davebarrack

Grrl Power #1832 - Insuborgative interrordination

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I've mentioned several times that I've never been in the military, and most of what I know about it I learned from movies and TV, especially Stargate SG-1, but even without checking sources or even doing a casual google, I feel confident this is pretty insubordinate. There will be consequences at some point. I still find it entertaining though, which is one of many reasons I don't think I would have done well in the milit...

Grrl Power #1381 - Disassembly dissembly

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While Dabbler seems like the obvious choice for space adventures, they already have a crew of stellar adventurers to give them the tour. Additionally, Dabbler is one of the team's powerhouses... well, powerhouse isn't quite the right word, but she is one of the team's heavier hitters due to her experience and flexibility. Yes, Max and Sydney can probably get back to Earth almost instantly, but you never know. Does Sydney'...

Grrl Power #1380 - Grand theft carbo

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"Hey I have some pool water with food coloring in it, what should we do with it?" 
"Let's package it in wax and sell it to children. Because evil."
"Wow, you had an answer for that right away."
"Eeeevil."
"Is... the wax edible?"
"It's not not edible."

If I had been doing my job properly this whole time, Harem should have been in about 50% more of the comics. Not necessarily for potential...

Grrl Power #1379 - Hadron couture

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It's a good thing Gellen found something Sydney liked right away, because otherwise, presenting her with the unlimited options that mass fabricators present would usually vapor lock her brain. 

I'm not sure Maxima owns anything angora, but Sydney's alternate suggestion doesn't quite work with "don't maliciously apply a cheese grater to Maxima's leather jacket." For one thing, that wouldn't work if Max ...

Grrl Power #1378 - Commence Operation StealthySpaceGambleBloodSport

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I didn't draw Maxima flying besides Sylv because she's insecure about being shorter than him. If you could fly with zero effort, wouldn't you do it sometimes? 

I call out "with zero effort" because I have had more than one dream where I could fly, but it was the shittiest, worst flying possible. I could only get about waist high off the ground, and moving required basically swimming through the air, so I could ...

Grrl Power #1377 - Lett hackers

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My intent was just to show a series of hacking steps involving nano-goo holding down a switch to prevent the counter intrusion alarm from going off and things sliding and future circuits being manipulated, but I have a bad habit of zooming in to like 500% while I'm working and it's all kind of hard to see at the regular webcomic resolution.

A physical switch like a refrigerator door light switch in an alien satelli...

Grrl Power #1376 - I spy with my little satellite...

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Max isn't actually all that offended by "guy scoping out slightly drunk chicks." She knows how the world works. Nothing wrong with a little willful social self-lubrication. Now, if he'd said "blackout drunk chicks," that'd be a different story. She's also not a huge fan of referring to women as "chicks," either, but at least it's better than "broads," "slags," or many other terms in a series of rapidly diminishing respect...

Grrl Power #1375 - Lordosis locomotion

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That is not a US government issue space suit, in case you were wondering. Cora supplied it. Actually, Gellen probably did. 

Maxima doesn't need a space suit to survive hard vacuum. She does need to breathe, though as I've mentioned before, she can hold her breath for quite a long time. Basically her body can break the carbon from the dioxide and she can re-breathe it, though she has to sort of turn her energy b...

Grrl Power #1374 - The Match(ing feet) Game!

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Frix does take his profession seriously. He might have pulled a little prank on Peggy, but he's not going to double dip in that same comedy salsa. Probably.

I was trying to think of things that (het) women like for Frix's last dialog bubble, and while that list is potentially fairly long, it could probably be easily sorted by rapidly diminishing consensus I think. I'm saying what men like is probably a litt...

Grrl Power #1373 - The A-Team gets clean

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See how it all ties in? Faulk and Cora and Max were talking about Peggy's foot, and now she has an ticklichy shower foot. Writing!  

I had originally planned to have a lot of conversations in the comic take place in the showers, because, well, glistening superheroines. There are two reasons that this is only the third or fourth appearance of the showers in nearly 1400 pages. One, I just kind of ke...

Grrl Power #1372 - Benefoot Arnpod

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This admittedly jarring transition does sort of back-flow into the previous scene eventually. Trust me.

Frix did ask Peggy if she wanted to close up the scars on her face and fix her ear, and she said that she'd have to agonize over it for a few weeks before making a decision. 

Living with something like a lost limb for years would take a minute to adjust to if you suddenly... found the limb, so to speak....

Grrl Power #1371 - People aren't wearing enough astro-hats

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"General Faulk, I cannot believe you risked America's two most important defense assets on bloodsports and gambling! What do you have to say for yourself?"

"What I have is access to a space ship. Do you have a space ship, Senator?"

"Well, we can rent one from private industry..."

"Can it travel 3,500 light years in two days?"

"Not... currently..."

"Two, holla holla, I got some space dolla!" (...

Grrl Power #1370 - Definitely no but maybe

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"But..." You have a spaceship and we want to continue to have access to a spaceship, so... 

That's the real subtext of whatever Faulk is going to say on the next page. "Please let us continue to use your stuff which would take Earth 200 years* of concerted effort otherwise. Also your incredible medical technology and space pornography." Like I said, subtext. 

It's still a bad idea for a lot of reason...

Grrl Power #1369 - Battle Arena Omega Super Explosion

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By "side-missions," Cora obviously means bulletstorm fueled escalations that leave yawning power vacuums in the criminal underworld. Cause, you know, you take out some sub-boss who's looking to carve out some corner of his organization, and his crime-sempais are glad to see him go, but the "insult to the family" can't go unanswered, and before you know it, 600 crime-bois are dead and the "condemned" space station the grou...

Grrl Power #1368 – Reasonably petition it up the chain

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When Max shows up at Faulk's office in her dress purps outside of "the usual times," he knows there's going to be an ask. And in this case, the ask is "me fight big danger, friend gets paid." I'm sure there's officially military rules about gambling, certainly in uniform, though I'm not sure about while on leave. I imagine it's probably fine as long as it doesn't ultimately bring disgrace to your branch, or missing going ...

Grrl Power #1367 - Get rich violently scheme

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Cora's plan probably sounds like a bad idea for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons may be laid out in the next few pages. 

At the time this page was posted, a Kg of rhodium is worth about $183,260, which honestly is less than I would have guessed. Iridium clocks in at $132K/Kg, and palladium is a bargain at $35K/Kg. I know they're all useful in electronics, and also that Rhodium was the primary currency...

Grrl Power #1366 - Ding dang dong

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Lapha was indeed a guttersnipe at one point, in case you forgot.

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the following before, but it's been years since whatever page that was, and it's relevant to this page, so I claim author's privilege.

Anyway, I have a distinct memory of a scene from an episode of Thunde...

Grrl Power #1365 - Like mother like golem

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The slow bleed is a actually a surprisingly effective move against Sciona. That is, assuming you can keep her from using any magic or activating any contingencies. Which is usually a pretty big ask. She has more proactive defenses against the overwhelming trauma style attacks, things that will activate automatically, but they necessarily lack discrimination or finesse. She prefers to deal with DoT attacks like bleeds or c...

Grrl Power #1364 - Dungeon rules

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Ah, the most visually stunning comic page in the medium's storied history. You're welcome. 

I'd say it's about even odds that Sciona is writing in Alar instead of English. I feel like I may have put some Alar writing on a wall panel or something on some page, but I don't recall what it looks like, so I can't say if it would be easier with a sharpie duct taped to a finger on your non-dominant hand. My alien writ...

Grrl Power #1363 - Luckily I'm still under warranty

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Panel three may not be quite how Scion usually acquires his DNA samples. Not that he hasn't considered it, but he kept ripping the stockings with his tentacle toes. 

I will cop to it. In that last word balloon, I don't know if I used the semicolon correctly. I'm partially admitting to it because this way someone will either affirm or correct me without me having to not only google it, but, like, compre...

Grrl Power #1362 - The vegetable contingency

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Spoiler, but destroying Sciona's brain might actually do her in. She does have some pretty involved magical contingencies, but her most reliable ones would probably involve her having to abandon her human Super body, which she has become accustomed to. Not just for the Superpowers, but for the social and political power she's cultivated. In some ways, this is rather galling to her, as she is quite an "Alari are t...

Grrl Power #1361 - Home offense

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I'm sure Sydney had many, many follow up questions and theories, but conforming to proper Grrl Power orthodoxy, that whole scene was a bit long in the tooth already, IMO, so let's move on.

Sciona is not great at hiding her... well, normally I'd call it corruption, but American politicians can basically just accept unlimited money from any source and also legally do insider trading, so... yeah. She's not even a senat...

Grrl Power #1360 - Fireballs 0; Dark Elf Wizards -1

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In panel 1, I overdid it with the sparkles, so in case you can't tell, Dabbler is Hammerspacing her telepathic serial share cable.

Speaking of brand new sentences, there are brand new sentences, and then there are brand new sentences. Unfortunately, I feel like Sydney's last line on this page falls into the former category. In all the harem novels and webcomics and one-off comics on DeviantArt or HentaiFoun...

Grrl Power #1359 - The dragon goes, "Ow awoo uwu ooooo."

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A bit of an odd page for this comic, as it doesn't have 9 panels or more. But I thought it'd be fun to draw. Well, it was sort of fun. But also a little tedious and didn't really come out nearly as well as I would have liked. In my head, this page was more of a progression of downed enemies, with the ground littered with golems, giants, knights, angels, all that good stuff. But if all that stuff was visible, the the final...

Grrl Power #1358 - Here's my gene code, so super me maybe?

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(sorry for the delay, accidentally set this to post at 5 /pm/)

Dabbler is kidding with the "In space..." line - mostly. Not that she didn't say "God's domain," she said "gods' domains." She was intentionally malapropriating the line people try and dissuade mad scientists with. You know, come to think of it, is there a less successful argument? Has anyone in any movie ever said "You're tampering in God's domain!" and the sc...

Grrl Power #1357 - Highway to the sapphic zone?

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Of all the myriad planets for Dabbler to be familiar with off the top of her head, she knew that Sol 3 was Earth mostly because Cora is human. Terrans are not a huge population in the larger space society, but a few of them have made marks that put humanity on the "Races to Know" list.

It does sound egocentric, but Max is extrapolating that if Hoss knew enough to know about superpowers, then he definitely knew about...

Grrl Power #1356 - Afterglow

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Yes, I'm calling my "it's basically D&D" world Gygaxia. I'm that subtle.

It'd be nice if all women came with conspicuous visual indicators to reflect the sum of one's efforts like that. And guys too, I guess, but guys seem a lot simpler to figure out, both sexually and… asexually? Platonically? Whatever. Of course, if that was the case, and a lady's ears glowed every time you gave them an appropriate ...

Grrl Power #1355 - Best seat in the alley

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Man, it has unfortunately been a very long time since I drew this guy.

Dabbler is either being inconsistent here, or just complex. "Spank me hard enough to dislocate my butt cheek because I'm a succubus and I like it, but only if I know who you are and we have that kind of relationship, otherwise I'll kick you in the head with my hoof. Well, maybe. It's probably worth chancing it."

I always wondered about the ...

Grrl Power #1354 - Corporal salutation

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On the few occasions I've drawn ice cream or cake, I always have an oddly difficult time deciding what color it will be. I think Dabbler's scoop started off sort of a pale yellow, like it'd be vanilla or coffee or caramel, but it wound up kind of lavender. I'm not sure what flavor that represents. I'd say taro, but of course, on Fracture Station, who knows what flavors are available, or what flavors aren't? They'd for sur...

Grrl Power #1353 - Memento petite mori

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This is another page that would have benefited from me having a bunch of assistants that do backgrounds for me. The "ball" that Dabbler is at is supposed to be in a big room with fancy chandeliers and about a hundred other alien/fantasy characters standing about. Instead it looks considerably smaller. But, you know, just pretend I drew that.

It's a good thing Dabbler is only sharing the audio and visual portions of ...