Grrl Power #1356 - Afterglow (Patreon)

Thank you for the support! You guys and grrls are awesome!

Yes, I'm calling my "it's basically D&D" world Gygaxia. I'm that subtle.

It'd be nice if all women came with conspicuous visual indicators to reflect the sum of one's efforts like that. And guys too, I guess, but guys seem a lot simpler to figure out, both sexually and… asexually? Platonically? Whatever. Of course, if that was the case, and a lady's ears glowed every time you gave them an appropriate gift or whatever, there'd probably be a lot of effort made to conceal those tell-tale signs. First-date earmuffs or whatever. Actually, I think there'd be two schools of thought on the matter. One, make them work really hard for it. Two, roadmap to pound town.

I will resist lamenting my own art for this page, as I'm fairly pleased with backlit glowy stripes Dabbler, but man, that overlook of the city in panel 1 really could have been more intricate. Like, instead of looking like an oddly planned out concentric apartment complex, I was really envisioning something that was a cross of Blade Runner, Gotham, and Miscellaneous Sci-Fi Spires and what have you. The worst part about the city-scape that's on the page is that it still took hours to draw, partially because I didn't plan it well, and it just doesn't look like it. I genuinely don't understand how artists known for their backgrounds do it. Do they spend 40 hours on a hero shot for a splash page and then deploy a bunch of tricks to wrangle out some more economical backgrounds in other panels? I'm not talking about the manga guys. I know that most of the big titles have a team of guys doing all the "secondary" art, and a lot of that is often done in 3D programs. Actually a lot of manhwa I've seen look like all the backgrounds come straight out of a Sketchup render.

The other thing that bugs me about that background is where are the other tall buildings? Or are Dabbler and Hoss are on the 80th floor of the FükTowr hourly hotel, which is the only tall building on that entire side of Fracture Station? Yeah, I know, there could be a huge "downtown" area on the other side of the building from their room, but still.

But as I said, no lamenting.

So are Dabbler's stripes indicative of her power level? Generally no, especially in direct sunlight. But a proper surge of power does take a little while to properly "digest." And they do occasionally change color depending on certain criteria. I would link this happening previously, but honestly, I can't remember specific pages without going back and browsing through the archive, and if I do that now, I'll spend like 3 hours just reading the comic.