And we’re back!
We were going to jump right into the next story, but as you remember, our main character currently has a fractured ankle. Now that in and of itself is not a problem because we could just zip forward six weeks using the magic of Comic Book Time. But we are also dealing with Webcomic Time, which means we just spent a year and a half burning down City Hall. And while we wrapped that story up, there’s still a few things that would occur during Countdown’s recovery process that we’d rather not skip over.
Thus, we’re going to have a few pages of “Interludes.” You could also call them “Epilogues” or “Those cool stingers at the end of Marvel movies that get you to sit through the credits” but that would tie them directly to our previous episode, and we’d rather they were just little vignettes of their own. So, “Interludes.”
And this first one is Detective Letoa being read the riot act by a previously unknown division of the FBI. (Yes, part of the dialogue was inspired by commenter Gray Phantom.) Oh, she’s in trouble now.
Or is she? This is Letoa we’re talking about.
Stay tuned!
And hey, free comic! Check it out below!
Bobservations
Free Comic Book Day!
As you are probably aware, Three Minute Max is a proud member of the Collective of Heroes. The Collective is a diverse group of webcomic creators whose work has a heroic-type theme, be it serious, funny, or anything in between. You’ll find their banner in the sidebar just to the upper right over there.
This year, one of the members had the bright idea of creating a Collective comic to be given away on Free Comic Book Day, which is is Saturday, May 2, 2015 (year included in case you are reading this from the Future.) Kudos to Dan Butcher, Bill Walko, and Scott Bachmann for getting the whole thing together and making it happen!
It’s not Free Comic Book Day yet but we’re jumping the gun and making it available now. Spread out the bandwidth hammering a little. Dan did a sweet job of putting it together, and it gives you a nice retrospective of many of the Collective creators’ work.
And it’s free!
Here’s the cover, which is a clickable link to download the book. It’s a walloping 150MB PDF even as a ZIP file, so if you get a “Service Unavailable” or something that just means the server’s swamped. Try later. Good luck!
It’ll be coming down after Free Comic Book Day, so get it before May 3rd!
-Bob out
Artist’s Notes: Alright, finished artwork now posted. Sorry for the delays. It’ll never happen again…. ha!
-Max
I freakin’ love it when people, who seem like they’re up against the wall for disciplinary reasons, stand up for themselves AND WIN.
Sadly, it works a lot better in webcomics than in real life. (Not that it never ever works in real life – it’s just like winning the powerball lotto – it does happen, but you probably shouldn’t count on it.)
I managed to do it once. I got called into the office for an incident that happened at central. One of my clients was in behavior, and I was the only one following protocol. All the women there catered to his behavior, one even offered to by him junk food, even though that’s grounds for immediate termination.
The director of the agency didn’t like the comments I made, nor my methods (even if I did nothing wrong). When the assistant manager pulled me into the office a couple days later, I called out all the women who catered to the maladaptive behavior, and even pointed out how the admins were engaging in financial exploitation.
She got really quiet then ^_^
(Reads the author’s notes…)
OH SNAP! SENPAI NOTICED ME!!!
Well, it was a good point you made.
I’ll be perfectly honest. Tarne pointed it out first a couple pages before: https://3mm-crisisstrike.com/3mmcomic/striking-sparks-page-sixty-three/#comments
Awrr, thanks for the bump, Gray <3
Ya know, having seen both the roughs and the finished product, I have to say, Max, you have this shading thing down pat.
Thanks balthazar!
Though, 2015.. UD3, a division of the FBI, which is a division of the NSA.
Kinda want an NSA operative to drop in and tell Glass and Scales its not longer ‘their’ case, and see if they stand up for themselves.
Since when is the FBI a division of NSA? Or is this another one of those conspiracy theories?
FBI is part of the Department of Justice. NSA is part of the Department of Defense.
Although, technically the Bureau is subservient to the Secret Service (which is part of the Treasury Department), since the Bureau was started to take up part of the responsibilities of the USSS.
I think that Detective Letoa definitely qualifies as an UD2. These guys better keep their hands in their pockets or they might loose bits of their fingers or arms.
I just noticed she tells her colleague to piss off in the first panel.
No matter what the relationship level I have with someone, this is always sure to hurt someone’s feelings.
I’m not sure which is Sandoval. Is she saying that to her coworker who she is standing next to for suggesting that she’s in trouble, or is she saying that in reference to her yelling boss across the room, who probably can’t hear her over that distance. I got the impression it was the latter, in which case, no hurt feelings assuming he doesn’t hear her.
It’s kinda ambiguous, isn’t it?
For the purposes of clarifying the author’s intention: Sandoval is the donut-eater. The entire precinct is well aware of what has happened. They all know that Letoa is going to be facing discipline, possibly severe. Two men in suits (possibly IA) have just showed up in Captain Chang’s office and now Letoa is being angrily summoned. Had Sandoval said something like “Hang in there,” or “Good luck,” that would be one thing. But her comment was instead deliberately snarky; Letoa, the star of the precinct, is about to get reamed. Letoa’s tired response is more along the lines of “I’ve got bigger things to deal with than you right now.”
Or, to put it another way: Imagine that you were recently driving too fast, trying to get to a job on time. You lost control of your car and crashed into a power pole. No one was hurt, but you took out power to several city blocks for half a day. You made it home, but now the police have arrived to discuss the situation with you. Your neighbor Sandoval, who never liked you much anyway, is leaning over the wall, smirking and saying: “Somebody’s in trooooouble…”
How would you respond? 🙂
There really needs to be more art of Letoa. LOTS more. Just sayin’.
Not really sure what the problem is here:
commandeered a vehicle (cops can do that when in pursuit),
violated safety regulations (see above),
destroyed the motorcycle (insurance pays for that),
interfered with a fire rescue effort (um, how?),
arrested a dead man (certainly a coffee break chuckle),
who somehow managed to escape anyway (PROVING how dangerous he really was).
So, where’s the disciplinary? This is the worst kind of bluff, where you have all your cards showing. Letoa is going to hand this guy his shorts for lunch.
Actually, before I wrote this page I pestered Mark, the cop-who-lives-next-door, about this. According to him, they can commandeer vehicles but they cannot violate traffic regulations because they don’t have emergency vehicle status (lights, siren, etc.) And sending the motorcycle off the top of a parking structure to explode during a FD rescue operation would be, well, rude to say the least.
This is the sort of thing that can be taken on a case-by case basis, but if anyone with authority wanted to make trouble for Letoa they would have some ammo to work with.
I wondering exactly how much leeway they have to commandeer a vehicle, though. There probably has to be some pretty strong justification. If a suspect is fleeing, and about to get away if you don’t act, and you’re on foot in the middle of the city alone, then that may be justification. Letoa, from what I recall, was inside the police station and commandeered a private vehicle from the police station parking lot so that she personally could get to a scene a bit faster rather than having some of the many officers surely already nearby the major disaster scene for crowd control radioed to arrest the suspect. While that’s acceptable for drama purposes, I do think it would get any real cop a good talking to, at the very least. The key criteria: was it necessary in order to apprehend the suspect?
“But Captain, sir, I had to go personally, none of the other guys had a guardian Squid spirit!” 🙂