Grrl Power #88 – “Restraint” generally not a word used to describe her
Sydney’s obviously spent some time testing out the orbs, but as we see on this page, that sometimes proved hard to do without drawing attention to herself. She knows their basic functions but still has a lot to learn.
Speaking of learning, you guys get to suffer along with me while I try my hand at different angles. That low shot of Max isn’t terrible but it could be better. I think I spent about an hour on the pencils for just that panel and her mouth still looks a little weird. Oh well, learn by doing.
This week’s superhero fix to tide you over till next Monday is the League of Super Redundant Heroes. Basically, there’s heroes, then there’s sidekicks, then there’s the guys that didn’t quite make sidekick, and then there’s these guys.
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.
Gravity-defying hair/glasses and intense LOL action, GO!
seriously the only reason i look forward to mondays
You can still see Firefly on cable an the movie. SiFi an Science are the two I’ve seen them on. Check your local listings. An the movie is really good. Answers all the questions an a few die too.
Well it seems that Sydney has this other power too—gross out or freak out normals an even supers! Way-to-go Sydney. An her patented Sydney Spin drives villains an anyone else dizzy an nauseated after seeing it. An they can’t help but look. I think Sydney is someone that is very interesting as a character an I understand why she doesn’t have a boy friend. She is just too hard to be around for too long, she eventually grates them the wrong way with her powerful personality. But you never know in the future…
Now I’m curious about the stats of that pseudopod. Can it lift things? How much? How far can it stretch out? Does it gets thinner if you stretch it?
etc, etc
It can probably lift a full garbage truck, or something along those lines.
She is considered one of the heavy hitters on the team powerwise.
I am wandering if it wraps around things like a tentacle or engulfs them like a pseudopod…or both.
Psudopod.
It’s listed as a three star power and it has limited length. So it should be very strong within its reach. I reckon middle power telekinesis ought to mean long range with low power, middle range with medium power, or short range with high power. Since Sydney’s telekinetic tentacle is of finite length, it must be strong.
I’m thinking that the red orb is less cracked and more crackling with electrical looking energy, kinda like one of those fun little tesla orbs they sell at gift shops. No idea if I’m right though.
I’m curiouse if she can actually combine two powers at once, not just in tandem. For example, I’m wondering she can charge up the tentacle using the PPO so that it burns/electrifies on contact or even explodes when landing or blow.
We’ve seen Max trying to keep her face straight or scowling, now she’s smiling it actually looks a little odd.
ok,, a,,tought,, crossed my mind,, if others poeple can use the orbs,,, i dont wanna see baddler get her hands on that orb,, i mean the pseudopod/telekinesis/tentacle orb,,, just think of all the mischioef she could cause with that
I really enjoyed the sub panel. :D
Though, I’m not sure why Maxima was surprised that the hentai they were watching was animated. (Has Maxima seen many live-action hentai?!) Dabbler wasn’t phased at all. But the best part was Harem sneaking off, saying “I’ll be in my bunk!” I just wonder if more than one of Harem suddenly slipped away to the bunks at the same time…
Maby she was used to the new computer graphic hentai that’s been out for the last decade or so.
There’s a ton of imagegboards out there that have just still jpgs and png files. Anyone can draw a picture, it takes a team to make a cartoon.
I for one like the hand drawn anime better than the CGI anime. It has a warmer feel to it. The human touch, if you will.
Given that they were looking on a computer instead of a TV, I figured that they were looking at a manga hentai, as there are a few animated/partially animated comics.
I know that max is a nerd
But I did not think all nerds knew about “hentai”
Depends on what your intrested in. Being a nerd just means you get overenthusiastic for something.
If you were in Japan you would be called an otaku.
Maxima seems to be changing her mind about Sydney. The more Sydney rags on Arianna, the more Maxima realizes she’s alright. I think they’ll be friends soon, if only because it would win so hard to see all the team sitting around playing pen & paper games with Sydney DMing. Harem would all play the same character, which would be kinda fun to see them bickering amongst themselves over. Dabbler’s character would be so fetishized that to gaze upon her sketch of it would peel the flesh from your skull. But in a good way.
In that case, I’d just play Morte.
I really love the little bumper comic. Ariana’s expression is just about perfect.
Also, I really love that you’re working hard on your art. I think it looks pretty awesome already, even if I do notice the things that are a little off (though usually only after you point them out). As much as I love the Dresden Codak (so so so beautiful and weirdly awesome), I occasionally wish that Aaron would skimp on the art a little and put pages out faster (then he puts out a page and I’m OK with the wait). My two all-time favorite comics, Schlock Mercenary and Questionable Content, are by authors who (really really really) learned how to draw as they went along and made a commitment to updating regularly, even if the strips weren’t always perfect. I love that they were so brave and so humble to put themselves out there even when they knew they had improvements to make.
In short, I think Grrl Power looks pretty awesome already, and if you ever stop updating, I will be forced to chain you to your drawing table and threaten you with badgers. You know, like you do.
Thanks! Before I published anything I spent a little time trying to simplify my style a little. I really like the look of a nice clean cartoony style, like Head Trip or even the Young Justice cartoon. I also like stuff like Legend of Bill, but I think that’s too cartoony for what I want to do. Ultimately, trying to simplify my style wound up taking more time since I wasn’t used to it, but I’m always looking for ways to speed up. For as much time I spend drawing the comic, I just barely have time to get the next page done. I’d love to have more time to dive in to Deviant Art and find great art to reference and fold into my style.
i was reading the comic and… where did Sydney’s left arm go in the last panel or did it change into a tentacle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2csnVNai-o
That video was unexpectedly hilarious. :)
It’s made of wood! It’s a WITCH!
Did it turn you into a newt?
i got better
Nope, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.
“Burn her! Burn her!”
i wonder whats in max’s secret H list.
no looking at our date photos. LOL
Oh I should mention because of hentai it is some times bad to call your self an otaku. Some people think otakus are only into hentai which is not true.
In fact otaku in japan just mean fanatic or fan of some thing. Like being a baseball otaku. Something like that but in the States Otaku mainly just mean Anime fan.
There is a magazine here called “Otaku” all about anime an manga. But not hentai.
Actually “Otaku” (roughly: Fan) got a bad name when a gun-collecting Otaku went on a shooting spree a long time ago…I learned that from the liner notes in my copy of Otaku No Video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFcvr_tmjic )
Just like video games in the US!
Just when I think this comic can’t get any better. It does. This bumper comic is the best so far, especially Dabbler and Harem’s response. League of Super Reduntant Heroes is an awesome comic!
It’s a clown balloon maker!
In last weeks comments, someone said we’d get two orb reveals a week. Guess they were right…
They’ll probably be TOTALLY worth the wait though, like this weeks. Loved the Bup bup bup!! I’ll just keep calling it the Pew Pew Orb I think. Sydney scares me.
Interesting to speculate.
So far, we’ve got an orb each for flight, “explodey beams” and “pseudopod tentacle thingies”. Presumably, there will be an orb that provides some kind of defence – arrnour or a forcefield maybe. Possibly even one for each. Assuming that each orb has a distinct specialty (which seems likely), what does that leave? Maybe super senses orf some kind?
actually, if her flight orb does let her control gravity, with practice she could possibly form a shield out of it as well.
Perhaps. but they could be a bit more specialized than that.
Something else to consider might be what happens if two or more are used in combination. IF each operates when held by Sydney, what happens if she tries to use an orb in each hand? Or one in each hand and a third held between her knees?
Just pointing out, In the last panel prior to the bumper strip Halo’s left arm has been colored like the wall in a wood print. Loving the comic so far, keep up the excellent work :D
You have inspired me, I just found this comic recently (either on Girl Genius or off A Girl and her Fed… Possibly part of the Blind Ferrit stable of web comics) and you have caused my muse to begin to gnaw on my brain. I am going to start drawing a comic/webcomic staring Puck, the Trickster Fey. Love the mix of normal and Chibi, and noted the one break of the fourthwall (I’ll explain on the next page outside the headquarters) Puch is going to do that alot, probably even realize he is in a comic, like SheHulk does. Anyway… thanks for the inspiration, LOVE Grrl Power. Cant wait for the next issue
What have we learned this week?
– some more orb powers
– Syd actually has some idea of when not to do something
– Max has has a bit of a mean streak, and a somewhat nasty sense of humour
– Aria is a bit of a smart ass, but surprisingly uninformed
– and Harem is a bit kinky (apparently more than a bit)
– Bonus: Syd’s flying orb also provides gravity as her name tag, hair, and shirt are not falling down while she is upside down
Also, Max knows Hentai
Aklso note, Max looks pretty good when she smiles.
Haha.perfect
Harem would be a Firefly fan :)
Yea, because Firefly was awesome.
What did she explode? I see trees, a squirrel… did she try to start a campfire with it? Disastrously?
I think she just went out to the woods to test the powers without being seen, she probably shot a rock or a can or something.
I got this sort of DBZ image with a path blasted through the woods.
The woods, a good place to test out super-powers, because all people can do out there if they spot you is take blurry photographs, claim you are bigfoot regardless of your actual apperance or what you were doing, think you’re an alien (same deal as bigfoot), or are likely too drunk to think they really saw you. Unfortunatly out here the woods belong to someone at all times, so you’d have to be careful, flight while learning to avoid tree limbs works; if someone sees you they will likely preted they didn’t (claiming you saw a flying humanoid is even in crypto circles like claiming to have spoken to a dragon).
I have this image of Sydney when she is taken out to the artillery range to test fire Pew Pew for an audience going “Kah – May – Ha – May – HAH!” as she launches the zappy blast. With appropriate physical motions.
I see her yelling HADOKEN!
“Hado number thirty-three, SOKATSUI!” — Rukia Kuchiki
“Azerath metrion ZIN… ”
“You need to get shorter magic words'”
— exchange between Raven and Dr Light (iirc)
Didn’t that find end though with Raven going all Demon Lord on him and half digesting his suit in her true form’s dark mass?
and the next time she met him she just made a shadow on her head and he surrendered, “i’ll go back to jail now”
Yep! The ‘bad’ Doctor found out that PO’ing Raven isn’t a wise thing to do; at least to the degree he managed in that episode. Baiting the daughter of a demon lord tends to cause a great deal of pain to the one doing the baiting.
That’s nothing compared to what happened to Dr. Light at the end of almost the last episode. You know when ALL of the Titans and their friends are at the tower. I love Raven’s line from the scene, “He’s totally gonna freak this time”. :)
Oh, yeeesss! When EVERYbody gathered by the main teammates are on the rooftops just waiting for Robin to give the word. Too bad that episode ended right after “Titans, Go!”
Unless its “Yoga Fire”. We have already seen “Yoga Hwarf”. Sorry about that. Couldn’t let it go.
Yeah, and wound up blowing up the entire tree. Or maybe starting a forest fire?
“a” forest fire? This is Sydney we’re talking about.
OK blazing inferno.
Lol I think i know those guys LOL
I only pity the poor blokes who have to go up against Halo.
Halo, the crazy war-midget.
Yes, that was a bad-guy; yes, he exploded into vapor.
She turned into the Freakazoid
She’s strong and super-quick
She drives the villains crazy
‘Cause she’s a lunatic!
Hey! Sydney is not insane; she just thinks differently from everybody else, and even herself sometimes. ADHD does not make you insane, just hard to handle.
Or maybe she is just a Cloudcuckoolander. Definitely, but with extra spastic energy.
Just a thought: does Harem consider “I” to refer to only the body that’s speaking, or would it refer to an unspecified number of them since it’s the same mind? Harem: giving whole new meanings to ‘playing with yourself’.
Harem’s use of pronouns will be fun to write for, and probably a little confusing. The perception is that she has clones that she’s quintuplets or something, but it’s all just her, only occupying up to 5 places and doing 5 different activities. She tends to say “I” in place of “her” but will sometimes clarify with “that me” or clarify by saying “Goth” or “Vogue”
good thinking. I could see how they would be standing around discussing a plan and she would identify her other selves as such, but how in more the everyday she would be more relaxed and more likely to simply say I or me
Really hoping for a scene where Herem has a 5-way conversation I talk to myself now and I only have 1 body. Sometimes it helps to clarify your thoughts.
Talk about split personality.
At least she’s never alone in (in a dark alley).
Quick slightly unrelated question which one of harem’s form is her base (the one that she turns into when merged together) or can she just pick and chose the appearance of any one of her forms when she merges?
P.S sorry if this has been asked before i checked cast page and it didn’t say and after read the comments I got curious.
Love to see a sceen where they merge.
Do they just pop out of exsistence like a telaport, or have to be touching to merge?
Harem’s abilities exist cause I could never figure out the specifics of how she splits/merges. Originally she could only make copies of herself, but when I tried to figure out the limitations on how far away a copy can be created, I realized if I make it “more than a few feet” then she also has teleporting as a power.
The strawberry blonde one (farmer’s daughter) is what she looks like without all the hair styling and crazy wardrobes. If any are “the original” it’s that one, but even she’s not sure, any version of her can be the last one standing, as it were, if she needs to de-teleport.
Hiya just caught up and love the comic already. First things first! If it isn’t already answered in a previous reply “mind your p’s & q’s” is pub jargon for mind your own business/manners/conversions or “mind your pints and quarts.”
Second, Teleporting in Harem’s case has a lot of sustained cellular division theory behind it. I’m not sure where i picked that one up but it’s possible in the realm of fiction at least. Like the flat worm (or was it a fluke worm? i don’t remember it’s been 20 years since i was in biology) can regenerate after being cut in half as long as enough of the nervous system remains intact in either half. So after the initial cutting both halves regenerate and become 2 individuals with the exact same characteristics as the original.
I posit, since the neural workings of each of her “copies” is exactly the same, this makes the original obsolete and the death of the original just frees up more power/energy to the others thereby also increasing the opportunity for a copy to divide itself. I can only chalk it up to conjecture at this point, (I’m not a real scientist I just play one on D&D) but if one or more Harems die then their energy would be sent to the next closest copy like a bizarre internet upload. Thus saying that a merge at the moment of death for a Harem copy would mostly cause a system failure.
Flat worms like Planeria who have near infinite capacity to regenerate. Not only that but both halves retain the same memory! Something you would need go go along with longevity. Otherwise you will sooner or later end up as a living trunk damaged to the max. Living is hard an the longer you live the more damage you get into.
Welcome! I can’t wait till I get to write some more Harem focused pages.
Actually that bring an interesting question…WHICH Harem is going to her bunk. :P
Doesn’t matter. If they all feel pain the same they all feel pleasure the same. Wonder if it’s additive or multiplicative? The mind boggles.
only multiplied if all were experiencing something pleasurable at around the same time. other wise it would have the same effect as a person taking the end of a rope that’s lying on the ground, giving it a good whip and watching the wave roll until it dissipates.
the question is what happen if they share sensation and all five go to theyr bunk,,,, also she can give quite a new meaning to the phrase playing with herself :)
Well she obviously could but would she? And would it be enjoyable or would she lose concentration at the wrong time. These any many other questions because “Inquiring Minds Want To Know!”. lol :D
doesn’t that get into the “Masturbation or incest” question?
I think it is a case of playing with herself.
Agreed. but you had sex with your clone it would be counted both as sex and mastrbation
That’s what I said. Playing with herself.
split forming rule: it’s I before we except after six.
XDDDD You made me laugh out loud; almost woke up my roommates!
This does not have to do with todays comic, but I was looking back at the archive and noticed that Dabbler was the only “empowered” on the team that didn’t have the first letter of her name on her choker. If this has been said before, I am sorry but I couldn’t find it.
She already had that choker before joining the team. It’s got 4 X’s on it which everyone felt was a good descriptor of her.
Isn’t that choker-thing a bit… pervy?
Kind of reminds me of a dog collar or something.
Maxima didn’t want to go the spandex route, (DAMMIT!) so she compromised by agreeing to have chokers for the women.
Please ever since the 1970’s when spandex was used everyone thinks of spandex as if that is the only material. Mega-mesh was used in “The Incredibles” universe among other scientifically created an stylistically designed by Madam Edna. Lose the concept of spandex as a real live useful material for super heroes already!
In the superhero-novels I’m writing, they have a direct rule against spandex… and colored underwear-costumes;)
Please, really. Who with a sane mind would wear stuff like that?
There’s lots of options that don’t really fall into the pervy/sexistic section.
Well Dabbler’s a succubus so for her no, chokers don’t even register as pervy to her.
As for the women on the team wearing them? I suppose there’s an argument to by made there but I suppose it depends on how a-flutter you get at seeing women’s ankles and stuff like that. I think they’re sexy as hell. I just need to decide what the guys’ equivalent would be. A necklace with a logo on it maybe? Armbands, belt buckles?
Most guys would probably go for longcoats with their insignia on the shoulder
Texans would surely want a belt buckle… and the humor implied about females talking from the level of their belt buckle could be some really sophomoric humor for some of the male supers. especially if they are tricked into saying certain things. Bet they have their own point games for making female supers say certain things from their belt buckles…(then Max would know and likely counter tweak them… “Okay I found the target. I’d have thought it’d have been bigger.” in response to “Hey boss, you gonna need any help with that thing?” (hoping for “I can handle this” or something else that can be made into a cheap situational sex joke.) —
Watches, armband for those that fits the look. Blue tooth devices/earings and even rings for agent class ARC agents. I’m sure each division has it’s devices and tweaks them to best suit their jobs and agents.
The longboats would look awesome but I think they might get in the way during a fight, Adams. But how about fingerless gloves with the letter on the back of the hand?
Lol, longboats. Meant to say longcoats.
Never had a problem myself. Guess it’d depend on the powerset. Someone who’s powers are mostly mental would be pretty much unaffected.
Hey, not `cause she’s a succubus.
It’s all in the eye of the Beholder. Yes, pun intended.
From a point of view, even demons can be the good guys.
I’d rather fancy a demon princess who falls in love with me than an
archangel who goes and slayes entire families of demons without hesitation just because they’re demons.
I was assuming that all the supers in ARC, male or female, are assigned chokers because they contain FF transponders and communications circuits. Really, I can’t see Maxima allowing sex to dictate what she is allowed to wear in combat. Form follows function. If guys get a tiny little earpiece or whatever, why would she submit to wearing something else. If it is good enough for her, it is is good enough for all the troops. Or vice versa.
And chokers actually make good sense. An earpiece might fall off in sudden manuevers…The com badges in ST:NG are fine for civilian use, but for supers you don’t want something that is easy to crush or get torn off in battle.
Chokers are relatively light, near the mouth (for com use), and relatively hard to remove. I was assuming the insignia aspect of the chokers was an afterthought, perhaps of Adrianna, for PR purposes, because the team members certainly don’t need a little H to tell who is Halo and who is Harem…
The non-powered military support uses regular comm tech instead of chokers, of course, because they are expensive
My 2cents.
Oops! I was just trying to italicize all, not the entire comment from there onwards. Hate it when I do that…
There’s also the advantage of skin contact for throat microphones in tactical gear.
It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy when I see that my one comment sparked into such a big conversation and all of the creativity that has come from it.
I’m in favor of chokers for the guys as well. Math has one and it looks fine.
Wow that’s a lot of comics for a single day. Anyway, yeah, Maxima seems a little too… eager? joyous? In the one looking slightly up at her. Not quite sure how to describe it, but it doesn’t seem like an expression or outburst that would suit her character. But kudos for trying the new angles, now’s the time to experiment and see what happens, and as always it looks good. Really like her memory of the PPO.
She found Sydney’s dressing down of Arianna quite humorous, she’s still smiling about that.
ok so the deep blue, red and purple orbs are Flight, energy beam, and telekinetic pseudopod.
i’m betting force field is the yellow orb(the one with the “egg” in the center). not sure what clarisense even is but i’m guessing it’s the orange orb.
Yeah, I don’t know either. Can someone explain to us?
i asked a few pages back and was told its like clairvoyance (see the future) but using all of your senses instead of just sight
sounds like it would give a migraine
Clarivoyance dosn’t let you see the future, Prescience or Precognition would be to see the future. Clarivoyance literaly means “Clear sight” clarisentience would be “Clear mind” and using the same roots it could either be something like Farsight (allowing you too see something far away in the present) or Psychometry (learning about the past of an object or place through ESP)
My money would be on Farsight, mainly because thats what the spell Clarisentience in Dungeons and Dragons does.
So basicly it let’s you understand all the information coming through your senses, like when you are in the zone and everything seems easier to do.
when I say “see things far away” I mean like through walls, or in another country. Psychic Visions of whats happening elsewhere.
‘Clarisense’ as we later see is essentially Telepresence.
is it just me or is there a grinning skull in the smoke and flames of panel 6
Pareidolia. It’s responsible for the face on mars, the man on the moon, and most ghost photos.
Paridolia is what our minds are geared around. Seeing patterns as in pattern recognition. Why some people see faces of religious figures in stains an tacos an poorly set cement etc. Some people take it too seriously.
and when ever someone shows me those photos it prooves my brain is on the demented side.
(someone send me a glare on a plane wing claiming it shows Jesus’s face….I see a zombie with it’s brain hanging out)
(someone sent me a picture of a stain on concrete claiming it shows the Virgin Mary…I see the Grom Reaper).
Great art and great writing, the strip’s getting better and better!
This is SUPERB! I always love the new comics as they come out, but this one just has me laughing non stop. Even the bumper comic is outrageous! Love the look on each ones face. Didn’t think Anvil was the type to look like she was going to hurl over hentai though.
I STILL want to go against Sydney in a spicy food contest. I make my own ghost chili sauce, and fill Fritos© Scoops® with about a tablespoon of it at a time. My wife calls me insane… I say it needs more heat.
I read that as more appalled/fascinated. i get a kind of “nice girl from a churchgoing family” vibe from Anvil.
I’d have to agree. That was a Oh My God! What are they doing? look.
i second that,, i think kenya may be even more sexualy inept/ine4xperienced/repressed then max from the way we saw them act so far
It says on the cast page that even as a child she was bigger and stronger than most of the boys her age. That had to lead to some teasing, so as she’s in her twenties now she is just now seeing her self in a sexual way.
When she get’s herself a boyfriend he better have a strong body and stanima to last a week.
Well, true that. It is a situation guaranteed to leave “issues” to deal with.
What does Sydney mean with the “Bup Bup Bup”? I do not understand that part….
pwbritt
It’s kinda like “uh uh uh!”
or “Tsk, Tsk, Tsk… “
basicly she made a deny sound like when a lie detector detect a lie it goes bup bup bup ( basicly it bip but with a lower sound then bip,, thus bup)
Basically “Hold it! Stop right there!”
0k,, was looking at the last panel,,, and i wonder,, is it a anime fang we see in sidney’s smirk,, or is it a relfection in her glasses,, not sure
Anime fang. Dabbler has proper fangs though.
Think the “Fang” meme is linked to both the Cat (Neko) Chibi (fang/cat lipped smirk and closed eyes signifying pleasure and contentment in cats and Fox (one or more fangs, tail/smirk and whiskers pop up too just like cat version, but fox tail is fluffier (known for chaos and pratical jokes- see Naruto as one having some of the meme’s marks permanently)) – difference in the meme is that one does it on purpose and the other is just a result of the characters natural affinity with Chaos. Tsundere and Kundere Moe memes are the females most attributed with this anime meme too.
Yeah, I’m an Otaku, and yes I have anime from So cute and silly it is sickening (Azumanga Daioh, A Channel (etc)) to some Tentaku (tentacle, duh) Hentai (La Blue Girl (was a gift for me when I was in navy/popular on ship too.)) , also love love stuff that I only got because the characters are funny and silly and make me laugh no matter my state of being at the time. (though when I have a migraine it’s not recommended, or if you have lower intestinal flu either…trust me.) And some stuff my GF got me once I got her addicted (it’s how she managed to let me know she was bi-curious, and that story ends here. Sorry Charlies…even a Navy guy can keep some stories in a safe harbor. (B.E.G.) Though one of my most favorite animes, of course, are the space and cyberpunk/cybermagic animes. Oedo 808, Apple Seed, GITS (Ghost in Shell both series and movies), Elfen Lied (even though it got a pedobear vote), And the most touching series that actually tears me up when it ends. Fate/Stay Night.
I also approve of Naruto, Bleach, etc….but only Subbed version. I’ve learned enough japanese to handle watching and barely reading it now. (makes watching unedited Kurosawa movies much more interesting.
BTW if you want a cool series to watch that is also depressing and uplifting at same time, and will also fill in your gun and girls needs and then make you laugh silly once you know the characters? Pumpkin Scissors
DaveB- might you have access to a sister comic’s forum? One where you can start a block area for story comments like these and for other similar comic discussions, and maybe of course, since anime is an obvious influence (as is gaming) a section for discussion of both?
Also DaveB- I recommend Project A-ko for pure super-heroine school girl laughs- try to figure out the easter egg kameos in background is real fun. Subbed is way to go, as the american version looks like editors took out the homages and easter eggs in fear of DC/Marvel and other Comic groups suing for copyright infringement.
Yeah there’s the 910CMX forum. (It’s linked up in the header nav buttons) I thought it was a little dead but I’ve been forgetting to check in on it. (I already have 10 tabs pinned at all times. :P Chrome regularly takes up 2GB of ram or more) But – it looks like it’s been picking up a bit lately.
I’m an old school anime guy. I was collecting it when the only way to get it was 17th generation pirated copies straight from japanese TV, no subs or dubs. I am well familiar with A-ko (and most of the other ones you listed – Azumanga is one of my favorites as well) It’s probably fair to say that the style of humor in A-ko had an impact on my own sense of humor.
Fun fact: the first time I ever saw…or noticed the anime fang was in Slayers with Lina Inverse; I just assumed she had fangs when I was a kid watching it; and didn’t realize it was an exaggeration thing till I saw it being done in other anime.
come to think of it, the whole anime fang thing can be confusing at times; like with series like (Yokazura Quartet) where a good chunk of the cast are demons or Princess Ressurection; I assume they do have fangs, while other series its just to show they are being mischevious.
Me like fangs!
I am not only shocked and amazed…but also hurt that Sydney turned down the chance to cause millions in property damage..
What, and get saddled with the repair bill?
A very good motive for enlisting – If you demolish property while on active duty, and can offer a rational explanation to your commander, the cost doesn’t fall on you personally. A vigilante superhero (most of them) just has to hope his secret identity holds! See “The Incredibles,” this drives most of the plot. However, ARCSWAT would not cover blowing the conference room out of the building without one hell of a good reason!
There was a reason. They asked her what the other orbs did, and what better way is there than to show them.
OK I gotta say it, Dabbler’s butt looks real nice in the bumper strip. And when I saw the pseudopod tentacle thing… MUST. RESTRAIN. PERVERTED. THOUGHTS. TO MUCH… RESPECT FOR CHARACTERS!
Even Dabbler and Harem? I get the impreshon they wouldn’t mind you thinking those thoughts.
the tought i had was of dabbler getting her hands on that orb,,,,, only three words if that ever happened : Oh the humanity!
The thing is, she’s not human. She is from a culture and lifestile that is hard to truely comprehend.
being part succubi, I seriously doubt she finds any sexual aspect truly disturbing.
Rando opinion on the art. I thought it was Max was tilting her head upwards and to the side some… I think it’s the position of the top of the drapes behind her, but maybe I just don’t have a good feel after this many pages of the dimensions of the room.
Regardless of the background throwing my camera angle detection off I think it’s one of the best shots of Max… she looks less like colossus with the super chiseled-in-stone look. Personally I think she’s more becoming (both as a woman and a character) if she’s less masculinized… There is sort of this feeling of a subconscious association of masculinity with power that sort of grinds against her super-feminist-ness. Not to say the solution is to go she hulk on her, or that it’s even a problem to solve, just saying random things from the top of my head ; maybe it sparks some thoughts in your head that help you figure out where you want the comic to go going forward.
^_^.
-S
Thanks. I’m sure the dimensions of the room keep changing, cause the backgrounds are put in pretty arbitrarily. I just eyeball them.
Max will be continually challenging to write. She’s strongly feminist, but not one of those ones who insists on using words like “herstory” and crazy stuff like that. “Man with boobs” is an accusation that gets lobbed at strong female characters a lot. I’d like to try to avoid that but she has a guard slightly down aspect to her personality like we’re seeing here, and she has a public facing tough guy act she puts on as well. People only familiar with the latter will probably think of her as a little more one dimensional.
as a gamer I’m sure you’ve done table top quick battle settings with miniatures or even dice to give players a reference.
Here’s a little trick I learned in Art 102 back in HS when we had to do perspective and skewed and unnatural views in pencil and ink (then watercolor) (No computers back in 80’s or programs good enough to make whats done on tablets now that easily anymore.)
Take a shoebox. Build a small scene and then fill it with players. Glue them down of course. After you’ve decorated walls or painted them to have the scene background you wanted. After that we cut holes around base (1/2 inch squares or 1 inch slots as needed) Lid was secured (sometimes w/light source or a mirrored surface added. Then you’d look through one hole while a friend did lighting through the others, this gave you perspective, shadows, lighting and let you see the way to draw rooms or scenes from many angles. And also see what one figure could see that others might not if drawing an active scene. (Our stoner teacher was once a major comic book artist and he adapted this trick (and added cameras to take the pictures for references too.) – Our assignment was to draw that inner scene from three or four perspectives and then compare it to the b&w photos we took (usually slide grade pictures,) Then the pictures would be placed on projector and compared side to side and then slide of scene overlapped/overlayyed. This let us see the biggest errors and where we were weakest.
I got assigned a scene from Romeo and Juliet (did it w/transformers and Lego Farm family. (big evil grin) so it was a little twisted.)
These light boxes were also an intro to that old european tradition of making boxes with scenes in them that were near real life – they even had a name I forget at this time. Were once very popular toys for the very rich as it took a lot of work and they used real lace, expensive cloth, hand carved figurines, and gems/gold/silver to make the scene as bright and interesting as they could.
We got graded on box, scene set up from scene, lighting for dramatic effect, photography/perspective sketching/drawing and finally for coloring/shadowing (if you did scene in B/w- you did that you got graded harder.) Teacher also made us read up on the lightboxes history and showed us a segment on them on video… For final project we were to turn a spare attached room into a lightbox and stage the scene using best (voted not best graded) student made box as a guide and then randomly we got assigned a location in room and had to draw our final (yeah test) from that position.
Simple class project that took up half the school year to do and delved into many areas that the school would have never allowed for first year/second stage students, but teacher sold them on the other aspects (research, history, photography, design and finally art we’d learn doing it.) It also let the teacher leave us to our own ends and ensured him that’d we’d be busy even past normal classroom hours. Learned a lot (since forgotten or so rusty from lack of use) then. Best teacher let us do and then showed us how we made that mistake and how to fix it. The lightboxes w/viewing holes – lighting holes taught us to see more than we thought we saw and perspective let us learn about ratios and how they got skewed.
Doing all that for a web comic sounds silly, but when you are drawing your reference cheat sheets and cards. You might just try using that trick. Just be careful if you try it out in public with a camera. The upskirt angle can get you into trouble. (grin)
I guess I was sort of saying I like the idea of her appearing genuinely feminine (which she certainly does to some extent, especially so next to anvil). Certainly not required to be in that super hero sense (although that is sorta one of the series’s shticks). I guess I’ve always had a soft spot for the cognitive dissonance associated with a very strong yet very female character ; in reality it is certainly a rarity that femininity and strength coincide. It feels perhaps less trite to me (although I guess if you include japanese sources the physically improbable strength of characters is almost a given so that makes for an interesting dichotomy).
I’d certainly give you the license (were I in the business of being able to do so) to let Max’s appearance be more flexible and conform to her current facade. That is to say appear more colossus-esc, chiseled muscular (maybe even more shiny) etc when putting on a strong face (or in confrontations) and more feminine / real / approachable? when that barrier thins.
-S
I’ve considered making that happen, drawing her a little more muscular when she’s pushing her strength, or more angular when highly armored. I may yet do that, but if I do I’d like to do it with a certain amount of subtlety that I think I lack right now. Really my hesitation to establish that as a canon artifact of using her powers is people then doing guest art and taking it to 11, where “strong Max” looks like the Hulk with boobs or “armor Max” looks like she’s make of yellow diamond.
Would explain why she can really shine and reflect visible light spectra based powers and blasts (some heat transfer is gonna happen no matter what as will transfer of inertia from photon stream kinetic impacts.(light does have mass of sorts especially when concentrated) )
–Golden Diamond Skin being a Power stunt done with her power pool transfers. i.e. her ultimate armor look. (which is more angular and less rippling curves and muscles.)– why she has that on in the panels above? She was just making sure she could handle almost anything Sydney was throwing her way or ready to step in front of the General and -sigh- even Arianna if Sydney lost control or a power demo got out of hand.
–Then you could make her hips wider, mid-section thinner, and muscles curvier (others call it her “Go-Sexy” mode) when she dumps PP into agility…it just happens to make her look like a very athletic and well endowed golden barbie doll at the time- is something Max is going to hate and will always take appreciative looks or comments the wrong way when in that weighted power pool (PP) mode. (Many men call it the “Dead Sexy” version of Max…mention she looks really sexy and yer D.E.A.D. (or wish you were.)) :D
— Hulk her out when you have her dumping stats into her strength.
— this covers why she changes looks from panel to panel as when she’s bored she’s always pushing her abilities to make swaps faster and so she can try to focus stats where they need be based on situation, her situational awareness, and company she is in. (that and to tweak men and Arianna in her own way.)
–This means her clothing is gonna have to be made special to handle minor, if not powerful changes in her body’s shape… (can you imagine her testing her Hulk out to play with Anvil in training and suddenly her britches split in a most embarrassing location…revealing Hello Kitty Pantsu/thong? (you know dabbler will look first and with all her senses and let everyone know…resulting in a game of Super-Tag that ends up being better training than what the General planned for the team. (now that would make a great flashback for Max meeting the team for the first time. Only a few panels, then max blushes and waves off sydney’s questions on what her first official day with the team was like. (use the anime sweat drop, the hand waving as if warding off bad smell or denying anything is wrong/cooling face to hide blush anime/manga move). Allows you to do mental bubble chibi strip in more than one panel and work on sydney/max getting closer and slip in more meme’s and anime based look humor. make for a great filler/bonus comic for voting or for when you bundle these into a book for sale eventually.
Sorry DaveB, but your comic really makes my muse (she should be working on my stories and novels more) go nuts and dump all sorts of situational comedy into my forebrain when I read you strip and commentary. Guess that’s what made me a great GM who could adjust to player based chaos and going off story/campaign all the time. (They sometimes seemed to take that as a challenge, not realizing I left all those tantalizing tidbits hanging in the story telling sections on purpose and they were bait…) So not only is your Comic entertaining, it gives my muse a workout, which I hope I can then use for my own writing eventually. If not, ideas will get dumped here.
(guess I need to muse/write for another comic book artist again in the future- you’re fine on your own, but that was a nice beer money gig when I was in the Navy… write out six weeks to 2 months of material and then let the artist do his thing and adapt what I wrote to his baseline of humor. One a quarter get a check for writing that would buy me a few cases of really good dark beer or a very nice bottle of single malt.
Speaking of yellow diamonds, I saw in an article in Popular Science where they made a diamond that was at least 50 times stronger than a natural diamond. The reason I say at least is because they broke three diamond crushers trying to find out how hard the diamond actualy was.
I wonder what ever happened with that.
I looked it up its called a amorphous diamond, lonsdaleite, or boron nitrate.
Someone also found another type of superhard diamond in a metorite in Finland.
What’s a bumper strip?
That little side comic on the bottom of this comic. The art is simpler, but makes it faster to draw, and can make it look funnier.
great page, laughing hard
“only if you’re hip” and the admonishing tentacle thingy hand, great
Please note that the hand holding that orb is doing the exact same thing.
Is it bad that when I saw the abbreviation for the Pew Pew Orb, I immedialy though Other Peoples Problems? Am I the only one who saw this? PPO = OPP
The first few times I read it, I thought it said “PRO”. Like, blowing things up like a PRO.