Grrl Power

When The Baxter Building gets knocked over, or a SHIELD Helicarrier crashes into a mountain side, or some DC equivalent… uh, the Justice League watchtower crashes to Earth, that would be an insane security risk. Sure, whatever agency deals with that kind of thing will put some guards around it and start salvaging what they […]

Given how powerful those orbs are, the screw ship aliens might actually have good cause to attack Sydney. Imagine them in the hands of someone who was out to actually cause a bunch of mayhem. And presumably had 4 or more hands. For those of you unaware of Sydney’s reference, there was an amazing show […]

It’s easy to take for granted that smart people in comics (and books, tv, etc) are smart because we see them standing in front of a big board of math – usually a clear board, which looks fancy and futuristic but would probably give you a headache trying to not focus through it. >cough< But […]

You know all those diagrams of the Earth and the moon where the moon is about 6 Earth diameters from the Earth? Yeah, those are wrong. As adults we all basically understand this, but the image is hard to get out of our heads. The distance is more like 30 Earth diameters. Mach 4 is […]

My favorite thing about this page is that when confronted with… whatever that is there in the back shooting at Sydney, let’s call it a world eater apocalypse demon god, her reaction is, “Meh, seeya.” That thing is probably used to people either attacking it or fleeing from it, but the no look sayonara is […]

Maxima probably needs to issue a standing order about not being cryptic in the field. She’s intelligent, but in a world of super powers and aliens and all that good stuff, your’re gonna get situations that even the most on-top-of-it commander will need help making sense of. That’s why you have specialists in the first […]

This is the situation good commanders fear the most. Leaving one of your people behind in a different arm of the galaxy. With nearly no training. I mean, Sydney doesn’t even have the number to Archon HQ memorized. She does have her phone charger in her utility belt though, along with a sheet of gold […]

Whoops. That reflexive grab of the shield orb is 99% of the time going to be a good thing, but this time, not so much probably. Now if Sydney had completed her Apex Superheroine in Training training, she’d know exactly what to do. Okay, no, Arc-SWAT doesn’t take into account exo-planetary shenanigans. At least not […]

It seems that despite Sciona’s intelligence and planning, she has to keep pushing off her goals. Well, she’s adaptable and patient. Well, she’s not really patient, but she does what she needs to. Determined. That’s the word she puts on her dating profile. Right after “psychotic…ally goal oriented.” Her hobbies include long walks on the […]

Imagine that red section of Sydney’s shield is actually blinking red, if you will. It would be more visually interesting in the animated version of this story, but I didn’t want to spend page real estate with a bunch of panels trying to illustrate that. Maxima looked at the crater and was like “Okay, that […]

“Hey guys, I have an idea. Instead of building escape pods that can only hold a few people at a time, what about a container that could hold dozens?” “Sounds great. What’s the catch?” “Well, it wouldn’t hold our bodies you understand. Just our spirits. Essence. Whatever you want to call it.” “Uh huh. And […]

Ok, first off, apologies for letting the last one linger for three months. I’ve had this picture ready for a bit, but I felt a little guilty about posting it because it’s not Grrl Power related. It’s another cover mockup where I can practice both my painting and layout skills. But it’s the only other […]

Peggy is mostly kidding about that being a flare. She does work with Supers, and they tend to overdo certain things. Still, blowing up a mountain in lieu of a flare is a little over the top, even for Maxima. Well. Unless she’s positive no one’s living on the mountain. Not even squirrels. She’s only […]

Introducing yourself via giant explosion is just how powerful beings let each other know they’re in the club. It’s like a secret handshake, only everyone within thirty miles can see it. The point is the inhabitants of Sciona’s world were probably more impressed with this sort of thing than Maxima. Could they have made it […]

Considering some of the world bosses she’s taken on, it takes a lot for Dabbler to consider something “legitimately terrifying.” Most of that is due to a lack of information about it – also, the overall presentation of “terrifying alien megabeast” is probably intentional. You know, first impressions and all that. Looking at this page just as […]

I’ve never been good at drawing inorganic stuff. Cars, guns, spaceships – so when I came to this page, I just drew the first thing that came to me. Why the design is best described as a giant, fucked up screw is unclear. (Also if the actual layout of the ship changes slightly from panel […]

Hey that guy seems to know something about the orbs. Let’s hang around and ask him. Or run. Probably run. Whatever that thing is, it’s developed the very opposite of passive scanning. Not just active scanning, oh no, it’s developed “incredibly conspicuous scanning.” And it’s a fair bet those beams make that “vwoo woo woo woo […]

Maxima seems to be channeling Margaret Cho there a bit in that first panel. Just… visually. She’s not making some joke about being overweight and/or Asian. Is there a non-ominous way for something buried in the ashes of your people to start glowing after being trod on? Cause I don’t think there is. I’m not […]

So, no real surprise here. Sometimes the reveal is a big “duh” because of how the pages break down. I maybe could have squeezed a slice of this onto the previous page, but the dedicated splash page is more dramatic, even if it’s fairly telegraphed at the twice a week page rate. Still, fun to […]

Sorry for the late post. I forgot what day of the week it was. :/ Well, first week of summer break. That’s my excuse anyway. So yeah, it’s a bit of a telegraph here, even if you don’t guess exactly what Sciona’s looking at, but it’s just the way the pages break down. So have […]

Yes, the portal is a big problem, but Dabbler could see what Sydney did when she used her orb, so she wanted to play along. Also, we all know that one of Sydney’s official unofficial superpowers is derailment. She’s like ADHD for other people. Maybe she’s ADHD’s avatar. Dabbler is quite the competent solo adventurer, but […]

So we don’t know the details of why Sciona was on Earth in the first place. It might have been for being a jerk. But if you’re exiled, when you come back, it’s good form to bring an offering. Like access to a planet with powerful beings that can kick the shit out of exiled blood mages even […]

Wherever home is for Sciona, it’s obviously a ways away from Earth. Creating portals takes a lot of power, a mage can’t simply cast a spell and hop to another dimension or planet. Teleport really far, sure, but not interstellar distances. Maybe some level boss Arch-Mage could swing that, but even then he’d have to […]

Sydney handles new situations with aplomb. That or she tries to smack someone with a chair. It’s a toss-up really. Sydney’s shield is so good. Everyone, even Maxima went for a tumble, and there sits Sydney, composed and cracking wise. Hmm. Not really sure what else to say about this page. Everything I’m coming up with […]

Sydney’s right. I spent very little effort on that sound effect. Honestly, I started coming up with some noises, but I was like, VROUNCH? SHRAAKZZZ? GLUDVOR! Actually, that one sounds like an alien’s last name. Well, it would if it had a lot of unnecessary apostrophes in it. G’luD’voR! The relationship between the Skybreaker and the sigil […]

Whoops, just realized I drew Harem firing left handed. Oh well. I won’t tell the boss if you don’t. Seriously, that railgun would have like a +10 piercing in a D20 system. It’s one of those weapons that has so much penetration it actually does less damage than a comparable lead bullet because the projectile itself […]

Sciona base doesn’t have a lot of ductwork and crown molding to conceal all her extras. She got the barebones base package from the Evil Super Realtor, and planned to nice it all up herself, but you know how it is when you’re obsessed with revenging yourself on those that wronged you. You just never seem […]

Technically, lightning does make Maxima weak, in that she has to divert some of her power pool from strength to armor. It worked out for Vehemence because he was strong enough to overpower her while she diverted her strength to armor. Of course the team delights in propagating the rumor that Maxima is weak to […]

This is where Sydney is in her life – she’s concerned, and probably reasonably so, about the blood mage covered in her favorite medium, but not phased by the fact that someone survived getting punched through two meters of rock. It’s hard to tell there in the third panel because everything is red, but at least […]

Sciona is crazy resilient, that’s really all she’s got going for her in this fight. She does have a mess of powers, but obviously, she hasn’t gotten a chance to test them. Even with this arsenal, she’s outnumbered and arguably still overpowered. But she’s not trying to actually beat them. She would definitely brag about it […]

In the stinger for this page, I joke about Sciona getting lightheaded if she keeps using her own blood for her spells, but if one of those super syringes she shot herself with (whoops, just realized I forgot that mark on her chest) had a regeneration power in it, she could potentially fire her blood out […]

Field testing your new super powers against a team of people who have had super powers for a while is probably not the best strategy, but that syringe was a one time thing, and Sciona just needs to buy time for whatever is going on in the next room to finish. Fun fact, joint locks […]

Letting the two of them duke it out is probably a poor strategy for the team. Maxima cares about her team, but is the least likely to be harmed by a mountain falling on her (besides Achilles of course), and Sciona might actually try and cause one on purpose to kill or at least delay […]

I’m sorry guys, I just got tired of drawing that armor. Anyone paying attention probably noticed it changed from panel to panel anyway. Anyway, if she could peel it off that easily after she took her shot of Vitamin-S, then it probably woudn’t have helped against Maxima or Hiro either. She never even used whatever […]

Because “Skybreaker” is much cooler sounding than “The Cosmic Can-Opener.” I’m betting Sciona’s plans involve light travel in which she circumvents those TSA lines. Or she’s planning on summoning one humongous tentacle? I don’t know, I’m (mildly) sick (and being a baby) and tired and I can’t think of anything to say about this page […]

“Hey team, let’s split up so we can search this abandoned bunker faster. If you find anything, signal with a massive explosion that threatens to cave the whole place in on top of us…” …is not quite the instructions Maxima gave the team. But that’s how Dabbler would paraphrase if asked to repeat them. She’s […]

There is no I in team, but there is a ME if you rearrange the letters. Maxima and Sydney are talking about both sides of the same coin. Sydney’s just forgetting that teams can do stuff like split up and apply their specializations while not standing right next to each other. She may be getting […]

On the plus side, if Arc-SWAT breaks into your repurposed abandoned nuclear bunker slash silo, and they have the wrong address, you probably get some kind of tax break. Or maybe a voucher for a free new door. I actually don’t know how that works, like if the cops drive one of those jousting tanks […]

Sydney looks really weird in panel 3 to me. Well, she looks like Xanax Sydney to me, or her own polar opposite sister, like Pinkie Pie and Maud. The expression I was going for was a semi-annoyed “why am I the one telling you to math?” But it looks a little more I caught her […]

In some ways, Maxima is doing Sydney a disservice by humoring her antics. Sydney’s going to be in for a big fucking shock if she ever gets seconded to a JSOC unit for an operation, and she tries to razz the JSOC Commander about his dating habits. The poor discipline of Arc-SWAT in general also […]

Don’t worry that Sciona got away here, we are getting close to the end of this arc. In the superhero world, the stratospheric head kick is the equivalent to reading someone their Miranda rights. Ok, not really, but at some point, Maxima really should identify herself as a cop. It’s not like she’ll be taken […]

Max is one of those heroes who actually has to think about whether or not to save the plane of people the bad guy shot down as a diversion, or go and tar the bad guy instead. Superman saves the plane every time. It’s a failsafe diversion. Max isn’t a psycho. She’ll usually save the people, but […]

If I was a superhero, I would buy stock in “construction.” That’s how stocks work, right? Construction and bandages. And moral outrage or racism probably. Nobody planned Max’s bolt hitting the bridge, but the law of comic book averages meant it was practically predetermined. Maxima didn’t know Sciona could deflect her shot, and to be […]

Maybe Maxima should have been two more cars behind. It always bugs me in movies when someone is tailing someone else, and they’re maybe 30 feet behind them. I know they do that so its easy to get everyone in the same shot, but it makes it look like the followers are every bit as incompetent as […]

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve drawn Sydney. I mean previous to the previous page, but I draw two pages side by side, so this page and the last were the same page as far as I’m concerned. I almost forgot how to draw her bangs. :/ This is kind of an odd page […]

When I started the comic, I kind of scattered the ranks around the characters because I didn’t really understand what all that stuff meant. To me, military ranks always seemed like leveling up at your job like you’re playing Call of Duty. I was genuinely blown away when learned the difference between commissioned and non-commissioned. […]

Well, a few bandaids will fix that right up. The shirt is probably a write off though. And the pants. Remember back when I was all “I don’t know how much gore I want to put in the comic, even though I actually love super gory manga where dudes get cut in half down the […]

This is the page where I draw a character giving herself a haircut because I liked her hair when it was short better. Also maybe foreshadowing some of Deus’s plans. My wife does this to her hair about every five months. Just… not with her laser wings. Hey look, Deus can draw. No, he’s not an author […]

Deus is rich in money and… other stuff. You know, friends. Sort of. I could have come up with something other than a Draugr, but they’ve been on my mind lately. I like the name Rannevig. I may reuse that someday, but I don’t think Deus is going to run into that particular one anytime […]

Well, I guess Deus delivers as advertised. I decided on this page that Sciona can retract her wings down to something that looks like those Chinese spirit light things. Just cause, I don’t know, it’d be more convenient. For her, cause she wouldn’t have to worry about knocking her lamp over every time she got home and […]