Grrl Power #786 – Temptress of fate
Sydney trying to ‘sploit her genre knowledge has every chance of backfiring. That or she didn’t call out the right thing. Maybe “Smash cut to me stumbling out of an exploded massage parlor!” or “…an exploded chicken nugget factory!” or “…an exploded warehouse full of open topped vats of chemicals where someone definitely fell in and became a supervillain!”
Honestly, anyone attacking wherever these ladies winds up would be in for a hell of a surprise, suddenly facing a mix of Arc-SWAT, Arc-LIGHT, and Semper Vigilatis. Also Olivia. Not sure how her Zumba classes would help, but you know they would somehow be the key to victory.
Evidently, a side effect of lycanthropy for some people is a bit of a step up in the cup size department. I seem to have accidentally drawn Kat with a bit extra up top. (She’s the straw blonde in the green top for those of you who don’t recall the 5 pages she appeared in at the Twilight Council meeting. She’s a were-hare.) Not sure if that’s going to be canon. The new big boobs thing, not the were-hare thing. That’s locked in. But who knows, maybe she borrowed a magic bra from Decolette.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
Padded Push-up bra? Because she’s going out and wants to flaunt it? *shrug*
nah. that makes too much sense.
Just a “cup-up” spell applied by the apprentice witch with the cursed item there.
Elsp creates tangible objects, not spells
Sometimes, DaveB adds things that do make sense, to throw people off :D
Elsbeth is chained to a book which creates tangible objects. She is also apprentice to Master Gault (the high mage on The Twilight Council who got drained by the SWAT golem booby trap.) Having a cursed book doesn’t preclude competence in the art to which she is apprenticed.
The girl can use guns and magic, she isn’t restricted to choosing guns or magic.
Plus, Elsbeth has pink fuzzy handcuffs and Pixel likes to be spanked, so who knows how the evening will end…
Was just pointing out, we have only seen her produce tangible objects like that machine gun that looks like it has testicles, not intangible spells like a bustificationing-illusion
But we did hear Master Gault warning her not to attack Sciona’s blood golems directly with magic right before she pulled out the automatic shotgun instead.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-480-no-relation-to-captain-caveman/
That may have been a generic warning, and that he forgot what her ‘speciality’ was
We still have only seen her pull physical items out of her book, not ‘spells’ as such
Could she produce a push-up wonder-bra? Most likely
Could she conjure a spell to produce the same effect? Nothing we have seen of her indicates that is possible
She is his Apprentice. He’s a council high mage.
If she weren’t learning magic someone who was learning magic would be his apprentice.
Elspeth just happens to have a cursed book in addition to her studies.
Yes, she is his apprentice, she is learning magic, that doesn’t mean she is learning the same magic as his other apprentices
Sydney is a recruit, does that mean she is going to be doing the same thing as, say, Vahriah or the spider colony in the Vance-suit?
So, as far as I understand, the book she pulls stuff out of is just a storage device, there’s no magic or training required to use it, she isn’t casting creation spells, she’s just withdrawing stuff she put in there earlier. That makes me agree with Doctor Phogg that she must have other magic going on to be an apprentice.
Which woman? They all look pretty…uplifted.
Kat, the were-bun, short blonde hair, talking to Pixelicious
Uplifted women is a natural side effect of power. As we all know, superhero/superheroine power resides in the adipose (fatty) tissue. Men push their powers harder, burning off the fat cells and having lean, muscular frames as a result. Women tend to increase their powers over time, resulting in correspondingly large … rounded areas.
Bah. Humbug. It’s obviously an effect of The Veil.
With the exception of Sydney, Pixil, and Krona. And Pixil is plenty ‘uplifted’ in her were-jaguar form, even if it wasn’t very apparent in the prior comic.
Well, there’s also the anticipation of having a fun night out & about the town. That tends to raise a person’s spirits & for women to prepare “looking their best.”
Yep. Syd’s busted up at some point in, or she’s standing straighter. (Nothing wrong with either. Just random noticing now).
Krona is a lot of fun. I’m hoping they’re sticking as good friends. I don’t really want the dating bit–buut that has more to do with me not liking that guy whose name I forget atm.
I mean I wonder if Krona could have actually created a smash cut with Sydney?
Leon. I think he would be good for Sydney (or Sydney/Krona), as he is a fellow nerd. They would get each other and thereby have a much greater chance for a happy life, than having to settle for a regular muggle. Or even a non-nerd super.
Plus he is in the know about more than what the PR department puts out. On the other hand, coworker with access to all her files and accounts.
Considering the PR department and her not having a secret identity, Im sure her guild mates (if they watch the news at all) know she isn’t dead.
Do you know the real names of everyone you hang out with online? You don’t give out personal information online especially if you are female. Too many stalkers. Most likely they have no clue Sydney is a celebrity. Maybe someone you play online with is famous and you will never know.
People wouldn’t have to know Sydney’s name to figure out she was Halo.
Sydney dragging about part ownership of Event horizon comics back before the bank heist, or Sydney cursing on voice chat in game is enough for an astute person to identify her.
Especially if television talking heads played the bank interview and the Archon interview over and over after Sydney was “sequestered for training.”
Some of her guildies will be like “Welcome back, Mighty Halo”.
Bragging
Well, not so much “bragging” as “slipping free advertising past Arianna,” which is why she got yelled at.
Not sure if someone who didn’t already know Sydney would be able to identify her online by hearing her 7th dan black belt cursing over voice chat. Has she done that on camera, and had it aired? I’d think it might short out the microphone, never mind the censors catching it. :-)
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver could air the cursing (it’s on HBO, after all), but I don’t think network or cable news, or even the Daily Show, could air what she was actually saying, could they?
No, bragging before the bank robbery happened. Event horizon had been open long enough before the bank robbery for their initial capitalization to be running out. A year and a half or maybe two years during which time Sydney was gaming and trying to drum up business and swearing up a storm. By the time Arianna meets Sydney there are a lot of people who could identify her from the interview after the bank robbery. That’s the point people are making.
The genitals had been revealed.
You forget that Sydney was unaware that the shop was in financial difficulty, until Leon explained it to her. It was only after that I witnessed her first attempt at drumming up publicity. Which can be corroborated by Sydney’s dialogue in the final panel.
Evidently Joel provided the business acumen side of the partnership, whilst Sydney provided the necessary nerd knowledge for stocking and interacting with customers. As regards bragging to guildies, unless she was in a phenominally big guild it is unlikely that she would have many in her immediate area.
So Sydney would have had to offset the loss of privacy and anonymity versus a small chance to gain a bit of business. It would have been far more logical, had she been interested in the latter, to only mention the shop to anyone who she knew to live in or near her city. And even then there was no need to mention she co-owned it. That would give her the fun of the reveal should they actually turn up in person.
Why do I conclude that, rather than Sydney just doing her usual day to day bragging? Because there is a cost to loosing online anonymity. And we have seen that Sydney is very capable of keeping quiet about important things, if she decides that. Nobody, not friends nor family, was told about her super powers. Which would be far far more tempting to brag about!
Not to mention that most of us choose to do online gaming to get away from the daily grind of work. I do not see that Sydney would be any different. Given that she would be unlikely to get any new customers, but would be likely to be bombarded with requests for freebees, would she want to risk friendships (or profit margins)?
The business didn’t have to be in trouble for Sydney to be bragging to her gaming buddies that she is a co-owner of a comic store
No one is talking about her mentioning her extra set of balls
I’m an author IRL, and I don’t always mention in WoW that I am one…but I do mention it occasionally if I think the other person would be interested in the books I write, because that’s a business PR thing for me. I wrote it, I have to schlep around doing all the advertising. (Before anyone tries to slam me for being self-pubbed, I’m published through Ace/Roc and Berkley, both of which are part of Penguin Random House, the biggest publishing conglomerate in the world. I have 26 books out, and I STILL have to do my own PR work.)
Sydney, on the other hand, isn’t quite as personally invested in her merchandise. She didn’t make it, and she doesn’t *have* to do nearly as much PR, because over half of what the store stocks would already be familiar to most comic book fans…and yes, even before the MCU stuff, nearly half of it would be vaguely familiar to the casual geek/nerd–the 80s & 90s had plenty of cartoon shows based on comic books, X-Men, G.I.Joe, The Adventures of Batman, Justice League, etc, etc, etc, nevermind the 2000s.
She may have, in fact, been relying upon that kind of vague instant recognition to draw in customer sales, and thus never bothered to TRY to advertise heavily. (Alas, it never works so easily, not even these days with social media viral fame possibly maybe someday on their side.)
I do think she might’ve mentioned the store to anyone within reasonable traveling distance of it (a hundred miles? hey, nerds can go way outta our way for the good stuff!), but probably not to most folks. Not unless she and Joel started investing in online comics delivery options…which most people don’t even try to do.
First off, nothing wrong with being self-published, half the ‘musicians’ are doing it themselves in their bedroom closet nowadays, and being self-published means you don’t have to deal with pretentious editors who want the next big movie-based-on-book deal
Wasn’t meaning she would be telling it to everyone, just probably a few in her guilds and gaming groups, the ones she has gotten to know a little more than just a random name who only shows up for the Boss Fights (and hoping for the best loot while doing the least effort)
I think “I went missing in action in a military thing” KINDA gives her some credit. Also? She is directly responsible for alien contact going official.
Also: She’s forgetting brick jokes. Which will be hilarious in a month or two…Or a year or two…
Why would they associate their missing guild member with Halo/Sydney? I’m sure Sydney came up with very clever-in-a-nerdy-way names for her characters.
Yup. Sydney’s online gaming predates her signing up at Archon and it would have been very unusual for her to play under her real name. So she would only be known by some pseudonym, which nobody would realise was Halo (or Sydney) unless she happened to mention it. Which (partly because she has had very very little time for online playing anyhow) seems most unlikely.
Unless she had some key online confidant or virtual bestie, who she chose to confide in. But, even if she did, I think Sydney would have been discerning in only trusting someone who she knew to be discreet. Therefore, whilst it is possible that somebody online may know, I think it most unlikely that her guild as a whole does.
It would not be unusual for Sydney to brag about her comic book store ownership, or to get her guild members to buy through her if the store lucked into some sweet swag.
One wonders if Sydney were ever fired by her therapist?
Many online games include voice chat, and Sydney has… A distinctive manner of speech. Combine with potential occasional oversharing (where she works, that she’s short/blonde/wears glasses, etc) and it is quite possible that a number of her guildies identified her the second the news report including her bleeped to kingdom come came out.
Yes, her cursing would be quite unique enough that at least a couple of her guildies would be able to piece the clues together.
1) She disappeared soon after the Bank robbery and that video went viral.
2) The Cursing that would make Gorge Washington proud.
3) She has been to conventions and dabbled in Cosplay. Cons are a great place to meet-up IRL. With the large city they live in, odds are decent that she has met at least 2 or 3 of her guildies.
I bet that they are more annoyed (and maybe a bit proud, but will never admit that) that she abandoned them to become a real superhero. They want to brag about raiding with The Mighty Halo!
I don’t know where you live. Or maybe you have been blessed with very polite family, friends and workmates. Where I live, cursing is a part of normal conversation, by males and females. Indeed, it is so prevalent that no one notices low-level cursing anymore.
To us, Sydney just talks normally. We find it strange that people keep picking up on her language.
Is this some localised thing in part of the USA?
No. Different social groups have different norms for what are expletives. You just happen to be surrounded by people who consider the words you use that others don’t normal. I doubt many people use the word “octothorpe”, but my peer group does. Most people would call it a “Hashtag” or “Pound Sign”.
I think that’s a dfferent issue, although a genuine one.
I’m talking about words like f@@@ and sh&& which I have to write weirdly because someone in USA will lose his/her mind. Oooh, the horror of seeing them written in full …
They keep treating Sydney as unusually bad-mouthed, when she is talking casually, as people do with friends.
Your own point is valid of course. When I play word games online, they refuse to accept normal English words like “ass” (donkey) and “cock” (male bird), because some Beavis or Butthead in USA will say “Hur hur. He said ass.” Did you know the US chicken popularised the rare word “rooster” to avoid idiocy like this?
There is a real issue with the meaning of words. An Irishman goes into his hotel in the US, with his daughter aged twelve. He says to the lady at reception, “My daughter and I had a lot of crack today. Now, I wonder have you got a rubber we can use?” He is surprised when the Feds break the door down.
Obviously, crack just means great fun, while a rubber is used to erase pencil lines. What did you think he meant?
Sydney’s swearing is creatively inspired, and never contains the seven boring swear words. There is probably no one else on the planet who swears even remotely like her.
Zack Tilly
If you (One-eyed Mike) consider what she is saying when she launches into a swearalanche as ‘talking casually’, then there is something seriously fucking wrong with the group you hang out with
/\ US chicken industry
Finally, someone fills in the details that were floating around in my head without an anchor to ground them. I kept reading other people saying they wouldn’t know who she was but it didn’t feel right and I couldn’t figure out why. This is all why, plus Gilhelmi’s comment about the Cosplay conventions being meetup times.
Having been in a guild alliance with semi-famous (local fame, not national) people this totally makes sense. He and his son both consulted for automotive TV shows at times, just as friends, not paid positions, but they were sometimes mentioned as “I spoke with an expert I know about this and….” Or one time one of the Shark Tank guys called up saying, “Hey, my friend said you are the one to talk to about….” That’s the closest they got to national fame, fame in their industry, not as a household name. And they were really great on WoW back in the day (I was never on their level of play).
That memory made me sad now. RIP Granpa Child. From what I saw, the Child’s Play guild never recovered from his well-deserved eternal rest, and many a machine shop/garage will miss his teaching and advice.
The counter-arguments about Sydney’s cursing are good. But, as someone pointed out, the media was doing a lot of bleeping even in the live broadcast. Anyone not catching that would find a heck of a lot more censorship in US media. Whilst non-Americans would have more difficulty placing her and may also be subject to similar censorship.
My presumption was flavoured by my own online gaming experience. Where I played with someone who was a giant in the music industry. However I was the only one ever given any hints, and then only inadvertently. I know this because when I warned them that they had given a bit too much personal information, I was told “don’t worry, I am far more careful around everyone else, you are the only one I trust online enough to relax around”.
Which they were right to do so. Even though I could have simply googled a couple of the slips to find out who they were, I respected their privacy and never did so. So even I do not know who they were (albeit that the slips were of sufficient magnitude to know just how prominent they had to be).
Considering Sydney’s list of worries should her possession of (possession by?) the amaze-balls should be discovered included “government vivisectionists,” I’d definitely agree that she was probably pretty careful about “unveiling the genitals,” as Cora would say.
She was careful about revealing the orbs.
Not about advertising Event Horizon comics or about cursing.
She revelled in those two things.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-156-guerrilla-plug/
So by the time of this conference there would have been a fair number of people who connected a person who cursed in a unique way with the Event Horizon shop owners. Those who had met her knew it was a little blonde woman with odd hair.
When she showed up on television for this conference then they would have been able to connect the woman they knew with the Might Halo.
I really like the art on this one.
Haven’t identified everyone, but I think I see a vampire & Boston girl.
Yup. Plus: Pixel, Krona, Olivia and Kat (the were bunny, wearing green and mysteriously larger breasted). The only one I am not sure about (discounting the pair of breasts at the edge of the panel) is the silvery haired one in the red dress, in the middle. I would have guessed a Harem (given that the artwork has made faces a bit harder to pin down) but she clearly has no freckles. So I am probably forgetting someone in my post 12.5 hour shift/3 hour commute bleary mind.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-480-no-relation-to-captain-caveman/
Red dress is Elsbeth.
That’s Elsbeth. The one with the magic conjuring book chained to her.
I’m wondering about the untagged boobs myself, but I’m guessing that’s Harem. She was going to be coming along, after all.
Ahh, thanks both. She came flooding back with those prompts. Partial brain death from silly work hours overcome.
Hmm… I hadn’t thought about it, but couldn’t Sydney ‘protect’ the night club by putting her shield around the whold thing?
Wouldn’t help if they’re already inside.
Also wouldn’t help if the explosion came from inside the nightclub, which seems more likely…
Also consider oxygen consumption, and patrons trying to get in and go out at various minuts and hours throughout the night
Sydney does have her Green Ball to replenish the oxygen, and she doesn’t have to hold it all the time
Plus, Dervish meant if they came under attack
I believe the airb is still classified – at least, Max asked her to keep it quiet, and I don’t recall it being discussed again or Halo ferrying a lot of people in public since.
Thought it was the Tru Site ball she had to keep classified, why would knowing she can produce breathable air be a secret? o_O
The worst that would happen is she gets flooded by requests to clean up smog-cities
There are three (two and a half) orbs that are secret. The yellow comm ball’s truesight is secret, it’s comm ability is confidential; not actually secret, but don’t talk about it anyway. The “airb” and unknown orbs are secret because they are known unknowns. The reason Max recommended that the “airb” stays secret is that it doesn’t only make air. It also creates a light force field that keeps the produced air near Sidney. I say light, but it’s strong enough to hold several tonnes of water away from her and selective enough to allow Max to go though it without problems. This forcefield re-iterates the question as to why this function wouldn’t have been folded into the force-field orb; an obvious answer is that it fits with the primary purpose of the “airb” better … there are some scary possibilities when you scale up something that makes air out of nothing.
Finally got around to checking that linked page, had forgotten Maxi telling her to keep it on hush-hush, which is not the same as it being classified
We don’t know that it can create a ‘light force field’ around Sydney, we only saw it in that one panel, and Maxi was basically already inside it when it formed, she didn’t enter it after it formed
The next time we saw Sydney ‘blow bubbles’ was when she pranked Blondini from the bottom of the pool and the air bubble went straight up her
Um, look at 541 again, Max is poking at the edge of the “bubble” with her finger and more importantly her feet have the same graphic around them and so are apparently outside the bubble. Sid is holding the airb and the flight ball, she just released the shield. They look to be about 2-3 metres below the surface in the stable bubble just over 2 metres in diameter — that should be around 7 tonnes of water above them trying to push into the bubble… that’s a pretty strong bubble.
The bubble has literally formed, and what you said doesn’t contradict me
Sydney was not holding the Florb until after AirB went into her hand (she dropped Florb in page 540)
Figured Maxi was telling her to surface, not poking the bubble, which would be a really stupid thing to do
Aaah, when under water (540) Sidney meant to release the fly orb but accidentally released force-field, the air pressure inside was equalised with the water pressure (about +25% vs surface) then the big bubble broke up almost instantly, (as it would — cube-square law) more than fast enough to knock her facemask off. After a few moments of Sidney professionally going through the standard procedure to recover her mask the green orb recognises it’s cue and jumps to her hand, where it slowly (see also Dave’s comment below the image) creates a stable bubble of air around her. Dave does say that the bubble is supposed to “engulf” both of them but it’s obviously more interested in Sidney as Max’s feet are outside. At some point while it’s forming Sidney re-hands the fly orb (Force-field is at the end of the “Well…” speech bubble’s pointer in the halo) presumably to stay underwater as the bubble forms. Once the bubble has mostly formed Max starts experimenting, removing her mask and probing the boundary layer.
So the bubble hasn’t “just formed”, it’s actually been magically stable for at least a few seconds. The orbs are officially science, so this is called a force field not a spell.
I do love how Dave gets all these sort of details in the image and does it consistently!
‘A few seconds’ is ‘just formed’
A slightly uptight moment in the first panel, judging by their postures.
– See the number of crossed arms. Most have adopted this very defensive stance.
– Each is talking one-on-one, and they are not chatting in groups.
– They are directly eyeballing the person in front of them, which sometimes happens from fear. Or because they don’t want to look someone else in the eye
Clearly something weird happened just before this moment – someone said something really true and really bitchy before Sydney and Olivia walked in. We need to know what it was…
I think they’re just getting restless waiting for everyone to arrive.
Also, I like how … what’s-her-name with the magic book is handling it as a fashion thing, packing it in the backpack and using the chain as a belt.
Most of them would be unfamiliar with the others
People tend to look the person they are talking to directly in the eyes as a sign of respect, that they are paying attention to them, not out of fear
It’s possible the only people who knew each other before are Kat and Pixelicious, and even if not, they have something in common
That’s sort of my default pose a lot of the time. As weirdly complicated it is getting the roll of the shoulder right, and the length of the arms as they tuck over each other, it’s sometimes easier to draw that than a casual stance. I should mix it up more though.
Inexplicably I sometimes get Facebook ads for those ball jointed mini-manikins
that are supposed to aid comic book illustrators.
Would those help you with poses?
I have one. It doesn’t help really. Partially because I start in with the detail of the drawing way before I have the structure laid out. In any case, something poseable doesn’t really help with “natural” poses because it doesn’t have the same weights and tensions that a meat body does. If I’m really stuck I can just dip into my reference folder or hit google for ideas.
As someone who works with puppets (as a hobby) I can attest they cannot sit naturally under their own weight; they will either be “floaty” or center of gravity balanced or -tripod- stance if you can stiffen the knee joints and force to stand (even a support beam still comes across as floaty). I never got how those ads worked other than as a basic art tool; but its no different than the grid thing or any other art book frame reference, just physical and more expensive. I’d buy those models to make little modified puppets or figures but not really as a reference any better than say an action figure with high articulation.
However animation styles I hear can work to look into like squash and stretch which revolutionized the animation industry to give characters a sense of weight in their environment. Not sure on how well it works with realistic looking characters though, may have to look into Manga artist techniques.
I interpreted those poses as “feeling a bit chilly (but not yet nipply chilly)” myself.
Having read Three Square Meals gives me certain expectations about this night out with the ladies.
Lets hope it is the magic bra option. The cast already has a wealth of top-heavy members. Without her the only exceptions are the trio of small characters (Sydney herself, Chrona and Pixel’s human form). Giving a large cluster (of the larger cup sizes and the tall super physiques) and a small cluster of small A-team members.
It would be nice to retain that bit of variety previously presented.
Yes, not everyone (male or female) thinks big boobs are best. Indeed, I am advised this applies especially the poor girls who have to lug big ones around.
I am in the smaller size preferance camp myself. Which is perfect for 3 of my fav characters in this series :)
You and Yorp are both forgetting Peggy, who was the one who exclaimed to Sydney that they were both in the “A team.”
No shade on Pixil, but she has the most common superpower in her were form. Only Sydney, Krona, and Peggy are gals in this comic who aren’t sporting DDs at the least.
We can assume that Krona doesn’t want huge tits, since she has a reality shifting power set and can probably alter her own body at will. Who knows, maybe in her original form she got tired of guys talking to her tits all throughout a dinner date… There’s been enough speculation about her altering her eyes that this isn’t completely out of the blue sky.
True, in all regards. I guess, as a non-super/supernatural she slipped my mind.
Let us hope that she does not pay Decolette a visit! Although I have every confidence that Peggy would not feel the need for any confidence enhancing aids. She would be entirely successful in any endeavour, romantic or otherwise. As shown by her being able to defeat a formidable super without breaking a sweat!
I like big butts and I can not lie.
My sister actually had breast reduction surgery in her late 30’s. Those mammoth mammaries are hard on a gal’s back.
I worked with a woman circa 2000 who had absolutely huge breasts on a fairly small frame. She was a mature woman in her ~40s, fairly short and while curvy she was not a large woman by any stretch of the imagination.
I learned from a colleague who worked more closely with her than I did that she had undergone a breast reduction. Which was fairly amazing news, since imagining what she looked like before that reduction frankly boggled the mind. On the same team was the fairly typical California blond who had obvious breast enhancements…
I understand that Ariel Winter, actress on Modern Family, has undergone a breast reduction. And also comedian Janeane Garofalo, who didn’t want audiences at her stand up shows to just be fixated on her large breasts.
As a man my tastes run towards smaller breasts. But since personality and intellect are far more important to me than some physical characteristic I have had my fair share of partners with large breasts. From these women I have learned about the challenges, both social (“He talked to my tits the entire evening”) and physical (back aches, the need for really good bras in order to be able to exercise without a lot of issues that men and smaller breasted women simply do not have to deal with) and etc. I am not a fan of cosmetic surgery, and I think that the fact that so many women feel that they need to undergo elective breast enhancement surgery is a sad statement on our entire culture. The women who choose to have breast reduction have my sympathy and my respect. It cannot be easy to have to undergo a surgery just to obtain a modicum of mobility.
Why does it have to a magic bra? Plenty of ‘mundane’ bras have the same effect
Similar, but not to the same extent. There are limits to what pushing, squeezing and padding can achieve. To replicate the results, without magic, would require silicon implants. Which would be an extreme (and in my opinion unnecessary) option and would permanently alter the character.
Whereas magic bras are actually available and used in this setting and make a simple solution to a drawing error. One which I hope Kat decides not to replicate. If nothing else wonder bras, or their magical counterparts, only work whilst worn. Sooner or later the deception will be uncovered. So the initial confidence and ego boost will be rather offset by worry about the later situation and whether it may adversely affect the relationship or any consummation of it.
Which, for shallow guys who are only interested in big boobs, it may well, so those fears are not unfounded. Those guys may not like being deceived nor finding out that their romantic interest does not match their expectations.
Of course, on the other paw, everything may work out fine. We have already had one commentator say that it would not make a difference to them. Nor to other cosmopolitan folks. As for me those bras are more of a turn off than a turn on, so they have the opposite effect to what is intended. Although personality is much more important, all other things being equal I would be more likely to engage with the less endowed version of Kat.
So by trying either version of bra Kat might be steering away people who would otherwise be interested in her, whilst connecting with others who will be disappointed with the results.
Don’t recall mentioning of actual magic bras being available…
And whether magic or mundane, the effect of when they stop doing their ‘job’ (either being taken off or the spell expiring) will be the same, with one vast factor in favour of the mundane: they won’t just vanish when someone casts an anti-magic spell
Dabbler, the tinker-succubus, is in this comic.
Magic bras can safely be assumed.
No, unless something has been specifically stated or shown, then no, nothing can be ‘safely assumed’
Dabbler could make personal flight rings (ala Legion of Super-Heroes) for everyone who can’t fly naturally, butt have we seen them or even had hints they were there?
Unlike some others, will only comment on what we have seen and speculate on what will happen next based on that, will not make up shit about something that hasn’t been shown
Sorry, wasn’t clear.
Magic bras can safely be assumed *to exist*. Dabbler isn’t going to be giving them out to earthers due to tech pollution rules.
We have seen that there are magic items made for minor cosmetic reasons, and that Decolette gives them away on a whim. She gave Sydney her magic headband. Between that and the frequent obsession Dabbler has with all things sexual (including figure enhancing/emphasising clothing) and the various comments and scenes about Succubus society likewise being fixated (e.g. the the classroom scene) it would be incredibly unlikely for such NOT to be available.
Finally do note author’s own comment above.
The borrowing may or may not have happened, but Dave evidently considers it likely that Decolette does possess magic bras. Clearly, as a succubus, she would have no need herself, but they would make fine gifts to insecure (potential) female partners.
Still saying, why does it have to be magical when mundane do just as well of a job, with out risk of the spell or enhancement ending too soon or unexpectantly?
I agree with Yorp for the reason I posted to Viirin’s comment below.
And don’t forget Peggy! She may be part of the “A-Team” but she’s quite attractive too (same for Sydney, Krona, and human form Pixel).
Don’t give reality benders ideas, Sydney.
I hope you don’t “lock in” accidentally increased breast size. You’ve kinda been boobifying everyone and I SERIOUSLY don’t want you to do what Oda did. Like, how is it possible to be that teen-horny when you’re an adult with a (relatively) new wife?
I agree but out of respect for the rules established in the comic, namely that only innate supers get “the most common superpower”. It’s been so well defined in the comic so as to exclude superheroes whose powers aren’t innate to them (Sydney) and supernatural creatures (vampires and lycanthropes). You even made a special and specific case with Pixel: she’s Sydney’s height and build yet also a super but only gets the “perfect physique” when she has her superpowers which is only in her werepanther form. How cool is that? Attention to detail like that is always impressive.
The issue comes when the lines are blurred. This universe has Supers, and Were-whatevers, and Vampires, and magicians, and etc.
Supers are defined as having the human idealized body, which for women is the impossible combination of almost zero body fat but somehow huge breasts. Breasts being largely body fat…
This does not (well, should not) apply to any other category of empowered individual. Elsbeth, for example, could be a pudgy woman with a cursed book chained to her waist who is also undergoing magical training. But instead she is a large breasted female with a fairly idealized body. The same applies to the fey, or the aliens, or the magicians, or whatever. And yet we have Sciona, a huge breasted alien babe, and Cora, a huge breasted alien babe, and Elsbeth, a huge breasted magical babe, and Crimson and Clover, a pair of huge breasted vampire babes, and … well, I think the point has been well enough made by now.
When your writing relies on huge breasted X babes to draw in the readers, you have already admitted that your writing isn’t good enough to attract those readers by itself. And this applies not only to this comic, but to most reading recommendations the author of this comic makes. It should be no real surprise to anyone that Harem Author X who writes about huge titted gals who just love to be magically enslaved to the ‘hero’ of the story is something this author endorses…
Clover is the Were Dire-honeybadger, Scarlet(t) is the other vampire
Most of the readers are here for Sydney, most of those ‘huge breasted X babes’ are usually in the background and not around for long
Have you considered that the artist might design characters that he enjoys drawing, rather than necessarily catering to a particular audience?
One of his early comments or author blurbs said that he hoped that the opportunity to draw sexy ladies would encourage him to stick with the project, as opposed to all the others he’s abandoned in the past.
He’s also mentioned that previous to this he did mostly pin-ups.
I think we can cut him some slack on slips like this, as long as they don’t get made cannon.
My concern with exactly that is why I mentioned it.
Don’t the other girls in the background all have superpowers?
Well, one is a vampire, the other is Olivia
The girls in it are:
Specs – Arclight Super
Pixel – Archlight Super/Council Werejaguar
Kat – Council Werehare (dire-hare?)
Scarlett – Council Vampire (childer of Ingsol)
Elsbeth – Council Mage (has a chained magic tome around her waist, apprentice to Master Gault of Council Mages)
Olivia – non-Council, non-Super Comic book store employee, half-brother of guy who has great butt
Varia – Archon Cadet Super (probably Arc-Swat)
Krona – Council Reality Hacker
Sydney – Archon Cadet Super (Arc-Swat, but Arc-Dark/Arc-Light will probably be find her useful for the comm orb)
Someone’s Boob – I’m going to guess a super. Probably not Anvil, Maxima, or Dabbler, since Varia is not looking UP.
Still say that’s an elbow, not a bewb :P
Looks like an elbow to me too.
If so, that’s one booblike elbow. Also where would the person who Varia is talking to be facing if it’s an elbow instead of sideboob? Because if it’s an elbow, she’d be facing AWAY from Varia as Varia is talking to her. If it’s a boob, then she’d be facing Varia, which makes more sense.
If she were facing just to Varia’s left as they talked, this would be a left elbow seen from behind.
Still think it’s a boob. The bottom part is too rounded to be an elbow.
Oh well, we’ll know tomorrow.
Not saying that people can’t think it is a bewb, just saying that they would be wrong in thinking that :P
This may very well be our greatest argument, Guesticus :)
Yes, butt who is more willing to be proven wrong? o_O
If you are wrong, then it’s just someone’s elbow, if it is me, then BEWBIES!! :P
Always bet on boobs for the win.
Unless the other person is standing at a very weird angle to her a breast off paneled seems a little more likely, otherwise she is staring at the back of someone’s head or someone doing a very weird sideways pose.
I feel like the one think Sydney and possibly Crona too would Definitely visit that could be blown up – is a Theme Cafe. Like – a Comic Book Cafe where you can be served by wonder woman. And Sydney mistakes one of the maids for an actual supervillain and picks a fight. Chrona tries to stop it – but then totally expected there actually IS a super villain in there at her part time job – and they all get kicked out.
Kat was the only one I couldn’t identify, but it’s not so much because she only appeared on 5 pages as it is that she was only in her human form for 3 panels on a single page.
Things scale really fast around Halo… don’t know why… but is way more fun (and kinda of dangerous) that way.
ps: I’m kinda trying to resist the urge to read this comic all over again, because damn, it’s so good… and also because I wanna see my future werewolf alien boyfriend again (Hey, a boy can dream! ) .
Whooo doggies! I really hope that club has it’s insurance up to date! I have to think that ‘Does your establishment get visited by supers?’ would really push up the premiums.
I mean, I get that in comic books there is often an attack by some supervillain, and that leads to a pile of property damage, but logically that’s like saying that a bar which is frequented by cops should pay higher insurance premiums. In actual fact it is probably one of the least likely places to have any issues with crime other than possibly a very uninformed or just plain stupid criminal.
I know it may have been stream of consciousness rambling, but I really like the idea that Kat got self conscious/ jealous now that she’s hanging around with supers and vigilantis. Not only would it make her more relatable, if her ‘boost’ is in the form of an item it opens the possibility of it either being humorously lost or shared/ used/ stolen by someone else. Hijinks ensue!
*next comic*
*Syd stumbles out of a destroyed nightclub*
*Looks behind her*
SONUVA-!
Hah hah.
And in the next frame as Sydney flies off we see a smirking Gwen folding the front of the damaged nightclub (which has reverted to a stained tablecloth) while Dabbler tosses the staggering nightclub survivors oops, muppets…no they are napkins and string now… into the trash.
I was going to ask why there was no Who’s Who.
Then I see the Who’s Who added.
Therefore I think we have total proof now that DaveB has psychic powers. I’m onto you, DaveB. What are next week’s lotto numbers?
The Who’s Who only shows up when you load the comments
I prefer my theory, that DaveB is psychic.
2, 1, 9, 7, 45, 58
Good boob days happen.
Kat’s having a good boob day!
Keep forgetting to ask: is it just me, or does Kronachrome’s goggles keep changing size?
Not a critique on DaveB‘s art, just wondering if anyone else sees that (or is everyone else distracted by the bewbies? :P )
Oh, and do like how you can still easily tell who the shadows are in the background :D
I see a couple of possibilities (1) She was just wearing the goggles to protect her eyes so Arc gave her one of their HUDs (2) Her reality hacking allows her to turn any goggles/glasses etc into her own HUD, it’s a little easier than projecting onto nothing, or “more secret” less easy for a bystander/target to notice what she’s doing. (3) Dave didn’t think about fixing the size and was going with what looked good.
No, check out the panels on this page, they change sizes
In panels one, two and seven, they are higher than the collar, butt in panels four to six they are lower than the collar
Wait, you did see the goggles around her neck, didn’t you? Or were you distracted by ‘other’ things? o_O
Heh. Most of *that* distraction is at the top of the page. But I still didn’t really notice the “changing size” you’re highlighting as it doesn’t look wrong to me, it looks like her collar is shifting when she stretches a little to take more notice of Sid or her surroundings. It’s the sort of detail that further distinguishes Dave’s style from the old, (60’s?) flat black ink and four dyes comic-book style where they are much more limited in the “poses” that the characters are drawn.
Like said, wasn’t a critique, just wondered if anyone else had spotted it, guess only me
Elspbeth? Another page had an Elsbeth. I thought that was a typo for Elspeth. What is the name supposed to be? Or are those really separate characters?
Same character, DaveB just has trouble remembering how to spell her name, and he’s not the only author who has done that
Mugger 1: Hey look there are gaggle of broads coming out of that club, lets hit em up while they look plastered.
Mugger 2: Hmm doesn’t that one look like that one of the news?
Mugger 3: Doesn’t she look like the one that grabbed that bank robber by the TONGUE and judo flipped him?
Mugger 4: And slammed that guy into the ground outside a restaurant?
Mugger 3: Who also just got back from Space after taking on a planet load of world killers?
Mugger 1: *looks again and spots Sydney* Holy crap! That’s a load of nope, nope and more nope, i’m off to the shelter to feed the homeless.
Aww, Mugging the Mugger denied is no fun!
Yeah, but we already had that scene on the space station when Cora and Sydney were assaulted by a bunch of dead guys. I mean, they were alive when the assault started, but that changed for most of them in mid-assault.
So anyway, since it’s been done it would be fairly repetitive/unimaginative/boring to keep doing it again and again.
We also had that scene during Sydney’s interview
They have also had a scene where they were attacked by a group of idiot wannabe-villains, and extra-terrestrials, so having either of those again would be fairly repetitive/unimaginative/boring, right?
Zumba!! “Haw-Haw” says Nelson Muntz.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the town of Kennebunk discovered that the local Zumba instructor was also the town’s most enterprising whore. Caught up a number of prominent johns in the mess, including a couple of lawyers.
I recall that story! And a quick Google search for “Kennebunk zumba whore” got me this link, amongst others:
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/02/zumba-alexis-wright-prostitution
Sounds like the ‘plot’ for a sex-game (sounds more plausible than over half of the ones already out there)
Just a comment on the lycan who seems to have developed big boobs, according to some mythologies, lycans have some choice over their bodies after transformations, and some choose to enhance “certain endowments”.
Me, I kinda wanna see a smashcut not to an exploding nightclub, but to Harem coming out looking depressed & down, and muttering to one of the others, “That was the most BORING girls’ night out, ever!”
I know it’s not going to happen, but it’d be funny nonetheless in the way of all good reversals-of-expectations.
I can’t help but feel like this that Sydney-Leon-Cora love triangle thing could be made a lot better if Sydney and Cora both had an “oh shit I’m actually bi” realization. Maybe I’m just biased because I’m a sucker for a good throuple dynamic, or maybe I just ship Sydney with Cora more than I want to see either of them with Leon.
They’re just the right type of people to get along so WELL, without just being carbon copies of each other. And they have a bit of power synergy, too- if Cora has time to decipher more of the universe’s code next time Sydney levels up, she could help Sydney navigate her skill tree and know what she’s speccing into.
But failing that I’m glad it looks like they’re gonna be friends.
Krona. I meant Krona.
Olivia Is actually a super who hasn’t had her “Life Changing Event” yet… Knowing thsi crew an their luck, that’s liable to be tonight…
I’ve often wondered if Olivia isn’t an undercover super, sent to keep an eye on Sydney for some nefarious purpose…
I like the way you did Sydney’s face in panel 3.
Who’s the lady in the Orco dress in the center of the top panel?
If memory serves, the blonde gal at the far left is the werehare/wererabbit we were introduced to some time ago.