Grrl Power #1151 - Vanta black-ops (Patreon)

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I actually have no doubt that if you added a bunch of shit to chess, nearly every chess master would have a crying fit about it. At the time I was working on the page I couldn't think of a better way to liken spycraft tactics nerds getting paid to think about superpowers being added to the mix. There has to be a few chess masters who would be interested in extending chess to a reasonable degree... well, maybe not chess masters, but chess pretty-gooders. Most chess masters' entire identities probably revolve around being good at chess and wouldn't want to risk not being able to adapt to new rules. But there have to be people out there that have come up with extended chess rules that involve replacing one of the pawns at random with a Doctor Octopus action figure and he can 8 different directions at once but then he goes to whatever the Marvel equivalent of Arkham Asylum is for the next 12 rounds. Whatever it is, I know it's not called Markham Asylum but I really wish it was.

I'm not quite sure why Max is hefting her drink in that last panel. I think I had the planning scene from Shaun of the Dead in my head when I drew it. Weirdly, while the scene influenced my drawing, it took me a solid 5 minutes to remember where I had seen that. I was like, a guy holds up a drink and winks, and... I think... he does it several times... was it... Simon Pegg? Then it still took me several minutes to recall the movie and scene. The way my brain works is like a hard drive that has a lot of inertia and it takes forever to spin up.

BTW, the panel Max is reporting to there has read all the reports that get sent up the chain, and they academically know that Sydney can go to Fracture Station, but sometimes when you need a tiny bit of gold and your friend is planning to break into Fort Knox, you have to elbow him and hold up a shot of Goldschläger. Of course, getting to the station is just one of several hurdles. A humongous hurdle without Sydney and her orbs, but once you're there, you have to worry about currency, getting mugged by aliens, not betting it all on Flib-Snarb 17, or getting distracted by alien prostitutes/sex-a-roids.