Comic for Monday, February 1st, 2021
Page!
Going to be honest here, this page was a little more than computer could deal with. It’s been dying for a bit, and an effects heavy page like proved a wee much for me. It crashed no less than 3 times trying to edit this page from RAM running out and photoshop not liking that. I do save pretty often so never lost more than like 5-15 minutes of work, but it’s not my favorite thing ever to keep redoing things like that, so the final effects are sort of a… compromise. I wouldn’t give them too much thought if a few them aren’t the same as normal, but in the spirit of that I’ll not that mana that Saraine is controlling has a faint tell-tale green glow to it, but it’s fairly hard to see (it is most of it), with some obvious exceptions.
My computer has been dying for awhile, but I keep kicking actually replacing it down the road and that’s going to bite me in the arse here. It always seems like a shitty time to try buy new parts right now, but somehow keeps getting to be a worse time to be buy new parts than it was a month ago somehow.
As for the person shooting themselves, we’ve seen Kally do that before… though last it was with a tennis ball in her airball match with Naomi. Doing that on bullets is somewhat high risk as they move too fast for most mages to track (Kally probably included) but the point is somewhat moot when you can see the gun. Reversing the momentum of an object (in terms of magic) is harder than stopping it, but not all that much (mostly just harder in that physics is less impressed by the idea of that happening, so it takes more mana, the calculation is of similar difficulty). It is a good bit easier than stopping and re-accelerating it, as you just really need to flip on variable… though physics really doesn’t like doing that so it takes a fair bit of mana and calculation strength to enact a change like that, but those are things Kally has in spades.
Hopefully be on time next week. See you all then.
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no comic today either?
What choo talkin bout, Willis??
There’s always a comic. Soon there will be another.
I kinda hate the Gary Coleman/Todd Bridges reference.
I’m not very good at it either, which makes it that much worse. Sorry.
aw that’s ok, I’m not upset.
Yeah… one more day. Was trying to get it done today, but given the current time and the fact that I’m not done… nope.
Should be up tomorrow. Not going to skip the week yet, but might have to skip a week coming up if comics keep falling further behind.
Just post it whenever – it’s done when it’s done, we can wait.
In panels 3 and 4 it looks like Naomi is “supercharged” when she flips the bald goon. In the January 4th, 2021 comic, the purple lightning was much fainter. Maybe she used some of the mana Kally pulled in to power up before the old dark green hair mage voided. She might be able to smash the light green hair mage’s shield now and knock the green hair goon out with one punch this time. Naomi also kept the mana since it is shown after old greenie voided Kallys mana gathering.
Panel 8, I’m a bit slow here. Did the dude with the gun take his own round to the chest?
Yup; it’s somewhat referred to in the end of the ramble-ly bit.
And it’s why the other tells him not to use projectiles!
He did, but he will probably live. He is the lightweight that got sidelined by a single punch from Naiomi, but the bullet that hit him smashed through the gun first and he runs with mages that take bullets through the torso and worse while being barely slowed down.
Smashed through the gun first, yes, exactly. THAT’S what I read in the commentary, and also that it involved flipping a variable. I took “you just really need to flip on variable”, which I read as “you just really need to flip one variable”.
I also saw the hexagram looking symbol pretty much on the muzzle of the gun.
So I’m thinking you flip the direction variable in the vector, there’s no stopping and starting, inertia is preserved but the bullet is just suddenly traveling in the opposite direction.
That wouldn’t burst the gun, but it would likely render the gun non functional, probably permanently. BUT! If the bullet reversed direction before much/ any gas had vented, then that might well be enough to burst a firearm.
The idea of the bullet proceeding through the firearm and striking the wielder did not occur to me. The red “blossom” registered as a gangster style red carnation.
Now the simple answer might be that Pralindra has a less litigation happy society than we do. In a society where rednecks reliably do stupid things and then manufacturers get sued, firearms are built to withstand far more stress than normal operations would predict.
In this world people shove a triple reload into a firearm, pull the trigger to see what happens, and still have enough eyeballs and fingers remaining to post the video to social media.
Maybe on Palindra or in Malsa those devices aren’t so over built. But that’s my excuse for not understanding the full details of what happened!
“The red “blossom” registered as a gangster style red carnation.” That style really needs to make a comeback.
It looks like the gun was pretty thoroughly dismantled, the upper half seems to have become partially detached and flipped upwards.
re: “I also saw the hexagram looking symbol pretty much on the muzzle of the gun. ”
Thanks for calling the hex to my attention. I understood what happened with bullet but missed the faint blue hex. After reading comments I often go back and see things I missed on the first read.
I’m with you. It doesn’t surprise me too much when I miss those little, meaningful details. After all I commit the sin of reading the comic on a phone. It just doesn’t do it justice.
But it surprised me today when I realized I’d missed that gunshot wound, and I hadn’t picked it up from other readers. I think most people thought it was obvious.
As Anthony just described, the gun was very dismantled. For a projectile in our world to do that, and continue on through, well I just don’t see that happening outside of a movie. It never connected for me. In my mind it would require the manipulation of several variables. Hardening the bullet, reversing direction, adding significant force.
But when I think about it. If I’m that dude firing, I’m probably trying to get the enemy mage down asap. I’m probably firing multiple shots. First one gets some distance away before it is reversed back, that one hits the gunman. Second one doesn’t make it out of the gun. Gunman gets shot roughly at the same time the gun spontaneously disassembles.
I’m thinking we should take up a collection and buy you a ChromeBook just for reading the comic.
I’m in.
The page’ll be up tomorrow, running a bit late again. Getting closer to things being sane, but just ended up with a lot to do this weekend.
EDIT: It’s going to be another day (Tuesday). In retrospect, I’m realizing that we’ve crept back up to 12 panel comics again, which isn’t the whole problem but isn’t helping. I finished the line art today, so we should be good for tomorrow.
EDIT 2: Going to be another day (Wednesday).
Closer to sane?
You’re funny. I’ve got a geometry book here. The chapter on asymptotes will probably terrify you.
But hey, if you find sanity, remember us little guys. We’d like some too!
Doge to the moon!
There I was thinking parallax was a closer image to what’s going on.
It only *looks* closer.
I am looking forward to it. And if the production schedule is drag’n a little, I think we know to whom should go the blame/credit. She just got a bit kallied away.
When you arrive at Sanity, send me a postcard. It’s been too long since my last visit.
The character in the third to the last panel is fuzzy. Why? Did Cali get hit or are they moving super fast or did the drawing program just mess up? Enquiring minds (mine, all of them) want to know!
I think it’s just the ground shaking while Kally summons Fluffy.
That is the booster Naomi punched out earlier. Seing as one of kally’s speach bubles is in his frame it means she spotted him and probably sicced fluffy on him.
After taking a closer look at the panel I noticed that Greenie is slightly blurry but the doorway and wall in the background appear clear. Greenie was punched several times by Naomi and knocked into the wall. He is likely groggy and shaky from being punched. As his vision clears he is confronted by a huge red dragon which adds to the shakes. He might get an arm ripped off, get burned to ash or be bitten/eaten after having his ass kicked by a girl. He is NOT having a good day.
So did green hair from the third to last panel get squished or just off screen?
Doesn’t look like Green Hair was stepped on. Looks like there was a doorway behind him and that isn’t visible in the last two panels. However, Green hair is having a really, really bad hair day. He is just getting ready to start fighting again after being stunned by Naomi and comes face to face with Fluffy. He should have stayed home in bed. All the green hairs should have stayed home in bed. The last two words they hear may be “EAT THEM!”. LOL
What exactly are you looking to upgrade TO? If you can get away with just a CPU and RAM upgrade (+ possibly mobo as required), I’d recommend grabbing an older gen part. I don’t actually know what you have, or I’d suggest some options.
My computer is like… 7-8 years old now, essentially anything would be an upgrade, I just have to actually do it. The problem is I’m reluctant to buy last generation when the generational gaps are fairly big right now, but I really probably should.
I almost never AAA game anymore (obviously considering the age of the computer) and even my rendering/drawing workloads are fairly tame, it’s just that the resolution of the RAW art is super high, which makes it hard to work with consider the system is sort of dying.
But it would be a same to buy last generation right now from what I can see with the current generation being fairly superior. It is a case of future grass being always greener, haha.
I mean, sort of…? The 1700, 2700, and 3700X (AMD) are all good parts still. I just don’t know if you have an old celeron (though I would be surprised) or an old HEDT. Even their old six core units could be a good upgrade.
Little less familiar with Intel’s current lineup, but I imagine an 8700 (k or non-k) would still be a good part today.
Personally, I have an X370 mobo and I’m hoping to drop in a 3900X sometime this year.
I definitely can sympathize with the need for more RAM with each new version of software. In the early 1980’s, I used an IBM mainframe that had 5 megabytes of memory. In the mid-1980’s, I purchased a Commodore Amiga that came with one megabyte of memory and I expanded it to nine megabytes. My current laptop has 15 gigabytes of memory and you can order a Mac Pro with over one terabyte of core memory (not SSD’s). There are a few software packages whose memory requirements have increased by a factor of two or four over the last decade. Photoshop now has a minimum requirement of 8 GB and a recommended requirement of 16 GB. I have also been told that the recommended levels are often inadequate. However, a lot of the problems from low memory are really due to poor software design, either by Photoshop or the operating system. Running low on RAM should slow the system to a crawl, but it shouldn’t crash the machine or lose work. My uncle also told me that some of his Photoshop effects stopped working when he upgraded.
So I understand your pain and have been there in the past. The only quick fix that I think of is to check if a bank of RAM has a problem and isn’t getting used by the operating system. Sometimes just reseating the DIMM, SIMM, or whatever your system uses can help. I once had an OS upgrade reject some SIMM’s because they responded too slowly in the self-check. Open the case and make sure that dust hasn’t built up inside (that happened to me once), make sure that the air vents are clear (I knew one user who had a computer with the vents on the back. He pushed the computer back against the fabric in his cubicle. The hard drive actually melted. He also damaged the connectors on the back.), and additional fans and cooling is always useful.
Unfortunately, you are running into Murphy’s Corollary: Murphy was an optimist when he wrote Murphy’s law.
Why do people keep escalating against Kally? Don’t they read the news? At this point assuming escalation against her will end in your favor is insanity that beggars the imagination.
The older, dark green haired mage did recognize Kally as “the I.D.S. girl from news”. Kally had recognized old green hair as Saraine Hilvari, one of the family heads. Unfortunately, Saraine did not pay enough attention to the news and thought she could best this young upstart. Perhaps Saraine voided her own common sense or perhaps she had never faced someone as powerful as Kally. Anyone taking bets on how many from the green team will be burned and how many will be eaten?
Many years ago, there was a poster on the wall of a classroom that was used by the ROTC program. (I think that the image was taken from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) It showed Indiana Jones and friends on a spiral staircase. There were a hundred people with swords and guns descending from above and a hundred more ascending from below. The caption was “Sometimes surrender is the best option”.
That would probably be good advice for Saraine and friends.
“Trust me, it’s all fun & games till someone pisses off the dragon” – Lan Fiveclaw.
“You may eat everyone except Naomi and the child.”
Or at least one arm each. Losing an arm seems to be an occupational hazard in this world 🙂
Past, I have recently developed the same problem with my laptop. Which isn’t good as I’m doing online developer classes at this time and the main part that doesn’t want to work is the fan and the port for power.
quick question: where did light green haired lady go? I seem to suddenly have this question….. Other than that, go Kally!
Also, I like dragons!
The green haired lady is still there, I just often draw angles that don’t show a lot of background character, as those are time intensive to draw. She would have trouble casting right now as she’d caught up in the same field as Kally, and not as good at casting as Kally – right now only the boosters can easily use magic, which is why they sort of expected shooting her (Kally) to work.
Casting spells currently is hard because the mana is being whipped around with Kally drawing in a bunch of it and Family Head absorbing it, so you only have a narrow window to use it, and it’s pretty distorted. The green haired family mage can probably still cast (and may be trying to) but it’d be a bit a of a struggle.
Panel 1: if i was your age and had your power, I would be arrogant too. to paraphrase Shrek and Donkey in the last 2 panels: ‘at least we know where the child is. but where’s the.. DRAGOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!’
Fixed, thanks.