Grrl Power #80 – She used this spell to scan a hotdog once. Once.
Don’t put too much time into thinking about the power origin types that Gwen names here, I haven’t quite codified it all, chances are I may sneak back in and update that particular word bubble at some point in the future. But as you can see, there are a number of ways to attain super powers in this universe. The most common is simply designated as “super.” That’s the kind where you just develop powers while growing up, like Harem and Anvil. It doesn’t snap to adolescence like mutants in Marvel, and there’s a reason they don’t use the word mutant here, but I’ll get into that later.
I’m not sure why I imagined the tube getting opened in front of a panel like a job interview instead of in the middle of an action scene involving lots of speed lines – other than it’s kind of cliche, but now that it’s nearly upon us, I realize the huge flaw in the set up is that if this building has any sort of security, there’s no way Sydney would have gotten this far into the building without having to have opened it. It obviously didn’t register anything on the metal detectors or whatever machines they use in the lobby, and maybe Max vouched for her, but… still seems unlikely. Let’s just pretend I never brought it up.
Gwen’s spell is supposed to have a few little jokes in it (using the term loosely I assure you), but it’s eye-scarringly small. If you really hate your eyes you can probably make a few out, but I guess it’s incentive to buy the book once that happens.
Thanks so much for the all the topwebcomics.com votes throughout February, we managed to stay in the top 10 nearly all month! Considering the top few do 20K+ a month, it’s impressive that our little operation here has managed so well. Check back on Thursday or Friday, I’ll try to have a new vote incentive/bonus art ready.
Given the effects of the Tube’s shielding on a deliberate scan, it might be that the same process generates a Somebody Else’s Problem field on casual observers: you see it, but it doesn’t register as anything that needs any more attention than whether your shirt is red or green.
Of course, there’s nothing (so far) on-page to tell us that the Tube or its contents didn’t register on some check as it entered the building. It would be a reasonable precaution for the lobby to have the Power equivalent of a hidden pillbox, so that appropriate firepower could be available to deal with any emergent Power threat without spooking the Ignorant/Baseline guests. Or just to keep them under observation: if we’re in a situation that involves magic and/or Clarke III level technology, it’s probably a good idea not to tell potential suspects what sort of scopes they need to guard against.
It could be using what I call the “fnord principle of perception” where something can get so deeply imbedded it becomes essentially invisible to anyone that looks at it. No conscious recollections unless someone breaks the “god spell” an is free to see the fnord. Then the men in black come an fix you. You see that is why “They Live” an that is a warning sign used to catch those who can perceive it. Maybe the “rox” perform a similar mind fuck. It literally makes sure you can’t see it. Another is to look at what The Laughing Man did to others so that he couldn’t be seen by them even though if you had normal eyes you could but not cyber-eyes. Make invisible to certain perceptions though still visible!
Sydney is there to Kick Ass, and Chew Bubble Gum… and she’s all OUT of Bubble Gum…
The most interesting thing about the Laughing Man was when a character sketched his face after that character saw him, but the sketch was just his logo. Even though the character saw his face with natural eyes, the Laughing Man had forged the character’s memory so deeply that the character thought his own drawing of the logo was the Laughing Man’s face even as it was being drawn. The character even praised himself for doing such an accurate sketch.
As usual my favorite thing about your comic is the faces, especially the transition from panel 2-3. And as far as I’m concerned you don’t need to provide logical explanations for EVERYTHING the characters do or say, it’s a comic <.<
You know what would be amusing? Seeing the stats for these characters. GURPS or otherwise.
Sydney:
Advantage
Immunity to spicy food
enhanced time sense
Disadvantage:
Weirdness magnet
Dependency spicy food??
Obnoxious habit (Gratuitous Swearing)
compulsive Liar
Quirk:
Imaginative
Well you really can’t call her a compulsive liar cause the only thing she has lied about is what’s in that tube, and seeing as keeping that secret could keep her from the dissection table, I wouldn’t really call it compulsive.
pen-poke
FLEE!!!!!!
Your right but she have Impulsive
Increased metabolic rate. She’s eaten a huge lunch and she’s still ravenous. I think the tube is living off her caloric intake. And, just for the record, someone this balls to the wall uninhibited would be great to know.
She’s not Girls Gone Wild, because that means showing your tits. But she’s not Women Gone Wild, because that means murdering your husband with a steak knife and drowning your kids in the tub. She’s perfect.
We’re not sure her metabolic rate is actually that high. Yes, she did eat a big lunch, but then she left it at the bank.
Love the way to confuse us…after sifting through a total of about 20 years of backdates webcomics I know only one thing, that empty tube is a lie. Also, at the blistering weekly rate you are going, we’re going to find out what’s in that tube before I can paint mine. Yes you have obsessive fans now. Obsessive fans are looking at this site…ok not that obsessive, just ones without much life.
And in regards to the title. “You shouldn’t hang me from a hook. My father hung me from a hook once. Once.”
Thank you sir. I loved that movie.
Johnny Dangerously FOR THE WIN.
Ice-hole.
Farg you, you corksucking, marther-farging icehole.
“Terelli deported to Italy. Says he’s not farging from there”.
Great film!
“I got a brand new gun today. It shoots through schools!” That was probably the best villain line I’ve ever heard in a movie.
Man I wish I could find it on DVD…..
Just a couple random thoughts:
(1) Could vacuum pressure be why it’s so hard to frickin’ open that tube?
(2) Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Anvil turned out to be a huge manga fan? She and Halo haven’t met yet…
A couple random responsive thoughts:
1) If he were sexist Dave could say he had Sydney keep the ‘things’ in the tube because women are physically incapable of opening jars or jar-like containers on their own. So technically Sydney could know this and say she put them in there so she’d never be able access them to use them for ill gain. :D
2) When Sydney finally meets my beloved Anvil her first and most immediate reaction will be “Holy #$%^-propellers! Either of your sweater cannons is literally bigger than my entire freaking head! If giganti-zongas gauge power, you must be the strongest member of the team!”. With many hand gestures and air-measuring of her head against Anvil’s boob-vils and possibly some grabbing. Potentially leading to Sydney actually chasing Kenya with a measuring tape, screaming about being pursued by a crazy blonde tit-lemur.
That’s be hilarious :p
Yeah but I doubt Dave will see it. And we both know number 2 won’t actually happen.
Equally amusing is the idea of Sydney’s first meeting with Dabbler. Anyone wanna take bets on which one annoys the other more? I’m deeply hoping Dabbler reaches out and gropes Sydney and asks her ‘Where are your boobs??”. More hilarity would ensue.
I’ll bet they play Japanese roulette. You just take a Japanese search engine, type in a series of random characters, and see how many websites you have to go to until you see something that makes you wish you didn’t have eyes. I’ll bet Sydney would win.
Would Sydney win? Or would we all win? :D
If DaveB was still drawing Dabbler with four boobs I bet the conversation would be REALY intresting.
And yet still Anvil would have more boob than even a double stacked Dabbler.
ending with syd saying minus the 30 min curse fest “you boob hog give me my breasts”
There are a few times when you make the lips off-center. Third and fourth panel, it’s too far to the left.
By the way, I’m loving this comic a lot! :)
Okay I have to ask this now -.-
Is one of the jokes in there that it is a very surprisingly similar representation of the top arch of the gate inscription on the walls of Moria from the first lord of the rings movie because I swear to god with all the runes that’s what I see. XD
That title is hilarious.
I had that impression when I saw the first panel of the last page. Then I was not sure, now I am: Gwen is not just a bit cross-eyed.
And so far nobody else noticed it or at least o one mentioned it…
And I can deciver something: “… MY BOOTS CAVE IN” and “MUMMY WITH BEES”, whatever that may mean
The arch says “@gothwench: my boots came in! @mummywithbees: who’s clubbing tonight?”
Heh. I also like the little weather screen. I could use one of those. ::P
Ok, something’s bugging me here, and I finally figured out what it was…
This episode manages to nearly contradict itself (within one panel!) on how magic works in this world. Harem is not listed as having any magic powers, so we are talking that she can cast spells based on learned skill, not talent. At the same time, she says that Sidney doesn’t have any traces of magic – implying that such would be inborn. So the question is: How do you get magic powers in this world? Can anyone learn them, like Harem apparently has, or does it take a specific talent for it, like she is scanning for?)
Of course I’m reading a lot into a few words, and it’s probable that I’m extrapolating more than was actually meant to be implied. But it still bugged me.
This is not Harem on this page, it is Gwen (see Who’s Who)
My bad. Thanks.
Sydney herself doesn’t register as having anything magic about her, and neither does the tube. Anyone can learn magic, most people don’t have what it takes to actually use it though, focus and determination and the like. Also the general public doesn’t really know that’s an option.
So the average person in your world is not a “muggle”, anyone can potentially use magic?
Yeah, it’s called sorcery, they use the power of another being usualy interdiminsional to use spells.
Although you should be VERY careful which interdiminsional being you use, There is ALWAYS a price and you had damm well be sure you WILL pay up on time or there will be dire consiquences.
It’s also how Sydney is powered.
yah she sold her mind to an ancient powerful mystic creature for power didn’t get enough to matter or change cup sizes and got an indistructable poster tube of billard balls at a corner garage sale.
I figgure they just want to be entertained, so set up the whole meeting at the bank, or at least set it up so she would be there.
Trouble Magnet…
Sydney is a trouble magnet you say?
OF COURSE! The tube is filled with so much trouble, that Sydney, a “trouble magnet”, can’t be separated from it!
In fact, it probably has even more trouble stored in it than I originally thought, so take that trouble, and make it double!
She’ll probably use it to protect the world from devastation! To unite all peoples within her nation! To denounce the evils of truth and love! To extend her reach to the stars above! Team ArcSwat, blast off at the speed of light! The… other guys… better surrender now, or prepare to fight!
Sydney’s mouth goes blasting off again! (Sydney: “&#*$ &#*&$# beaver eating &$&#*$ #$*# *$& nuggets of #*&$&*!)
Yeah there’s no biological limit or some magical macguffin required to use magic, so in that sense everyone has the potential, but in practical terms, very few people have the focus and determination to actually commit to learning. There are also things that would make it easier to someone to learn magic or have a certain innate ability, like a bizarre heritage.
Plenty of adolescents develop an unhealthy fascination and determination to get through with it, regardless of that “it” is, and then end up as a pentester or a game coder or a webcomic artist or something. That makes the “no determination and focus”, while true for the general population (we’re not all obsessive adolescents), a weaksauce defence to keep magic from the general populace. “Not knowing” is possibly even weaker in the face of global instant communication (did I spot tweets in that spell?), as word will inevitably get out. So I’m afraid you’ll have to re-think that reasoning a bit. Sorry. *grin*
Personally, I prefer the explanation given in the Whateley Universe – while you can find baseline magic-users here and there, almost all of them never get beyond “hobbyist” in terms of skill and power. Something like Gwen’s scan spell would be at the upper limits of most mages’ capabilities, never mind fireballs and the like.
Also, now that I think about it, Gwen’s “magic desktop” likely implies the existence of magic hobbyist forums and the like… who else would think of making a wifi/bluetooth-capable spell?
Hm. Speaking of the spell, did Gwen just cast that spontaneously or does she have some kind of mystic focus for it? (Said mystic focus might also contain the internet connection, as it could have electronics built in.)
Wile it’s possible to do that kind of spellwork on the fly, it’s time consumeing and mentaly draining. So a reuseable spell system is generaly used with talasmens and such. Easier to upghade over time, and you can add secondary spells when needed.
Kind of what I thought. The stone on her choker seems to have some kind of glyph on it, that might be it.
Also it’s possible to set spells on tattoos. So that big tat on her back could actualy have a use beond looking cool.
But don’t you have to be on Elfhome for those tats to work? Or is that another universe?
nah, they’ll work just fine here… RIFTS, the RPG or example.
In reply to Name without a gravatar: I’d say nope. Dave doesn’t have to rethink anything when it comes to magic requiring focus and determination. He just have to set the bar — in his world, high enough for magic to be uncommon. All the examples you gave are things where you make fairly quick progress. Fairly few teenagers would be willing to spend, say, 14 hours a day, seven days a week for … say a year, to be able to do the magic equivalent of a ‘Hello, World’ program, even knowing that later spells will be easier and quicker to learn.
But thats beside my point. The point is, in Dave’s fictional universe, his reasons for magic being uncommon even if anyone ‘could’ learn it, are TRUE. However, if magic were learnable in our world, by anyone, your reasoning might be true. Considering the amount of spellslinging teenagers I”ve seen, I doubt it though.
well using magic could leave energy traces much like gun powder residue from firing a rifle
Possibly it depends on what kind of magic is being used. Guessing there are a number of different kinds or flavours.
Could be a huge range of variables as well – from leyline proximity to whatever the caster had for breakfast.
“Magik” is still energy so traces will be left. Just on different frequencies.
The jokes in the magic scan were classified as mildly amusing until I saw the weather report widget. I admit to a guffaw when I recognized that one.
Also: it doesn’t hurt your eyes when you zoom in on the page. Hooray technology!
I feel stupid for not doing this until I read your comment…
Anyway, Yay technology!
Actually my favorite little widget has to be whatever My Little Pony window she has open. Seeing that made me grin so wide my cheeks hurt xD
It’s her bag of crazy, and it sucks everything into it, including light and all kinds of magic.
It generates a powerful Somebody Else’s Problem field.
Sydney just counteracts about 90% of it.
Most Practical power so far goes to Harem, but Gwen is definitely a close second. I love the Twitter feed.
is this before godzilla or after syd crushed the snack machine for the spiceless spicy chips?
Before, she hasn’t got up yet.
Something tells me the contents of that tube wish to remain anonymous.
I know what Syd has got in there! It’s the Hand and Eye of Vecna of course. Everyone knows AD&D 2.5 Artifacts don’t detect as magical. :)
while 3.5 Major artifacts tend to burn the eyes out of mages who try to detect them :P
Under 3.5 it was more, of, That Depends, either on the source-book or how far your GM misinterpreted the reference materials – If you look up the detect magic tables, the more powerful the spell or effect the HARDER it was to detect, just like dispelling (they used the same basic table layout) but as with all things the ability to detect is relative – for those not familiar with DnD 3.5 think BLEACH and the inability to detect the spirit energy of anyone several classes higher than you in power levels.
And thus the plot thickens! d:lc TO THE CAR WATSON!
I’ve been reading for a little while, but this is my first time posting. I have to say this comic is excellent, literally too funny–i look like a freak busting out laughing out of nowhere because I remembered Sydney’s “full body Touretyes fit” and the aggravated assault charge for mauling her mugger. If you keep up the quality jokes, you’ll probably get me in trouble with a professor soon! I look forward to it. ;)
No need to get in trouble if you just have them read the comic themselves. Then it’s something you will have in common, which = better grading average possibly.
About the whole security thing… Arclight seems to be an organization built on exceptions. Special rules for special circumstances.
I’m sure Max (being a military-trained super, in charge of supers in a para-military outfit, and tasked with the job of dealing with super based threats to national security) would know that opening mysterious containers known to be related to super-powers by force in an uncontrolled environment is about as smart as taking a dip in a nuclear reactor’s containment pool. I mean… how many horror movie plots involve some inept security guard insisting on opening Pandora’s Box to make sure nothing dangerous was inside?
And I’m sure if Max knows all this… its safe to say the administration of Arclight do as well. So yeah… the security staff not making a fuss over opening the tube is no surprise. The biggest problem here really is that you missed an opportunity for Sydney to be Sydney by clutching the tube tightly and hissing at a security guard while Max and the Security guard have a “is she for real?” moment. After all… I imagine Syndey already had a run in with the TSA when she came home with that tube… so security checkpoints are probably on her list of “things to avoid.”
WOOPS! meant Archon… not arclite. Posting before coffee…. baaaaad!
Didn’t Sydney eat some nuclear waste earlier that day and with her metabolism isn’t she due a trip to the “powder” room?
We all have suffered the side effects of very spicy food at least once in our life- if not, you pay for it coming and going. If her breath managed to incapacitate a super enough for her to Tongue-slam-jutsu him into the floor, I can’t imagine what her secondaries will do to chemical sensors and bomb sniffers in the ARC building…
Will we start to move to her “testing” phase only to have the building suddenly go into Bio-Contamination/Gas Attack shutdown for safety reasons?
I can just imagine the look on Sydney’s and the Hazmat’s team when they bust into a stall that shows it to be where the “Danger” was detected. And the cussing and ensuing beat down of a few ARC “Space-Marine” Hazmat responders…
Outside Sydney looks up at the smoking windows of “some” floor and comments to which ever Supers are near her…”You know, over response in itself, is a security problem someone can exploit…” Cut scene ambulance taking ASM (Arc Space Marines…heh love her designating them such.) to Hospital…
Someone’s sure to comment that she did all that chaos/damage w/o her tube? Where’s her tube? And suddenly it flies through walls/windows to Sydney’s hands…oops?
Shipping Grrl Power is easier since there is no romance/sex to spoil the wondering what if’s and what might be’s…
Thanks for making our minds twist a little each Monday, Dave.
She lost all that good stuff during the “adrenaline crash” after the “robbery.”
Hence the “Fus DO RAH!” and the need to visit the vending machine.
She lost her lunch at the bank.
Any chance there will ever be crossovers with other webcomics?
Sydney someday *must* meet the talking Koala from ‘Girl and her Fed’. The image (or rather the audio) is just too entertaining.
Actually, just having her on Crossoverkill would be FUN!
That…is a frightening thought. I love you. (Nothing personal!) …Okay, clarification, I love your braaaaainsss. (Again, nothing personal… Saaaaay, do you have an icecream scoop for those brains? No? Hm. Pity.)
I think a cross over with magellan would be even better. Because they are both super hero comics.
I would what Sydney would think of Brelvis.
Auto correct corrected the word wrong. Would should be wonder.
An idea that is unlikely, but the tube may actually be empty and the creature? is the tube itself.
David ARgall– tube has been referred to as “Them” a couple of times at least. The latest was “Now you know why they are on the list!” – obviously the things inside the tube have a very precocious view on happenings around them.
Don’t remember who said it, but they could have latched onto Sydney simply because she was the most entertaining thing/person around.
Having lived in Peru- I’m thinking some Incan/alien item, maybe a alien-monkey skull some artisan did up into a kitchy item to sell to tourists, that or the items (They/them) latched onto Sydney and caused her immediate deportation from Peru… (beenthere…)
Maybe “they” are tiny little creatures that cling together and form a tube with a belt, much like… the replicators of Stargate.
I seriously doubt the items in the tube are sentient or living in any sense. Honestly, Sydney already spelled it out here. “Ancient artifacts.”
The fact that Sydney talks to “them” and gets angry at “them” is just a personality quirk. One thats actually pretty common (we all know people who mouth off at inanimate objects when sufficiently annoyed by them).
Any way… just a little prediction… tubes actually completely empty now. Whatever was in the tube has merged with Sydney and she has been subconsciously tethering herself to the tube with her powers without realizing it.
Another possibility is that whatever is in the tube is blocking them from reading it. It gives them a too empty area reading on the scan instead of simply nothing.
Gwen’s look over all is good. Just her breasts though comfortable are in danger of flopping out. Unless that undershirt is wired that is. Can’t wait to see more of her an all the other characters to have greater depth than we have seen so far. Tomorrow an new page!!!
If you’ve ever been to a ren-fair you’ll know that those blouses stay up pretty well, despite what a whole lot of teen boys devout wishing that they wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t bother updating the word bubble. Gwen seems like the type to use slang terms (perhaps even of her own devising) rather than the officially sanctioned classifications.
From time-to-time we can have translations of her Gwenspeak into military or science jargon. Maybe as a side note an little joke.
Focus and Determination is a perfect excuse to why John Doe in the corner isn’t using magic AND Disbelief is a very strong anti focus so at the very least we should end up with this checklist for magic:
Knowing that magic exists
Not being scared of using it
not being scared of what MIGHT happen in case of a miscast
knowledge of how to gather the necessary magic energies or whatever
enough training to do this without being constantly interupted by your surroundings
enough training to maintain the spell indefinatly
Knowing that magic exists is quite a big deal id say. Lets for arguments sake say that magic does exist in the real world and you would pretty much end up with two categories of people: Those that would laugh at you and those that would say “I know that” but still wouldn’t know HOW it works..and you can add Gruhl’s timeline to that too and then some..most people don’t have the time to spend on magic development and even if they had it is boring as hell to do nothing but train your mind..how long can you meditate before it gets really boring and your mind starts to wander off? And how many people wouldn’t quit after they have spent countless hours meditating for say..4 years…and all they can do at this point is to sense other peoples auras and maybe cause a wound to heal faster by a single day? Not to forget that during these 4 years they traded in all time in school/work, hanging out with friends, playing videogames/any form of entertainment and so on meaning that for the past 4 years that person only meditated,ate,slepp and went to the bathroom in exchange for a “Patheticly weak sense aura” and “Cure meaningless wounds” spells. Would YOU go on?
Lets just say that what is called “magik” an many other names is a type of energy frequency that can be tapped under the right conditions. So far only certain people an species can see it, channel it, an by the use of higher mathematics an mental power (with the right aura) use such energies with the help of mantras to access them. Like tying in to a computer program. Any more detail can be created. Feel free if you don’t already have something in the pipeline DavidB. Or just life the general operating system from one already created.
I meant “lift the general operating system.”
Super: generally someone with one or more innate, natural talents that would be classified as ‘otherwise physically or mentally impossible’.
Esper: Generally a mental ability that allows the person to disguise themselves or others, either through mental projection or illusion.
Psycker: A mental ability that allows the user to startle or ‘flash’ someone, or otherwise overpower someone else’s mind enough to ‘psych them out’, thus disabling them temporarily.
Psion: A general term describing someone with acute mental abilities.
Channeler: Rather self-descriptive, usually denotes a person with an innate ability to channel, or ‘focus’, energy of one sort or another, rather like a funnel. Tends to be latent rather than an actual ability.
Gate: Rather self-descriptive again, usually denotes a person with either an ability to open gates to alternate locations, dimensions or even times, or a person that can be used for such, rather like a doorway in a building, or even the energy source for a gateway.
Focal: Denotes a person that can either be used to focus something, or they can focus anything. Very similar to a channeler, but tends to be more usable by the one so gifted.
…
I am such a nerd. 83
I was really just inspired by all those things Gwen was talking about, such to the point that I’m willing to write up anything you might be stuck on, esoterically speaking… *blush*
Does… does this make me weird?
…-er?
I probably need to give all the categories some more thought which will start to happen as I make model sheets for the characters.
Psker seems like it’s derived from Psychokinesis to me. I wonder if Espers manipulate minds, psykers create phsyical effects, with psions being a catch-all for everything else, or maybe those that can do both.
Just tell Gwen to never scan scrapple …… which of course she will out of curiosity.
Telling some people not to do something is, to them, practically commanding them to do it.
Gwen is HOT!!!!
Gwen’s magic scan is kinda like the orb’s level up screen. Coincidence, or similar magic involved?
OK, we know you said not to overthink the categories, but…
What possible distinctions could there be between “psyker” and “psion”?
Do psions not suffer from Perils of the Warp?
Hah hah, yeah, I’ll have to come back to this list later and make a little more sense of it.
Psions could be more flexible, with multiple unrelated powers or a power pool of sorts, with psykers and espers being restricted to either one, or a few, more powerful effects.
Believe it or not, they *do* write prescriptions for that.
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm088582.pdf
In her case however, her psychaitrist might want to consider either changing the stimulant altogether, or adding a non-stimulant medication.