“Striking Sparks” — Page Fifty-Eight
Bam! Max-the-artist did us proud on this page, I’m telling you!
City Hall is now basically Hell on Earth as our hero teleports into the empty office, exactly in the center of what appears to be a hastily-rigged rope snare. He’s accompanied by the contents of the two tanks, which erupt in their own individual ways! The blue blaze of ignited hydrogen from the Gate Flare is almost as glorious as the arrival of Max’s own guardian spirit — and as the huddled victims outside react, the interior office walls (desperately barricaded with every single piece of available office furniture) split and crack as the gasses begin to explode! It was everything they had — will it be enough!?
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More below!
Bobservations
Light ‘Em Up!
Man, I’m not even going to talk about the effects on this page. Suffice to say it took three days of specialized shooting, most of it in a high wind, and you can’t even tell anyway because Max made it sing with oodles of Photoshoppery and motion blur. I love the result, and I have a slew of new additions to my stash of imagery, but I need to refill my CO2 fire extinguisher, which I was using for the tank bursts. (With chunks of styrofoam stuffed down the nozzle for the shattering agamassan in the acetylene tank.)
What this (combined with the discussion comments a couple pages back) does make me recall is the time I tried to replace the incandescent light bulbs in our breakfast nook light fixture.
The fixture had five downward-pointing tulip-shaped lamps on it, and so it took five light bulbs. The light bulbs had to be screwed in upside-down, and if you ever read the instructions on a package of incandescents, they always warned you that this would “negatively affect bulb life.” No kidding. I swear I was changing those bulbs every month. The heat rose up into the heavy glass lamps and not only shortened the bulb life, but also tended to corrode the cheap pot metal from which the lamp sockets were made. Often as not the screw base of the bulb would get stuck, and the glass part would actually crack loose in my hand, forcing me to extricate the base of the bulb from the socket using pliers and swearing.
So one day when it was time to change the light bulbs again, and I’d had to do the pliers thing with three of them, I decided I’d had enough. Got all the old bulbs out, some of them in pieces, and then I went out to the garage, got my can of WD-40, gave the corroded sockets in their tulip-shaped lamps a good thorough spraying, and then screwed the new bulbs in. Wow, they went in easy! Pleased with myself, I flipped the wall switch to turn the light on.
And every single bulb exploded in a shower of sparks as the whole lamp fixture caught fire. It was actually sort of awesome, if I hadn’t been so freaked.
Fortunately, the WD-40 residue swiftly burned away and after some cleaning, the fixture was actually okay. But that was the day I switched over to the curly-bulb compact fluorescents. Yeah, they have their downsides, but they don’t get anywhere near as hot, and the fixture stopped having corrosion problems. I also don’t have to change them anywhere near as often.
But the event did give me some insights into air-fuel explosions. Something our hero is experiencing even now!
— Bob out
So he is trying to blast a hole into the window using the gasses. Kinda figured.
But why did he had to go there himself? Why not simply t-port the gasses and let the ambient heat ignite them?
@Christopher Im guessing the port flare wont happen if its just the gas. However displacing a large volume of air as Max does, plus the heat involved in moving the mass and presto human pipe bomb. If he did it in a small enough room the windows become a weak point. Unfortunately human innards are a squishy weak point as well.
Okay, so why not substitute Max for something else? What could they have used?
You know the plan’s crazy when even Sophie’s spirit goes WTF are you doing!
Bob, am I correct in assuming that you added the shattering agamassan into the second frame as a result of the information that balthazar gave us in the comments section two strips back? If so, awesome – and great big kudos to balthazar!
Perhaps Sophie can protect him from the worst of the explosion. I call deus ex machina! But she probabaly won’t be able to protect him completely. I now understand the chapter four cover a lot better, with poor Max sitting there with his hair on fire.
https://3mm-crisisstrike.com/3mmcomic/striking-sparks-cover-page
Yes indeed! The agamassan was added because of Balthazar’s information. I’ll clarify in a future blog post, but his information actually ended up helping.
*Tips hat* Glad to be of help!
He’ll feel that in the morning.
In other news, that third panel is worthy of an 80s action movie poster. I love it.
Love the comic, finally caught up just before your holiday break. Great art, solid writing, classic action comic vibe. Wonderful stuff.
But Bob, your Bobservations are just a hoot! I swear I’ve spent more time reading them and the great behind-the-scenes details on how you combine the effects photography with the excellent artwork. It all makes me want to go out and
void warranties and build dangerous contraptions myself– uhm, I mean, reflect on how important it is to follow the rules. Safety first!Nuff said – keep up the great work!
Thanks so much, Steve! Really appreciate it!
I just found this comic and read through the archives. then I clicked a dozen times on the next button before I realized this was the most recent page. good job this is a great story that really hocked me I am now sad that I have to wait to read more.
Awesome! Come back Sunday at midnight!
LOL!
Flaming lamp fixtures!
Now I have that lout Boy “My songs know what you did in the dark [light ’em up]” stuck in my head..
Oh well.
Darn autocowrecker.
Fallout Boy.
FAaaallllllooooouuuut Boy.
Stupid machine…