete), but you can put an antiqued facade up over the insulating layers if desired.
Also it’s way faster to do a superficial renovation like that than it is to plan, permit, and build something new, and I suspect the opportunity cost of getting established as the world’s premier Halo/Archon shop demanded a speedy turnaround.
Just to note explicitly, but you’d need to do the insulating foam on at least one side of basically all of the stone, because the R value of 12 inch thick stone is, IIRC, somewhere around 1.
That said, yes, adding all of the insulating foam needed to insulate the walls and put in proper modern windows (could possibly be done at the same time as putting in all of that Halo glass, especially if they wanted to put in any holographic effects) should be a lot cheaper than building something new. Permits are still needed, but it’s probably like 2-3 permits, rather than more permits than I would know how to shake sticks at, let alone more than I have the strength to shake sticks at.
It could very well look like modern concrete on the outside because they chose to put the insulating foam and facade on the outside. IMHO, that’s a good choice, because it means you don’t hurt your incredibly valuable interior square footage. It unfortunately would come at the cost of needing to also facade the flying buttresses, but you would at least not need to insulate them.
It’s not the presumed lack of insulation that is at issue. It’s the volume of air which must be heated or cooled.
Although, all that glass will be a pain to insulate, too.
What’s useful in a church, or other auditorium-like space, is not so useful in a shop, and remains a liability.
And, yeah, they COULD spend a lot of money to build a floor inside the sanctuary, but they could also just find a building that didn’t require extra construction to suit their needs of additional floor-space above the existing floor space.
Empty parking lot on new comics day. Bad sign.
Unless it’s 7 AM
It could be just that part of the parking lot is cordoned off, because the paint is still drying.
My money is on DaveB still not liking to draw cars.
It’s “early”, but not THAT early. Probably 8:00 or so.
I’m bad at drawing cars, and I’m really bad at drawing a lot of cars.
If we operate on the assumption that Dallas is Archon’s base of operations then there is likely no basement in a building like that. You rarely find basements in houses in most parts of Texas because bedrock is only a foot or two bellow the surface, and digging a basement becomes hugely expensive when you have to go through bedrock. There are some older buildings that have them, but that looks like a megachurch building meaning it was probably built to look big and impressive while being fairly cheap as to not cut into profits.
As for the Halo cosplay contest idea, Dave did that joke back in 2014
https://www.deviantart.com/davebarrack/art/Halo-Lookalike-Contest-431780929
Also, (maybe the primary reason) is that most of Texas has minimal very cold weather, so there is no need to dig 6 feet down to get below the frost line to build a stable foundation.
Now we know why her shop needed stairs in the front room; https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-4/
Also, the front door of “now” store is double doors, “then” store is a single door.
People are gawking at the obvious and forgetting the important stuff.
Sydney and Deus have already got a tense relationship, with her calling his collection “replicas” and him implying that his collection is not replicas….
And now, this unknown, erratic nobody with no aspirations beyond running a comic shop has a church and a cult or worshippers and huge Jesus-imagery paralels…while the guy with ACTUAL ambitions for Godhood ONLY has a country….
You are aware, this means war, right?
Insofar as that might ruffle Deus’ feathers, he might also look pitiably upon the “uninitiated.” As only a god could.
Seeing Syd get on board with Deus’ own mindset might instead make him feel like he’s gained an ally.
I got the feeling that Deus and Sydney actually kinda had fun meeting and playing off each other, I don’t think he was at all offended by her assumption that his display case contained replicas. Especially given that some of those replicas were from works of fiction.
The Sydney stained glass portrait is a really great piece of art and deserves its own t-shirt. Or actual stained glass recreation. Or both!
Yes. I NEED this as a t-shirt. NEED!!!!
Uhm… am I the only doomsayer here?
I don’t think this imagery is in honor of Sidney but to commerate her. People think she’s dead. And when it turns out she’s still alive, I don’t think Joel will be too happy. I mean, for his bussiness, obviously.
Because how do you think the people will react when they find out? Nothing worse than comic geeks who feel ripped off (I’m looking at you people, metaphorically, I mean, not actually).
No, it will undoubtedly increase business.
After all, SHE IS ARISEN!
And on the 57th day Sydney descended from the Heavens in a chariot the size of which the world had never seen.
Angels surrounded her and Sydney declared that it was all Good.
Wasn’t there something about the fiery furnace, or the fiery furry, or the fiery privy or something?
…
And then did the Mighty Halo’s Loyal Disciple raise her hand and Unleash Plasmoriffic Destruction on the Evil Fel
And the Evil Fel Did Crash and Burn like the Shit-Heads they were,
And then The Mighty Halo did extinguish the Fires caused by the Destruction of the Evil Fel
And On the Holy Wednesday Did She Descend into The Sacred Emporium
And She did Look Out Over the Aisles and The Cash Register and She Saw That it was Good
….
In a previous comic, Ariana answered a press question about Halo stating she had “been sequestered while undergoing an intensive training regimen” and was then interrupted by Halo arriving in a spaceship. Pretty sure that got intense press coverage and led the news that night. So while there may have been rumors that Halo was dead, the official line has always been she was just not available for the press.
So, let me be sure I have this right…. it might be upsetting if she had ‘god rays’ coming out of her head, but because, instead, they’re coming out of her balls, it’s okay. Right?
Just, you know, bein’ sure.
I, for one, would not want my balls to glow with radiant light.
Just want to be clear on that.
But what if you had a few bowls of grakz?
It would make going to the bathroom in the middle of the night a lot easier.
Or at least, coming back from the bathroom. Eventually.
deanatay, that brings up a good point. While not scientifically probable, some of us have had jobs where for all practical purposes. Yes, “your balls are glowing and so is the rest of you” was entirely plausible. Mind, if that were to occur my life span would have had a very short half life. Biohazard signs don’t scare me. International Trefoils denoting radiological don’t scare me. Having to spend my last days wearing the combined “Bio/Rad” trefoil. That still perturbs.
Would this count as sacred ground? Is this not going to cause dabbler problems?
She’s probably not that kind of a demon.
anyone else thinking “She shall be swearing unholy vengeance upon the unbelievers” and we all know how she swears that puts sailors and any armed forces of governments swearing to shame…
so much can be added to the holy book of halo with them using a decommissioned church as a comic shop
anyone else think that there a chapter in the book of halo that “she shall bring unholy vengeance to the unbelievers” with her swearing it be rather fun to watch since we know Sydney can out swear any armed forces veteran and active duty soldier
gah double post sorry david it wasn’t showing my post till retyped it out delete the second post if you can and this one sorry again
*Establishing shot* – Interior of church recently converted into comic book shop. Staff and male co-owner are unboxing latest shipment of merch for New Comic Book Day
– There is a somewhat loud kicking noise at the front door. It fails to move. All the people inside the building look up and towards the door as a large babble of horrendous swearing is heard from outside. The door is then unlatched and slooooooly pushed open. The voice comes again from outside, clearer and louder.
“Oh Joooooooo- ellllll….”
– The voice is full of sweetness and layered with many, many shades of menace.
*End Scene*
Next page:
Joel: “Here’s our sales figures since we relocated.”
Sydney: “Woo hoo! Imma buy a horse!”
Joel: (shows page 2)
Sydney: “And an infinity pool!”
inside there are 2 choirs. one chanting the “halo” theme, the other older group chanting the ace ventura “alrighty then”.
I see more of the “O Fortuna” than a “Halo Theme”. I think Syd would probably go for the metal version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N10G4Si_TXU
even though the original is practically metal as it stands.
I have to agree with you. Mind when I want to blow metal heads minds, I just direct them to some original Sousa recordings and suggest they get a proper sound system. Not saying he was heavy metal before it was cool, but…you almost get heavy metal poisoning listening. ;)
p.s. why are we on so many of the same comics…creeping myself out.
The “Wat” on Sydney’s face shows she is 2 steps from exploding.
I will say I was expecting a comic of her speed blitzing through the Text messages, not arriving at the Church the shop seems to have taken over.
I am also now curious as to how far out from the D&D Session that opened the comic we are at this point.