Grrl Power #319 – Armored with advice
It occurs to me that half the gags in this comic seem to come from the fact that I get bored drawing talking head panels, so I throw the dialog to captions and draw whatever nonsense I like. Seems to work out ok, but sometimes those panels wind up being smaller than I’d like cause I’ve already drawn the rest of the page. In case you can’t read it, the three in the background of the last panel have Wrath, Lust and Gluttony written on them.
I have no idea if ooblek normally has much if any tensile strength when you smack it like Claire is having to do in panel 5, so I don’t know if that particular setup would work, except to say of course it would since that deathtrap uses the kind of ooblek that does have incredible tensile which makes it perfect for that sort of 2 person deathtrap.
Predictably, Claire is the competent explorer, and her bumbling friend was the one who touched the idol that gave her the somewhat unreliable powers of Distress Damsel. I tell you, if Empowered wasn’t already a thing, I could totally do a Distress Damsel comic. You know, along with Grrl Power, Demon High and Grrl Power After Dark of course. (And two others I have ideas for that are super smutty.) If I could have any power from my comic, it would definitely be Harem’s.
Oobtek is brought to us by Machina Industries predictably. It almost sounds ridiculous to have armor made out of goo, but I didn’t make this up. This exists in the real world, at least in prototype form. Apply it over kevlar and it’s practically impossible to get a shiv through it. Its ability to dissuade even armor piecing bullets is significantly improved as well. Google “oobleck armor” for a bunch of info about it.
The Oobtek inserts were my idea, so I don’t know how realistic that is, but we can assume Machina Industries has razor edge tech which at the very least prevents the Oobtek from just pooling in the bottom of each pouch. The inserts more than double the weight of the AFDs, but enormously distribute the energy of any sort of blow. By the way in the third panel, Ashley isn’t saying armor piercing pistol rounds are no sweat for the AFD’s, he’s letting her know where the definite cutoff is. The take home message for these outfits is, as with any armor; “don’t get shot, but if you do, you have a better chance of not dying, assuming you don’t get hit in the neck or head. It will still probably hurt.”
The major disadvantage to this sort of material is that I imagine it probably doesn’t breathe well. The Kevlar/ooblek stuff I found online looks like waterproof canvas, so probably hot and generally not that comfortable. We’ll assume the Q-vex/Oobtek version overcomes this to some degree, as well as lining the inside with a wicking fabric that channels sweat to the seams. They’re still working on variations for extreme environments, but as a domestic force they don’t have to be worried about being deployed in a 120 F desert unless some supervillain decides to build his base in Death Valley. You’d think that would happen more often just for the name and the ambiance, but finding henchmen willing to make that commute is tough.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
I find myself wondering if they have a protocol in place for the inevitable mindswap with a supervillain? Like a villain can walk up and claim they were mindswapped with a hero, and then both the hero and the villain are locked up until they can either verify or refute the claims.
Wizzard idea.
Are you thinking like a password or something?
Could be funny if they chose the wrong person to swap with.
I think if someone tried to mind swap with Dabbler the sudden shift in body… needs would have the undisciplined villain never getting anywhere near HQ if their were a lot of people between them and it.
Attempting to swap with Harem would probably cause their mind to explode.
Sydney they could do but they would then suddenly have ADD? They would have a hard time accomplishing their goal since they haven’t had a lifetime of learning to cope with Shiney Syndrome and probably would forget to take her meds.
That’s something I’m wondering if Dave would subvert. Usually in a mind swap the personality gets to keep all of its abilities like greater intelligence even if some of that is entirely dependent on the actual physical properties of the original brain/body. It would be a ton more interesting if a person with swapping powers (kinda rare) ended up having to deal with any built in problems that the destination brain had as well as the advantages for their stay in it.
Like lowering their effective I.Q. in Heatwave’s case (I know DaveB said there is a reason for this and she gets there eventually but clearly in the mean time in some situations like conversing she is quite dull)
To be fair, personality is just as much a physical part of your brain. So mindswap is impossible if you enforce those limits
If the old memories, learned reflexes, habits, pathways and ways of thinking were suppressed and a new set of those from someone else was imprinted (to the extent that the new brain was capable of reproducing) and given supremacy to the point it wasn’t even aware the other personality existed (outside of its copied memories of this body having such a mind before the being it was copied from decided to take over) it would think of itself as a transferred mind even if in truth it had been altered by the limitations or perhaps even greater abilities of the new brain in certain areas. But in reality it would be a special form of split personality caused by the originals super power/magic.
So the perfection of the copy depends on the nature of the brain it is imprinted in.
I imagine they have come up with protocols for all known and many suspected powers. So probably including that and invisibility, shapechanging/illusions, mind reading… along with a few others.
Plus I guess that critical systems (say the Arc-Hive artefact repository) probably have triple, varied security to try and cover as many contingencies as possible, in one go. For instance requiring living biometric testing, keying in of a pass code and a physical key, of some sort.
And probably need the co-operation of a second person, perhaps with their own, different, set of protocols. Such as asking a password, and giving a counter-password. Before casting the spell which, temporarily allows passage past the magical wards, and telepathically commanding the demon to not attack.
Not the kinds of delays you want for anything you may need emergency access to. But for ‘the Things that Mankind is Not Meant To Know’? Yea, probably sensible.
Recall how at a certain speed and above water is like a solid material and can crush you bad?
Having brain wave patterns on hand of everyone can easily find who has been mind swapped.
Nice Dune reference!
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Dear Overworked Comic Creator,
If you have a moment to spare before your next update could you please tell me what font you use for most of the comic?
I have a friend who is just starting their very first comic project and they need tips on what font to use (probably everything else but that is what she asked for) and I know nothing about fonts. I did my best to suggest what might make a font legible and not take up too much space but it would be better than great to have the advice of someone who has been working hard on a comic for years. ( and a pony and a plastic rocket… )
I… I think that Max’s daisy cutter qualifies as a bit stronger than a bunker buster. And she did take sustained abuse from less powerful energy blasts at the firing range.
To be fair, that wasn’t a direct hit.
one of my favorite plays on the “slow blade penetrates the shield” thing was Stargate…alien had these energy shields that could stop starship plasma cannons…and then a human with a gun shows up and lights him up by firing subsonic rounds.
There was also one where Apophis had a personal shield stopped all the bullets they fired and then Jack threw a knife, stuck it in Apophis’s hand.
I’m going to suggest that those packets of oobtek each be upgraded to include a thin sheet of spring steel. The soft side of the packet would be placed toward the body. The thinness of the steel would not add much weight, but it would certainly stop any ordinary “slow blade”. Also, if a bullet hit the steel, it would spread the force of impact across the whole outer surface of the packet of oobtek, reducing impact-force-per-square-inch upon the body behind the packet. Well, the steel would do that to the first bullet, that is….
A thin sheet of titanium might be a workable alternative to a thin sheet of spring steel, at least as far as stopping a slow blade. And it weighs about half as much.
The issue is that titanium is significantly weaker than most armor steels. By weight, tougher, but thickness, steel wins.
The most fun aspect of bulletproofiness is testing it, right?
…hey, wait. Since when do light and sexuality exist on a spectrum called “bulletproofiness”?
Since the first heroine put on a skimpy outfit, which seems to protect her from harm in combat, despite being shot at with lasers. It may not be a spectrum mind, but they are certainly present in the formula, in one form or another.
Improve the sexual appeal, by increasing the amount of exposed flesh. Which simultaneously improves the bulletproofiness plus the laserblastproofiness too.
Although DaveB never has seemed too fond of that super hero genre tradition. At least not in Grrl Power. But we can always hope that at least one super heroine has a power that has similar results. And that she gets into seriously dangerous situations, where she needs to max out her defences.
Does anyone else get a yearning that such a heroine might appear in “Grrl Power After Dark”?
If only to see how pissed off Maxima would get at her!
Like this character?
https://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/365/3/c/indigo2_by_kaeto1-d4kuetr.jpg
She has a skin tight forcefield, and her powers also obviate the need to breathe.
I do like your character :)
A bit top heavy for me, but she has good taste.
Which came first, tools or humans?
Turns out, not only was it not humans, it wasn’t even a hominid!
Which begs a number of questions…
• Was Lucy actually a super genius gadgeteer?
• Is it possible that survivors of the dinosaur super-wars, managed to retain aspects of their technology, for many millions of years, more than we previously suspected?
• Or could this be evidence that Neanderthals discovered time travel? Only to find that they unwittingly exposed pre-hominids to advanced stone-age technology. Thereby changing the time-line and giving their homo sapiens rivals technology to match their aggression!
Hey, spoilers tag! I was gonna get around to reading about history. :-P
Eventually…
One day I have to ban BBC News to keep my visual health. I don’t know why they bother to add images to their articles at all, at a jpeg-quality level of about 0.001 any of these images could be anything.
I was getting confused, given that every single one of the images is very clear. Conveying subjects of relevance to the story. And even going so far as to enlarge the points of interest, where they would not be visible at that resolution.
So I was then going to ask why you would want to shrink the images to dinky size. But that answered my own question. I assume you are using a smartphone, or something similar, to access the story?
If that is your issue, please let me know. The BBC regularly ask me for user feedback on any issues. I am sure you are not alone, and there are many people who’s opinions they also seek. But it does not hurt to add to the numbers.
Not to mention that they have taken a liking to some of the solutions I propose. Given that they single me out for personal response, from time to time.
Mind you, I am confident that they are working on various solutions, as we speak. They are constantly improving the news website. Just recently they migrated it to a mobile-friendly version. And I get to play with the beta version of that, so get to see the various tweaks they are trying out, before they go live.
Sadly though, with no smart-phone, I cannot give you the heads-up on whether that includes nice small-sized pictures for dinky displays.
Love the original dune reference. I laughed so hard at that Too cool man.
I figure by now some one has mentioned it I’m just to lazy to read 4 pages of comments.
After all laziness is the mother of all bad habits. However she is still a mother, and her opinion should be respected.
there complementary anime quot for the day.
LOL
Have you tested it against a bunker buster? No, but I tested it against whatever Maxima could throw at me…
I think its pretty bullet proof.
Yeah, I’m surprised Sydney didn’t answer “Have you tested it against a bunker buster?” with “Does Maxima count?”
Maxima > bullet, ergo: Maximaproof => bulletproof
A DEW attack with the capability to burn through at least an effective 1000mm+ of RHA. On low beam. And she can blam battleships in a single go. If you can make an armor system that is capable of standing that level of energy attack, it should probably be able to enter Venus without any issue.
It took me three days to notice the Dune reference.
Three. Days.
I was just walking to my university when I suddenly stopped and told myself “Oh man, that was totally a Dune reference in this comic three days ago!”.
Heh. The ‘Heatwave moment’.
Well, that would have happened anyway…because nothing can stop Macgyver.
Except using is giving first name :P
Would love (get it? you will soon) to see the first meeting of Dabbles and this group, specifically Lust:
Dabbles: You call yourself ‘Lust’? Honey, try this on for size! (and Dabbles goes full-power Succubus)
:D
+1
Walk without rhythm, and you won’t attract the worm…
I have no clue what’s supposed to be happening in panel 5, or what it’s supposed to be demonstrating, even after reading your commentary.
Yea my initial interpretation proved to be flawed. If you read through the various pages of comments you will find a good explanation. As it was counter-intuitive though, I can’t recall it off the top of my head. So fully understand your head-scratching on that one.
I forgot about Iron Cloth’s foxtail hair. It is an awesome look!
Personally, I’d prefer a ceramic IV strike face if at all possible. A reminder that the easiest way to cheat soft armor is speed.
So one of the cool things you can do with Ooblek is make it yourself by putting cornstarch in a bowl and then adding water to it until it’s saturated. If you over do it a bit, you can dab away the excess water. You can punch it making it solidify instantly (do it hard enough you can make cracks in the surface). Let your fingers gently sink into it then pull out a glob and shape it into a ball. Throw it to someone to hold, and it will start getting goopy, freaking them out.