Comic for Monday, November 14
Ah, this fellow is not one of my favorite people. I quite dislike him, really, he’s up there with the Dropship Captain (who I don’t think we got the name for). I may dislike him more, but I’m a little biased on that one.
And yes, Naomi does unsurprisingly know the word for “punch” in Central.
It’s unlikely Naomi really knows how the drug works, but her magical boosting is much more… thorough… than average. Things like environmental variables (like having to know what the compound you are neutralizing) are fairly important to most mages, but Naomi tends to skip a lot of the details when it comes to her innate magic.
Last time Naomi saw this technique was a long time ago in page-count, but not all that long ago in comic time. Dear god I hate linking to pages that old, as it means I have to look at them.
My current schedule the next updates:
- Thursday 17th – On Time
- Monday 21st – On Time
- Thursday 24th – Maybe missed/maybe not. Will put something probably? This is thanksgiving I think.
- Monday 28th – Maybe late (like wednesday/Thursday then another on the weekend).
This also means we’ll probably run out the buffer, fair warning for the early-access Patreon folks. December will be on track and normal. Speaking of those, many thanks to the newest Patreon! We are very close to the first bonus comic series, will probably work on that through December.
Loading ...
And today is the day I realize what should be the most obvious joke in the comic.
Magic runs on….”calculations”, yes?
Meaning all wizards are….really….
Mathemagicians!
(……I’ll see myself out.)
You joke, but this idea that magic is effectively a branch of mathematics is nothing new. Consider the Arithmetician (also called a “Calculator”) job/class in Final Fantasy Tactics. Also this is covered by several tropes on TvTropes.org: The Laws of Magic, Formulaic Magic, Geometric Magic, Functional Magic, Magic by Any Other Name, Magitek, Magic from Technology, Magic A Is Magic A.
All of which fall under the branch TVTropes Will Ruin Your Life. (Week-long binges, more than once! Woo! No wait, no “woo”, having 40 tabs open to the same site for days every 3 weeks can’t be seen as healthy….)
And quite frankly, I forgot about the Calculator. (I never actually played Tactics, which is probably a big part.) But it’s not like there’s any other options here, you either are a wizard at math, or not a wizard at all. (Seems to be the basic idea anyway.) FFT had more mages than just a Calculator did it not?
*reads the list* Geometric Magic? Okay, that one’s not familiar….*does a quick read, sees time* …crap, man, I better not be late because you just had to mention TVTropes….
Sorry! Sorry. I should have remembered how dangerous it is to even mention TvTropes in any sort forum or public comments. I’m well aware of how it can be a black hole among time sinks… 😀
I hear the TVTropes is on the controlled substance lists of some countries…
I think it’s intentional that magic is very mathematical for in the comic world.
The magic system is actually what first made me interested in this comic, as it is pretty interesting. It is not “realistic” necessarily, but it has a lot more scientific and philosophical underpinnings (and therefor a lot more internal consistency) than most magic systems. I like lore like Mass Effect where it relies on just a few pieces of fiction to drive an otherwise fleshed out system. A lot of times magic tends to be a frustrating element of a story for me.
It’s sort of tied to philosophy, programming, and mostly imaginary set of physics (because my physics is less good than those other things I listed…). It’s pretty much what I think someone would expect if you told them a philosophy-major turned programmer decided to create a system of magic of fictional world… but at least it is nothing if not internally consistent.
I hope they were not dumb enough to make a net of one person to catch Naomi.
Well. I do hope they were dumb enough for that. But it would make them pretty dumb, and they were clever enough to find the house and stake out for spectators.
I thought from the comic that Naomi was directly using an air-filter spell around her rather than boosting. An air filter shouldn’t need to know what it’s keeping out, just that it’s letting only few specific substances through.
Also, the panel layout is confusing for panels 8-11.
The panel layout is a bit weird, but I think it makes sense following the words, even if not strictly from the layout. Maybe I am used to PastUtopia’s layouts though, as they are almost always some variation of:
1 2
3 4
5 6
with panels sometimes subdivided.
To me it might be a bit clearer if seen as an 8 panel comic. Like so:
1 2
3 4
5 7
6 8
Although Naomi could be using an air filter spell, or she could be boosting her immune system to prevent the chemicals from affecting her. I don’t really know which one would take more magic, but she does seem to have quite a bit so it might be easier to burn more power and not have to worry about it.
My tendency to avoid normal boxes tends to get me into trouble with panel ordering. Occasionally it’s gotten bad enough I feel compelled to add arrows. Realistically the better solution is to use less small panels and more panel-in-panel overlays when I want to have the extra panels, and than not mosaic the page as much, but that takes more thinking and more background art, and those are both things that are more less my mortal enemies.
It’s something that I know needs to be worked on. When in doubt read panels in the way the makes the words make the most sense, and assume that’s what I meant 😛
I’m pretty sure that this sleep attack is partly magic. But it might be part technology, too – perhaps nanites or chemicals. (The magic component might be part of the delivery system.)
Theories: The air filter spell sounds reasonable. But, perhaps she just countered the magic component, sort of like noise cancellation with an inverted phase (antiphase) sound? Or maybe it was a magic-induced wave of high voltage or EMP to destroy the nanites?
Though, I doubt a human immune system could help against nanites. (I just looked it up and, apparently, it can also help defend against “toxins, chemicals, drugs, and foreign particles”.) And boosting one’s immune system with magic sounds extremely complicated.
It looks to me as if he’s relying on a AutoCaster. Silly him. ^^
Autocasters have not developed a particularly good track record, have they? Least not when Naomis are involved.
Well it looks like Agent 47 here is less skilled then the real thing, which is a good thing as I like Naomi. 😛
Well, the real one rarely has to deal with mages. In fact, he never seems to have to deal with anyone that has more than one-third a functioning brain, as his disguises are usually about as convincing as a wolf wearing a wool coat in a sheep pen (for those confused, I am responding to this on the assumption it is a reference to a video game featuring a pale-bold assassin fellow, though his a good bit buffer than this fellow).
I get the reference of a pale, bald assassin in a game. (Agent 47 is from the Hitman video game franchise, which I haven’t even played.) But the reference to “a wolf wearing a wool coat in a sheep pen” is a reference to Ralph E. Wolf and Sam Sheepdog in the Loony Toons adventures (Bugs Bunny and friends)… correct? Do I get an internet cookie? 😉
“I’ve already seen that trick, too.”
The sleep nanites I’m familiar with. (The first trick.) But I’m not sure what “that” trick is. These panels are rather dark and the characters move fast. What happened in the last panels?
My guess is the second trick is what Jayce used to reach her speed, likely boosting himself less intuitively than she can.
On closer inspection it looks like he was trying to grab Naomi’s leg, probably close to what Jayce did with her punch. Here: http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-friday-february-13th
I think he probably using the speed boost to evade/redirect her attacks. Jayce did the same thing where he did not really try to block in hand-to-hand combat, but just shoves the attack slightly so it misses. He did it again against the Orish solider to evade the sword blows.
Last time Naomi backed away when they managed to evade her, probably to figure out what was going on. This time she probably will not give an opening for him to cast a longer spell.