davebarrack

Grrl Power #1052 - Dateus interruptus

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Some mixed opinions on Deus's extra-judicial cleanup crew for the last comic, though we can see here that Deus does have some fairly strong feelings on the nature of thresholds, vis-à-vis innocence.

The thing is, while Vale isn't... entirely capricious when it comes to killing, at the same time, she's also the kind of person who might not remember each and every single person she's killed...

Grrl Power #1051 - Crime and monologuing

And just when some of you started coming around on Deus. Of course, some of you might like him more now as well.

BTW the conversation in the post beneath the previous comic was totally canon.

I started off this post with some thoughts on the death penalty in general, but there's just no way to talk about that without it turning into a political shitstorm. I'll just say that while I think some crimes completely deserve it, I'm personally against it because the legal system in the U...

Grrl Power #1050 - The one with the list

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Deus: We're the two most attractive people in any room.
Max: You wildly overestimate yourself.  
Deus: I notice you didn't disagree about your comeliness.
Max: I know what I look like.
Deus: Pamela Anderson crossed with Xena.
Max: ... }sigh{ Right. Besides, it's hardly a reason for us to date. 
Deus: Between your physical might, military position, and fame, and my own economic, political and tech...

Grrl Power #1049 - Proposing better worlds

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I came up with Deus's comment that "Evil always has the advantage of being more proactive" as I wrote this page and I think it's probably true, because I think there's a limit to how proactive 'good' can be. I don't think 'evil' has a limit, really. All of the tortures Deus mentions are utterly horrific - the Blood Eagle, where someone skins your back, then cuts away all the muscles, then breaks your ribs and pulls your l...

Grrl Power #1048 - Limitful cosmic power

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This will definitely end well, I'm sure of it.

It's weird to think, but Thothogoth doesn't actually have a massive need for bars of gold. Since demons/devils/fiends are starfaring species in the Grrl-verse, then it stands to reason that basic element/mineral acquisition isn't difficult. It seems most planets that aren't mostly gas or ice have roughly similar compositions. Tons of silicates (if there is or was oxygen in the p...

Warsyl (NSFW)

Warsyl, if you don't know, is one of the characters from Tamer: Enhancer 2. 

There's only one variation because she has her armored form and her, well, not armored form. I never decided if the tattoos decide where the armor can sprout from, or if she just liked matching whether her armor was up or not. Probably the former, otherwise she could just sprout up full body pearl-mail. 

Grrl Power #1047 - Deployment abroaaaad

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Ah, quite a few semi-centennials/quinquagenarians out there (plus or minus a few years anyway). Thanks for also being alive at roughly the same time as me, and saying so. Also thanks to everyone else for being the age you are. We're inclusive here at Grrl Power Heavy Manufacturing Concern.

I decided that while a demon saying "Where the here are my keys?" ("here" referring to "hell") is funny, they probably wouldn't ...

Grrl Power #1046 - Four on the force field

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In panel three, Dabbler really means that altering someone's mind without their consent is illegal. Super powers are new enough to the public that things like psychiatrists with mental powers aren't really a thing yet. There's definitely been uses for mental powers in the past, whether it's a super, or a vampire from the Twilight Council helping out a soldier with PTSD and the like. (There's also less sanctioned but still...

Grrl Power #1045 - Return of the Attack of the Boobs!

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Sydney will eventually gain a +1 resistance to this attack given the frequency of her exposure to it.

Parfait is about three weeks past her 18th birthday, FYI. Young and inexperienced, but not so young that it's icky.

Dabbler has been around, but there are places in the universe she conspicuously avoids. Puritania IV, for one, where people flog themselves for the amount of skin they expose bathing even though they wear...

Grrl Power #1044 - Familial foibles

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I apologize for my terrible spanish.

This page should answer any questions about what's going on here, in case you weren't up to speed, or, you know, have just forgotten some of the details of a webcomic from 5 months ago. The TL:DR version is that the symbol on a succubus's collar is determined by ...

Grrl Power #1043 - Two lates don't make an on time

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Terre is short for terremoto, which is Portuguese for Earthquake. Oh, and since I can't keep her hair consistent, I guess the blue coloring is dynamically swirling about.

I guess the crowds watching the match dispersed quickly. Actually that makes sense if they're at a military base. A commanding officer might sanction observing a super fight for educational reasons, but would also get everyone back to work the moment it was...

Grrl Power #1042 - A pelvic victory

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As I was drawing this page, it occurred to me it's really weird that they didn't introduce themselves before the fight. Anytime supers are going to have an exhibition match, there would definitely have to be a discussion about power levels and everyone's ability to take a hit. Anvil can stop a runaway dumptruck no problem, but she couldn't catch a dumptruck thrown off a building, well, at least until she'd stopped a few runaway du...

Grrl Power #1041 - Shortstop

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Smash cut to action!

I guess all cuts are smash cuts really. Well, unless it's a dissolve or a star wipe, or one of those PowerPoint "a bunch of tiles flip over" transitions. It's a good rule of thumb that if PowerPoint can do it, don't put it in your movie. Although weirdly, Star Wars (Ep IV) got away with a ton of non-traditional transitions 2022-04-18 10:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

Grrl Power #1040 - Benevolish

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The stinger is supposed to be a goof, but as I was deciding what to put there, I started thinking about if it was just a flippant statement or if it was remotely accurate. I won't bore you with suggesting that "Benevolence" or "Good" are subjective terms because that's something philosophers have been debating practically since words were invented. By the way, if you haven't seen the show "The Good Place," you really need to give ...

Grrl Power #1039 - High Int, middling comedy stat

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Yes, they're drinking Louis XIII cognac over ice. I guess Deus is actually evil.

Look, I've never been a big drinker. I didn't know that was bad. I like my drinks cold unless I'm specifically after something hot on a cold day like cider/tea/hot chocolate. I basically never drink anything that's room temperature if I can avoid it. I know, the ice dilutes the booze. I'm tempted to fire back with "ice dilutes everything except ...

Grrl Power #1038 - Superion, PhD

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Poor Maxima. Her job description mostly involves puching stuff, but as a Lt. Colonel, she also has to spend time listening to people talk. Presumably there's some paperwork as well, but she's been known to delegate that.

Deus hearing himself talk definitely isn't his favorite thing, but he probably doesn't mind it. He has been known to monologue a bit, I suppose.

Is it just me, or does Deus look a bit...

Harem is the best girl...friend.

She would be tough to beat. Honestly, the only thing she can't really do is provide a variety of body types and also she can't not have freckles. Well, maybe with a more advanced chroma collar she could. 

It seems she either goes through boy/girlfriends quickly or juggles several at a time, but you'd think she could invest in separate banners. 

I'd been planning on doing several more color variants, but this file already had something like 55 layers and I was starting to...

Grrl Power #1037 - Rough(ly equivalent) trade

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I imagine two billion dollars is an easier sell if it's mostly in backhoes, cement mixers, and those asphalt Zamboni trains that resurfaces roads all in one go. Even though a bank transfer (or however massive inter-country transactions take place) would be a lot easier than loading up a shitload of cranes and dumphoes and trenchers and 2022-04-04 10:01:02 +0000 UTC View Post

Grrl Power #1036 - The unseen... tentacle?

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Well, I'm glad everyone enjoyed my math screw up on the previous page. I'll have to come up with something a little more sensible since what I actually came up with was a number large enough to include every protein molecule from every single strand of DNA on Earth combined. Not just every human. Everything currently alive. Possibly everything that has ever been alive.

Crypto8536 commented "Out of curiosity, I found a big nu...

Grrl Power #1035 - Keymaster race

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Mele Kalikimaka had been stuck in my head for a week. I apologize if I earwormed anyone else.

In reality, anything involving four possible entries would never give you good security options. (Because there's only four nucleotides found in DNA?) Eight character passwords using only lower case letters can be cracked so qu...

Grrl Power #1034 - Rationym

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Getting to dunk on your super smart friend is always gratifying. At least Dabbler isn't usually a know it all, unlike that one friend most people have had at one point in their lives who is convinced they're an expert at everything and pronounces it "kara-TAY," and whose dad was supposedly an Air Force mechanic and bragged about flying in a C-130 gunship and they even let him fire the minigun at tree out in the middle of a field i...

Grrl Power #1033 - Field of Supers

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The universe is like a lasagna, see? Or a 7-layer dip. Actually, a 20+ layer dip. Except instead of layers it's fields, and the fields all overlap and intersect. So it's like a 20+ layer dip in a 4-dimensional blender, but they're still discrete layers-slash-fields, except when they're not as I think some of the fields can become other fields temporarily and maybe in the spaces that they transition is where all the left socks go. ...

Grrl Power #1032 - Physics 501

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Man, I really hope I got the physics close to right on this.

It's definitely not obvious, Dabbler. I watched a video on the Electroweak Force, and... basically didn't understand anything. (I might have been half paying attention and browsing Twitter at the same time, but still.) As far as physics are concerned, there's simple Newtonian shit and thermodynami...

Dabbler pool exeunt

Dabbler likes climbing out of the pool in slow motion. It's probably her favorite thing to do in a pool. After her first favorite thing to do anywhere, so it doesn't count. 

Cue Mele Kalikimaka.

Grrl Power #1031 - Arm wrestlonyms

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I went to look up a bunch of funny euphemisms for arm-wresting assuming there'd be a big list somewhere, but apparently it's pretty much just called "arm wrestling." It used to be called arm turning or wrist turning or wrist wrestling, but unlike sex, there aren't a million funny names for it. Like the Alabama Pigroast. I'll save you the trip to google, it's when two guys are spit roasting a woman and arm-wrestle on her back. Prob...

Grrl Power #1030 - Wing Woman and the Forklift

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It's not show clearly on this page, but that guy is carrying a palette with a big water tank on it. Or maybe it's fry oil for the mess. Doesn't matter, it's like a 300 gallon tank and if it's close to full then it probably weighs about a ton. There's a better shot of it on the next page.

The problem with having moderate super strength is that your job would quickly become "forklift." I guess there are worse things though, especially if...

Grrl Power #1029 - Sticker shock

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The discussion in panel 2 is entirely predicated on the crew of that gunship not returning fire. If I was them, I'd toss a flare into the gas tank of that pickup and dive down the side of the hill and hunker down under a thick blanket. This assumes that as them, I still would have played the gunship sequence of Modern Warfare games and understand how easy it is to spot dudes on infrared. That, or I'd only attack gunships when it w...

Grrl Power #1028 - Nope field

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You would think that force fields would change warfare considerably, but honestly I think at most they would cause a fairly temporary disruption. The first ironclads and tanks probably had a few months of feeling pretty invincible, but really all they did was force someone to invent a better canon or landmine or armor piercing whatsit. A force field is the next step. They just raise the bar higher for anyone on offense, so instead...

Grrl Power #1027 - 1:1 Scale

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Yeah, dams and giant shipping container boats don't really mix. It's not like you have to get the boats into the middle of a country for them to be useful, but the closer you can get to where you want them before you have to start relying on trains and mac trucks, the faster and cheaper it's going to be. I don't think anyone's ever created a boat lock that can handle one of those mega shipping container boats, but then our world d...

Grrl Power #1026 - Earl Gray, hot!

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There's a fair amount to talk about on this page, but all I want to do is talk about the benefits of bubble mail. Sure, the AC is bad. Like, if the wind blows, the armor starts to disappear. But it comes with a +5 Comeliness bonus. (Or Charisma. I think Comeliness was only included in one edition of D&D.) Then there's the penalties to being grappled, the bonuses to seduction rolls, and if you change into bubble mail while you'...