Grrl Power #1258 – Prepare the slo-mo wind machine
I did start writing the actual smash cut page to see what “the bad guys” are up to, but as I was working on it I realized I wasn’t quite sure where it was going, so I decided to do this scene while I gave the other one some more thought. Don’t worry, this won’t be nearly as long as the Parfait girls night one… he said, tempting fate with a fresh from the oven, slightly gooey chocolate chip cookie.
Dabbler made some minor adjustments to Max’s choker. Primarily, as they had “discussed,” her skin now feels less “weirdly slippery,” which extends the choker’s capabilities way beyond its original capabilities, which… may have consequences at some point. Although Dabbler did remove that extremely low level “Charm Person Aura” she’d added, so the overall power consumption is only a bit higher than it used to be. Max’s skin is normally a little bit less frictiony due to the fact that she doesn’t really have any skin texture to speak of. Well, it’s there, but it exists at a much smaller scale than what you’d expect to see on human skin. The other factor is that her personal, cellular level force-field that reinforces her body far past what would otherwise be impossible with even very advanced material science, is always on. Even if she lowers her shield to really enjoy a hot shower for example, it’s still there.
The other thing Dabbler did to it is to make it hide her fairly distinctive eyebrow horns. (The little notches at the top of the arch of her brow.) As far as her pointed ears go, Dabbler would have to replace the choker with something a lot more sophisticated.
Oh, and if you guys haven’t seen Tacoma FD, I recommend it. I think it’s on Netflix and Hulu in the US. It’s helmed by two of the Broken Lizard guys, and is kinda basically more Super Troopers, but with way less drug use. The premise being firefighters in one of the US’s rainier cities don’t always have a whole lot to do so they keep themselves entertained. To be clear, it’s not must see TV, but I found it amusing enough to recommend. And if you have seen it, then you might recognize the fire station here, and also two of the guys at the table, even though I kind of tweaked their appearances from the show a bit. Though I realized after I colored the one guy that he kind of looks like Sydney’s dad, but, oh well.
*************
To cover some stuff that’s been brought up in the comments on the previous few pages, some people are assuming that Maxima has been acting as both cop and judge, as well as, I suppose, jailer. I haven’t shown any of the legal proceedings that happen to criminals in the Grrl-verse, partially because I would be hilariously inept at representing actual legal happenings, partially because I can’t even imagine how many pages it would take to scratch the surface, and partially because I don’t think I could make much of it funny and/or entertaining.
So the quick rundown of the legal fate of super criminals in the U.S. is basically 1) They go to jail, which is hugely expensive. Many of the accommodations need to be customized for the occupant, and the complexity of including things like exercise time in the yard means it’s almost unavoidable to tie up a not insignificant portion of a very limited population of supers with guarding other supers. So the other option is 2) Reform/rehabilitation. Maxima is a proponent of this. Basically, putting a valuable resource to work is better than sticking it in a cell to cost the taxpayers a load of money, especially when there’s little to no effort to prevent recidivism.
Lapha will get an actual trial at some point, and it will be a fucking mess, starting with “not a U.S. Citizen and/or not a human being and/or Earth is still hammering out treaties with space governments and/or does the U.S. recognize magends as sapient beings with rights” etc., etc. Lapha already has a ton of insider information that she shouldn’t, so there’s no harm at this point trying to integrate her with the team while all that shit is being sorted out, especially since Dabbler is the only person on Earth (with a work visa) who knows how to keep a being like Lapha from jumping on to the President’s head and doing something regrettable.
So, Lapha committed a bunch of crimes and has access to some pretty high-level top secret information. Namely, that Sydney’s orbs are Nth tech. Granted, she blurted that out to a crowd of aliens and demons that are probably spreading that tidbit all over Space Reddit or whatever is in vogue at the moment, but a secret getting out doesn’t automatically declassify something, nor does it excuse the crime of putting that information into the wild. Giving her the option of jail or work release is not slavery, as some of the more hyperbolic commenters suggested. Criminals get punished in literally every society ever, and being given a choice is more than most criminals get.
The new vote incentive is up!
Every so often I get the urge to try and draw Maxima all properly shiny, and this… isn’t my favorite attempt if I’m honest. I’ve been sitting on this for a little while doing little tweaks, and decided to finally publish it cause I’m already behind on these. The next one will (almost definitely) resume the trend of including a little mini comic to extend the scene a bit.
As usual, Patreon has some outfit variations as well as sans flagrante.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
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"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.
My money is on arm wrestling
Much as I think that would be cool, I don’t think that qualifies as ‘girly.’
From everything I learned from my sisters. If you are showing cleavage while doing it. it still counts as girly. I like this rule because it means I can still kick a guys butt at sports and say it’s girly if a bit of cleavage is showing.
I reckon you’re confusing “girly” with “sexy”
Not gonna lie, but if a man has that much cleavage, I am NOT aroused.
This thread has gone in such a weird direction.
Token “Speak for yourself, comrade” reply from the trans viewer demographic.
They didn’t say wrong. They said weird…which apparently means otherworldly or supernatural… huh weird.
I’d think the aliens and demons would have a really large incentive to keep the secret of “there’s Nth level tech on Earth” all to themselves. If someone else figures out how to get to it first, they not only miss out on getting it themselves but they might actually be screwed by their enemies getting it.
There would be a HUGE battle in space over who got to land to acquire it. By then Max and Sydney would be flying up with the “What the hell are you doing over our planet!” thing…
Max would go all “Captain Marvel” on the ships and Sydney would be making LARGE holes in some…
Max and Sydney are impressive, but not “intergalactic war ending” impressive.
Sydney is the only one who can breathe in space.
Max is the only one who has shown to be able to break ship shielding at all(yes, Sydney has a bypass, but it’s a lot riskier and more involved).
Sydney’s shield complained after getting hit only once by a full ship.
They would be outnumbered thousands to 1.
to be perfectly fair, those squid things seemed to be much more advanced than most things in space if we go by the fact that they have the tech to actually detect Sydney’s orbs (something that we know for a fact not even Dabbler and Cora can do despite all their advance space tech) and Sydney killed like 3 of those things
Maxima has the firepower of a capital ship if not more since apparently the fel super cruiser is designed to survive the broadsides from one those so im sure Maxima could one shot most ships alone
Those who overheard Lapha really only know that Sydney believes the orbs are Nth level tech. How much basis in evodence or confirmation from others she has received for that theory wasn’t revealed. Heck, the readers of the comic only know it’s a working theory at this point.
Unfortunately, not a distinction that crowd is likely to make.
*Max walks in to fire station* Hey, Rowan, I’m-
*Verner leaps out of chair, grabs fire hose* POINT WATER AT HOT THING!! *sprays Max full throttle with fire hose*
Rowan: *looks at sopping wet Max, back at Verner* Okay, three things. One, kudos on your response time, good reflexes, except… Two, while I am the first to agree that she is Smoking Hot, probably not a great idea to point a live fire hose at a human being. Three-
Verner: Yer gonna kick my ass for making a mess of your hot Canadian girlfriend?
Rowan: She is NOT Canadian, and NO, I’m going to stand back at a respectful distance while my smoking hot Amazon girlfriend kicks your ass, cause this is the 21st century.
And then they notice that Harper isn’t as soaked as she should be because she reflexively put her outer shield up.
Actually, they’d probably be rather puzzled by the fact that a full-throttle fire hose blast didn’t knock her off her feet, except, of course, that Max is doing her best to be Normal Human Woman today, so she’d probably let it. (Heck, she could have avoided it altogether if she wanted to, but see above.)
Or option 3, fly *with* it for extra dramatic effect
A fire hose is probably not hooked up in the firehouse breakroom since they are hooked up to standpipes or hydrants but I will go with it for the sake of humor and since most peopke will want to see a wet tshirt Maxima.
I honestly keep forgetting how pretty Max’s Glamour is.
It’s been tweaked since she last used it
How pretty Max is*
There isn’t a Glamour.
she’s just not shiny.
And you know…pink with black hair instead of gold with purple
Hey at least she’s willing to defend him instead of getting the “ick” that she might have to.
And that’s how we know this is a work of fiction.
Naa, my wife was like that, she was always hit on in a bar or the lounge we liked, one guy had the balls or the booze in him to get mouthy when she cut him off, when he grabbed her wrist and started to yank i walked up, grabbed the back of his neck, kicked his knee out from under him, and calmly told him to either apologize or leave in a loud bus…
I couldn’t leave her to go to the bathroom some nights. She was 5’4″, I was 5’8″ it was always the “Chads” that tried. Firemen have to be buffed up, try running up and down 2 flights of stairs with a 180 lbs dummy on your shoulder some time.
I fail to see how your wife being creeped on and you had to defend her honor (I’m very sorry to read that… I do hate that “Chad” mentality, but I’ll stop now before I open up a very different cesspool) negates his train of thought that in reality a woman wouldn’t defend her mans honor instead of getting the ick of ‘having a man’ that’s being teased too much.
I agree that Scarsdale’s situation is completely inapposite here. But I disagree on how many women would get the “ick” in having to “defend her man”. Depends entirely on the woman. A relationship is a two-way deal, and defending (i.e., “supporting”) your partner is often part of that deal.
In this case, I’d posit that the *majority* of women would defend a reasonably attractive, personable, and intelligent man who was being teased solely because *he talked about how attractive she was*.
And finally, while it is the phrase Max used, “defending her man” really isn’t what’s about to happen. What’s happening is Max is about to put a couple of macho men in their place, which is 100% a Max thing to do. The fact doing so also helps Rowan is almost incidental.
What are the odds that along with “sexy times senses” Dabbler and/or Sydney have “shenanigans senses” that Max triggered with that comment in the last panel?
This might be the time and place to share another bit of fan art. There’s more, and I’d like to find a modest place to show it. Deviant Art seems more geared to heavyweights uploading massive portfolios, career artists. I just have a few CGI pics for fun. Anyway, I call this one Leander and Lux, on display for 6 months.
https://ibb.co/cv1dgTQ
Not bad! I’d love to see the comic in CGI, but it takes way more time and the models are pricey at best!
I think you got a couple of details wrong: https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2010-04-21
In that context, getting those specific details wrong is a compliment.
How?
What? Too small?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-524-importinent-questions/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-836-playing-the-game/
Looks good.
You have done the thing that I do sometimes and given this comic the wrong number. Should be #1258
Dabblers Prono sense will have the wierdest sensation on the far end of detection.
That, or she put a permanent “Porno Sense Clairvoyance Sensor” on Max or the Choker. Just to know when she is getting sexy.
“Giving her the option of jail or work release is not slavery, as some of the more hyperbolic commenters suggested. Criminals get punished in literally every society ever, and being given a choice is more than most criminals get.”
Indeed, she was going to be locked up either way for the mountain of crimes she comitted.
And she probably wants to defer the trial until after her right to exist is established.
But this way she at least isn’t sitting in jail.
“Earth is still hammering out treaties with space governments”
A plus side of such a treaty is that Max just needs to change her fake ID to “legal extraterestial”. It allows her to stop hiding her ears. And maybe they can lower the power drain on the choker by letting some of ther differences appear.
I think Insgol talked about “using the existence of supers to hide the signs of magic creatures”.
But that works the other way around. Any super with obvious changes can hide as a alien/magic creature.
IIRC, Vale already does that.
Actually, prison in the US /is/ slavery. Like, literally and non-hyperbole: The U.S. Constitution and 16 state constitutions ban slavery except as punishment for a crime. Prisoner advocates say this allows forced prison labour
I think there is a difference between “the law in the US still allows enslavement as possible punishment for a crime” and “any punishment for a crime in the US is slavery”.
You are implying the second, while I think the first would be more accurate.
Should we meet any of those bar patrons but in different roles?
Only the sister
How about that one who tried to shove Max out of the bar,she turns up as a high ranking officer from the Office of Budget and Accounting from the Pentagon..!?
I need to give out “Get Succubus Tear of Approval” in a RPG sometime.
I seriously don’t mind if this is as long as the parfait girls night arc. These particular arcs are the best types and there’s something about Maxima trying to have a normal life that’s incredibly appealing to me.
I agree. I’d be happy with a few weeks of Maxima trying to live a normal life. Extra points for her boyfriend being told who she is before it ends.
Well they are bound to have some “You may do what you want without facing any immediate problems from the justice of the law”
and a lot of leeway.
Why would she have to do girly shit? All she has to do is exist in their line of sight.
Exactly. She just walks in, kisses him on the mouth and then casually notices his douchebag friends.
Hell, she could walk in, kiss him on the top of the head with a hug and then casually notice the rest of them.
Agreed. I am hoping, however, that she at least knocks, opens the door and asked if she can come in instead of just barging in there, but I don’t really know if there’s any protocol for that in regards to fire stations. Kind of like how she parked on the driveway, but not in front of the actual door(s) (as far as we know).
> one of the US’s rainier cities
Did you *intend* to make a Mt Rainier pun, or was it a coincidence?
When did Maxi marry Rowan? Did we time-skip again? Or was a it rushed marriage because he ‘knocked Maxi up’?
If they were married, Max would be Rowan’s wife, not girlfriend.
So, when did he become “her man”?
When you get married, you get a license, which allows you to keep that person, like a firearms license allows you to keep a firearm
That…. I don’t think that’s how a marriage license works. Anywhere. I sure hope not, anyway.
We don’t see every moment of the characters’ lives. Just the moments the author thinks would be important or funny. Does it bother you that we didn’t see the genesis of Brooke and Mr. Amorphous’ relationship? I guess it bothers me that he’s one of the only members of the team that we don’t know his real name.
I am so happy to see that maxima actually is going for the 2nd + date
While I am generally not a fan of the idea of using labor as a punishment – it denigrates workers, and reinforces the idea that work is bad, as opposed to being a rich idler living off other people’s labor – but I do see the value of using a work program as a rehabilitation tool.
“Start being a contributor, and we’ll start cutting your sentence,” creates a positive reinforcement.
Where I start getting qualms, however, is in the fact that the modern system of criminal processing (I will _not_ call it “justice”) is entirely and exclusively oriented towards converting prisoners into production nodes for the capitalist system. Consider the drive in literally every state to criminalize homelessness.
This is _literally_ criminalizing poverty, while at the same time, the wealthy do everything in their power to reduce wages, slash benefits, and burn down safety nets. And all the while, they cook up new schemes to create debt among the populace.
“Oh, you can’t afford a home? Well here, we’ll just loan the money at an astronomical interest rate that you will never be able to make if we decide your job – if we gave you one – is less important than our next solid gold toilet, or orbital rocket excursion. By the way, if you can’t make the housing payment, you’re going to a private prison, where you’ll be assigned to work for essentially nothing, fed garbage, and treated like a literal slave. AND, we’re going to pocket the difference between what the public pays for your incarceration, and the entirely inadequate amount we deign to spend on you, for even more profit! Cheers!”
And people wonder why there is a sudden resurgence in socialist sentiments! Gosh, where could that have possibly come from?!
I’m just going to say it outright this time: Capitalism is evil, the people who knowingly support it are evil, it makes literally _everything_ worse, poisons every single aspect of society it touches, including criminal justice, and we need to put an end to it.
My biggest two objections to prison labor are these. First, you shouldn’t monopolize an inmate’s time to the exclusion of such activities that may contribute to their well-being or rehabilitation (such as therapy, education, medical care, etc). Second, and more importantly you shouldn’t create a class of commercial interests that profit from prison labor (or from people being in prison generally).
The problem with commercial interests is that they always want to grow their business. When growing a business year over year involves finding ways to make sure more people are incarcerated, the business has interests that are directly contrary to public policy.
There is recent activity in several states to require people who benefit from prisoner labor to pay AT LEAST minimum wage. People are talking about it in terms of whether prisoners are owed a wage, but I see the more important question as whether the business owners do or do not have a motive to ensure that more people are incarcerated year after year.
“Consider the drive in literally every state to criminalize homelessness.”
Consider the state of California, where that has been relaxed. There are plenty of very good reasons for anti-vagrancy laws besides, “Ew, hide those icky poor people from my rich, entitled self.”
“Oh, you can’t afford a home? Well here…”
That entire paragraph completely ignores the difficulties that vast swaths of non-wealthy, non-prison-owning society endure when dysfunctional homeless people (and criminals… and there is a SIGNIFICANT overlap between those two groups) are not dealt with.
Again, see California for the societal destruction that results. There are many good and entirely reasonably reasons the middle class (who definitely does not benefit from the Prison Industrial Complex) support anti-vagrancy laws and are generally not very empathetic to actual criminals.
But the most ridiculous part of your rant on this topic in general is the strong implication (and previously, you have claimed it explicitly) that anti-vagrancy laws are exclusive to other efforts to help the poor.
On the general topic of incarceration and labor, the morality of it, in the most general sense, is simple and easy: your bad behaviour has inflicted costs on society (the costs of housing and feeding you, most obviously among many), so society shall inflict costs on you. That the actual execution is sometimes poor does not make a moral case against the practice more generally.
From a purely pragmatic perspective, I would support requiring that the prisoners receive some more direct benefit from the labor (such as credits that can be redeemed for luxury foods or other small perks), though not the full value of their labor (for the reason given above).
I would also completely support keeping a tab on what the prisoner has cost to feed and house (including the guards), and if the value of the prisoner’s labor were to exceed that cost, I would fully support the prisoner receiving all further value as pay (well, after all legitimate debts, including recompense to victims, was paid from it first). I would even support making that calculation look at each year individually, so that a prisoner who entered prison with no useful skills wouldn’t be “in the hole” forever if it took them several years to reach the threshold where the earn more than they cost to incarcerate.
This is not a political page. Please go away. After deleting your comment.
That is a strange demand.
A. Where do you see a delete button? I’ve looked for it and haven’t found it yet.
B. It’s not attached to a comment.
C. This forum has seen several political rants and nobody seemed to bat an eye.
The page number is wrong, it should be #1258
Whoops! Fixed.