Grrl Power #87 – I can see why this might be cause for concern
We already knew that the orbs grant her powers, I mean, she’s the main character of a superhero comic. Whatever you thought was in the tube, it was obvious it let her hang with supers, but for all the Archon people knew, the tube just contained the holy Spork that Jesus used at the last supper, and it only grants the power to eat both soup and meatballs with the same utensil, or the dying flatus of Gogmagog or something.
And don’t worry, I’m not going to reveal an orb per page for the next 6 weeks. We’ll get through them faster than that.
Oh, and I meant to post this originally with the comic, but it was 1:30 am when I did and I forgot, but if you’re looking for some other amusing superhero webcomics to fill the week long gap between updates here, I’ve been enjoying Love and Capes. It’s got a nice toony art style and is cute and funny, sort of a super hero romantic comedy, lots of referenced to super hero tropes, definitely worth checking out. I have plenty more to recommend but I’ll stick to one a week for a while (when I remember) since some of them have decent sized archives.
Also, I realize after seeing the page fresh after spending all weekend nose down in it that Maxima’s waist and hips are way too small. That’s a bad art habit of mine, I need to keep an eye on that. It’s weird how some artists have blind spots for proportion when looking at their own art, I’m sure you can think of plenty of examples.
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.
That is indeed an aggravating manner.
So very very true.
I’m amazed she can keep a straight face, I try to do her dialogue from the floaty panels and I crack up laughing.
She does everything in an aggravating manner. She reminds me of my wife:p
dear. put that down dear.
Yes but a fun manner got to say I’d probably do something similar. I once annoyed a GM because my Klingon/Vulcan character who was a HUGH fan of the Three Stooges modified a photon torpedo into a cream pie missile. :D Some Trek fans have no humor.
That your GM let you run a Klingon/Vulcan character in the first place points at some semblance of a sense of humour. ;)
Not such a unlikely occurrence if a Klingon ship responds to an isolated Vulcan outpost attacked by enemies while a certain Vulcan female is entering Pong Far. She was a sole survivor and when the Commander of the Klingon war party met her he was impressed by her warrior spirit. Their “courtship” lasted 3 days. When it was over they found many things to admire in each other. She learned how to deal with emotions without totally repressing them and she taught him how to turn his opponents anger against him.
PONG Far? I don’t like the smell of that. ;)
Hell if I know how to spell Vulcan.
Which is particularly noteworthy given that female Vulcans don’t ENTER Pon Farr normally, only males do. What generally happens is that a telepathic bond is established in childhood between arranged marriage partners, then completed in adulthood. This quantum-entangles their brains such that when the husband enters Pon Farr, the wife experiences a sympathetic Pon Farr.
This isn’t to say that autonomous female Pon Farr can’t happen, only that the usual trigger (a sudden dip in background radiation levels which occurs at regular seven year intervals on Vulcan, but irregularly on a star ship) doesn’t impact females.
Also, I think I may’ve just permanently branded myself a nerd, but I’m okay with that.
Oh god…THAT’S MY THING, I float upside down when I want to be annoying.
She has anti-gravity hair
Since her body is liberated from gravity, it seems logical that the hair is too. It would be stranger if the hair remains unaffected.
i would be cool if it acted like it was underwater though
hair “liberated from gravity”: https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/weightless-hair.jpg
it’s more like there is another gravity that only effects her and at the same time she is no longer effected by normal gravity… and her gravity happens to be located in line with her spine at all times.
I honestly like the idea of hair that ignores physics more. It’s funnier.
That’s intentional. I mean it lets her fly, her gravity situation is going to be a bit unusual.
I just assumed she was using a LOT of hairspray…
would explain her bangs.
80’s Hairstyle. So much hairspray it’s bulletproof. I wanted to put a warning label on my sisters’ room due to the 20% hairspray atmosphere.
Haha, now I get the halo part. Those are definitely whisk-worthy, Sydney.
Now I’m really curious which ones are not yet identified.
And Max was right about telekinesis after all, in some roundabout way.
And Max makes the connection!
So, she was a gamer at one point in her life. Bet that helped when her powers kicked in.
Or she’s familiar with the _actual_ source, Jack Vance’s Dying Earth novels.
I’m *really* looking forward to Max’s backstory now!
Likewise. Both the Ioun Stones and Grabthar’s Hammer references make this of interest.
^___^
If the General has grandkids, then Zephan watches animé- particularly Naruto. ;-)
Observe panels 6 to 9: Sydney’s hair follows her orientation. Her flight ability seems to based on some sort of “personal gravity” (to borrow Bill Watterson’s term) and isn’t merely in defiance of the Earth’s (else her bangs would still fall down).
Yea, wrong about that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakra
And no mention that the General is familiar enough to mention the Dragonballs?
Unless he has grand kids and has had to sit and watch cartoons with them.
Forget that, why is no one talking about the EPIC ‘mother of god’ 4-Chan meme reference in the second to last panel of the comic….???
You mean where he suddenly has a pair of glasses to do it with?
Maybe he keeps them in his pocket for that specific reason.
The General totally reminds me of SG-1’s Jack O’Neill.
Burns as Goa’uld…
And why’s Sidney not freaked about his Dragonball reference?
‘Cause it’s a little too obvious?
Dragon ball is pretty mainstream. It’s been in circulation in the U.S. at least 15 years, if not more.
Interesting Syd’s hair is unaffected by gravity whilst holding on to the ball. Though why it’s freaking Arianna out I#m not sure – she should be used to weird things by now
Quite possibly the completely unchanged expression, and the fact that she’s just revolving in midair, without her hair/clothing/glasses/stuff-in-pockets being affected.
And she doesn’t change pose or expression just to tick them off…
The orbs stay in position around her head.
I guess thats where the name Halo comes in.
Yeah, Arianna is quite used to supers and seeing weird things, but seeing someone demonstrate flight by just pivoting in place threw her off.
Shockingly enough, it’s what I would’ve probably done.
It amuses me to thing that most of the people in my family (including me) would have done the same thing, for the same reason.
me, i would have pivoted till i was orizontal then took a position like if i was a cat lying on the back of a couch or something
I see it as her posibly thinking, wait, is she tuning around the orb….or is she rotating the rest of the universe around her?
And the author says not six weeks or one orb per page. Means we get two a week. . .
No: five weeks. One of the orbs won’t be revealed immediately, and will be shown later, so it’s not in the count.
Four. If I understood the cast page correctly, there are two orbs that even Sydney doesn’t know what they do.
Interesting what Max made me look up: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Ioun_Stone
So… It makes you wonder if a supervillain or the like could destroy the orbs… Although, even Max couldn’t pull Sydney away from them (while they were in her tube).
Ioun Stones was my first thought! I always had an unholy fascination with them, including once getting a GM to tailor a campaign around my character’s quest to catch ’em all. ;)
i once had a sorcerer of mine make and use at same time 12357 dull gray ioun stone,, it was like a cloud around her,, so she had to add a few others,, one was self made and gave her clairvoyance to see outside the cloud,,,se used that cloud for defensive purpose,, since no normal arrow could go trough and even melee was bothersome when trying to hit inside that cloud of stones
And then Max snatched the orb out of Sydney’s hand.
As payback.
I don’t think she can. If you remember when Max tried to pull Syd out from under the ambulance by pulling the tube. She couldn’t do it, so I’m guessing that Syd can have a stronger force than Max can pull.
I doubt it. If she couldn’t move the tube when the stones were in it, I doubt she can move the stones now that they’re out of the tube.
That’s right! Say it LOUD and say it PROUD!
I’M A GEEK!
Sadly, “used to be” doesn’t work. Once a geek, always a geek.
Sorry, NERD!
My personal mode of classification boils down to that Nerds have technical jobs and geeks have technical hobbies. Of course you can be both, but which is the proper mode of address relies on context.
Nerds are multi-skilled, having knowledge across numerous fields.
Geeks specialise.
My definition is not quite so nice: Geeks and Nerds are fundamentally the same in terms of interests, types of hobbies and such. To me the difference is a Geek knows how to tone down the ‘geekness’ around non-geeks and generally be more socially acceptable while the Nerd will start gushing about his WoW account and his level 70 Paladin to some random stranger who obviously has no interest.
I got picked on a lot in high school, called a nerd and it always bugged me. So now it has a negative connotation for me. I am a proud geek, however.
My definition is almost the reverse.
A geek is just a general weirdo, without social skills or normal interests. A nerd is a specialised weirdo, seriously clued-up in at least certain areas, and often highly intelligent as well. But also without social skills or normal interests.
I consider myself a nerd. But I resent being called a geek. Although I never make an issue of it, on account of being a nerd…
Now, for me, I use three definitions. Nerds are very smart, usually obsessive about a specific topic, and have no social skills. Geek refers to one who has unusual hobbies, is generally smarter than average, but has at least limited social skills. Dork, however, is purely insult. It indicates one with no real special qualities beyond their complete lack of social skill.
“No! Are or are not. There is no was.” – Bad Yoda impression.
Nerds run the computers that run the world. Sadly we don’t band together and rewrite the social code to put ourselves at the top. If it came down to it we could rule the world but we allow ourselves to be distracted. Diablo 3!! When?!
Isn’t nerd culture overwriting everything already? Games, movies, the bleeding internet? Only people who see nerds as a bad thing are the idiots who are stuck back in the 80’s who’s minds haven’t evolved with the culture.
There are still a lot of them and they don’t go extinct fast enough. Dinosaurs are dangerous mostly because they have brains the size of walnuts.
Hey, some of the nerds I know are bigger jerks than a lot of the jocks out there that I knew in high school.
The only diffrence is that many of the jocks grew out of it and the nerds rarely grew out of being jerks.
So who ever is in charge, there are always jerks looking to get in positions of power, so they can lord it over on others.
Most nerds have at least some education which is leaps and bounds past the mental age of those hammerheads that I ran into. I actually had one moron totally flabbergasted by the thought of reading for FUN! I was carrying a Tolkien tome (not sure which) when he expressed sympathy that I had to read such a big book for a class. When I informed him I was reading it for my own enjoyment he looked at me like I was a dangerous lunatic and might infect him with my insanity.
At least nerds don’t lock you in ball-cages or duct-tape you to the ceiling.
Happened in my school. Lucky we didn’t have lockers big enough…
Jocks can read?
according to the Coach’s records they can, otherwise they’d get kicked off the Team for academic failure, and since he’s the star Quarterback, well, now we just can’t have that now can we, Mr. Principal?…
There are some smart jocks and some dumb jocks. The smart jocks just have a diffrent focus than us nerds.
I was talking about jerks not jocks in the first place.
Same here. Bullies usually weren’t Jocks at least not good ones. The real athletes didn’t have time to waste messing with nerds except maybe in gym class. Most of their time was spent on the field. It was the 3rd stringers and losers you had to watch out for. Mad at the world and looking for victims to vent their rage on.
And the scary part is a lot of them join the police force.
Having dealt with police officers a lot (worked midnight shifts in a stop-n-rob plus a bad speeding habit) I found most of them to be slightly better than average in intelligence and tolerance. Yes some are redneck racists but even the other cops don’t like them. Personally I give them a lot more leeway because they basically sign up to stand between us and the criminals and no cop has pointed a gun at me for a hand full of cash, Criminals generally ARE bullies and abusers. Make no mistake without a police force it would be Darwin 24/7.
I had a fellow student in university once and he was from the US, which is a rare sight here on Germany.
One day he said to a professor:
“Sir, I’m from the southern United States. We have the worst schools in the country. Could you please explain it to me like a little kid?”
And recently there’s been a study. 25% of all Amiercans have an IQ under 90. That’s one quarter of all Americans, one in four.
So, if they abolish jocks and cheerleaders the should be fine.
Or put a couple of sharks in the gene-pool.
Or just nuke Jackson, Mississippi.
Having lived below the Manson-Nixon line I can attest to the appalling state of public education in the south but there is a reason behind it. Anyone with money sends their children to private schools (Catholic schools are big) because public schools are for blacks and white trash. Although public schools in rich neighborhoods do much better they are a small fraction of the public school system.
so do they orbit her or just float in place?
I’d suspect it depends on weather or not Sydney is focusing on them, sort of like how if you leave something alone in a game it displays its idle animation.
arm’s appear and they read a newspaper
Large luminous letters appear “AFS” (away from stones) and rotate around her head until she uses them again. Which is why she keeps them in the tube.
They just lazily orbit her unless she wants them to do something else like fly into her hand.
or spin rapidly as some kind of anti-melee “You’ll-get-hit-by-a-bunch-of-rocks-if-you-get-close-to-me” shield?
*Just re-watched the Avatar: The Last Airbender series finale for the eighth time in a week*
it would be funny if she made them spin around like an electron cloud out of boradum
They are spining around her head.
“Where did you get those glasses?” got a chuckle out of me. My mind went one step further immediately, with the general stealing Zephan’s glasses just to act dramatically. Too bad he’s still wearing his.
… Ok, honestly, this comic was funny with each row of panels.
If she lets go of that orb, does she drop? Or is she just holding it to show which one is responsible for which effect?
If it’s the first, I wouldn’t let Max get within grabbing distance…
if i recall the cast page under the spoiler says she holds them to use em so odds are if she loses her grip on it, she might fall
I have a feeling that the glasses thing is from a scene, from one of the movies. That the actor, the general just so happens to bear a resemblance to, has in his portfolio.
The General has Meme powers!
He can only be stopped by an Arrow to the Knee.
Or Syd’s Stomach FUS RO DAH!
Well, somebody here seems to take their comments well into account>)
personally i suspect the color denotes the power in an elemental fashion, not sure what the scheme is yet, though we know blue is theoretically gravity control(yet to be seen if shes limited to just herself so i’m calling it gravity control till its addressed)
That is probably the best demonstration that you can fly that ANYONE could ever give: wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Yup.
Also, OMG!! SHE’S NOT JUST FLYING, SHE’S STRAIGHT OUT DEFYING GRAVITY!! Or is that just a distracted cartoonist? :P Her hair…
she is flying by using a field of subjective gravity,, basicly she can decide wich way is up and wich is down,, and decid where the pull point is,, enabling her to stop at a specific point.. at least thats what it looks like
Sydney controls the horizontal, Sydney controls the vertical, I’m scared
It is possible that the sphere itself acts somewhat as the “Up” point in normal use. Which would explain at least her holding her arm out during flight. Still doesn’t explain almost every OTHER flying superhero in history.
Try bending your head back until you can look straight up. It’s a lot less stressful if your arms are above you. Most fliers point their arms in the direction they are flying to help them see where they’re going IMO. Definitely would be an easier position to maintain.
Personally I would fly standing up, much more dignified and impressive. Just form a shock wave or shield in front of you to move the air out of the way. The faster you go the more energy you have to use just to move through the air.
I find it really messes with people on most worlds if you fly feet first while doing a corkscrew while yelling out (weeeeee, I am the omega drill !!)
SYDNEY! DRILL! BREAKER!
ME!?
Play on Gurren Lagaan’s Giga Drill Breaker. ;)
Thought you said Beaker lol. :)
Hmmm interesting idea actually. *Pictures Bunsen grabbing Beaker by the thread and throwing him feet first at The Swedish Chef*
*Head
I like the Swedish Chef’s Popcorn Shrimp.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7UmUX68KtE :D
did anyone else notice the poster tube seems to have JUMPED off her lap?
It just fell. I didn’t see the need draw her pushing it off. Panel space is precious.
ah think i’ve played too many games with animate inanimates
seems to me that the orbs are tethered to her head area.. have you noticed in the flight patterns that the orbs stay around Sydney’s head?
Dave! Get one of those upside-down tongue-poking shots of Sydney on the banner image rotation!
You know you want to…
been refreshing the page for ages…. Too bad you don’t have super comic drawing speed :( This comic is my fave!
this page is worth a mention in memorable aêarance fopr sidney,, called freaky flyer :)
also i love the panel 3,4,5 nerd thing,, specialy max’s expression in 5,, but i think sidney You! Say.That, With, Pride.,, should have the pride word in bold or bigger then the rest to show she put more into it,, cause for some reason i see her saying that last word with more force and conviction
also love sidney’s eat shit grin in last panel, specialy since its inverted :)
I’d totally play DnD with Maxima!
I think we all would.
I can just imagine the first few days after she found them. Hiding in her room, locked door, playing with her balls and discovering herself and just the first inklings of her potential.
… playing with her balls and discovering herself…? o_O
Well somebody had to say this.
Indeed. It was my destiny.
I have trouble imagining Sydney doing even that quietly. I bet she’s a screamer.
Sir we who love twisted Puns Salute you.
You are my chosen people after all.
Panels 4 + 5 = perfect. ;D
YOU. SAY. THAT. WITH. PRIDE!
Hey dave b if you have and incentive with young max playing dnd THAT WOULD ROCK
I’m all about this, we need a flashback chibi strip to Max’s nerdy childhood!
Who wants to bet that after this interview is all done and over with, Sydney begs Maxima to come join her at her weekly DnD get together. I can just see Max sneaking into the comic book shop dressed in sweats, big hat, and a backpack with all her gaming gear that she just “happened” to have lying around? Tune in next year to see if this actually happens!
This asks … no Begs for a crossover with a crazy gamer strip …. mayhaps weregeek?
You all know you want to see that … young gamers in the throws of geekdom, gaming in the backwoods, also known as Winnipeg. ;)
I’d love to do some crossover stuff, or at least cameos.
They don’t have to be colored. Just get the story across in a way that you find entertaining. It would probably save you hours.
…We NEED a picture of young Maxima in all her nerdly glory!
One power per page. Why do I see Sydney blasting Maxima when it comes to the energy beam orb? As in ‘blow through the wall, leaving her smoking and shirt tattered in typical comic book ‘barely covering’ ways’?
Max: What the hell was that?
Syd: Sorry, I don’t know how to do do anything but a full power burst and well… you were the only safe target?
Also, *love* how you incorporated all the ideas from the reader comments. Plus also loved the ‘where did the glasses come from’. Plus… Ah hell, there’s just too much to love for this page! Total purple level epicness!
Prefer through the wall, through the air and into the pavement. That’d really make Max ask “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?!”
Panels 7, 8, 9 should ALL have had dialog balloon tethers.
And yeah… I was expecting Space Station hair.
Glad to (finally) be finding out what’s in the tube. I was expecting some kind of collection of unrelated artefacts – Jesus’s spork, Lancelot’s hair brush, Genghis Khan’s stirrups, etc, but this is much better.
Thought of this joke while reading the comic:
Person making fun of Sydney: Hey, Sydney! Did you hear Marvel is making a comic about you guys?
Sydney: Really? Freakin’ sweet!
PMFOS: The artist is Rob Liefeld!
Sydney: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Also, about that “dice” idea you mentioned on the last page, why not have a villain called the “dungeonmaster” whose every action is controlled by the roll of dice – so there’s a chance he’ll fail at the most basic tasks, like spottingsomeone sneaking up on him even when they’re right in front of him, but there’s also a chance he’ll be able to hurt Maxima with a punch even when she’s got invulnerability maxed out (tho that would probably need a natural 20 at least :)
Be even more fun if he was a “good” guy and tried to “help” Max! 00 Bumbling idiot steps into line of fire at crucial moment.
Somehow, I can hear Sydney saying “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” in a GlaDOS tone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5Nb7oX1tlg
That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking of!
At first I thought she would just do a flat monotone just to mess with them further and then I thought of GlaDOS.
It’s the cheesy look on her face that freaks me out.
Do love this comic. :-P
DaveB what movie did you borrow the “Mother of God” with the glasses refrence from?
I know I saw it somewhere, I’ve just forgotten.
It’s a meme, just do a google image search for it, you’ll see plenty of versions.
I once read in a book in the 1632 series where the phrase Mother of God came from.
A spanish treasure ship from South America crashed in England. It was called the Mother of God in spanish. About 200 tons of gold on board.
Madre de Dios!
Gracious
I’m a writer for that 1632 series…though I haven’t published anything with them in the last two years. I got 4 shorts and one novelette (Dog Days) out there- and one of the shorts in HB. I should clean up my written 1632 shorts and update them to current changes and submit them again. That or finish Dark Knight of the Moon for novel consideration.
Cool! you here, and the brother of either Weber, Drake, or Flint (i can’t remember which one right now, I’m kinda zombied right now) hangs out on the comments section for Wapsi Square…
Flint
“Mother of Gold!!”
Madre de … uh, does anyone know the Spanish word for gold?
Madre de Oro>? (oro is gold)
i too wish to know where she got those glasses that magically stay on her face.
the gravity around her looks to be oriented to “normal” for her, so her feet are technically “Down”, hence glasses staying on.
I don’t want a rational answer as to why i want glasses that stay on like that….
Is superhero comic, Rational is a temporary condition
As ar elogic and sanity…
I have glasses like that: the earpieces are springy, and curl around my ears. They look a lot like Sydney’s, actually
Sydney’s reaction to Maxima’s admission of nerdiness in panel four and Maxima’s facial expression in panel five are just to funny. LOL
Outstanding work Dave! :D
I bet Max still has her dicebag.
A lovingly hand cured leather dicebag that once belonged to a rather mysogenic DM…who now goes by the name of Gelding…
Today’s Sidney in Emoticons:
:\ v_v >.o” D8 :3 :3 :3 :3 >:D
Also, apparently the general subscribes to the Dr. Who school of situational optometry.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mother-of-god
Total Win for the mother of god meme on Faulkner. :)
I suspect if someone else grabs a orb either it won’t move beyond the orbit of the others or the tether length, and it won’t provide any power. Rather I’d like to think it would throw them across the room somehow, However, I suspect the orbs just passively resist.
Depending on which orb is grabbed and in what manner they are grabbed, there could be quite a few diffrent reactions.
I’d like to see all of the Harems to each grab a ball at the same time and see what happens. Another Pain Chain reaction?
that would be one grabs while others are in inconvenient situationsthat anothers experience triggers a reaction hurting the next, all grabing at once would be more very dangerous array as each would experience something at the same time.
I name this stone Bob the Third