Grrl Power

Normally when Arch Villains face off you get a lot of monologing and grandiose scheming but little action. I thought I’d mix it up and show some petty bickering. If Sciona actually wanted to inconvenience Deus, she would have smashed his fish tank. I’ve barely ever shown it (You can see a bit of it […]

When I added Harem to the team, I really thought I would be featuring her a lot more in the comic. She’s fun to write and think about, but she takes up a lot of space on a page. I have to show her in multiple places with different backgrounds and usually different people around […]

Sydney, you could use that sort of phrase if you were designing video games or writing comics, so it’s not as unique as she might think. So Dabbler speaks 137 languages, which seems like an absurd number even for a comic book genius, but there are a few asterisks involved. I’ll get into them later in […]

The first half of this page is channeling that crime procedural show “Numbers” where, if you haven’t seen it, the FBI guy has his math savant brother use all kinds of crazy math to solve crimes, like applying fluid dynamics to traffic patterns to plot get away driver escape routes and the like. My biggest […]

That’s not ARC-Light’s HQ so much as it is Zephan’s office. I really would have had some extra time so I could have added some knick-knacks around the place, like a terracotta warrior in the corner, a collection of ceremonial daggers. Some… shiny rocks? You know the sort of thing. The red long johns with […]

I’m not sure what the girls thought would happen, like punitive PT is something troops are trusted to self-report on. “Sure, I totally ran 20 laps around the base. Don’t worry about where I got the venti macchiato.” I guess they thought they had more time to mess with Math before Maxima showed up. More likely […]

I guess they didn’t get ready on time, but at least Jiggawatt was able to fix her lipstick, right? I’m sure in the history of the military, having to go running in your boxers is something that has happened more than a few times. But that was probably before women were allowed in the armed […]

Happy new year! Here’s a comic for those of you not too hung-over to read. Superpowered horseplay could get out of hand real quick, which is why Maxima is tamping it down as harshly as she is. Though at some point, someone will probably point out to her that these guys were just, well, horsing around, […]

I know I mentioned possibly not posting a page over Xmas, but I went ahead and did it anyway, so if you missed it, pop back one and catch up! For the record, Maxima mostly thinks it was funny when she punched Dabbler through the wall. Not when she got manhandled. Or, womanhandled. Succubushandled. She does […]

To be fair to Maxima, “walk it off” is her go-to for everything from brain freeze to devastating spinal trauma. Dabbler absolutely is sandbagging. Getting punched in gazorpazovum isn’t pleasant, but succubi are built to take a lot more abuse that than on the reg. I mean, they were literally made to get turned on by whatever […]

One of these days, all of Dabbler’s perverse antics will probably be a boon to the team. Today is not that day. That’s the danger of being progressive beyond the fringe. You have to wait for the rest of the world to appreciate your forward attitudes. Maxima can control her strength, as she has her power pool […]

Whoops! Holidays are throwing me off, sorry for the late page! I’m pretty pleased with how my wet skin work came out on this page, enough that I think the rest of the comic is just going to take place in the ladies shower. Possibly under waterfalls or in the rain. Maybe sweaty in the […]

Yes, Sydney is taking another shower. The reason for this will be at least hinted at on the next page. Don’t worry about it too much for now. It would be fair to think it’s mostly because I wanted to draw another scene with superheroines taking showers. I mean, come on, sometimes the simplest explanations […]

Sydney’s comment about Trent being male makes me wonder if there’s ever been a transgender Tentacle Monster. Or even if they have a gender at all, really. I guess I’ve given a lot less thought to tentacle monsters than I have to succubi. Well, I’ve known about succubi a lot longer. I don’t even know […]

Before starting Grrl Power, I had a nebulous concept of succubi being solitary predators, or having their own little fiefdoms, or being the wizard or seer or whatever for a lord of some sort where they’d have access to a stock of partners, willing or otherwise to keep them well fed with tantric energy. But the more I develop […]

Ah yes, the fabled Tentacle Sickle. I remember that well from Arthurian Legend. Well, not Arthurian Legend so much as his lesser known brother Mortimer. Mortimurian Legend. Well, not legend so much… I don’t know, Sciona cracked the pillar containing the sickle, I figure someone picked it up. Maxima and Sydney once had a conversation […]

I realize just as I’m posting this page that the crack on the one way mirror looks like Dabbler and all four of her arms are cracked into it, but when I drew it, I was thinking of Dabbler in her two armed form, plus an impression of the tentacle arm that smacked her into […]

Dabbler should have known something was up, because her hearing is way better than anyone else in either of those rooms. Her glamour has human sized ears, but she’s still rocking those pitcher plant ears of hers for real. Ok, maybe she shouldn’t have expected that Cooter would grow a tentacle arm, even though I […]

Huh, I think something’s going on with Coot. What ever could it be? I made an assumption that everyone would automatically recognize all the boots in the top panel. I mean, Max and Sydney should be pretty obvious, but just in case, I cheated a bit with the Who’s Who panel. If I’d had just […]

Water at that depth isn’t quite as cold as I was hoping it would be when I wrote this page. A quick googling told me ocean water at 1000 meters would be about 34-36 degrees Fahrenheit, so 1-2 Centigrade. That probably varies a lot depending on where in the ocean you are, still the moonpool […]

Yes, somehow while examining the interior of the vault, no one stepped in that spot. Maybe not too surprising as it’s basically in the middle and they were mostly examining the interior vaults and perimeter. Also Maxima was flying just above the gore carpet so she didn’t get any on her boots. Obviously Maxima is […]

Sydney’s question isn’t entirely out of the blue. She’s referring to this conversation, in case you forgot. Even still, it is a pretty acute non-sequitur. She was just uncomfortable with how aggressive Max was being with Valen. She’s used to women being mostly pretty passive about it. Usually it’s the subtle torso twist away or […]

For those wondering when Valen got there, I think I only drew him on one page, right when they arrived. Oh, here too. He just never factored into the pages before now, and sometimes I have to be a little economical about how much background stuff I draw. But yeah, he was there, as part […]

Max probably could have forbidden Dabbler from being part of this questionable interrogation, but I guess she’s playing nice with either The Council or some sort of succubus etiquette. Like, when there’s some distasteful sexual task and there’s more than one succubus vying for the job, because let’s face it, “distasteful” is an entirely subjective […]

This is one of those pages that would definitely benefit from being able to flip to the next one right away, cause there’s obviously a bit of a jarring transition here, and who is that blonde? I mean, I think there’s a pretty big tell, but I wrote it, so I’m hardly a neutral observer. I […]

“But Dave,” you might ask, “didn’t Cooter literally explode?” Well, yes, but you know, it’s a superhero comic with a little supernatural stuff thrown in, so the possibility space is… wider. Not sure how Sydney assessed that Cooter was a hillbilly that quickly. I guess just assume he’s got that drawl which is hard to […]

Oh, Sydney. I do enjoy a good pun. I also like bad puns, so if future pun quality varies wildly it’s because my standards are all over the place. :) I realize with all the blood, it might be a little hard to tell, but in the second to last panel, that’s Wyrmil’s upper torso […]

Sciona’s wings are significant appendages. You can see why she wanted them back. When she says “apply enough force” she’s talking about a considerable amount, not something most supernatural creatures could casually generate. In a world of Supers and shaped charges, this does not provide adequate security, but the The Council has been relying mostly […]

So yeah, Sciona isn’t actually a dark elf (or a drow or a shadow elf etc.) I haven’t quite come up with a name for what she is yet, but I’m sure Sydney will ask someone about it sooner or later. And no, Sciona isn’t mannequin smooth, just pretend the lighting is at exactly the […]

I’m kind of sad that Sciona’s achieved her goal here, or at least one of them. I was getting used to drawing her with the orc body. It’s a pain in the butt to draw with the stitches and the scar all the extra details that take time to select and color and all that, […]

A lot of you guessed about work arounds to the death field problem, and if you didn’t come up with a solution as simple as this, it was probably because you wouldn’t have thought it could be defeated this easily. It is pretty bone headed, but in The Council’s defense, Sciona didn’t think of it, […]

Sciona must talk a good game. That or she was a lot nicer before she got most of her head chopped off. Also we don’t know how long any of these people have known Sciona, who seems to have been around for a while. At least longer than a regular human anyway. She is exploiting […]

I can just imagine Sciona waiting on the phone to set up an appointment; “If you’re calling because you suspect the company’s CEO of planting a mole in your organization, please press 1. If you’re calling because the company’s CEO was secretly trying to date you under the guise of business meetings, please press 2. […]

Short bodyguards are funny. Well, Vale isn’t short, she’s like 5’8″ or 5’9″ and always wears 2 or 3 inch heels… like those wide heels? I don’t know what they’re called. Chunky heels? They’re like the width of a regular boot heel, just higher. Like what Selene wore in the Underworld movies. It’s just that […]

Sciona is obviously good at long term planning, but there are simply some scenarios no one is going to predict, like an obtrusive billionaire and his squad of femme fatales showing up in the middle of your heist. Even if you could actually predict all possible outcomes, there are still limitations on preparation time, like […]

Sciona can reactivate the portal, but until then they’re trapped in the vault, which is why it was imperative they got the jacks in place right away. Also once the ceiling is down, there’s no empty space to pass through the portal into. Of course the first question anyone might reasonably ask is why isn’t […]

This whole time the Black Reliquary thinks it’s alerting the Council’s authorities there’s a party going on. I guess no one had invented parity checking when they built the vault. Not that it would have done any good in this case, other than the Vault knowing the alarms weren’t going through. Ancient death traps always […]

Thus ends the saga of Coot, cause you know, in the history of comics, no one has ever come back from definitely being dead like this. I mean, he blew up. He wasn’t caught in an explosion, he was the warhead. Sciona gave Cooter a potion to drink before sending him through the portal. Said […]

I get the impression from Cooter’s reaction that he may not have been fully informed about the plan. It’s almost like he’s been lied to about the group’s objectives from the start. Shame on you Sciona. It’s like you’re a bad guy or something. Building a vault to keep out all manner of supernatural creatures […]

As soon as the door opened, everyone standing beside Sydney and Ingsol should have been all “Ew, what happened?” but you know how comic time and dialog work. Spider-man can belt out a few paragraphs mid-punch. I guess that’s another of Sydney’s official unofficial abilities. Maxima cut Sydney off when she launched in to her […]

The Council isn’t immediately worried about Archon wanting to get their hands on anything in the vault, though there is a concern that they might claiming some sort of national security eminent domain. But of course, Archon exists because there are supers out there who operate in a more selfish manner, and would love to […]

Arc-SWAT was invited to the vault partially because The Council is allies with them even if they’re a little stand offish with them on occasion, but also because obviously they’re handy as bodyguards. Doesn’t mean they can’t be scared by their bodyguards. I think being scary is kind of a fundamental requisite for bodyguards. I […]

So just a reminder, this was originally intended as a double page, so if it seems a little incongruous that Ingsol mentions the whole weakness aura thing, and then Maxima immediately starts dismantling it, imagine that it someone might mention it on the bottom half of this page, i.e. Monday’s. Action pages are tough to comment […]

Sydney, did you ever think you’d be bored with the appearance of a giant… bone golem, I guess? In her defense it’s late, and this is the second giant guardian thing she’s seen this week. But don’t worry, this fight won’t last quite as long as the other one. Ok, so full disclosure, this was […]

I’m at the point where Sydney is with most TV and movies, in that I’m constantly on the lookout for the tweest (cough), the twist or the betrayal or whatever antagonistic thing the protagonists are going to have to deal with for the rest of the episode. It’s obnoxious even though I get an “I […]

It always bugged me in Buffy when the scoobys were looking up the latest demonic threat, they’d all be desperately scouring through stacks of books, and I always wondered why they didn’t scan them. Buffy was on the air a while ago, but it wasn’t pre-computer. Edit: As about 2 dozen people have pointed out, […]

So before there are 400 comments about what boneheads The Council is, I guess I should have a slight spoiler for the next page where Gault says that this vault was hardly the only thing reliant on this system. Still. Bit of an oops there. Something not covered on the next page is the fact […]

Everyone who has a secure location is probably going to claim that it’s one of the most secure ones in the world. It’s marketing. Just like everyone’s waffles or cheese blintzes or street tacos are World Famous. But in most cases, it’s fairly unlikely people in Zambia are all a buzz about Jose’s Street Tacos […]

For those of you wondering, yes, Sydney has taped her hand to the shield orb. I was going to include dialog to that effect, including how she suspects letting go of it at this depth would be pretty much instantly fatal to at least her, but I decided against it because it covered nearly all […]

Seems like Sydney is going to be involved no matter what the circumstances are. Luckily she just found out what the green orb does. It’s almost like I totally planned it that way. Yes sir. Maxima could probably get that deep on her own, but she doesn’t know, she’s never tried. The pressure wouldn’t be […]