Grrl Power #95 – Harem, sometimes spelled NJP
Someone must have explained Harem’s powers to Sydney. The reflex is understandable, but the “boo” doesn’t make sense unless she knows there are multiple women who all have the same power and sensory network. The only other explanation is that I didn’t plan this scene far enough ahead and should have had Punk Harem coming down in the elevator magic.
Harem’s snide comment comes from the fact that there’s no such thing as power dampers in this universe. Personally I think it’s a bit of a cop-out to have them, but I understand why they exist in mature universes like Marvel or DC, especially with the plethora of super geniuses and alien technology readily available. Incarcerating the super powered in this world will be a considerable challenge.
So yeah, finally got some ads up which most of you probably might not even notice at first if it wasn’t for the fact that I had to shrink the width of the comments back down to make them fit. I may play with the padding or something to see if I can condense them a bit since I know the page gets pretty crazy tall after a while. I’m still feeling it out but the space on the side lets me add some other stuff, like links to comics I like and whatever.
Speaking of which, allow me to direct your attention to Gyno-Star, which I’ve been meaning to pimp for a while. It starts off black and white but jumps to color fairly quickly and is pretty funny if you like superheroes and feminism.
Edit: Updated the flounder mouth since it bugged enough people.
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.
Hey Sydney is wearing a wonder woman top!
Well not the politically incorrect version anyway!
She has been wearing that same top through out most of the comic.
However it reminds me of the Whataburger Logo.
Just voted and looking at the advert for this comic I could only think, and the reason you can see Sydney is because even though the rest are all superhuman she is still the scariest of them all!
No wonder she likes Wolverine so much!!!
So Dave, whenever I read something like this my imagination automatically gives each character a voice as I read their lines. Do you have voices picked out for each character? Like a particular voice actor (or, failing that, the voice of a particular character from TV)?
Hmm. No not really, which is weird because it all plays out like it’s an anime or even live action in my head. I’m just trying to figure out hot to cut it down to panels and stick it on a page. That may have a lot to do with the fact that they’re female characters, and women tend not to have hugely distinct voices. I know that sounds a little sexist but think about any impersonator you’ve ever heard, the all do Cosby, Shatner, presidents, Dinero, Walken, Christopher Lloyd, Seinfeld. I think women are raised to a much narrower standard of appearance and behavior and so are their role models, so developing distinct speaking patterns is less of a concern. It’s self perperuating really.
What I’m saying in my rambling manner is that to me, women lack a certain amount of distinctiveness in their voices. That’s not to say I can’t detect cadence or accents or tell Sigourney Weaver from Jodi Foster or anything, but choosing a specific voice to roll with in my mind was never something I spend much time with. And to be fair I’ve never done that with my male characters either.
And for the record, I think that Tara Strong’s Twighlight Sparkle sounds exactly like Stephanie Lemelin’s Artemis on Young Justice.
Say what?
Sure does.
You’re in the US, right?
Because I remember a quite significant portion of women impersonators, starting with our chancelor. And the voices are certainly distinct enough.
I can’t tell if that’s true of the US, but if so, that certainly would count as a rather sexist aspect of society.
He doesnt notice much difference, um, so what?
He’s allowed to be honest, isn’t he?
Nope. Political correctness is preferable to honesty. And, of course, since so many countries and thus vocal sounds/accents are packed into such a small area called Europe, everyone else must have as wide a diversity as well. Can’t go more then couple three hours before running into another language or dialect in Europe. Can drives for days in NA without that happening. :s
honesty is the best policy. lying is wrong
Oh, realy? So you don’t tell kids about Santa Clause, the Tooth Farie, And the Easter Bunny?
Sometimes the truth is hurtfull and crule. A few small lies can give you hope and the ability to strive to make those lies the truth, so don’t be a hypocrite and when your kid asks you where babies come from, you say a stork brought them.
Screw political correctness. There are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed, but the extremes people take it to are absolutely ridiculous (in America at least, don’t know about other countries).
There are obviously a few famous women out there with distinct voices. The Queen’s “Heloooou,” Julia Childs, Carol Channing, but after you list half a dozen, maaaybe a dozen, and you start struggling to name really distinct women’s voices – and the ones I listed are almost so cartoonish that almost anyone can pull them off and not be considered an impressionist. They’re the female equivalents of Edward G. Robinson. Anyone can go “Myah, you’ll sleep with the fishes see?”
I’d love to see some examples of women impersonating other women if you can find some. Or guys doing it I suppose. I’ve always had trouble finding videos of that. Turns out when you google “female impersonators” you get… mixed results. I’d love to be proven wrong, but it would take a fairly large sample to convince me.
And maybe it’s weird for me to admit this as an illustrator, but I have trouble with faces a lot. Not drawing them (well, that too) but recognizing people. I watched Contagion convinced Mark Whalberg was in it only to find out it was Matt Damon with a few extra pounds on. Maybe I have the same thing with voices. Or just women’s voices.
I’m just saying, think of 10 famous actors off the top of your head, even people who aren’t known for being impersonated a lot, like Drew Carey, Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and 5 others, and I’d imagine you could identify them just by hearing them cold, or if you heard someone doing a dead on impression of them without throwing in all the clues that most impressionists do (starting off a Pacino impression with “Oowah!”)
Now imagine hearing Michelle Pfeiffer, Charlize Theron, Famke Janesen, Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Jessica Parker, Reece Witherspoon, Meg Ryan, etc. If you just heard them speaking, could you identify them all? I’d be surprised if I could identify any of them, but then, maybe I have some sort of brain deficiency in that area.
“Now imagine hearing Michelle Pfeiffer, Charlize Theron, Famke Janesen, Jennifer Anniston, Angelina Jolie, Sarah Jessica Parker, Reece Witherspoon, Meg Ryan, etc. If you just heard them speaking, could you identify them all? I’d be surprised if I could identify any of them, but then, maybe I have some sort of brain deficiency in that area.”
Well, I cannot comment on MOST of the names you mention, since a lot of them I’ve never even heard of (sorry) and several I just wish I hadn’t. BUT Some do stand out, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Anniston having relatively distinct voices, plus some older names, like Eartha Kitt, Diahann Carroll, Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, Frances Bavier (Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith Show), the list does go on, and in my head, I do have distinct voices for the whole cast. Admittedly, mostly from people I know in real life, but all are distinct, with Sydney having a bit of a nasally high pitched voice, Maxima’s is deeper, with a disciplined quality, like a certain female tech sergeant I am familiar with, Heatwave sounds a bit like Ellie Mae Clampet, but “dimmer” and slower and Harem an almost Valley Girl quality.
These are just how I see them, of course. Your mileage may vary, and yes, I do think you have a brain deficiency in that area ;-)
Add in Fran Drescher to the list of distinct voices. As well as the woman who played in African Queen and opposite the Duke himself (there’s distinct) in Rooster Cogburn… I can do both those voices, though my throat usually spasms after causing either a phlegmy episode that’s akin to chokin’ or I throw up in the case of doing Fran’s voice… hearing her usually has the same effect.
Funny thing is I can hear Ariana done by Fran Drescher pretty easily.
I doubt you’ll ever see this, but the actress you were thinking of (in African Queen and Rooster Cogburn) was Katherine Hepburn. She did a lot of movies with Spencer Tracy (and they were lovers for most of their lives) including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Rosie O’Donall is one of those though I still can’t determine the gender.
Honestly, I wonder if it’s not one of those things that depends on the person doing the listening, because I would swear up and down that it’s the exact other way around, and that women’s voices are significantly more distinguishable than men’s. By quite a bit, honestly.
Even for the actors you listed, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt sound identical in my head. I’m sure that if I was listening to them side by side, I would hear differences, but there’s no way I could tell whose was whose. For the women actors you listed that I recognized (only about half, to be honest), that wasn’t the case.
“Even for the actors you listed, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt sound identical in my head.” – – – – –
Easily-enough put to the test. They co-starred in “Interview with the Vampire”.
I wouldn’t be able to identify them, but I could at least tell them apart. -_- And if I hear a particular voice often enough I will recognize it, even if I don’t know the speaker’s name. Although I do admit there have been times I thought a character was voiced by one woman only to find out it’s someone else.
Only voice actress I can actually name off the top of my head is Kari Wahlgren, and I don’t really imagine her voice matching anyone here.
Should have said “only voice actress I can name from her voice alone”.
I have a very good ear for voices and there are women voice actors I can’t tell apart, for instance Raven from Teen Titans sounds exactly like Mandy from The Grimm adventures of Billy and Mandy, but they are two completely different voice actors.
Well both are designed to be young-teen girls with a dark disposition.
But Tara Strong is a great voice actress, granted in recent years she seems to have mostly 3 voices.
Girl, boy, baby. Lolipop Chainsaw, Raven in *New Teen Titans*, and Twilight Sparkle all sound about the same, but I didn’t even know it was her voicing the giant baby in Spirited Away or the young Ben Ten.
And for the record, I think that Tara Strong’s Twighlight Sparkle sounds exactly like Stephanie Lemelin’s Artemis on Young Justice.
I would heartedly disagree. Lemelin‘s voice is huskier than Strong‘s for each of those characters. Can you tell the difference between Ashley Ball‘s Rainbow dash and Artemis? they are closer together, husky, but still different enough in my ears. Now Strong‘s low and reserved voice of Raven still sounds different from Artemis so I suppose it depends on the person on this. Subjective totally.
Whoops, that’s who I meant. RD and Artemis have the same (or similar) raspy-teen-girl voice. TS sounds totally different.
Well, I see another loophole besides magic. Sydney is a small business owner and it is beneficial for her to remember people’s faces in order to provide better customer service. And in a industry such as comics piercing and hair color may change often (at least they do among myself and my friends). So taking all that into consideration, Sydney may have put two and two together, same face+same power= same super heroine. . .
When I was working as a convience store clerk there was thi one guy who would change his hair color and style every few weeks. At first I kept thinking it was a totaly diffrent person each time, but after a while I could tell it was him automaticly.
The realy strange thing is I can usualy tell identical twins apart automaticly, when even their parents can’t tell them apart.
Sydney, customer service skills? Have you been reading the same comic as me?
I have been reading the same comic, and although Sydney may not use customer service skills like the rest of us doesn’t mean she cannot have them. Remember her little black book containing her “list” she would need those skills to keep track of everyone that was on it.
The face might be a clue, but I think the more obvious clues are the teleportation “vorp”, her reflex to it and the unique ribbon that each girl is wearing around her neck. The conversation at the elevator also had clues. (And the bio on Halo says that she is a very good at making connections like that.)
Makes me wonder what kind of ribbon Sydney will get.. Maybe something like this: https://i45.tinypic.com/2604pjs.png :)
Sydney will demand she design her own sigil of course. A death’s head w/cutlasses and a trident of course…for she’s the bastard child of a Famous woman pirate and a navy seal…the bane of Ninjas everywhere…even Nun Ninjas!
Yeah, I am pretty sure it was watching her “Vorp” in that made her know that it was Harem.
Oh great. I find this comic through an ad, follow it and read through the archives, only to discover that, after nearly two years, it’s not even through the introductions and Sydney hasn’t even joined the group yet. *shakes fist* Update more often, ya slowpoke! :P
(this was not a serious complaint, please don’t get mad at me. I do wish there was more here, but I know full well that when a webcomic artist pushes themselves beyond the update schedule that they’re comfortable with, their comic DIES. Since I want to see more of this, I would rather that not happen here.)
Found the comic today myself as well, from an ad on Dreamland Chronicles. Really enjoyed it so far. Only 5 more agonizing weeks till #100 :D
Definitely something I’d consider buying if it came out on paper.
I feel your pain guys, believe me. My goal is to have a book in time for the next A-kon but I know where I want that book to stop at and… unless I can start putting out more than one a week… I dunno.
must buy book….musssst
Well I decided each of my books (novels not comics, but based mostly on short stories that connect that I write) end when that story arc ends. So I’d say when she leaves the office here in this story arc and heads out the door to make up her mind if she wants to join or not, so after this scene, the next one or two when she meets others, is offered a position but allowed to go home and think about it, so that page when she walks out the door would be a good spot to stop for a book.
(by the way, yes I am from the future LoL)
The more than one a week option would make all of us extremely happy… the only issue is how much free time you have.
He has a full time job and a wife. Be glad his wife helps him with the comic, or it would be coming out once every two weeks instead of weekly.
If you teleport while a manga sweat drop is falling off your head, does the sweat drop fall with you or does it land where it initially fell?
I would have to assume that it is still attached at the side of her head (I.E. physical contact) and therefore simply teleports with her. Alternatively, one could argue it is simply a gimmick to show emotion, without overly emphasizing facial muscles, much like the throbbing vein thingy, or x’s over the eye, or the spirit self coming out of the characters mouth.
yes, unless it is no
My guess would be it goes with you if it is still in contact, but continues to fall if it has already fallen.
Syd’s not stupid, although she is silly. She might have been able to put 2 and 2 together. ‘H’ choker + facial similarity + voice the same + teleports = Harem. She may not have realized that there are 5 of Harem yet, but could conclude its the same person despite superficial appearance changes.
Was gonna say the same thing as Eric. It would even fit Sydney’s profile as ADHD. I’m ADHD myself and am notorious in my circle for quickly putting things together that don’t seem obvious while missing things that are right in front of my face.
well I figured it was self explanatory last time harem teleported around sydney she punched her cause it startled her all of harems other selves would have felt the punch and known that it was sydney as they all have the mind link thing. When harem first teleported into the room she noticed the orbs before she noticed sydney so sydney saying boo was a way of getting her attention kinda like a guy staring at a girls chest and her saying “my eyes are up here”. and then when harem saw who it was she recognized the girl-who-punches-face and jumped back in fear.
Why for is there no “like” button for comments???? I think this was a wonderful explanation for the entire scene….
A wizard did it! Anytime you see something that can’t be explained, a wizard did it!
Also, for Maxima’s last line, I would have went with “Hospitals are options too.”
We didn’t see him do it either. Must be a ninja-wizard, the worst kind. They can FUS-RO-DAH you in the face without you ever even knowing what happened.
thats a question of semantic,,, if one of her clone get put in hospital,, can she simply,, undo it, and create it anew,, and if so will it be healed,, or will it still have wounds,, there is alot of posibilities there , same as trying to imprison her,, unless you put all 5 of her inside room that prevent her from teleporting,, you get the idea
well, considering how passing past that sensation threshold Dave mentioned before spills over to all the copies, putting one of Harem in hospital should hurt enough (at least if Max does it) to keep her grounded for at least a little while. Presumably long enough for Max to take care of the other four.
I noticed the ads, its why only one in every six or so times I come here I can view the comments, (one or more ads is conflicting with my browser *its old E6* and no I can’t update it to anyone who would make the comment because my computer is actually too old to update to a new browser (I need a new one, but can’t afford it right now); and every so often I can’t read the main page because some add knocks me off from it too. (can not open site, yadda yadda, then white screen of could not connect).
I’m running Ubuntu on a PIII 750 MHz that is over 10 years old, and I have FF13 on my system. Save your pictures and text files and music, any data that is not tied to one specific program, then wipe the hard drive and load Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (long term stable). It comes with the gold standard of browsers and document creation and manipulation programs, plus one of the top-rated image manipulation programs. Those would be FireFox, Open Office, and GIMP. Other science and engineering programs are available as freeware, shareware, and payware, and there are games that emulate many popular games on Windows, as well as titles that will only run under Linux.
If Ubuntu will keep this machine productive at this stage in the game, imagine what it would do for you…
If you want to try out Ubuntu do a web search for Wubi. It’s an Ubuntu installer that works inside Windows and the reports I’ve gotten from people using it are all favorable.
Hmmm. Do you have USB ports? Check out DSL (Damn Small Linux). Small enough to fit on a 1Gig flash drive with room to spare and operates as a virtual machine inside Windows.
Hmm, I don’t know much about IE6. Can you disable javascript or something? That might be messing you up.
As to the Ubuntu suggestion… if you don’t have a lot of specific legacy programs you run (or games) and you’re primarily concerned with going online, it’s not actually a bad suggestion. I installed an older version on a laptop a while ago, and it’s really come a long way as an OS. It will still be more work than you’re used to if you want to run anything that you depend on that’s only for windows/mac, like iTunes or whatever.
then again there are plenty of analogs that are open source for example rhythmbox IMHO is a much better media manager than itunes will ever be as far as games go wine dose a decent job as a windows emulator but ever sicne unity and gnome 3 came around i switched to solus os (after months of trying different os’s)
wen is the next update
Updates are every Monday 6AM central.
8am to 9am Eastern. Or at least that’s my guess. I’m usually sleeping to a later time.
They come in at 4am where I live.
7pm Monday evening here in Western Australia
I just arbitrarily set it for 6am my time (Central, US) I suppose I could make it midnight or 1 am my time though. (It is conceivable I’m working on it before that though, I’ve had a few late nights.) It’ll always post at some weird time for someone though.
It’s pretty perfect for me here in Germany. I come home from work and get a good dose of laughs, with all the whackjobs in my company and all. I suppose I’ll write a book about them and title it ‘Boss, is murder still illegal?’ At least that’s going to be the working title of my bachelor’s thesis.
Monday Noon, UK time!
thanks
Maxima has been around Sydney too much. She’s starting to develop antennae.
Another page goes by without The Blonde Speedsters name revealed. This may turn to a Running Gag! Eh get it! Running Gag!
Sorry folks One of the side effects of my new meds is stupidly ignoring the filters in my mind.
Starts with a M.
Some think it’s Mercury, others think it’s Mach. Like the speed of sound.
Yes, I have leaned toward either possible name. Until however Dave has felt the need to actually introduce him, its still a mystery.
“Move Along” because that’s what he gets told all the time. ^_~
mark. that is my guess
Hah hah that’s a pretty good pun. I’d bu surprised if no one’s used that before though.
I didn’t include his name because it requires a little bit of explanation. If I left it dangling at the end of a sentence you guys would spend all week speculating about the wrong things. It’s on the next page.
1/0 did it.
At one point, one of the characters remarked that they needed a running gag. Of course, in a comic with no fourth wall, you really should be careful with things like that…
The next panel, the word “GAG”, with arms and legs, ran across the frame spouting athletic cliches.
One of the characters noted that that was a pun, not a running gag. The author’s response? “It’s a running gag now!”
The gag continued to appear throughout the strip’s run, providing comedy and occasionally transportation.
Actually, that’s a joke from the 1970s, the first American Indian standup comedian “Running Gag”. 2 episodes on some sitcom that I don’t even remember any more, except for that. Suit, tie, and Plains Indian Headdress.
“Sometimes spelled NJP”? What does that mean?
Short for Non-Judicial Punishment in military context
Nonjudicial punishment permits commanders to administratively discipline troops without a court-martial. The receipt of nonjudicial punishment does not constitute a criminal conviction, but is placed on the service record.
Now as to power dampers, it is also a cop-out to say absolutely that there are none. Now granted, it is too easy to put in the dohickey that just negates the superpower, but in many cases, it would be amazing if there were not some way to mess with the ability.
Of course at this point, we can easily say that the high command, as well as most of the supers, just do not know of any power dampers.It may be a year or two before it becomes a useful plot point.
well, after seeing jumper i can suggest a often usefull way,,, just plug them onto a wall socket,, usualy most power require some kind of concentration,, and beleive me while your beeing constently shocked you cant realy concentrate :)
Disorienting noise and/or light patterns could do that too. I think what Dave said is there are no generic power dampeners. Nothing that just acts like an off switch to a super’s powers. An example would be a set of handcuffs that would negate the powers of any mutant they are put on, introduced in Marvel one time. This doesn’t mean that specific devices or precautions couldn’t be made for powers.
Let’s take an extreme example. Kitty Pride of the X-Men can walk through anything. How would you stop her? Well thinking about her ability, she also disrupts electronics when she passes through them. That hints at an electromagnetic aspect of her powers, possibly only a side effect. Putting her in a Faraday Cage likely would contain her.
For those who don’t know, a Faraday cage has a constant electric current running through it and shields whatever is inside it. Theoretically it could protect sensitive electronics for an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) after an Atomic explosion. If it can block that, why couldn’t it block her?
All this is theory and proves I’m a nerd though. [Yes Sydney, I say that with pride!] The point is that saying power dampers don’t exist isn’t the same as saying there are no ways to take care of the problem.
Depending on the operating mechanism of various Powers, it may be that there are pairs of Empowered whose Powers show destructive interference: get them too close to each other and/or aimed at each other, and the effects cancel out. Perhaps one Empowered has limited future-sight, and the other has limited past-sight (useful at crime scenes); put them next to each other, and both are held to the present, or to the same much smaller temporal range. You would need to have very well-matched effective Power levels to completely negate the effects, and the effects wouldn’t be permanent, but you could contain a very powerful Empowered if you were willing to sacrifice an equivalent strength of complementary Power from active duty.
or nullification could be your power. that can get very scary if it extends beyond superpowers. making athletes nonathletic and worst of all making people stupider just by being around them.
ugh, Nullifiers, worse plot device powers than power mimics.
(also on my list of powers you could have and never know you had powers)
*most on the list are stuff you’d never know because learning them would mean cultural or first time you’d learn would kill most anyone else (water breathing, cloud walking, ect…)
Nullfiers are there because you wouldn’t know you had the power unless there were other enhanced humans around for you to nullfy, and only if its really presented.
(would kind of suck if it had a start up effect, like glowing hands, but you could never figure out what the glowing hands do because you’d have to aim them at or touch someone with powers to shut them down for awhile).
Imagine if you were the only guy on the planet with super powers, but your powers was super power mimicing? What if everyone had that power?
Heh, made me think of Ben Ten with the whole aliens with super-powers (like the whole species has the power), if all humans had power mimmic but never knew it because everyone has that power and we never learned till meeting aliens with different powers.
(and a sci-fi idea was born).
Regarding power dampers, yes the generic “you can’t do anything super within this field” type is a cop out and lazy writing. The specific “This whole room is a Faraday Cage, you cannot call lightning here” is not.
Back a few, Gwen mentioned seven different basic sources of power, all of which would have variants requiring specific dampers. And yes, an actual power dampener might work on Heatwave, although given that we know she can melt aluminum without straining herself, it would need a whole lot of water in rapid circulation!!
Liquid nitrogen, ’nuff said.
If you want to kill them, then of course use all the liquid nytrogen you want.
Rember T2 where the shapeshifting robot gets frozen?
That was liquid nytrogen. It freezes things instantly and makes it brittle.
Wish I had read your reply before I posted mine just above LOL
It all comes down to how much heat from outside sources she can handle. Otherwise there’s always Mount Doom, or maybe dunk her in a former nuclear power plant to cool her down. Or perhaps Max has her temporarily transferred to McMurdo for toilet scrubbing. Talk about global warming.
It also depends on where she is getting the heat and its nature.
Is she exciting molecules, is she transfering ambient heat to a single point (this would cool down the rest of the room, not seen often as a power; and the one time I saw a good character with it in a Manga “Needless” the anime had to turn around and backhand the creativity by cop outing the character)
Or is this an extra dimensional energy source.
the first and last are quantum mechanical and would be really hard to counter, as the first gets its heat from the very substances around her *excite the molecules*, and the last is so external that physical means are only temporary measures.
There are ways to neutralize certain powers that wouldn’t count as dampeners. Darkhound’s Faraday cage is a good example. Any power that requires concentration can be neutralized by drugs, with all the legal ramifications that come with it. As I recall, Jumpers could be ‘grounded’ by shackling them to a large enough mass that they couldn’t take it with them. Light based powers? mirrored walls, ceiling, and floor. Super strong? Try a steel cube encased in a few feet of concrete. I can’t think of a way to neutralize Harem’s ability without keeping her drugged to the gills since she’s not actually teleporting herself.
Yeah I just meant you can’t slap a collar on someone and take away their abilities, but you can counter the effect of a power or specifics needed to use the power, immobilizing gloves on a semantic caster, etc.
Sanctuary *tv show with super-powered people and animals (called Abnormals)” had a way to deal with teleportation that kind of makes sense, Helen Magnus sorrounded her compound with a magnetic screen of varying intensities and wavelengths, the idea being that magnetism is a bridge between dimensions and teleportation moves through dimensions, thus a distorted magnetic field could interfere with the teleportation making them teleport into a random location or not come back right *as in over energize and burst into flames or teleport into a wall rather than away*.
Hey Dave, once again a great comic. I love the understated humor in this one.
First, a complement on the progress in your artwork. Now, I’m no artist myself (couldn’t draw a stickfigure if my life depended on it) but I seem to recall you weren’t satisfied with Maxima’s ‘angry-face’ in #70. Comparing that comic with this one, I see improvement.
Also, kudos to the commenting-community on this comic. This is actually the only comic where I actually read all the comments and I enjoy them greatly for being funny and constructive (mostly).
The pursed snarl in good, but would not show all of her teeth. DaveB, you’re right about the tooth ratio, but don’t change the lip rictus. Show a smaller number of larger teeth through it.
Actually I was quite pleased with that one. Maybe I overdid the forehead wrinkles a bit but yeah, constant drawing = steady improvement. And thanks I’m really happy about the comments – I always have to put my disclaimer about being a little confused as to the number I get vs some other pretty good comics out there given they have larger audiences, at least according to the Project Wonderful stats. Though now that I’ve thrown my hat into that ring I’m starting to question some of PW’s numbers, or at least trying to understand them better. Maybe the comic has a larger audience than I thought. I just wish I could updated it faster so I could start putting out books. :P
It might be that PW counts total visits, not unique visits. I usually check on Monday, then come back on Thursday to see how the comments have got on; if they register hitting the home page (a consistent bookmark) and the with-comments page both days, plus however many pages of comments and however many times the page re-loads on posting a comment, then I could probably count as many as a dozen times over a ‘good’ week.
But on the other hand, it bumps up your page views on their stats, which presumably bumps up the going price of your ad space, which bumps up your revenue. So dodgy statistical techniques aren’t necessarily all bad news!
“Or something.” Oh the mind boggles at the possibilities. Super-wedgies are just the beginning. How about swapping lunches with Halo and force them to eat them.
Halo: Nice flavour, but pretty weak. I have a bottle of something to give it some kick in my pack.
Harem [ A body not eating Syndey’s lunch ]: Augh! Give me [ pointing to the eater ] something for the heat NOW!
In another room, Max is talking to a third body of Harem, who is clearly uncomfortable and sweating.
Max: Now are you going to follow orders?
Does Harem need to know where she is in relation to where she’s going? If so, you could imprison her by keeping all 5 of her sedated and moving them to a cell deep underground. If she doesn’t need to know where she is, then that wouldn’t work…
Insufficient, I think. When the drugs wore off, she could gather herself by using herself as her own beacon. Then simply going “just barely beyond this door” has all five of her loose n the hallway. Hilarity ensues from there.
According to Dave, she has a kind of teleport-sense (telesense?) where, while porting, she can scope out the landing area to make sure it’s safe to materialize, and then go back if it isn’t. So she could use that to find her way out of most anything.
She doesn’t. You could really only keep her from teleporting by putting her in a place where there there was nowhere that she could safely teleport to within range, but her range is a bit variable, there’s not really a place on Earth that you could practically store her in. Deep underwater might work.
Dark side of the moon perhaps? Or that too close?
Hmm.. would Maxima even be able to fly to the moon through the near-vacuum of space? I suspect Sydney can with forcefield+flight, although I doubt she can get the speeds of Maxima so it would take a LONG time ;D
actually I don’t think syd’s force field would hold a large supply of oxygen to last for a trip to the moon.
Her range is comfortably measured in miles, though you can’t really put a solid number on her ulitmate range. It varies – she’s able to teleport to a place she’s more familiar with that’s much further away as somewhere that she’s not. That obviously can, and actually had put her in a position where she can for instance teleport home cause she forgot her wallet or something, but not be able to return to the mall she was just at in a single hop.
Oh, and also her maximum range is further complicated by the fact that she can freely teleport anywhere between where her copies are, so whatever her maximum range is, it could seem that it’s really 5x that if she TPed one of herself from side of a… Harem… distribution, whatever you want to call it, to the other side.
ok cant quite deside what you mean by this so im gonna give one situation
harem places a dupe on the south and north poles does it make her range
a) Global (kinda over-useful)
b) Within x miles of north and south poles
So we won’t get long-range teleports like,
Harem: So like, Sydney and I were outside looking at the moon, and Sydney asks me if I know where the first moon landing was, and then she points it out. So she pulls out the forcefield orb and I concentrate on where she pointed. Damn! I mean, we landed a couple of miles away. We had to teleport a couple more times to get there. It was pretty tranquil, but there was no sea. Oh, here’s a souvenir.
Anvil: What the? You have to put this flag back right now, before Max finds out.
Max: Before Max finds out what?
Yeah her range isn’t nearly that far. Without putting a number on it, I’d say she can get around a city fairly quickly, maybe a few hops. If she gets on a bus to Seattle, she could conceivably teleport from almost anywhere to the one in Seattle. Since she “unmakes” the one that’s teleporting, and any of her instances can remake the one in limbo within range of them, she effectively doesn’t have a maximum range when she does it like that. Her consciousness doesn’t have a range limitation that she’s discovered yet.
That makes her as useful as Dabbler’s teleporter arm doesn’t it?
One copy in armory. Another in safe spot halfway to the DZ, one in DZ w/team. Two others port between those teams carrying what ever is necessary (including camera to take snap shots in case the others have to flee, so area is known enough for an emergency port if need be.) Vorp and pass the ammo sister! Btw does she call herself “Sister?” Which would intimate she herself recognizes enough difference (if only in looks) between herself?
And is she like Naruto, who when he trains using his Shadow Clone no-jutsu, gets exponential training and learning bonuses from all the copies after when he reabsorbs them?
The five-in-one are in constant contact so what one copy knows they ALL know instantly.
And if one gets shot they all feel it.
In a way yes, but she’s pretty limited as to how much gear she can take with her when she teleports. A handgun or a magazine yes, but not a minigun. Dabbler’s on the other hand, or really, the other other other hand, hah hah, can transport quite a bit more. Like a minigun.
However, even if Harem can’t carry very much by herself, she would probably be very useful as a loader for Dabbler’s carry-arm. I’m assuming the carry-arm acts very much like a normal arm would: no (or at best limited) sensory capability, no reaching for things on a high shelf, etc. In which case, things would go a lot more smoothly if a Harem went back to the lab at the same time to grab the kit and strap it to the arm. The arm might also help a bit with the teleporting: I assume it has a default return-to-Dabbler setting, so if a Harem can piggyback on that then it gets around the range/location issues.
Theoretically one of her alternates could be placed into suspended animation, shipped off to where ever in space, and the others could VORP there in an environment suit? Maybe even with someone in tow?
I like to think of her copies as “instances”.
in other words she can perform a leapfrog gateway? (Star Gate Atlantis) the StarGates actually have a limited range, so to get between galaxies they actually used a series of star gates set at the max distance from one to the next between the Pegasus Galaxy and the Milky Way, so it would only take a few hours to get between them rather than need a ship (12 weeks or something) or use alot of energy (one whole ZPM) to move between the two galaxies with just the two gates.
They teleport one by one at their limit, then the first (leap frogs) the others and then past the last and so on.
Also there were longer “dial numbers” but to use them you needed extra power to get to other galaxies.
Magic? Please, Sydney doesn’t need a full explanation. As far as she cares this is just another girl who can teleport. Her reaction would be basically the same either way.
maybe Sydney has a skill with recognising faces, even if they look radically different each time
Sydney learned from her previous encounter with the teleporter. But she still likes to scare them a bit.
maybe sydney recognized what the teleportation looked like and assumed it was the same person?
You mean feminism isn’t a superpower?
Okay, I feel this needs to be said. It probably already has, but I’m going to say it anyway. Sometimes the comments you leave after comics are just as funny, and dare I say funnier, than the comics they’re about.For instance, your comment “The only other explanation is
that I didn’t plan this scene far enough ahead and should have had Punk Harem coming down in the elevatormagic.” comment had me laughing pretty good, almost as much as Sydney’s “Boo” and Harem’s NOT THE “FACE” reaction! So my question is this, if and whenyou put this into print, would there be a place for some of these hilarious comments and helpfull explanations? I know that they wouldn’t make since if they were just copy-pasted on a few pages in the back and that it might interupt the (flow?) of the story if the were put in as foot notes at the bottom of each page, but perhaps they could be reworded and paraphrased on a few pages in the back of each book. Something like a comments and explanations page for things you want to mention or clear up, Like “for those of you wandering about *blank* that happened on page *blank*, well *blank*. And regarding how Sydney knows Punk Harem isn’t just one of five quintuplets, *insertlogicmagic explanation*.” There propbably wouldn’t be too much on the “explanations” thing being as most of those would be answered in the comic without confusion unless the person in question only reads one page per week, so there probably wouldn’t be a rediculously long list of things in these pages, just things you feel you need to mention. I don’t know, I just feel like something would be missing if those things didn’t some how make it into a printed form of the comic. I’m pretty sure most people feel the same about the mini-comics that are sometimes at the bottom of the regular comics.. . . Crap. I made my comment too long again. Sorry! Well at least I’m typing instead of talking. Were it the later rather than the former, we’d all be half-dead of old age by the time I finished.
The pages are sized to fit on an American sized comic page, there won’t be any spare room on the page for additional comments. At A-kon I met Dirk I. Tiede, who does a good cop procedural + Supernatural manga. I picked up his books and he put some notes in the back, which, while it’s probably the best way to do it, I scanned the notes but didn’t go flipping back and forth to the pages being referenced. I think I’ll probably leave the majority of the comments to the website, and the books will have sketches and a few bonus pages and stuff like that. But obviously I haven’t started putting them together so we’ll see.
You mean Paradigm Shift right? That’s a great one, but I don’t see it update very often. Anyway, I suppose you make a good point. In the end that would be a lot of extra work, and it’s doubtfull that many people would really bother to look at it.
PS: Sorry it took me this long to respond to this, apparently ADD is not conducive to memory. Looking at my previous comment it’s not conducive to proper grammer either, I always notice those mistakes AFTER posting. Also thanks for reminding me about Paradigm Shift, I haven’t checked up on that in a while!
I have the “Subscribe to Comments” checkbox down at the bottom, but with the volume I get, I wish there was a better way to keep track of a comment thread. I’ve looked in to some plugins, but none of them really fit the bill.
I was thinking of him puting it on the side of the page like you see in mangas.
Then the comments started getting up in the 4 or 5 hundreds. Not sure what to do about that, maby just some of the better posts published.
Nah, nah, Sydney saw the “vorp” once before, this chickie appears right next to her with another “vorp”, and when she (Harem) stops mid-sentence to stare wide-eyed, Sydney realizes the girl is scared of her, so she goes “Boo” because that is a totally Syd thing to do…especially since Sydney just got totally validated by Maxima that her orbs are super super cool, and is feeling her cheerioats, so she’s feeling super powerful and thus knows she is capable of being intimidating-scary. That, and Syd may have recognized Harem’s eyes/facial features.
Ok today I spend some time thinking about Syd’s powers and I’ve a bunch of questions – which I will post separately to make commenting easier.
The flight orb: Is it actually a flight orb? We haven’t really seen her “fly” with it. We’ve seen her hover in different positions, stand on walls, prop herself up on the orb and rotate around it, but we haven’t seen flying. Technically speaking, flying requires you to be self-propelled through the air and that’s something we haven’t seen Syd do. If it is flight how fast can she go? Dave gave her 4 points for this power on the cast page. Or maybe her power is really control over gravity, in which case the questions are can she increase the pull of gravity as well as she can redirect it? Can she effect the pull of gravity on other objects? And does she need to touch those objects to do so? Could she levitate something and how much weight could she move if so?
Imagine her pinning a bad guy to the floor by making him too heavy to move, or getting on top of him and making herself to heavy to flip off. Or levitating him off the ground so he’s got no leverage.
The force field orb: It’s really strong but can she chance its size and shape or center? Does she have to be in it? or the only thing in it?
If she could center it around a bad guy instead of herself it could be used as a holding cell. If she could make it bigger she could protect other things, her teammates, crowds of innocent bystandards, buildings, etc. If she can change its shape she could made an aerodynamic shell for faster flight or a wall to create a blockade.
Don’t forget that a shield (as a blocker) is only good against solid objects. For explosions, the shock-wave would just race around the shield & clobber the folks huddled behind it, as described by Bernoulli:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli%27s_principle].
The tentacle orb: Can she do other shapes? [We’ve seen her coil it into shapes, like a hand, but can she change IT’S shape?] How long can she extend it? How much can it lift, and what’s it’s tensile strength? [On the cast page it has the same number of points as Anvil’s strength icon so could Syd “arm”wrestle her or tie her up?]
For the answer to these and other questions, stay tuned!
Yeah a lot of this stuff will come up in the comic, but for the flight orb, it does let her actually fly and give her weird local gravity/inertia control, but it only affects her. It’d be a cool power stunt if she could affect the gravity around her but I really want to be careful about overpowering the characters. Really, if deployed correctly, gravity control powers could pretty much instantly win most fights. I don’t want to give my characters abilities that they forget about on the next page because it would be disruptive to the storytelling otherwise. To be honest that may happen anyway but I’ll at least try to minimize it.
I’m curious about its compesition,
is it psionic wire
Mana thread (like Gwen in the teenage Ben Ten cartoons)
Ethereal dimension thread (a technique in Kekaishi)
or a magical manifestation, like a gelatenous squishy mass with a limited stretch.
I still wander if it only can wrap around things or can also engulf them.
Dave – Thanks muchly for avoiding one of the most common sci-fi/fantasy power-reduction mistakes ever.
For everyone else: “Dampers” reduce the effect or power of something. “Dampeners” make things wet. One of the things that makes me twitch watching Star Trek is the “Inertial Dampeners”.
Well, it’s a good thing Starslip just wrapped up – means my number of webcomics will stay the same…
Super powers in this universe are relativly new to the publics conciousness. So technology like power damphers are not out as yet. But I imagine there are companies and various goverment agencies that are probably looking into it.
Heh, I actually did make that mistake, but vigilant readers pointed it out and I stealth edited it. I blame Star Trek too.
And here’s another definition of damper…
Bon apetit!
Damper’s good tucker when you’re on the go.
I make the same mistake alot too, I think it has alot to do with how people talk and what rolls off the tongue, if you speak when writing it can mess some words up as you spell them out how they sounded to you or heard them, but don’t look right on screen. I see “damper” and think a hamper for diapers or something, I blame sci-fi for using the term rather than reducer or power reduction device, power prevention, power interference, damper dampener, the later just….sounds better for some reason.
(it also why I hate that “bow” became the acceptiple spelling for the Bough of a boat…I liked the longer spelling, especially as B O W is also for a Bow and Arrow, fricken english).
I’ve never heard of the front end of a boat being referred to as the bough, only as the bow. The only use I’ve seen for bough is a major branch of a large tree.
I think the codename of the guy Anvil is trying to destroy is “Mincemeat”. I base this on the letter M on his neckband which every hero in the group has showing the first letter of their codename. And the fact that he is a deadman walking right now.
The name is correct, but the etymology is slightly off. (Disclaimer: This entire comment is to be considered dangerously unofficial unless DaveB says otherwise!).
It was a nickname that came about as a consequence of his powers manifesting. The super-speed came in at the common age of 11-12*, at about the same time that puberty lights the fuse on so many other bodily changes. Unfortunately, the super-braking hadn’t developed to the same extent. Even more unfortunately, he was going at high speed toward his aunt’s aviary when he realised this.
The hospital staff still don’t know how anyone could get their entire back that well acquainted with a sheet of chickenwire. Witnesses were just impressed that he managed to take it on his back rather than his face (or would have been, if they’d been sentient).
The ‘weird news’ report piqued the curiosity of Major^ (later General) Faulk, and was in fact an indirect inspiration for the establishment of ARC itself. When the Military decided to take their ‘black’ research project into the public eye as an official unit, Faulk’s previous interest in the Empowered was remembered, and was a factor in his getting the job (in addition to the existing good relationship with Maxima; no sense risking another ‘Hormuz incident’ with a new CO).
Mincemeat’s poor attitude is in part due to the early knowledge that he wouldn’t need to find a ‘proper’ job but would automatically get one at the fledgling ARC; he was a stereotypical smart-alec sporting slacker, apart from the gentleman’s agreement between schools that he wouldn’t be on the team.
He keeps trying to change his nickname to “Mercury”, but no-one’s buying it. The surgeons did a good job, but the ladies have heard the stories and seen the pictures.
He’s still paying off the repairs to the aviary.
[* Edit a few years either way if necessary to fit timeline.]
[^ Edit former rank as necessary; I don’t know how fast the military career ladder moves.]
I need to stop coming up with stupidly detailed off-canon explanations for things that aren’t even an issue yet! Apologies for the long post.
No, you NEED to come up with some more of them. That was funny, don’t apologize for funny.
I enjoyed it as well.Keep up the entertaining ideas.
Sir, as long as your comments continue to be funny they will continue to be worth reading to the rest of us. On the other hand, those who don’t want to spend the extra time can skip over it at their own expense. Believe me, I have the same issue with leaving overly long messages, and I doubt they’re even funny even when I try to make them so. At least your comments are entertaining, so do carry on!
I think the best part so far is that no one has even argued the codename. Not even the author. This probably means I am half right and it is only one of his codenames.
Completely unrelated to the current comic. . . I was reading through the entire archive (again) and I noticed that Heatwave has a little line across her nose in every scene. A line that only occasionally appears in the drawings of other peoples noses.
Does Brooke have a scar?
No, it’s a… line that I sometimes draw on noses. I guess to make them look cute? I guess it’s just something I saw in some comics and liked it. I’m surprised I’ve been as consistent with the one on her nose as I have.
The idea of neutralizing Harem by storing her deep underwater actually has given me another, perhaps more practical idea. Place her in a chamber with one atmosphere of pressure. Gradually increase the pressure and allow her to acclimate. After a short while, she’ll be unable to teleport outside without getting a debilitating case of the bends.
Another idea presumes that her teleportation does not allow her to compensate for major inertial changes. This one’s pretty easy — place her on any fast-moving vehicle. An accelerator chamber used to simulate high-gee flight could also be used to this end.
but if she is teleporting by creating copies, which are dis-assembled and then reform at a new location, would the relative time/space correction allow for the internal/external air pressure and relative speed to compensate and not be a problem?
(star trek on transporting from an artificial gravity of a stationary ship down to a rotating planet hurling through space in its orbit and atmospheric differentials between the breathable planet at different altitudes and the controlled environment of the ship).
Star Trek transporters apparently have far greater range than Harem — transporting from orbit vs a couple of miles.
Harem’s replication ability probably does have some ability to dampen or change momentum. The real challenge to imprisoning her is to capture all copies. Given her confidence that she couldn’t be imprisoned, it’s likely that she has tested her abilities and can in some way compensate for these things.
‘Stationary’? No way is anything in orbit stationary. While it might seem as though a ship is stationary relative to the planet, the fact is it is still ‘falling’ through its orbit. I’m not sure if it is possible to attain a speed commensurate with the planets rotation and still maintain orbit, but if it is that would take that problem out of the mix. (Then all you’d have to worry about is the atmospheric pressure differential…)
Of course with Star Trek being a work of fiction, suspension of disbelief does help… :)
Geo-synchronous or stationary orbits of satellites exist now. Their orbit must be boosted because of orbital decay.
True that, but my comment was in relation to Rhuen’s about transporting from ‘a stationary ship down to a rotating planet’.
A geosynchronous orbit, however, would be even worse to transport from, considering that to maintain a position in orbit relative to a given spot on the planet’s surface, a ship in orbit would need to be travelling faster than the planet’s surface.
The only problem I see with that scenario (after you get the visualization down) is if your relative speeds would affect how you land. Would you still be subject to the speed you were traveling in the ship to when you are suddenly on earth? That would be the key. But a dangerous experiment to be sure.
That’s a good idea, the pressure thing would work if you captured all of them, the inertia thing wouldn’t though. You’ll see why later in the comic.
We know Harem’s teleportation must be able to compensate for some fairly significant velocity differentials, simply from the fact that she can use it over long range (assuming she has another iteration at the receiving end). Over any significant distance, the fact that the Earth is a rotating spheroid means that there will be differences in the effective velocity of the surface. Edinburgh to London is about 530 km (330 miles), or about 4.5 degrees of latitude, 3.2 of longitude. The latitude alone means a difference of about 100 km/hour (~60 mph) running East-West, and the longitude difference adds an altitude and a North-South component as well (for which the maths is rather more complex and only by request). (Apologies to the American majority for using a British example, but [i] I already had the data for Edinburgh and London and [ii] it’s a far more obvious example for a British person like me.)
That’s . . . an astoundingly good point! I’ve got to say I never would have thought of that. As for the math, I think if you showed all your work and calculations I’d probably get a headache! Science and concepts come naturaly to me, but for some reason math has always bugged me out.
Which came first Goth Harem or Gwen?
Well Gwen’s older, and she’s been dressing up Gothy longer than Harem has. Harem swaps out her wardrobe wholesale every once in a while for each of her instances. “Goth” was probably “Nerdcore” or something a year ago. “Co-Ed” was “Cowgirl” 2 years ago, “Vogue” was “Disco Sue” or something.
I had this vision that one or the other inspired the other, okay I assumed Harem noticed Gwen and wondered what that was like!
So are you planning on giving them a flashback to their past comic so we can see how harem in particular was like turning into a teenager as i have this vision of her parents just getting used to her using her four copies like her version of dressing up dolls and then next day they start exhibiting differing tendencies!
Like one likes ballet, one baseball and so on I’m wondering how they coped!!!
It’s five bodies one mind. She is just trying out diffrent styles, and body types at the same time.
If you could make duplicates of yourself, and over time with diet and ecersise change those bodies into what ever type of phisicality you want. You would do the same.
Yeah I’d love to do origin stories but I don’t want to bog down the pace of the comic with them. Not sure how I’ll work them in exactly.
DaveB. Did you give Harem cat eyes in the fourth pannel?
That is more of an optical illusion. You are seeing her pupils from the side and her face is elongated by her expression.
Not intentionally, I think they’re narrower than they usually are but it’s hard to tell with the reflection in the eye.
Sydney could have noticed the same purple effects or whatever from the teleporting and figured that they were the same person. Maybe.
another “good” prank to pull is hot sauce in with their laundry (the drier specifically) it causes the acid to bake into it and not cause any problems till a good bit after they put it on (assuming they are relatively dry) and then it might take them a bit to realize that the underwear is the problem so they might just keep swapping out their current pair for another pranked pair.
Ha Ha Hah! That is EVIL! Beats the hell out of tiger balm on the toilet seat. Reminds me of when a friend of mine did something to piss off the family cat and it got him back by spraying his hat, and the next day at work he went through every arcticle of clothing he had only to find it was his hat that smelled! It was his favorite hat too. Based on where it was in the closet, the cat would’ve had to climb up a coat or robe, grab on to an above shelf, shimy along said shelf over to where the hat was hanging just below, and while still hanging from the shelf, position itself just so in order to hit the hat. I don’t know why, but the idea of a cat going through all that trouble just to piss on his hat for nothing more than the sake of revenge makes me want to bust out laughing. I imagine the human equivalent being that if someone was trolling this site, one of us takes it upon themselves to go on a long, arduous, and noble journey that at last concludes with kicking said troll in the balls.
Or maybe Sydney just likes saying boo when she realizes she hasn’t been noticed. Or as another form of saying hello.
I posit another thesis of explanation of Sydney’s behavior towards harem. one much more readily explainable. Sydney and max had an entire elevator ride up at least twenty stories, judging by the height of Sydney’s encounter with the peeled-parallelogram-beast. i don’t know about those two, but i myself could read the daily news, have a nice little chat with the fellow next to me about the weather, and treat myself to a hot cup of tea, and a crumpet before reaching the twentieth floor of a building such as Archon Headquarters.