“Striking Sparks” — Page Thirty-Nine
Because you know that even engineers do some trash-talking on occasion.
More below!
Bobservations
A Bit Of Tweaking
This is one of those pages which — while technically following the script and initial thumbnail layout of the overall arc — ended up being much more than was originally intended.
To start with, Max-the-artist didn’t even reference the actual Tesla Roadster the script had called for; he designed this car on his own, and is proud of that fact. To the extent that it resembles a Tesla, that’s more a matter of thinking along similar lines than any actual design duplication. So although we could have gotten away with calling it “extensively modified,” I (as the writer) just decided to remove any direct references to Elon Musk’s baby and instead make this pure Madison.
Or, that was the idea. At first.
But dammit, a brilliant electrical engineer who can build her own lightsaber just wouldn’t let a high-voltage vehicle roll past her toolbox without digging into it herself. And Marissa’s a lot more fun when she’s glowing with personal pride about her contribution. So I started tweaking the dialogue to indicate she’d been a big part of the “Road Reaper’s” actual creation.
I did keep the Tesla stock specs for Marissa to diss in the dialogue; it should be noted that I am well aware that said specs are in fact impressive as hell. Truthfully, Max and I are long-time admirers of Musk, SpaceX, and the whole line of Tesla vehicles. We would totally buy them were they not completely out of our price range.
Hell, I’m even jealous of the Falcon-9 self-destruction. I do stuff on purpose that doesn’t look that good.
Nonetheless, this is a comic, so we have to push the bounds of reality as much as possible. And thus our own Scarlet Dynamo gets to re-establish her geek cred with a bit of flossin’.
But it’s the final exchange that amused me the most. In the script, Marissa just says that six of the eight most critical components in the vehicle are Cicertech patents. Max asks about the other two, and Marissa was just supposed to say with a wicked smile: “Those are special enhancements.” Indicating that the car (still a Tesla in the script) has been “souped up.”
But although the script had called for her to be in a “steampunk outfit,” I didn’t know at the time just what that outfit would look like. And when Max was drawing this page, he hadn’t even bothered to re-read the script. He was just working from his original thumbnail, which only indicated rough human forms.
So when he sends me the inked art, with Marissa in that outfit, and I’m starting to add the dialogue, the line “Those are special enhancements” took on a whole new giggly meaning. I almost left it, but I didn’t want to imply that there was anything other than a bit of bustier boostage to the components in question. So I decided to take the double-entendre in a different direction; still likely referencing some top-secret developments that haven’t even been patented yet, but also indicating that Marissa, while flirtatious, does have her limits.
I hope you enjoy! If so, do give us a boost on TWC! It’s greatly appreciated!
— Bob out
———————————————Owl book! Woooo! ————————————->
Oh my god… Just have sex already!
I don’t know if there would be enough friction between the road and the wheels of the car to pull off the acceleration needed to rupture a spleen. Unless of course, the car has something up it’s sleeve that does not rely on the wheels as a motive force….
spleens can be tricky…
Granted. But the average healthy human being can take up to ten gees for short periods of time without trouble, and up to 30 gees for a few moments without sustaining injury. I can’t see any tire maintaining a grip on the road at those kinds of accelerations, regardless of the sciencey voodoo involved. You would need some form of propusion not reliant on friction to facilitate that.
Just a bit of hyperbole to add humor to the pitch, as with the torque reference.
I have some ideas for that actually and they would be perfect for a high electric using car. EM shield on multi frequencys and power levels giving staggered layers of air resistance, so mostly it is air on air except where you want it directed to specific body panels.
Sony has a hover board patent based on EM, without going in to the tech you can reverse the concept in the shield for an emergency ground anchor or constantly but weaker to add ground / tire friction.
Improved tire friction for all performance combined with (potentially) auto adjusting air resistance giving a ridiculous top speed.
An old idea of mine that I will never be able to assemble.
Steel-reinforced vulcanized rubber to an asphalt/concrete surface is not necessarily the best force-tranfer mechanism either. The real question regarding effective torque is ‘how big is your contact patch, and from what is it made?’
Even the Bugatti Veyron has tires only good for a short time at its top speed. Tires are a big issue for any fast car. The tech would be hard enough without the laws / rules that hamstring attempts.
The idea above has less torque required to achieve high speeds due to being able to only give the air resistance required. This means less friction on the tires if going in a straight line although the speed it’s self will have high requirements on the tires. The cornering requirements won’t change though and the initial acceleration will have only a marginal improvement.
So yeah, tires will still be a big issue although not as bad as a standard car.
With manipulating air resistance, this may be able to corner faster than other cars. This will improve track time speeds for example without being able to use the top speed on the short straights.
This will be harder on tires than normal.
I guess just making the thing hover will be best solution although then it won’t be a car.
Possibly a railgun-like coil system along the underside of the car that acts on the rebar, metal pipes, etc in and under urban roads. Pulling itself along with serious authori-TAI. A system like that could potentially allow it to scale building walls too. Wouldn’t work on a dirt road, though. But then again why would you want to go that fast on a soft and bumpy surface?
So . . . .she comes WITH the car?
Ah, now, you’ll notice all she said was “in this vehicle.” not “part of the engine” or “permanently installed.” A little carefully deliberate gandydancing in the verbiage. 😀
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! O.O (lol!)
Good grief, yes and double yes!
Oh, boy.
Let’s turn the tease factor up to 12!
Up to 12? She passed 12 when Max opened his door. 😉
Yes, we get it, you have large breasts. Geez. ಠ_ಠ
No, no. I’m not sure I get it yet. I need more convincing. O.O
Besides the comments regarding the twin airbags one could make, I am actually guessing the two privately held ones are the transporter and the soul storage medium 🙂
Is… is she implying that Cicertech paid for a boob job for her?
Get your mind out of the gutter 🙂
After reading the profiles for each character on the cast page, I can totally see Cicertech paying for Dr. Marissa’s breast enhancement.
I remember in my teens I heard on the radio about an employer who offered one of his employees either a raise, or a breast enhancement.
For the record, they are NOT enhanced.
Well, other than that bodice she’s wearing being designed to push them up and out.
Yes, and science!
There’s no shame in it if they were…
Absolutely agree. My wife’s for instance, are not only awesome, but she was delighted to discover that off-the-rack (ha!) clothes suddenly fit properly. But Marissa wouldn’t be the type to do it just for a guy, nor at an employer’s request. If she ever did (and apparently she doesn’t need to) it would be on her own terms.
Dad was very specific about her being naturally curvy, so despite her being obviously well-endowed, I’m striving for a sense of naturalness as well.
Oh for sure. I could tell by the curve of her breasts that they are quite natural.
And I wasn’t suggesting that Cicertech would ask her to get a boob job. But I can imagine them offering it as a perk, especially if Dr. Emil enjoys large breasts.
whew!
“Also, boobs.”
— Dr. Marissa Catalina, three pages ago.
… sorry.
Dr.Marissa Catalina.Great comic. Reminds me of GURPS: Supers. No living god characters, the point system requires that for all the advantages you buy (Teleportation, doesn’t bleed, effectively limitless budget) you have disadvantages that balance them out. (Only 3 minutes, Secret, Nightmares, PTSD, dependants(make Marissa and Emil hostages, then tell me they’re not dependants)). Makes it feel more ‘real’. Anyone with superman’s powers can go play super hero. But when you’re getting hurt, and risking death, then there is something super going on.
Add to that an amazing blog that is somewhat related to (though more often, I think, inspired by) the comic. How can you go wrong with things like “Skwirl appears to be an excellent language for swearing in”.
Then mix it with burning and blowing stuff up just to film it and use photoshop to blend it in. Very very nice…
Unfortunately I’ve reached that dreadful point of discovering an amazing new comic online: The end of the archives.
Looking forward to more.
Yes! Very glad to have you with us!
As you note, Max doesn’t have “superpowers” strictly speaking, but heck, neither does Batman. We want it that way. We may be delving into the supernatural occasionally, but if you’re teleporting someone’s physical body and leaving their soul behind, it’s definitely something to explore. Stay tuned!
Done with the archbe binge. In my holidays. Instead of going to the beach. On an iPhone. And crappy spanish WiFi.
Totally worth it!
Too bad I reached the ‘end of the line’ (=last post), and now have to wait for the next upload. Darn’…
Like the storyline and the graphics a lot, but even more so the ‘Bobservations’ and the ‘Max’imisations – hilarious!
And – like many others – I found out that I made the wrong choice of job. If I knew some thirty years ago I could make a living out of have setting things on fire and/or blowing them up, a childhood dream would have come true…
Alas – I’ll have to wait for the next installment. And maybe check out some of the other we comics mentioned.
BTW: how much is shipping the comic to Germany?!
Did I mention I type on an iPhone? Have XLarge hands? And HATE autocorrect?
No?
Well, now I did…
Those two assets are privately held….
By the girls, of course!