Grrl Power #808 – Thirty aught winterfresh
I don’t know what to tell you guys, I thought of a dumb joke and went with it.
To be fair to Elsbeth, this isn’t the first time she’s pulled the wrong thing out of her book. Luckily she’s never looked up “plutoniub” or “bubonic plaque.”
I haven’t actually figure out all the rules of Ellie’s book. She calls it cursed, but that’s mostly because it’s locked around her waist and no one can get it off. That’s one of those curses that’s half useful and half annoying. Obviously the book is a powerful magic item, so you don’t want someone bad wandering off with it, but it’s also really uncomfortable to sleep with a bulky chain locked around your waist. Ellie’s solution thus far is to sleep in a corset that goes between her skin and the chain. Not a laced up compressing one, just something fairly rigid to distribute the pressure points where the chain would normally jab her.
As far as what all she can extract from the book, it’s one of those things where the book would normally extract a price in life force whenever it’s used, but she figured out that if she feeds objects into the book before hand, it just acts like an alphabetized book of holding. So really, she’s limited to whatever she can supply it with in the first place. As a Semper Vigilatis, she does have access to a pretty good library of gear. She can just requisition a half dozen flashbangs, a Glock 19 with 6 mags of hollow point, 6 AP, and 2 silver because they’re more expensive. We’ve already seen that she keeps a SCAR with one of those double drum clips on it.
I’m sure at some point the Vigilanti’s QM was running the numbers and realized Ellie had like $400K of ordnance in that book and made her give back half of it.
Hey guys, I wrote a book! It has nothing to do with Grrl Power. It’s actually Tamer fanfiction, and it’s free! I mean, obviously it’s free. Tamer isn’t my IP so I’m not going to try and sell a derivative work. Anyway, you can check it out here.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
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Weakness, revealed….
Still, I think she should be able to grab a Hollywood Movie Gun – a six shooter that never runs dry – and ejects brass….
Oh you mean a Dardick auto revolver
Problem is those have an accuracy of 0.1% with an 9.5% chance to hit allies instead.
And when they do hit, there’s something like an 80% chance of causing an explosion if there’s anything potentially explosive on the target…
And on the rare occasion they do hit they hit no less than 20 times.
Looks like this fight is gonna end without clear winner, unless deus-ex-Krona does something. Aranea probably already pulled all the tricks she had and only managed to slow Archon team down. But she is aware that if the fight goes on, she’ll go down. On one hand it’s sad. If she was caught, they could have taken her to a Council meeting and/or explain how things really are. If she escapes, she will only get reinforced belief that everyone is working for “THE EVIL” and is out to get her, including official government.
On the other hand, unless DaveB has permission to add her to permanent cast, such outcome was probably inevitable.
The Patrons want their characters in the comic. That’s the point. I would think that that would include the character being around in the background, so she could pop up later, if it was ever appropriate. Specs is a patron-character, isn’t she?
I think this patron has entire universe which Arannea is part of. Probably. Definitely at least a website with some stories. So, making her permanent cast here could complicate thinks over there, universe crossover is different league than few pages with cameo. But, based on the next page, they have found some way to make it work.
Umm, if she gets caught and taken to The Council of Evil Monsters Ruling The World, that would just doubly enforce her beliefs and prove that she was fucking right!
Depends. It would prove that she was right all along and there is lot of supernatural stuff hidden in plain sight. Would also prove that demons can be reasoned with like normal people, without the need to kidnap kids. And by the way, they are good at policing themselves, so, there is little need for demonhunter vigilante with all the risks it brings when she could just join VIs and do it in official capacity.
to bad specks can’t share her abilities
This does make me wonder what all fits in that book…. So if she looks up couch for instance?…. Better yet, what does she pull out if she looks up money? Would it be based in the currency of the location she’s in or would it be a fixed type?
It would be whatever she put into the book. Unless she wants the book to manufacture it on the spot at the price of consuming a piece of her soul.
The way that sort of vampiric artifact is handled varies between sources. Some take years off your life, others bits of your soul, (And you become some sort of undead when you lose enough of them.) and others just weaken you with a recovery time, and only kill you if you overuse them.
Do souls regenerate over time?
Did Elspeth ever bookmark reading light so she can use the book in a dark place?
Speaking of light does she put her own flashbangs into the book with the pins already pulled ?
I dunno, ask Hemant Mehta. Maybe you can rent his for some tests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Sold_My_Soul_on_eBay
DaveB says the book extracts a price in life force whenever it’s used unless she feeds objects into it beforehand. So if she’s stored money in it beforehand, it’ll be whatever currency she stored. Of course, she can store multiple currencies by using specific words instead of just the generic term “money”. For example, she could store Yen (Japanese), Renminbi (Chinese), Rupees (India), Rubles (Russia), Zloty (Poland), Lira (Turkish), Ringgit (Malaysia), etc., simultaneously.
Now, if (1) she didn’t feed money to it beforehand and (2) used the generic word “money,” we can only hope that she’d get whatever currency she needed/asked for. Unless DaveB thinks of another joke, in which case all bets are off.
Yeah, one of those six foot tall stone coins (Rai) would not be useful at the mall. The exchange rate is terrible.
While not nearly as large, Spartan currency was also unwieldy to carry, had horrible exchange rate (iron was fairly plentiful), & even kept merchant caravans away because Spartans outlawed the use of gold & other precious metals altogether.
That was honestly super interesting to read. Holy cow, what an awesome yet terrible thing to do.
Also goes to show you that the moral road is sometimes the road to ruin…
Sparta was in business longer than any other Greek city state. They were one of the first to organize and one of the last to be forced under by the Romans. Granted, they didn’t stick with the iron currency the whole time, but every time they dropped it they grew a corruption problem comparable to the other city-states (Persia and Egypt both bought politicians wholesale).
Was it ideal? No, but with the rest of their system it worked well enough.
Perhaps she keeps a couple of Ningi in the book.
The Triganic Pu is a unit of galactic currency, with an exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu. This is simple enough, but, since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Actually, one of those large stone discs might make a useful shield. They would not stop everything, but they would stop most ordinary guns, that would help.
From the island of Yap. They actually were a very useful form of currency.
I’ve always been intrigued that one of the stones was lost at sea, and they all just decided it still counted as valid currency. Can’t do that with paper money.
Why is that surprising? People toss coins in fountains and down wells, they don’t stop being counted as valid currency if you retrieve them
And when was the last time paper money was used? Wait, are there still countries that make bank-notes out of paper? o_O
Not only that, there are places where telecommunications have frequent outages due to unstable terrain and extreme weather. Amazingly, commerce goes on without telecommunications.
They didn’t move the giant stone coins around at all when they used them, they just agreed on whose it was at any given time based on transactions.
The undersea one is even stranger because most of the people who would be using it and claiming it as theirs at any given time would never even have seen it or had any proof it even existed.
Just like with modern currency…
Everyone just assumes the value the banks place on it is correct, even more so when some other country decides that your currency is now worth nothing…
Modern currency doesn’t have any OTHER value that whatever banks place on it, because they are backed by debt, not by anything physical.
No one likes paying in life force for an unexpected money shot.
“So if [Elsbeth has] stored money in it beforehand, it’ll be whatever currency she stored. […] For example, she could store Yen (Japanese), Renminbi (Chinese), Rupees (India), Rubles (Russia), Zloty (Poland), Lira (Turkish), Ringgit (Malaysia), etc., simultaneously. – MSpears
On the one hand, that could work well. On the other hand, how many countries share a currency name? The “Dollars” in the Book of Holding are presumably USA ones given her base of operations, but those are of limited use in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or any of several other smaller countries. Fine for Ecuador and El Salvador, though!
With the requirement for the BoH to be ‘loaded’ prior to use, at least the residents of Dollar can rest assured that they’ll still have homes to return to.
Don’t think she can do a couch. #480 (linked to in the author’s comments) shows that there is a “cutout” from where the object is drawn. The assumption would be that that would limit it to anything with a cross-section smaller than the page size.
Obviously the book might have the ability to expand as needed for the object, but unless we are shown or told that it does, I think we should only assume powers that we have seen.
A Ma Deuce, and a tripod for it and a bunch of .50 caliber ammo cans would fit within the cross sectional area.
Generic gum, generic gun….she was close!
At least she’ll always have something to read in the bathroom.
Unless she previously stores any specific books in The Book beforehand, her reading material would be much like reading a dictionary, wouldn’t it?
No, she’s High Mage Gault’s apprentice.
So there will be tomes for beginning mages.
Thus if Elspbeth is bored at the latrine she could always READ HER HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT.
I have down such, I have also read the Encyclopedia Britannica. In High School, in about 1967.
If Math ever found out about this fight his nose would bleed with the idea of her view though.
Wow considering that I supposed it’s a good thing she didn’t try to pull out a healing potion to use or herself. If she did who knows what she might have doused herself with
It would have to be very close to Healing Potion AND detrimental, so I think she’s safe there
HeaTing potion anyone?
Let’s all be thankful she didn’t stumble into “Gut” instead…
Specs – “If Sydney could talk right now, she’d probably say something like: ‘I am here to kick ass and chew bubble gum.'”
[Lighthook] – “I heard that! Also, I think Pixel might have a broken spine over here. Could someone come over and fix us up?”
Decollette looks at Specs’ and Ellie’s current position: “Are you sure that isn’t supposed to be ‘lick’ or ‘kiss’? I’m not judgmental mind you.”
“SHUT UP!”
What the heck is “plutoniub”?
“Plutoniub” is Plutonium, but with a B. She probably wouldn’t want to be pulling weapons-grade nuclear material out of her book anyway. Actually, I think it’s more likely she’d accidentally pull “Plutoniul” or “Plutoniun” out of the book, just because (alphabetically) L and N are next-door neighbors of the letter M.
Or plutodiub ib she had a code.
Well, she did just get her nose smooshed, same effect
It says ‘Gub’.
It definitely says “gum”. Not sure if you can magnify this version enough to see it, but on patreon it’s very clear.
I think Dave should retract his previous statement about him not being able to draw butts (drool).
I could see it, as GUM!
Thank you, always good to see movie fans or other elder gods.
Two ‘Whoooshes’ and one ‘I recognise that reference’.
I was hoping for more.
@DaveB – I think you’re putting a false limit by assigning value to the content of what Ellie holds in her book. You’ve already put into canon several mechanisms via which vast wealth is available. Your metal bender who can suck phenomenally pure samples of metal out of the Earth’s core as just one example. Gold and its effects on the gold markets isn’t even close to te value of many other metals, especially since he can extract them in purity forms that match or exceed the most cutting edge tech in the galaxy. $400,000 worth of anything is trivial. Ellie could easily put several million $$s worth of gear into the book. Maybe even several hundred millions or billions of $$s.
Other limits: total mass, specific items due to physical/psychic/magical/etc/ properties, physical or multi/extra-dimensional size limits, etc.
Does the book hold items in perfect or near-perfect stasis? She could keep an entire biobank of biological inoculations, anti-venoms for EVERYTHING, th emost exotic toxins & anti-toxins … just as an example of a single category of items where she could have billions of dollars worth of incredibly useful items in the book. She can be deployed to the heart of an ebola outbreak (or avian-swine flu) with half a million doses of inoculations worth billions. And every organization in this story would gladly entrust them to her so they are available at a moment’s notice.
$100 million worth of exotic ordnance is a trivial expense. Silver bullets are free with an agreeable metal bender available.
Now, again, total mass is an interesting limit. Could she store depleted uranium munitions in the book? At what cost to mass, or the effects of local gravity on any such mass? At what cost to radiation? Would radioactive substances be a danger? To anyone/anything NOT in the book? Or, would radioactives be dangerous to the book itself, or other items stored in it? Can she store living organisms in the book?
“HEY! Ellie! I need an alligator RIGHT NOW!! What? What do you mean ‘How Big?’ ??”
How would anything alive (even microorganisms) survive? Are they in stasis? Because, if the book kills anything that goes into it, then it’s the world’s most perfect room-temperature autoclave, and that is an extremely useful attribute in itself.
Richard’s Semi-Infinite Purse of Holding in Looking For Group is well worth contemplating to get a handle on this topic. Magic pocket dimensions can have incredibly interesting rules.
We could have her pull out , no wait.
She put in Schrodinger’s Winning Lottery Ticket instead of just a cat.
Schrodinger’s Gat? Fires uncertainty bullets?
She can pull out whatever is listed. Can the book owner write in new definitions to the existing index?
I would want her to put in “Nth technology orb user manual’.
If it’s not an item she stored in the book beforehand, then there’s a price in life force to make the book create the item. An authentic, accurate user manual for the Orbs would likely cost enough to kill her.
Actually you kinda jumped the gun here. Dave said that she had 400k worth of ordinance in her book and that she was made to give back half of it not that it held a money limit to what she could put into it.
Imagine what kind of advanced gear she could put in the book if she could gain access to that station that Sydney went to.
Is the book significantly older than Elspeth? Does it have a mysterious and ancient history? Could it have filed away in it items of advanced Atlantien technology? Could it contain other mystical artifacts?
Someone needs practice with whipping out the guns in public. Just sayin’.
Well, except that she has other stuff that we know she also needs to practice too.
Cue angry gun nerds complaining about him calling a mag a clip.
And who even knows what a Beta C-Mag is, but doesn’t know what it’s called?
I try hard not to be an “angry gun nerd”, but I do get annoyed when writers get really basic things wrong. Like the dreaded “.12 gauge shotgun” or the “.9 mm pistol”. And I must admit to a tendency to froth at the mouth whenever a character takes the safety off on their Glock. Compared to that, calling a magazine a clip is a fairly minor transgression.
I just try to play dumb when I’m dealing with entertainment. I notice that a gun thing was done wrong, but try not to let it get in the way of the fun. :D
Yeah, when you know a little more than the average person about a topic and you see someone using a term incorrectly it does inflame the passions. My current pet peeve is “drones”. I did notice an artist for a different comic had a gun firing entire cartridges rather than just the bullet. I try to follow Lord Turk’s path but sometimes the path is difficult.
I want to take the time to clarify some of the things that Wizard said in his reply.
First of all, for those who aren’t gun nerds, the Glock has three safety mechanisms, but none of them require you to switch anything off. I don’t know why fiction writers get this wrong. My guess is that somewhere along the line, “Glock” became shorthand for “any modern, semi-automatic pistol.”
Glocks are certainly modern and use semi-auto actions, but they’re far from the only handguns fitting that description. Because some semi-auto pistols do use safeties that switch off, I think the feature somehow appropriated onto Glocks. The pop culture zeitgeist tends to do things like that.
In regards to magazines and clips, it’s really simple: A clip feeds ammo into a magazine, and a magazine feeds ammo into the gun. That’s the reason why some gun nerds complain when you confuse clips and magazines. But like Wizard says, that’s a fairly minor transgression, especially when many news outlets tend to use the two terms interchangeably.
I also agree with Wizard about misplaced decimal points, like the “.12 gauge shotgun”. A 12 gauge shotgun shell is almost 0.75 inches in diameter… not 0.12 inches. It’s a gauge number, not a caliber. In the same vein, it’s a 9mm pistol… not a .9mm pistol. There shouldn’t be a decimal place there.
In my previous post, I was trying to think of a good way to express just how tiny a “.9mm” bullet would be. Well, I finally thought of a way to describe it.
A 9mm bullet is the same diameter as a .357 caliber bullet… more than a third of an inch. A “.9mm” bullet would be about three hundredths of an inch (0.03 inches) in diameter. It would be so tiny, you’d probably need tweezers to load it into the magazine. In the words of the late Stan Lee: ‘Nuff Said.
I can only think of a single weapon that could accurately be described as using .9mm ammo: the WH40K shurikan catapult. But it shears it’s projectiles off a solid block of material each time it fires.
There’s actually a surprising number of working miniature firearms that use ammo about that size.
No mention of tiny guns is complete without this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huzeL8iBqt4
There are a few, yes, like the Swiss C1ST, which fires 2.34mm ammo (0.092 caliber), or the antique 2.7mm Kolibri (0.106 caliber). There is a mini-revolver which fires 5.56mm ammo (0.22 caliber).
But you will notice that none of those guns fire 0.9mm ammo, which would be 0.035 caliber.
Another good way to picture it is to point out that some mechanical pencils use .9 mm lead.
That would make a “.12″ gauge shot gun about 3.5″ in diameter. Shot guns can get confusing because there are 10 gauge, 12 gauge, 14 gauge and 20 gauge shotguns, and probably other less common sizes, but then they jump to the 410 shotgun which actually is .410” in diameter. The 410 works out to, about, a 67 gauge. Of course, when most people say shot gun they are thinking of a 12 gauge as it is the most common.
I’ll admit shotgun terminology can get a bit confusing. “Gauge” refers to the number of round lead balls the diameter of the gun’s barrel needed to make a pound. This is why lower gauge numbers counterintuitively indicate a larger, more powerful weapon. And yeah, the .410 only adds to the confusion. (In this case, there should be a decimal point.)
{And I must admit to a tendency to froth at the mouth whenever a character takes the safety off on their Glock.}
That’s OK. I get foamy around the chops whenever I see a Glock. DEITY they’re horrible wastes of good space. I’ve never used one that didn’t jam at least once in every magazine. Blechchchch… AAAAAAAARRRRRGH!
I own a Glock 19. I’ve put nearly 75,000 rounds through it and it hasn’t jammed once.
To quote my mom: Are you sure you’re holding your mouth right? ;^)
:D
I am reminded of Star Trek and Star Wars fans. Never mention either, in any context. If you do, a swarm of single-minded obsessives leap upon the page and the number of comments doubles.
Mention guns, and gun obsessives do the same thing. One of my colleagues claims this is because NRA HQ staff react to any gun mention online. They immediately drive the discussion towards positive mention of guns and obsessive discussion of irrelevant gun issues. This bores evertyone lese, and stops discussion of the real issues with guns.
I think he may be right. See above.
But where else can we have the critical debates needed for the Space NRA to properly lobby for laser gun rights?!
I am triggered by you calling them lasers when they are clearly blasters or phasers, neither of which are lasers.
Oh right, lasers are used for space swords. My bad.
Yeah, while there might be some effort to respond with less-terrified-by-inanimate-objects comments about firearms on social media, I’d want to see proof that the NRA has a staff of people out trawling random forums and comment sections making sure to silence dissent or whatever.
You do realize a “non-compressing” corsets are literally just normal corsets. No bitch tightlaced, they thought it was as wacky back then as we do now.
Correction, a “normal” corset is tight lacing and is intended to be figure shaping. A non-compressing corset is a faux corset that is intended for show and does not function as a corset. Despite all the propaganda about corsets, it turns out that, when properly fitted, they are not only comfortable, but provide good back support.Read this article to learn more
That’s… hardly a scholarly work. It appears to be an interview of someone who started wearing a corset and wrote a book about it, which prompted the interview. Wikipedia has a pretty balanced summary on the traditional and modern medical opinions, and yes there are legit negative issues, including back muscle atrophy from unnecessary support.
Sure, a corset that’s properly fitted could provide some good support in certain cases, like any modern brace for physical therapy, but I think it’s fairly obvious that a) this was not the intended purpose, and b) the vast majority of women wearing corsets in the 19th century were never properly fitted by someone focusing on their health instead of their looks.
A corset was never intended to be worn 24 hours a day
I’m having flashbacks to The Fifth Element, and I appreciate that.
The Fifth Element? That horrid excuse for a Bruce Willis movie? Ugh!
The sooner that piece of filth gets flushed down the toilet of oblivion, the better.
Sheesh, who pissed in your cornflakes?
Fifth Element is a GOOD movie. You want Horrible movies? Last Airbender.. or.. you know, pretty much any movie M. Night Shymalan or Uwe Bohl’ve ever made.
Well, let’s be fair, Shymalan has at least had one or two successes, like The Sixth Sense and Split. (By “success”, I’m referring to the metascore, not my personal opinions.)
As for Uwe Boll (it’s Boll, not Bohl)… It’s really only his movies based on video games that were horrible. He’s had some success with the ones that aren’t based on video games. One example would be Darfur, which is based on the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, which actually won the award for Best international film at New York International Independent Film and Video Festival. He’s retired from the movie business, and is actually doing pretty well in the restaurant industry… the Bauhaus restaurant in Vancouver has actually been listed in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
(Even Boll hangs a lampshade on it… “Isn’t it interesting? I had to open up a restaurant to get good reviews.”)
Fifth Element is a fantastic movie. Anybody else wanna negotiate?
The “Fifth Element” was a good comedy-science fiction movie. Unfortunately, the trailers for it led one to believe it was going to be a “serious” movie. Many people were disappointed when they actually say it to see it was a comedy.
I always thought it was weird that the main protagonist, Bruce Willis, and the main antagonist, Gary Oldman, never actually meet face to face. The closest they come is just missing each other at the elevators.
From the previews I had seen and some of the critics who panned it I didn’t see this movie until it had been out for half a decade. I finally rented it because it had flying taxis and I had enjoyed the Harry Canyon story in Heavy Metal magazine in the seventies and later in the movie named after the magazine.
I have to say the movie grew on me and it is now one of my most watched science fiction flicks, usually back to back with the first Blade Runner. I agree with people who assess the main problem it had was that it suffered from its own marketing campaign, because the previews sold it as a serious movie and people were nonplussed when it turned out to be a comedy.
The quick “scene cuts” of Fifth Element are perfect, jumping from one scene to another with a precise ironic and comedic timing. I have no idea how someone could hate that movie unless they just hate science fiction AND laughing.
I think the gum was a better option. Guns are rarely a good solution, and I suspect the book deliberately misunderstood the request.
If you shoot Aranea, you can’t sort her head out, and use her abilities for something better than kidnapping children to interrogate them. Note she has shown no murderous intentions – she used a blinding flash grenade, not explosive.
An unopened box of gum should be about a kilo in weight, and makes a pretty good throwing object. Hit her with it, and you disable her long enough to capture her.
Mike, that is the heaviest gum in the world. One kilo? A pack of Wrigley Extra gum has 15 sticks, and weighs 47.1 grams. Apparently you think a pack of gum has about 380 sticks of gum in it.
Mike said a ‘box’, not a ‘pack’. The box is what the packs are displayed and shipped in
Can actually get gum containers that contain 64g worth of gum each
Wait wait wait, how fucking big are the sticks of Wrigley Extra gum that they weigh 47.1 grams for just 15?
That’s including the packaging, which is about 17% of the weight. So the 15 sticks of gum actually weigh just over 39 grams, or a hair over 2.5 grams each.
Yes, I’m talking about what we see in the comic. A box of gum packs, as you see in shops.
No super hero should be without this handy missile.
Is that enough for the entire class?
Actors always seem to be able to play people who are incredibly smarter than they are.
Fast Times put together a cast who could all do it.
Would loved to have had Spicoli challenge that dipshit teacher to ask him anything about the course, and get every question correct
He sounded like he would have had AD(H)D and an extremely high IQ (Spicoli, not that Hand-wipe), and the reason he was ‘self medicating’ was because he was fucking bored out of his mind with that old fart
I think you have missed the entire point of Mister Hand’s character concept.
He is that ‘tough but fair’ teacher who put his students first, even going so far as to home-school and give one-on-one tutoring of his own valuable personal time, to help his students succeed.
Including helping out the one, apparently brain dead, stoner who all the other teachers probably wrote off as a waste of time.
Maybe go back and watch Fast times again when *you* aren’t also stoned!
Also, worth it just for Phoebe Cates. Yum, right?
If he was such a ‘great and wondrous teacher’, then why did he humiliate Spicoli in front of the whole class like that? If that happened now, the next day the school would be on lockdown with a fleet of ecnalubma on call and calls for gun control on every news channel (with fuck-monkeys in HolyWeird vying for the rights of turning it into a movie)
Well, why did Spicoli intend to bogart all that pizza himself?
Spicoli made a dick move but instead of invoking an actual punishment, Mister Hand enabled Spicoli to be a benefactor to the entire class.
Who said he was? He never had the chance to share it, or even sniff the box
In the interest of art appreciation and general research purposes, I wonder if DaveB would share any reference material he might have used for panel 1.
Scrolled all the way down, looking to see if anyone would comment on panel one :P
We-e-e-e-ll, it does look from here that she has access to flea-juice…
You have pointed out below that {There is no ‘Aranea-shaped’ holes in that building … }, but it looks like there soon will be, at least in a window. Or maybe an Aranea-shaped spudge-mark if they’re laminated :P
@Guesticus
I’m just saying what everyone is thinking, it’s not my fault everyone’s a pervert :)
And just saying: completely agree with you :D
It could have been worse. She might have been asked to pull out a remedy for Sydney’s poison, and instead of ‘antidote’ she pulled out ‘antimatter’.
It’s also a good thing that she is not dyslexic. We could have a gnu walking around on the roof.
And remember, no gnus is good gnus with Gary Gnu. (Now I feel old. [i]The Great Space Coaster[/i] ran from 1981 thru 1986. The Gary Gnu Show was a “newscast” segment that featured weird sporting events, unlikely inventions, people in silly situations, etc.)
Old is when you remember watching the original “Space Ghost”.
Old is when you remember watching Crusader Rabbit.
I always wanted Robot Chicken to give Rags the Hobbs treatment.
I did watch the original Space Ghost, though in hindsight I’m not sure if it was the original run or syndicated reruns. Never saw Crusader Rabbit. Opus the Poet has successfully convinced me I’m not old. Except when I get up too quickly after sitting down for too long, and then my hips remind me that while I’m not old, I’m not young anymore either.
Crusader Rabbit went around with wait for it…a tiger named Rags.
I think that may have been the second children’s tiger sidekick after Winnie the Pooh’s Tigger. Wikipedia says it launched in 1948.
Obviously it was reruns when I watched.
Old is watching the premiere of Captain Kangaroo. Watching the JFK funeral on live TV (tape delayed in Hawaii). Watching the original That Darned Cat. Hazel, Dennis the Menace, Gunsmoke, Dragnet, FBI (a Quinn Marten production), Rat Patrol, Spiderman (with the 6 legged spider suit), hell I even watched the second run of Astroboy. And my mother sewed a button on and made buttonholes in towels to make capes for my brother and me to play Batman and Robin after watching the first season of the original series.
Well, Beth did say she was still basically blind. I mean look at the panel from her POV the m in gum was blotted out.
Asking for a generic “Gun”, she could have produced a matchlock, wheellock, flintlock or pepperbox gun out of that book; none of which were very accurate except in the hands of an experienced shooter. moreover, even with a modern weapon, it’s hard to hit a moving target unless you’ve had plenty of practice.
So far, it’s Aranea 1, ARCHON 0.
Here’s the problem with that: The book draws from her life force, unless she feeds objects into the book beforehand, in which case it acts like a Bag of Holding. It’s true that when you’re casting from life force, it’s a bad idea to ask for something like a generic “gun”. What you get may not be what you wanted, and then you’ve just wasted energy.
However, since she feeds objects into the book beforehand, I don’t think she would’ve fed it a matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, or pepperbox. Her idea of a gun tends to be things like a 7.62x51mm FN SCAR. Since she asked for a generic “gun”, it would summon (is that the right word for what it does?) a random gun that she had already fed into it. Also, her dialogue (“Did you want a rifle?”) implies that unless she specifies otherwise, it defaults to a random pistol.
Where was it mentioned that it draws from her lifeforce? o_O
Sorry, hadn’t taken own advice and didn’t read the Author’s Blurb :(
Please you kids would have no control with that book, what with you looking up dirty words you heard on the net
the true connaisseur choses cal. “Fishermen’s Friend”…
You know, we could’ve avoided this issue if she’d searched for a firearm. That also avoids the risk of pulling a howitzer out of there. If there’s a cost to her life force or whatever when she pulls out something that she hasn’t already fed to it, you’d think she’d be super specific in searching for the stuff she knows is in there. As a “cursed” book, it probably delights in non-specific searchs that allow it to drain your essence.
She won’t be pulling a howitzer out of there. It has to fit within the book’s pages, so there’s a maximum of approximately 17″ by 11″ for a two-page spread. Also, her dialogue strongly implies that “gun”, in this case, means “pistol”. (“Did you want a rifle? I just selected ‘gun’.”)
It isn’t explicitly stated, but I’m guessing that it defaults to items that she’s already fed to it that are closest to what she asks for, before it starts drawing on her life force. (For example, if she asks for “gun”, it’ll start with any pistols she’s fed to it, then any rifles she’s fed to it, and then it would draw on her life force.) I could be wrong. That’s something that DaveB would have to address.
DaveB did note that calling it cursed might be an exaggeration, since that’s pretty much only referring to her inability to remove it from her person.
Too bad Frodo did not have access to that book. It would have made “The lord of the rings” a short story.
Yea so i grabbed ‘the one ring’ and dropped it in the page with ‘Mount Doom lava’ and well, that was that.
Well if you wanted to make The Lord Of The Rings a short story they could have just asked Tom Bombadil to unmake the ring. Though they were unaware of it Bombadil was equivalently an Archangel.
In the book, he was given the ring to examine and just played with it, then handed it back. Is that not in the film?
Tom Bombadil is not in the film. At all.
:(
As you know, when Gandalf was falling into the abyss, he told the companions exactly what to do. They weren’t listening.
He said “Fly, you fools!” In other words, use the giant eagles to carry you to Mount Doom.
The stupid idiots walked there instead, and the story took three volumes as a result…
That would’ve been a bad idea for multiple reasons.
a. The eagles are very suspectible to the rings influence, due to them being very powerfull creatures.
b. The ring has to be moved secretly, because otherwise Sauron would just destroy the hobbits and grab the ring and giant eagles aren’t really secret.
c. entering mordor would’ve been no option, since in a world where you can get attacked by giant eagles you will also have air defenses and Sauron controls Mordor like a totalatarian country, so he obviously at least has some flying creatures like dragons and hippogriefs and air born weaponery like dragon shooting bows to shoot problematic airborn creatures.
No, the abyss is a plot hole …
/\ /\ /\ This is a joke. Like my earlier comment.
“Fly” is just an old-fashoned way of saying “Flee” or “Run away”. I has nothing to do with flying through the air. Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon and English at Oxford.
Thanks for the information. It explains a lot.
So now the question is, did she pre-load the book with ‘gum’ – or did she just give up a nibble of her life force? I would think that as a cursed item, the book probably has a tendency to include LOTS of ‘similar’ words to anything she inserts, so she really does have to carefully look up the exact thing she wants or else give up bits of life force.
I would bet its preloaded with all sorts of food, snacks, and drinks.
How does Beth manage to change clothes with that book chained to her waist? I suppose the most obvious explanation is that she has an exaggerated hourglass figure, and the chain is loose enough to allow clothing to be slid between it and her skin but not loose enough to slide over her hips, or chest. Or else some weird magical thing that it’s plenty loose around her waist but just can’t be moved at all.
She does have a pretty good hour glass shape. If we go with the “ideal” measurements of 36-24-36, a belt that was 30″ would be unremovable, but still allow plenty of room to slip clothes underneath it. 36-24-36 is not an exagerated hour glass shape, many women in their 20’s have something close to that. If she was even 32-28-32 and the belt was 30″ she would still not be able to remove it and yet have sufficient room to slip clothing underneath it. I don’t think there is any great mystery here.
Also, the chain is magical. It’s entirely possible it’s changing length. I don’t think she would be able to get it off even with surgery.
At least get her longspearmint, so she’d have reach.
If she wanted to go all out, she would summon the ‘Spearmint of Destiny’.
All shall fall before my minty freshness!
The enemy is running. You won.
Considering it was a surprise encounter with a unknown foe, just driving the enemy away and saving Tamatah is a win.
Especially if you consider that only Sydney was an actuall frontline combatant/ArcSWAT member and she was taken out first.
From this vantage point, we’re not sure where Aranea fell from. She might be returning to where she left Tammy.
There is no ‘Aranea-shaped’ holes in that building she is jumping to
Did we? Aranea has had all her worst suspicions confirmed, and seen how disorganised the Dark Side is.
From her PoV, this intel is Gold, and many asymmetric warfare groups give lives to get this type of info.
I’m counting this as a net loss to ARCHON/Semper Vigilatis.
Next Winchester spearmint…!
I didn’t realize that the book was cursed and was stuck around her waist.
Well, one of the terms for what she is is a magician. She could saw herself in half and slip the chain off one of the ends of the cut.
Of course if she wanted the book to be stuck around her waist most of the time, for security, but she wanted to take it off for comfort reasons, at bedtime … that would be a weird apparatus on the side of her wardrobe, for taking the book on and off.
I just realized, Ellie had never changed her outfit, even on a casual night. Is it locked on her like the book is?
She was wearing a bikini at the pool.
The dress she had on at the council fight was the same colors but not the same cut.
I miss the who’s who.
The Who’s Who is there after you comment or, simply READ THE FUCKING COMMENTS!!!
No offense, mate, but that is awfully aggressive a response to a random visitor.
Maybe dial it back a notch, you aren’t a gate-keeper here. Politely inform, then get testy on repeated errors of the same variety.
So, when the tenth ‘random visitor’ mentions missing something that can’t be seen by a random visit, you saying should still be polite?
Because, while this may be the first time PERARoS said it, it’s not the first time it’s been brought up
I agree with Rune.
New people arrive every day. They do not have your years of experience, and your wondrous knowedge, but they are entitled to politeness and understanding.
Otherwise they will go away again. DaveB needs these people to make a living and tp keep writing the comic.
I don’t understand some stuff either. Why do the comments open up on the second or third page, so people don’t realise that somee point has been made already on page 1?
Some things here make no sense and it is not fair to expect someone to understand them/ I cannot understand why we are shown the second page of comments first.
And why is there no edit function – meant to wipe that last paragraph.
Again, if they were new, they wouldn’t know about the Who’s Who that only shows up after you comment in the first place, and certainly couldn’t ‘miss it’
PERARoS isn’t a new reader, they are a passive aggressive arsehole
They could have simply asked “Where is the ‘Who’s Who?'” instead of implying that DaveB removed it, or it broke, in which case would have told them politely that it only shows up after you comment (or read the comments)
It’s the same as people (sometimes new commentators, sometimes long time commentators) who post the same damn question, or point out an error, within four posts and a couple hours (so no excuse of “their post hadn’t gone through”) of three other near-identical posts
As for your last two paragraphs, that’s because the comment section changed, can’t remember if it always opened at the last page, butt it use to at least have the indicator telling you what page you were on at the top of the page, not just the bottom, so the only way now to know which page you are on is by, surprise surprise, reading the comments and getting to comment box a the bottom
So yeah, having to put up with the same shit over and over has me losing temper at times (and note that did still tell them what they wanted to know, others are not so helpful, and ruder)
Watch out, Aranea! You’re about to be hit by a blast of freshness. :D
How Elsbeth sleeps- a suggestion for Dave
Why not something like a custom mattress, or a bunch of couch cushions on top of a mattress? That way there could be a horizontal gap where the chain would be so it’s comfortable. Plus, the book floats with the chain all the time or close to it, so it doesn’t mean the chain even weighs anything. It might not even be a chain, but a curse that looks like a chain. The book could be a blessing. It really does seem to be similar to the book from Avalon Code.
Like the book is positive magic, but someone cursed her or the book or both, so what looks like a chain is there, binding… OHHH stream of consciousness the book is cursed, Elsbeth isn’t. That’s what the chain is- the book’s curse that keeps it from being as free as it otherwise would be. It doesn’t necessarily have to be intelligent to be cursed.
Don’t you know the cursed chain can be heard to say “Ooh!” and “Aah!” in a deep voice (that sounds a lot like Lou Rawls) whenever Elspbeth lays down?
And the moment she just about falls asleep a high pitched voice (reminiscent of Sam Cooke) starts singing something about chains.
It’s a cursed book I tell ya.
Here I thought the cursed chain had the same voice actor as the Heart of Gold.
Alternative line for panel two: “Sorry, I had something in my eyes.”
Or “Sorry, ears are still ringing, let me read your lips again.”
There are special pillows available for C-PAP users that have a notch in them to accommodate the hose and nosepiece. Shouldn’t be hard to make a mattress pad along those same lines.
This was supposed to be a reply to Viirin above. Once again this board decided to break that connection.
Panel on: now that’s a sight to regain vision to (or be the last thing one sees) :D