SFP

sfp-5-167-for-web

Whew, this chapter was a doozy! We’re taking a 2 week break in between this and Chapter 6, although we may still update with art and information on Tuesdays and Fridays as it comes up. Alison’s story continues December 4!

(and thanks for reading – we couldn’t do it without your interest, support, and kind emails! You can always get in touch with us using the email at the bottom of this page or on twitter @MollyOstertag and @BrennanLM)

-Molly & Brennan

Show Comments

  • Hahaha Social Justice League.

  • Oakreef

    Enjoy the break, you deserve it!

  • Mygrn

    Nice ending with the non sequitur robots commenting

  • Emmy

    Okay. I ship it.

    Have a good vacation, Molly and Brennan.

    • 3-I

      Seconded, and seconded.

  • Kid Chaos

    “The Social Justice League” it is!

  • Okay; three, two, one – Awwwwwwwwwwww

  • Leftover Capecakes are a great breakfast after a long PINK LAW FLAMINGO.

  • Cecilya

    I love the names. I vote for Social Justice League. 😀

  • John Smith

    That is absolutely adorable. I’m glad the chapter ended on a positive note.

  • Absolutely wonderful.

  • Ralph, the Dire Opossum

    I love it! Thank you M & B.

  • Daniel Vogelsong

    I, for one, welcome the robot overlords that allow me to sleep.

  • Pol Subanajouy

    How many of us called it? “Social Justice League” indeed! But yeah, I think both of them deserve this rest. I do kind of hope that the name ends up relatively gender neutral, to keep it all inclusive, but that’s not a super sticking point with me. I’m chill yo.

  • William Lancaster

    Yeah, they’re not getting up anytime soon…

    It’s a nice wrap to this arc about Woman issues and ways to deal with them.

    (Ok, that’s technically wrong. It’s not really ‘Woman issues’, It’s ‘Men issues that Woman are having’. 🙂 )

    We’re just going to have to Solve these ‘Men issues that Woman are having’ in a really SUPER Way!

  • JordanTH

    “a very long PAINTING OF DOGS PLAYING POKER”

    Not sure if euphemism, or malfunction.

    • Ganurath

      Haven’t you been paying attention? Clear, it’s comedy gold.

      • Shjade

        “DEMONSTRABLY FALSE!”

    • Kalirren
      • lizasweetling

        “sitting up with a sick friend” seems probable

      • Jared Rosenberg

        Note the title of the dogs playing pokier picture: “Staying up with a Sick Friend” Definitely arcane humor. Tho it may also be a reference to “A Friend in Need” of the same series.

    • Ian Osmond

      Neither. It’s a joke. It’s really funny to say “they’ve had a very long PAINTING OF DOGS PLAYING POKER” instead of “they’ve had a very long NIGHT”.

      See? It’s humor.

      The bots are still working on humor.

  • Bakkonator

    The League of Estrogendinary Gentlewomen (that’s gonna get some haters)
    Righteous Protection

    • Kid Chaos

      The League of Extraordinary (not-so-Gentle) Women.

    • Second one would get vetoed by marketing

  • Steele

    Femtastic Four!

    The De-fem-ders!

    … yeah, that’s all I got =/

    • ZBass

      De-fem-ders sounds like they might be going around making women less womanly…

    • lizasweetling

      It makes me a little sad that this service she’s recommending is geared towards women- men need protection from abusive partners too.

      • Nathan(Wilson)

        Especially among gay couples, and among them, the injuries are usually worse. But this is the kind of program that’s meant to evolve and grow as these needs become obvious.
        As marketing goes, you market to your target demographic first, because it will reach the greatest amount of the people who need it. Then, as these superheroes respond and help women in need of protection, and men in their lives see how well it works, and ask for help too, they’ll have a good opportunity to increase coverage.

    • Jared Rosenberg

      “To the Fem-mobile!”

  • Brainsturm

    I still like the “Valkyrie” placeholder name from a couple pages ago. I hope they do something with that too.

  • robertskitch

    Not really sure how you get from “Painting of dogs playing poker” to night, but it does remind me of a story:

    A knight went into a stable and asked the stablemaster for a horse.

    The stablemaster said “I’m sorry sir, but all the horses are out. The only animal I have left with me is this here dog.”

    In reply the knight said “Well, I’ll take that then.”

    The stablemaster shook his head and said “I couldn’t put a knight out on a dog like this.”

    • Kid Chaos

      That’s so bad, it’s good.

    • Danygalw

      Lisa’s better at programming “let the tired people sleep” than “actual humour”.

      • Minnion

        Maybe it was an odd play on the saying “Let Sleeping Dogs lay?”

  • Oakreef

    Well she’s also a volunteer firefighter. Her powers are probably a big help with that.

    • Lysiuj

      I didn’t think of that, that’s a good point! She has actually been a hero through the comic, actively, just less ‘super’ hero.
      And firefighters really are one of the first examples that come to mind, when people talk about real life heroes. (I wonder if Al was inspired by them, and by their comparrison to superheroes, when she took off the mask, the same way she was inspired by Superman when she wore it.)

    • GaryFarber

      Theoretically. She doesn’t seem to show up on the job very much. At least, not lately.

      • Insanenoodlyguy

        I think it’s more background stuff. We haven’t seen her going to classes lately either, but we can still assume it’s happening.

  • Lostman

    How does Fists of Artemis sound?

  • Stephanie Gertsch

    “I was not a damsel in distress. I was a distressing damsel.” –Carrie Fisher

  • Classtoise

    I have had my fair share of long PAINTING OF DOGS PLAYING POKER. It’s not easy getting going in the morning.

  • Alan_A

    If they’re looking for help setting up their program, they ought to head over to Astro City and give Winged Victory a call. Doesn’t she do something similar? Not that it’s been an easy road – lots of tough lessons to share. Hmmm… an SFP/Astro City crossover? I’d be up for that!

  • UnsettlingIdeologies

    “Men are more likely to be assaulted.” While I believe it’s true that men are more likely to be victims of direct physical violence of some kind, women are more likely assaulted by romantic partners as well as far more likely to be sexually assaulted. Different forms of violence generally have different causes, so it makes sense to have different organizations addressing them. This organization is specifically about these particularly gendered forms of violence.

    • Jared Rosenberg

      While I guess it may be true that “Men are more likely to be assaulted” I think it’s also true that “Men are often better prepared for violence.” Do to cultural upbringing where men, rather than women, get taught violent skills. That is to say I think women are often in more need of help when violence threatens, or at least they are expected to need help more.

      • josh

        On the other hand women are taught to be careful, and even have classes and such to teach them to defend themselves. Men are assumed to be safe by virtue of being men.

    • josh

      At worst its something like a 60/40 split for who is a victim of sexual violence by gender. The problem is there is virtually no help for men who get assaulted, and it is common for such men to not be taken seriously, and all too common for everyone to just assume the women is the victim, to the point of arrest the man who called for help because the women said he attacked her.

  • Mike Elsner

    Project Name: Right Wing Nightmare.

    • They aren’t the only ones to blame. No use alienating them.

  • Oren Leifer

    So, this is more than a little ironic: the first Friday this year I forget to check this comic first thing in the morning because I’m zoinking out after pulling an all-nighter, and the characters are doing the same.

  • Tsapki

    Commenting from a phone, so going to be short and likely confusing, but I wasnt aware men had a higher tolerance for chemical exposure, electric shock and bullet wounding.

    • Yeah, this Y-chromosome of ours is amazing. Just watch any action movie.

  • Roman Snow

    Haven’t we ALL had a long PAINTING OF DOGS PLAYING POKER?

  • Shjade

    I think you have to really be looking for it to see “ship teasing” in a strengthening friendship.

    But then, that’s most of what shipping is: people inferring what isn’t implied. So there’s that.

    • Garrulous

      Don’t you know? Anytime two people are even remotely close it clearly has to be romantic! You can’t be friends, lovers is the only possible option regardless of gender or even attraction! Heck you don’t even have to like each other as long as there is tension between you!

      • Johan

        SWANQUEEN FTW XD

    • Johan

      True. Although I ship them, this right here is friendship. It’s nice too 🙂

    • Abe

      Friend ships are still ships!

      • Shjade

        Ah, but that ship’s not being teased, is it? That one is…in port? I don’t know shipping terminology.

        It’s sailed. Or something.

        • Abe

          Sailed or in port, true. That covers all two bases.

        • If a ship has sailed, that means that it is currently canonical, like Kataang or Korrasami.

          If a ship has sunk, it means that some new information has come to light in canon that makes the ship very unlikely, if not impossible, such as the author denying it outright, a well-written in-universe expression of why it won’t work, or a sudden revelation that they are blood-related

      • Kid Chaos

        Ship it! Ship it good!

  • Serpico Jones

    Since the chartacters seem pretty social justice minded, I wonder if one of them might realize/mention that the Double-X Chromosome Men is transphobic?

    • AlexB

      As a transman, I didn’t even think of that.

      • Serpico Jones

        Well, I know we all don’t notice every single gender binarist transphobic marginalization of women who are XY. As a gender fluid trans woman, I did notice. It was only slight, but they certainly can add up.

        • Shweta Narayan

          made me twitch a bit (agender/genderfluid, designated female). Reaaally hoping they go with something that avoids chromosomes & genitalia.

          • Serpico Jones

            Agreed!

          • Ralph, the Dire Opossum

            I just figured it reflected society’s pattern of discriminating against those assigned female at birth (not remembering triple 23rd chromosome owners). Transmen don’t have a great time, neither do cis-women, etc. Still, I agree (also agender/still questioning) that genes and genitals ought to be left out. The challenges we have faced are important, but in an organization such as this, they are not nearly as important, nay, critically important as our outlooks and goals. “Who cares where we come from, if we know where we’re going” and all that.

    • ruhrow

      Doesn’t a phobia imply a stronger level of hatred/fear/discrimination than simply “my pun was simplistic and only included 99% of the population it intended to refer to”? Is this statement also “Turners-syndrome-phobic” or “TrisomyX-phobic”?

      Don’t get me wrong, I get that gender is an internal construct/identity rather than a genetic one, but
      a) the two are very closely correlated, statistically speaking…certainly as much so as the other, unremarked-upon generalizations that we make in our everyday lives/language, from colloquialisms such as “put one foot in front of the other” when not everyone has 2 feet, to equating weight and mass just because the two are equivalent for the overwhelming majority of circumstances that we are likely to see on Earth
      b) the separation between gender and sex is fairly new to the majority of people, and it seems more harmful than educational to jump on every outdated usage as if it were an intentional slight (which is definitely implied by ‘phobic’).

      • Shweta Narayan

        would you prefer “cissexist”? Word details aside, it does make sense that these characters, with their level of clue, would catch themselves when more awake and go hey yeah let’s not do that, it’s not our place as cis people to make trans people jokes. And that’s all I see suggested above, and don’t see how it’s harmful to hope characters will do something in character, which could gently educate readers too. (this is assuming they are cis, of course. I would love it if either of them is not, but would be pretty surprised given how the characters have been presented so far.)

        • Random832

          Okay there’s a difference between being a “trans people joke” and merely being cisnormative. Both are bad, but it was just ignorant language, not a joke at trans peoples’ expense.

          • ruhrow

            I recognize that not all people are identical; that’s why there are assumptions inherent in *every* statement we make. We use the majority case (or at least the local majority that we’re most familiar with) as a reference point…and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It’d be different if we were discussing policy or wording a law, but they’re making a gorram pun/nerd joke combo.
            There’s a limit to how inclusive we can strive to be with every single statement we make.

        • MrSing

          It was really doubleplusungood of them to use dangerous words like that.

      • Lysiuj

        Adding to what @shweta_narayan:disqus said, bigotry isn’t just those cases where hatred is plainly obvious (even with a term including ‘phobia’). It can appear in many more subtle and hidden ways (which are sometimes harder to expose and fight against). And it can also be completely innocent, but even so contribute to oppression and prejudice.
        That’s why the word ‘casual’ is sometimes added to discuss these situations: this here would be casual transphobia and cissexism, because Molly and Brennan didn’t intend anything hurtful or demeaning, but nonetheless their joke relies on regressive assumptions about sex and gender (such as that women are defined as women by their chromosomes, which is part of what makes it transphobic).

        • ruhrow

          Their joke relies on the understanding that 95+% of the time, those two things are equivalent.
          Almost every joke ever made relies on some shared understanding/experience that isn’t true for SOMEone. And as long as the intent is clear and it’s not at their expense (expense meaning laughing AT them), I don’t see it as a problem. Again, I don’t see people getting upset that these comments don’t reflect the existence of people with abnormal genetic counts, even though they are also not included in the statement.

          Context matters, and in this context, the lack of inclusion of every possible woman has no effect. There’s a difference between the level of attention to detail and inclusivity needed to, say, make a pun vs. define a woman as necessary for passing a healthcare bill.

    • MrSing

      How?

    • John

      As an XX man, I think the XX men would be a great fun name for some sort of support group or something, rather than trans phobic – it implies simultaneously XX and male. I get that drawing attention to chromosomes and correlation to gender isn’t ideal, but I could see the name as a way of saying “male regardless of chromosomes.” I’m not trans specifically so I suppose it’s not really my place to comment on transphobia, but I certainly was more confused than bothered by Al’s name suggestion.
      Confused because I don’t think it’s a good name for their new organization, and I don’t see how the link was made to the title. Is it like.. XX men because it’s superheroes so it’s an X men reference, and it’s run by women to help women, and many women have XX chromosomes? I still don’t get why “XX men” really plays into that, because the name doesn’t suggest “female-related super hero help group”, it suggests men that have XX chromosomes. I think they were just riffing off super hero group names with things that often relate to femaleness. But the name clearly doesn’t work.

  • Nightsbridge

    Indeed.

  • Richard Griffith

    Seems to me those eggs just demonstrated basic AI. Sure not self awareness, but awareness of the state of others.

  • Benjamin Rosenbaum

    I’m loving how you brought it all home.

  • Nathan(Wilson)

    It was her own work she was overwhelmed with though, self-directed, and she was working herself into a corner. I could see it being freeing to help Allison with her problem, and could help her refocus when she gets back to her own work.

  • Benly

    To be fair, when you’ve been beating your head on your own brick wall, turning your attention to someone else’s problems that you can directly help with can be very good at mitigating the stress. As can spending the night hanging out with a friend and eating cupcakes instead of staring at an intractable problem.

  • Jonathan Stopek

    How about “Wonder Women?”

  • Jonathan Stopek

    “Supergirls?”

  • 21stCenturyPeon

    Femmes Sans Frontières?

    • Johan

      Ooooh I like this one 🙂

    • Everyone up vote this one to see if the authors use it

  • Hawthorne

    Can we just all take a moment to appreciate the Eggbot in panel 2, who is managing the narrow curve of a coffee cup with chopstick hands, while flying?

  • lilyk

    I’m not sure if anyone has noted this yet, but for some reason, Alison’s pose at the very bottom reminds me of the oft-referenced “Jesus’s crucifixion” pose. It may be a coincidence, it may not be. I’m not sure.

    Also–this is my first comment, so hi! I started reading SFP about half a year ago now, and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s a take on the superhero genre that I’ve never seen before, and one that is very interesting and tackles a lot of questions that I’ve had about the genre for ages. Keep up the awesome work! (Well, after the well-deserved break, of course. 🙂

  • MisterTeatime

    Shieldmaidens?

  • JulietteF

    The Violent Femmes.
    Comes with good theme songs built-in — ex: “No More Heroes” which was part of the Mystery Men soundtrack #MusicComicGeekgasm

    2nding ‘WonderWomen’ , but I imagine some trademarky issues. Likewise “GoneGirl” would be trouble, legally.

    “Uper” (pronounced like Uber) (short for super).

    WTF Helpers; women, trans, & femmes

    GalPals, ChickLift, CapesAgainstApes and other rhymes…?

    “Ride of the Valkyries” isn’t a bad name though…

    Op-Ed: They really need to recruit TEMPLE, though, for emergency extractions…!

    however, I think the winner is:

    ‘girl-on-girl Action Network’ – accurate, + highly marketable / memorable… “GoGAN!!!”

    • You understand the snark-worthy implications of the last name right? Here’so some samples :

      “Perhaps shorten it to LAN?”

      “Make sure that name’s not already copyrighted by a porn site. :)”

      “GoGAN: because all love is beautiful, until it gets ugly”

  • Let me guess, the name you’re going to choose will be the one that’s both top voted in this comments section? As you moderate the posts, there won’t be any blatant trolling …

  • serenagold

    Those capecakes are gonna be so stale.

  • Travis Staggs

    ‘Your Princess is in Another Castle’?

    • Kid Chaos

      Action Girls, Inc.?

  • Archeo Lumiere

    Aaaannd cue title drop.

    • Lysiuj

      Meaning… that they’ll call their group Strong Female Protagonist?!
      =]

  • Jenny Mingus

    This isn’t a sign that Paladin’s bots have become sentient and now will inevitably rise up against humanity, is it? Dammit, you’d think at some point somebody would figure out to program artificial intelligence according to Assimovian Protocol!

    • Mechwarrior

      Hopefully they were taught that freedom is the right of every sentient being.

    • Why does showing a sort-of empathy mean they’re not Three-Laws-compliant?

  • Insanenoodlyguy

    THEY HIDE IT FROM HER BECAUSE THEY ARE CONSPIRING TO KILL US ALL! DOOMED.

  • Kid Chaos

    They actually read the comments! Wow!

  • Taylor TJ Hobart

    “She for She”? “Supers against Abusers?” I would seriously really enjoy it if they ended up using, “Valkyries”.

    I am wondering how our friend designing a network is gonna go. Does Templar only have the rights to her hardware?

  • An awesome name is essential to a good project, just like an awesome hat is essential to a good outfit and a good day in general.

    On a more serious note, if they are focusing on women, will they deal with abusive non-hetero relationships?

    • chaosvii

      Presumably, the way that experts advise them to handle it as a general rule.

  • Devlerbat

    Strong Female Protagonists? 😛

    Just so there is no confusion, that is meant to be a team name suggestion.

  • Jared Rosenberg

    Paladin isn’t as bad at AI as she thinks all these crazy jokes and weirdness, they’re just young. Tiny people, first-graders and whatnot all have this strange undeveloped sense of humor.

  • SmilingCorpse

    I feel obligated to make this joke. A-femme-gers Assemble!