Comic for Monday, March 24th, 2024
Mar25
on March 25, 2024
at 4:38 am
Comic.
Polls
2023 Santa Hat Poll - Who will claim the Christmas Crown this year?
- Kally Summers (9%, 32 Votes)
- Ila (8%, 28 Votes)
- Naomi Atarah (8%, 28 Votes)
- Miko (6%, 22 Votes)
- Fluffy (6%, 22 Votes)
- Miko's Avatar (6%, 19 Votes)
- The Consul (5%, 18 Votes)
- Avi Atarah (5%, 16 Votes)
- Mari Kepler (4%, 14 Votes)
- Doctor Mir (3%, 11 Votes)
- Mium (2%, 8 Votes)
- Peter Kepler (2%, 8 Votes)
- Lisa (2%, 7 Votes)
- Rovak Stas (2%, 7 Votes)
- Arron Kepler (2%, 6 Votes)
- Kyle Kepler (2%, 6 Votes)
- Camilla Canthi (2%, 6 Votes)
- Amy Selah (1%, 5 Votes)
- Magnolia Dai (1%, 5 Votes)
- Tamara (1%, 5 Votes)
- Nathan (1%, 5 Votes)
- Shitty Demon (1%, 5 Votes)
- Maia Ethi (1%, 4 Votes)
- Ashvalt Ardunni (1%, 4 Votes)
- Saria (1%, 4 Votes)
- Ashley Thomas (1%, 4 Votes)
- Artem Arduni (1%, 4 Votes)
- Alex (1%, 3 Votes)
- Arkady Arduni (1%, 3 Votes)
- Tyler Weber (1%, 3 Votes)
- Atter (1%, 3 Votes)
- Elizabeth (1%, 3 Votes)
- Ryn Koko (1%, 3 Votes)
- Toshe (1%, 2 Votes)
- Doctor Martin (1%, 2 Votes)
- Ricci (1%, 2 Votes)
- Frank (1%, 2 Votes)
- Nelson Otte (0%, 1 Votes)
- Regin Enkari (0%, 1 Votes)
- Gate (0%, 1 Votes)
- Jayce Myer (0%, 1 Votes)
- Ikirium Avon (0%, 1 Votes)
- David (0%, 1 Votes)
- Nick Otte (0%, 1 Votes)
- Joid (0%, 1 Votes)
- Yoav Cao (0%, 1 Votes)
- Biana Beyer (0%, 1 Votes)
- Vairlem (0%, 1 Votes)
- Gelon Level (0%, 1 Votes)
- Marc Idunni (0%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 81
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No comic this week, unfortunately. Will be back next week. It’s not my intention to move to a once per three week schedule, just been busy.
No pressure. It’s OK.
No, really, it’s fine.
I can has comic now?
You can has comic now. New comic is up.
Many hearts! I luvs new comic!
Throwing my hat in the ring here.
I’m guessing that manifesting a “data ghost” like that opens up some sort of weakness. I’m reminded of how fiction tends to treat Astral Projection. Maybe Peter could hack the link, maybe it exposes the “soul” to damage done by others, or maybe there’s some other side effect.
I’m hoping we get some good dialog, so we can learn more about Peter’s very real magic.
Edit: Control is listed as a character, but several pages ago the soldier was asking what appears to be the same person to talk to control. That’s very strange.
In addition to wanting more info on Peter’s magic, there are a few other things that are curious. First,this probably has to do with Peter’s “magic” but he always has a hand in a pocket. Also noticed that Kally couldn’t detect what Peter does.
Next, what is up with the gray robot’s gray thumbs? Kinda weird.
Also, Peter doesn’t seem overly concerned about the robot guy coming to him in person. I think Peter knows a whole lot more than is apparent. It seems he may want to capture The Gray Robot Man. Anyone have a cool title for robot dude please feel free to suggest.
Before I forget (again), what was with Ila’s kaboom? The restrained level of force being used by Peter and company seems to have a purpose that is not apparent. Anxiously awaiting next comic …but I’m always anxious for the next one. LOL
> Anyone have a cool title for robot dude please feel free to suggest.
See my edit. It may be control, but it may also be someone else.
Yes, I knew the gray guy is Control or a Control minion. Just wanted a cool name/title to call him/it.
Peter’s an autocaster mage. He has one implanted into him, but he has that one disabled, as it’s an Eidos drive card-ish implant and he’s concerned about the implications of that remote business. So of course he has a hand in his pocket when he casts.
He has probably built his own autocaster. There are no visual effects from his “casting.” Kally could not detect whatever Peter is doing. Fluffy and perhaps Kally did not detect that some of Peter’s illusions were not real. The Consul fake assination was not detected either and fooled a LOT of people. Hopefully Peter’s magic method will be revealed.
So, I’m now expecting this Peter to also turn out to be an illusion. . . .
Pretty sure these are the real Peter and real “Control” robot guy in this comics. Illusions don’t shove each other or make a thump when their behind hits the floor. Also, there is no bleed through of background as there is in illusion images.
A trip down memory lane … Didn’t Kally’s hair used to puff out a LOT when she was doing magic? I notice it is fluffed a bit in the next to last panel but no where as “big” as it has been before.
On second thought, maybe her hair isn’t all charged up because she is limiting her mana usage.
ps- couldn’t edit original post.
She’s wearing her hair in a ponytail (as opposed it being loose like it usually was in the past). That’s the real power limiter. If that comes off… all bets are off!
The background conversation is extremely hard to read between fluffy and the red guy. I realize it’s supposed to be a background event, but it’s a bit too washed out even for that.
“Haha, that was a good one dragon! Again!”
“…Roar?”
A bonus I noticed while going over panels closely: Did you know that Naomi has dialogue on this page?
Between the “Boom” and “Crash” there is what appears to be a dialogue between Naomi and Fluffy.
“Haha, that was a good one dragon, again!”
“…Roar?”
Does not really add anything, but I missed it on the first pass and is funny, particularly imagining the dragon’s confused response to Naomi cheering it on.
Is the Naomi/Fluffy conversation triggered by a mouseover or something? It is not visible on my computer at least by my old eyes at a 200% zoom. Thanks.
No, it’s just really faint. Even by the standard of the jokes/clues Past sometimes includes this one is hard to read, and I missed it the first time as well.
Found it!!! Thank you. When my screen is viewed straight on, the short conversation is invisible. If I view the screen slanted away, the conversation appears faintly. Picture this: I am reading the conversation with my nose touching the front edge of the keyboard and the screen is slanted away about 45 degrees from the keyboard. Total angle eyes to screen is about 70 degrees. Beyond that, the conversation disappears again. So it depends on screen characteristics and properties. Oh! Wait! Did Peter teach Past how to do the illusion thingy? LOL
Wow! Faint is an understatement. Straight on at any zoom it is invisible. Only from the bottom I can find the “Roar?” and the outline of the bubble but I can’t tilt my monitor back far enough to read it.
Wait. I’ll try my other monitor … well it’s better but still unreadable
What if I play with the image settings?
That’s it! I reset the Gamma almost zero and it pops out in full color.
The “Boom!” is bright red and Fluffy’s bubble background is purple.
(I’m using XNview but probably any image viewer should work).
So, did Past hide it that well on purpose or was this a mistake in the layers???
I’m confident that it was deliberate. However the degree of subtlety may not have been 100% deliberate.
No, it is just really light through being faded. If you don’t know to look for it than you can barely see it. Even if you do see it, reading it is nearly impossible. Congratulations to someone with the right saturation increasing program to make it even remotely legible.
No idea who is doing the talking, though. If it is Naomi than when did she arrive? Not sure who else it could be with a line like that, though…
Naomi arrived two pages ago. She and Tyler were debating joining the fight. We did not actually see her fighting though.
I’m just assuming that is because who else would it be. The panel is also slightly pink (or purple) which would probably indicated Naomi.
I couldn’t read it on my computer either, but zooming in on my phone made it easy (higher density screen + more zoom I guess?).
Opening with an image editor and maxing contrast does make it readable, but I certainly can’t read it on my browser.
I tried that approach. Copied the comic image. Pasted into Paint. Cropped the area between Boom and Crash then magnified 400%. I still had to angle the screen away but the conversation was clearly visible. Apparently my screen does not like the colors used. When my new computer and charger arrives in the next few days, I will compare screens. I can also use the new power cord to charge up another laptop that has a broken charging tip. I wasn’t going to lay out $60 for a universal charger. All the cheap $20 Onn chargers from Walmart didn’t have the right tip available.
Looking it at an angle at zoom, I can see it on either my computer or phone, but it’s not quite legible. It’s close enough that knowing what it says, I can confirm that’s plausibly what I’m seeing. Changing brightness does not help, though making it too bright makes it completely invisible. My computer’s a laptop and doesn’t have a contrast control.
I read the message by using Preview (an Apple Macintosh utility), although the same controls are in many other graphics editors. The technique you need to use is called “windowing”, a favorite when reading x-rays. In preview, you will see a histogram of the number of pixels for given amounts of saturation. (presumably red+blue+green in my case, although I think some packages allow you to create histograms using just one color channel. There are normally three little sliders under the histogram. All pixels with less saturation than the left slider are changed to pure black. All pixels with more saturation than the right slider are turned to pure white. Initially, the left and right sliders are set at the start and end of the histogram. Move the left slider 80% of the way to the right and the message will appear. Moving the slider further to the right will make the message easier to read until it suddenly quickly vanishes.
Simply adjusting tint, brightness, and contrast don’t have the flexibility that windowing has.
I used a similar, but different, technique to discover this.
I waited for other people to bring it to my attention in the comments. So, really, mostly different and not at all similar. My approach was much lower tech.
Shitty demon did not last long. Shitty robot probably has only minutes left before termination.
Hmmm, Let me guess: The ‘Peter’ there is at best the middle section of the information relay, and is solid the same way the ‘robot’ is. The Robot hasn’t picked up on the fact that this isn’t the real Peter yet.
It appears to me that the real Peter and real robot are present. I don’t perceive any background bleeding through the body images but my eyes are old and weak. Also, Peter made a “thump” when he was pushed over.
After carefully going over the images, Peter is definitely solid all the way through. On the sixth panel though, he does become slightly blurry/fuzzy, which he is not in the other panels.
This notably reminds me of the time we saw how ellipses affected Mium here, when Arron used it.
Ellipses has never been clearly defined, but it is implied that makes things harder to notice, or makes people see what they expect to see instead of what is actually there.
I think it bugged out against Mium because even if his vision could be fooled, he couldn’t be, because he could still figure out who was actually there by brute force deduction (probably because he keeps very close watch on anything related to Miko).
Peter isn’t a confirmed ellipses user, but is an implied one. This is what Control is misunderstanding. Control thought he was just making very good illusions. Because making illusions realistic enough without ellipses is hard, Peter assumed that Control had copied that.
But since Peter wouldn’t assume an illusion could interact with him, he would know that it wasn’t using ellipses ‘fool’ him anymore once it touched him. Control is probably doing something closer to projecting a construct (which are also partially transparent, but can interact with things).
Folks, looks like I neeed to go see an eye doctor. May have missed a conversation with Naomi and Fluffy. Now, I can’t see the blurring in panel six where Peter says “Information: Shitty robot …” I do see a shadow from the lock of hair hanging from top of Peter’s head and also another on his right jaw.
I don’t see the supposed conversation between Naomi and Fluffy either. That said, the blurring in the last panel with Peter is there, as well as a sudden lack of shadow under his jawline.
I would not have seen the blurring in panel 6 if it had not been pointed out. I’ve been getting sloppy and not viewing every comic at 300% resolution. Also, it’s come to my attention that I’m over a year behind in several comics I’ve been following, because they went on hiatus and I didn’t pick them back up again on schedule.
It’s between the “Boom” and “Crash”. It’s really hard to see at default size, but zooming in on a phone screen makes it fairly easy to read (that’s how I figured out what it said, which I transcribed in another comment).
I had problems seeing the conversation also. Try viewing your screen from different angles. 70 degrees from the bottom worked for me but I don’t usually read with my nose against the laptop keyboard. LOL
Copying the image, pasting into Paint, cropping the area between “Boom” and “Crash” then enlarging the result by 400% made the test clearly visible on my laptop.
I don’t see any blurring in panel six either. Even zooming in to 500% begins to show the pixelation but no blurring. Peter’s face is almost entirely a copy and paste from panel five except for the collar and jaw shaddow.
It is indeed a comic. Thank you.