Grrl Power #85 – Wild imaginings. Hopefully.
Welp, tube’s open. See you next week!
Hah hah no. I swear I’m not trying to jerk you guys around with the tube, this is just how it happened in my head, and that’s pretty much what I’ve run with so far. I’ve always said that since I can’t draw this fast, I’d work towards having a fun ride along the way and also toward making the archive dive a good read. So before anyone gets too bent out of shape, the proper reveal is next week, I promise. That being said, this is everyone’s last chance to read up on pre-open Grrl Power, so share it around on Facebook/Twitter etc. Starting to read the comic at next Monday’s page would take some of the excitement out of the build up. I wish I had time to do a dedicated “what’s in the tube” Project Wonderful campaign.
In fact this week’s comic is actually page #86. I couldn’t fit everything I wanted on this page, the only solution would be to break it into 2 separate pages, but that would have meant doing 3 pages with cliffhanger endings, and that would officially make me a dick. Page #84.5 got partially done, but I realized there was nothing actually critical happening on it, it was just a lot of jokes so I decided to skip it.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Dashie!
That last panel is so awesome hilarious that this comic has now reached the lofty heights of number 1 on TWC by 503 votes right now. To put that in perspective, there are only 13 comics with more than 503 votes, and this comic by itself is at 2,652 votes. The numbers are ridiculous. So basically this, right now, is the number 1 webcomic on the entire Internet.
So, uh, no pressure for the next page! :P
I’m pretty floored we made it to #1. I’m sure it will only last a day or two at most since many of the comics that regularly appear in the top 20 have more readers and most of them update more frequently as well. Also, as pleased as I am, I have no illusions about the amount of readers I have as compared to other comics out there. Girl Genius, XKCD, El Goonish Shive, Questionable Content and some other big comics are in the top 100, and if any of them did vote incentives, no one would be able to touch them. I imagine they don’t bother because 1) They don’t really need to and 2) they’d probably get retired to a Lifetime Achiever list or something.
Honestly I’m pleased to even appear on the same list as them.
But… ignoring all that analytical stuff, it is a pretty good feeling. :) I appreciate the votes!
Right now your comic is more entertaining than EGS, XKCD and Questionable Content combined and that is saying something coming from me as EGS and QC are my two favorite comics, if it wasnt for your lack of updates I would say that you had the chance to have one of the 5 best webcomics out there in terms of site hits as well as voting on TWC. If it wasnt for how shitty the economy is and the fact that this comic is too early in its origins to be considered self-sustaining, I would say that you should run a kickstarter and make Grrl Power your business. Hell you should run a kickstarter anyways or at least make a donation page like for every 50 to 100 bucks donated you would add in an extra strip at the end of the month….or something
I would love to do this for a living but I want to be realistic about it. I need to start working toward monetising the comic a little. Notice I don’t have any ad banners yet. I think I’m just now edging into the sort of traffic where they might be worth it. I need to spend the time to set up a store and put something in it. I have the one ninja shirt which you can only find if you’re reading through the archives.
Really my plan is to wait until I have enough pages for a book, and do a preorder/kickstarter for that, and see what sort of money that makes me. The idea of not having a regular income/health insurance/ that big fat annual tax return check is terrifying, but honestly, if I could put the comic out 5x a week I would, though if I was doing this full time I’d start with 2x a week and work up to 3 probably.
and then comes the realization that you are about a year to a year and a half away from being able to create a good book with 120-150 pages. Sadness
Yeah, maybe I’ll pick up a colorist along the way or something.
This comic is now 20% cooler!
Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!
Love this!!
The only thing missing from Arianna’s imagination are honey badgers.
Honey Badger ain’t gonna appear, ’cause Honey Badger don’t give a shit.
badgers? badgers?! we don’t need no stinking badgers!
badgers what does hufflepuff have to do with Syndey
Prophetic? Or influential?
Is it bad that I could name Sailormoon, Pokémon, and Rainbow Dash off the top of my head? Keeping in mind that I am a 19 year old male in college.
Awesome:) To me that last panel is priceless. Zephan is afraid the idiot has messed with things that woman is not meant to know, the general is afraid he is saddled with a(nother) loony toon. Max and Arianna might have realistic expectations :p
A while back I cracked under pressure and used the Wayback machine to find out what it was.
Holy flaming ferret balls, you’re still at #1!!!
I checked this morning for the update and saw it, and thought “Whoa, awesome, but I bet it won’t last long” but now I’m home from work and you’re still there!!!
Also, this update is both hilarious and frustrating. You sir, are an evil man. Well done.
Found this comic TODAY.
I fucking hate you. -_-
What if its really a combination of all four… the joyful horror.. let the Rainbow Moon Harvest of Pokemon and animals begin!
Man, why is drawing a comic much easier than editing it on a computer?
Ya know, I’ve been readin’ since somewhere in the comic’s teens of issues. I have to say, today, like everyone else, I’m all *rageface*.
I just also read up in the comments that some dude just started reading today, and he was disappointed ’cause he gotta wait until next week. Dude I’ma punch you. <_<
On a serious note, I gotta say – partially worried about the military guy dreaming about sailormoon. I mean, the only way that would come to his mind first is if he has a fetish for that sort of thing. Seriously, kinda creepy dude. I suppose it provides entertaining character depth../
Keep up the awesome work!
PS: Bonus page made me shit a brick! 5/5
as has been mentioned he could be a grandpa. even if he doesn’t watch the shows with his grandchildren he sees the characters on their belongings, and if my sister is a reliable example they are likely to explain the whole series to grandpa.
Actually I have to say the real interesting thing is that only Maxima’s skewed imagination kept Sid’s glasses on. Everyone else took ’em off.
So, will super power Sid wear ’em?
I actually scrolled back up to look at the panel to see if you were right. So good, you got me.
OH MY GOD GENERAL FAULK IS A POKENERD AND A BRONY!!!
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~!
Ok did this page get linked on Equestria Daily or something? Or are there just a lot of readers that are also bronies?
The latter I believe; the show is more popular than most will admit. In fact several online comics have had cameos recently; VG Cats, Twisted Kaiju Theater, and Magic Chicks come to mind off the top of my head. You can thank Screw Attack’s “G1 Starscream vs Rainbow Dash” for drawing me to the show; just to see what was up; and then getting hooked.
That video got some of my friends too! XD They still won’t admit it, but I did catch a couple watching season one, and another listening to brony-step.
This one made me laugh out loud.
I can’t tell which imagination is the best.
I think Ariana’s was the weirdest.
You know, I don’t actually mind all the cliffhangers. I guess that puts me in the minority, but I find the ARCSwat staff’s disappointment more entertaining than my own.
Ariana is definitely the one with grandkids. The general is just an otaku, and everyone loves MLP:FIM.
If she has grandkids, I love to meet her plastic surgon.
My mother has grandkids and half the time she looks younger than me.
I know what you mean. My grandmother looked like she was in her late thirties when she was in her fifties and I look like I’m in my late 20’s when I’m in my late thirties.
because i feel it’s worthwhile two artists worth looking into:
sfw theportraitart (all one word) on youtube
nswf NSWF!!!! (no chances to miss the NSFW)
ganassa
(easily the best cartoon artist i’ve ever seen)
I think it would be cool if her powers turned out to be like the Dr. immagined, infact I think it would be awesome
I like how Max thinks it’s attack kittens…
Can I make an icon out of “the harvest begins!” ?
Pretty please?
That would make a great t-shirt.
Sure, knock yourself out.
Is it bad that I’m imagining sleeping Ancient Egyptian gods or something? Will we see Horus? Or worse, Set? ‘Cause, i think i remember there being a page saying she had come back from a trip to Egypt with the tube. O.O If it’s Anubis, I’m running away screaming.
My other imagination says it’s little pixies. <3
Or it could be Bast the cat-headed goddess.
Only in recent times has Bast been cast as a female figure. Home God? Has to be female!
Bast originally and in figurines even is male, but likely that type of male that shows and exhibits many feminine virtues, which isn’t uncommon in ancient egypt. (they had little problem with feminine men apparently.)
So I giggle every time someone roleplayed a cleric of bast or made their anime based heroine cyberpunk teen (usually a neko-mimi upgrade package) as based off Bast worship (Shadowrun so that there was both cyberpunk and magik in gameplay- allowing for god worship (ancient cults etc) magiks to exist.) Or when someone insist that Bast is hot and female with kitty aspects.
Actually being closer to a transgender/crossdresser in modern parlance would be truer to the original model.
To steal a great word from the british, “bollocks”.
pretty sure that’s wrong, as much as I’ve delved into various mythologies around the world, and moddled characters off of Egyptian gods, and read every book I could find since i was a kid I’d think something like (Bastet is a man in drag) would have come up at some point; rather than goddess of song, cats, music, and lesbians (which is the odd one out that tends to be harder to read up on unless you use a college level or profesional level source).
I could be wrong; however I will require a (source) on that so I can double check it; are you sure it wasn’t that the priests of Bastet would dress up as women?
While Mr. Sternberg’s online erotic fiction (the only published source that has ever remotely suggested that Bast was male and/or transgender) may be entertaining (to some), it should be pointed out that he has absolutely no professional qualifications as an archaelogist and one should not confuse his works with “reality”.
A thorough search of peer-reviewed publications continues to support the long held idea that Bast derived from Sekhmet (the lioness-headed goddess) and was always considered female.
Something else to consider is that the Ancient Egyptians messed around with their gods a LOT. Individual gods fell into or out of favour or fashion, were split into separate beings or aspects, amalgamated with other gods, had names or responsibilties altered, etc., etc., etc..
That at least one of the gods might have become a tad gender-confused as a result would be absolutely no surprise to me. ;)
While this could be possible I greatly doubt it. You might be confusing the true story of the female Pharaoh who dressed as a man and even wore a beard to gain and keep her throne. As I understand it she did a pretty good job of keeping her sex a secret while running the empire better than some of her male predecessors.
Well, the pharaohs ruled by divine mandate, didn’t they? Claiming they were descendants of the sun god? It seems possible if not plausible that a being who was widely accepted as a demi-god would be elevated to full godly status under the right circumstances. Many cultures have included famous historical figures into their religious pantheons. Hachiman comes to mind.
I like to think that it is the nature of myths to evolve and change as time and stories progress. Despite being aware of past incarnations, I think our own culture can evolve it’s own stories. But I might just be a douche.
Must the two possibilities be mutually exclusive? :)
I do believe the name your searching for is “Nyarlathotep”.
Your idea is ‘the Crawling Chaos’ from Lovecraft’s Mythos, Set is the Egyptian god of the underworld/evil and is pictured with a jackal’s head. Both are “Flee!” ideas but Set fits the ‘Egyptian articacts’ idea better.
Sorry, Set has a croc’s head; Anubis is the jackal.
No Sobek has the crocodile head, Anubis has the jackal/dog and Set has a weird jackal/aardvark like head
Actually, while you’re right on the money with Nyarlathotep being Lovecraftian, the Elder God is often depicted as related to Egyptian mythology. I believe one of his pseudonyms is ‘The Black Pharaoh.”
My guess for what is in the tube:
While Sydney was on vacation she saw a giant stone statue with a cracked fingernail and decided to give it a manicure, and the clippings are in the tube.
i vote for number 3. matches her so far.
Add “capable of falling asleep when bored” to known attributes of the Tube Inhabitants. Strangely, “pixies” remains a valid option every time something new is learned.
Atypical Resources Commission would be a good source for the ARC acronym. It’s suitably general, bland, and uninformative, but works with the section names we have so far. I’m working on ARCHON.
Yeah that’s not bad. Goes with the banner I have on TWC at the moment too.
Got it! “When a riddle resists cleverness, go simple.” HON is Head Office, National.
or Atypical Recon and Combat for ARC (would work well for ARC-SWAT as well)
So then we have:
ARCHON: Atypical Resources Commission Home Office National
ARC-SWAT: Atypical Resources Commission – Special Weapons and Tactical
ARC-LIGHT: ????
ARC Light, not an acronym, but a pun on arclight, an early electric light too harsh and glaring for home use, but still used in searchlights and spotlights. Mild displays of humor in agency names are not unknown.
Since they are only partially military/law enforcement, and are also a resource center for the super gifted, I thought the top level name should be unagressive. We have WOG in an earlier comment thread that ARCHON provides general support, help fitting in and even employment assistance to the gifted, as well as protecting us from”supervillians” and terrorists.
She is the one who stole all the eyes from the statues on Easter island and she has been slightly stretching the truth about her age for a few hundred years lol and the next comic showing that will come out on EASTER!!!
actually, I’m fairly positive Easter is always on a Sunday
yea i know but it sounded good in my head…
Lol they aren’t gaming dice are they? her realy power comes when she rolls a solid 20
I was thinking something like Ion stones, but dice would be awesome. A set of gaming dice! 4, 6, 8, 10, & 20 sided. hehe
you forgot the D100
And the D12, though they make D1000s now too.
You forgot a D30 (0-9, +0-9, -0-9); used that one for my chaotic characters.
I prefer the original d4 d6 d8 d12 and d20 based on the perfect mathematical shapes known since ancient times. The d20 can be used as a d10 d20 or two can be used as a d100. Simple and perfectly random.
true, but if Syd is that big a geek you just KNOW she has them all.
She’s part owner in a comic book shop. She sells them for a living.
lol, oh god… Arianna’s was the best, can’t stop laughing.
is it just me or does Sydney remind me Edward elric from FMA
just a female version
anyway my opinion on the guesses on what is in the tube.
the dude that looks like a shrink — “he think Sydney keeps her in demons in there.”
The top Brass of Arcon – “a little to child link” result in the top brass not taking sydeny seriously
Maxium – “Must have a thing for cats”
The PR head – ” must have an allergy to bee’s or could a locust”
I have no clue what it could be but if had to put my money on anything it would be something interesting
that gives Sydney the ability to eat anything and not die from it,.
Sydney reminds me of a less hyper Excel Excel.
The two have conceived a child. Run.
I am sick with laughter.
I want to see a horrid combination of ALL OF THE ABOVE AND THEN SOME!
The general and Maxima have the best poker faces out of all of them.
Please, let it be some kind of super awesome weapon-or, pixes, I don’t care too much.
Release the KITTIES!
OK for all of you who enjoy reading about small hyperactive cuties there is a book called “Tinker” by Wen Spencer that you should check out. She’s super smart, mechanically and electronically inclined and can do magic. Be warned there is some romance with an Elf-Lord but he’s kinda cool.
Two books of Tinker’s adventures are in print, with a third slated for publication in July. The second book is Wolf Who Rules, and the third is Elfhome.
Great author try A Brothers Price.
Great reading and it reversed the gender roles in a intresting way.
I wish she would put it out in e-book form. So many paperbacks I’m a fire hazard. Also running out of room.
A Brothers Price is available as an ebook for the Nook or Kindle at $7.99. So are other books by her. Baen does their ebooks in-house, so you get them direct from their web site.
Yes I like Baen they offer many of their books free of charge in several formats. I have a Nook myself.
thank you i was hoping that the Tinker seris was not over
Im thinking its a fairy like navi and she put her in there cause she was too annoying
something bug me, where the hell the protection stuff she trow away come from? the scanner showed “less than nothing” in there, not even protecting stuff
meh; i guess the pixies things inside have an invisible field around them hiding protective stuff
Its like I’ve said, they (what ever is in the tube) over did it on the cloaking; remember (too empty) as in nothing at all; also implies a lack of air; and according to physics if there is no air in a hollow container the container would collapse under the weight of the air (the air in our bodies and cells allows us not to be crushed like pancakes under a great deal of force that exists around us).
So what ever is in the tube seriously over did it to the point that a scan would make it clear (something) is in there due to the distinct lack of (anything).
Hmm.. air pressure is pretty low actually. Something like being under 32 feet of water is equivalent to being under several miles of air (32 seems kinda high, I may have screwed up my calc but oh well. general idea still holds). It is more that our bodies are much denser than air that prevents us from being crushed by air pressure: we need to be at least tough enough to resist our own mass. Also if the tube was metal and well made, you could have a pretty reasonable vacuum in it, ambient air pressure is only 14.7 psi after all (at 20 C and sea level of course :P).
its a poster tube; chances are its made of aluminum and less than half an inch thick; so pretty easy to collapse with relativly little force. Of course now I am thinking this is something to submit to Mythbusters (just what would be crushed if you sucked all the air out of it). and 14psi, is 14 pounds per square inch, that’s not exactly a (low) amount relativly speaking, if we didn’t have oxygen in every cell of our bodies it would be like having a 14 pound solid peg on every inch of your body, so multiple that by the number of inches per your surface to get how much you are actually resisting as a grand total (granted dispersed its not as impressive as being on a single point which would feel the most impact); lets put it this way, the pressure inside our bodies is strong enough that if we are exposed to a vaccuum it will burst our lungs, hemmorage our organs, and possibly make our eyes pop out of our heads (explosive decompression). and that’s the counter force to what is pushing against us.
14.7 psi is nothing to scoff at in absolute terms (when it comes to pressure we think in relative terms because we are perfectly adapted to our atmospheric pressure; so perfect that minor changes requiring reacclimation *ears popping, nose bleeds over minor differences in pressure for most people*. But anywho, yes pretty sure a poster tube would dent up (maybe not be completed flattened, but “collapse” is what I said and hoped was what people thought; now that I think of it and hope you didn’t think I meant it would be flattened; no, like the center caves in, the lid is distorted and cracked.
Actually, humans survive hard vacuum pretty well for short periods. The lungs are a problem, if you don’t exhale (nearly) all the air in them before hand, but other organs deal fine, and the main problem with the eyes is the moisture at the surface would freeze (Assuming the ~2 kelvin cold of outer space, rather than just plain old vacuum.) A physicist wrote a whole article on how overdone the effects of space are in most sci-fi. I’ll see if I can find the link later and post. The popping eyeballs of “Total Recall” were completely ridiculous.
It even takes a couple hours for a person in space to completely freeze, since we do not radiate heat well, and floating in space, we can not loose heat due to either convection or conduction. What would kill us is oxygen deprivation. That takes 4 minutes before cells start dying, and 15 before there is (practically) to chance of resuscitation.
As for the 14psi, balance a 14lb metal rod on your palm… then imagine that everywhere. Uncomfortable? Yes. Deadly, no. In fact, thermoses (or vacuum insulated bottles) do have a vacuum between two thin walls of (usually) stainless steel, but I have seen aluminum and plastic ones.
actually in older thermoses, the inner wall was thin glass.
I bet they are rocks of no special distinguishable characteristic.
for some reason I am thinking Tennis Balls of doom.
It’s always the guy with glasses, leather bound books, and a smoking jacket that ends up being assaulted by mind-shattering tentacular horrors from beyond space and time. That’s why I don’t own a smoking jacket. But he does look pretty dang dapper in one, I must admit.
Well this’ll be fun. And I’m positive the General has grandchildren. Pikachu and My Little Pony?? Yeah, no contest.
I think it would be funnier if he was just an anime fan and brony.
It’s not like we’ve ruled that out at this point. Sure, it was implied, but we have no hard evidence.
NOOOOOOOOO!!!! So close, and yet so far…O_O did i just say that out loud?
technically you did not say that out loud.
you typed it.
I think the furry tempest is the most frightening…
Is that from something? And yeah I think it’s the general who’s into Pokemon and MLP
Her code name will be Halo… So maybe wings or something angelic seeming?
Granted… that seems to be the exact opposite of her character, but i figure that the nickname must be related in someway to what she can do…
The most obvious would be that the objects orbit around her head… until she needs the power of one of the objects has (whatever they are).
I have lost my patience; I shall use my “cosmic awareness” to learn the answer (its like distant viewing mixed with clarevoyance; so kind of chaotic, after all the Acoshic record can be a pain to rifle through)
Anywho
*uses power*
and….I hear the “theme song” to Dragon Ball Z…okay…that’s odd. and an image of a Donovan Baine using his elemental buddhist necklace thing, so elemental forces? Huh, well you did have her fictional persona in that game be Omni-elemental; but I could be missing something from the vision…maybe…
here is a clue; she background in comic books to use her opponents powers better than they can.