Grrl Power #1340 - The Zambia Reversal

Thank you for the support! You guys are awesome!

Hah! Deus has a history with air quotes. I forgot about that but someone linked that page in the comments for the previous comic.

Deus has been working for at least a decade in preparation for his takeover bid. He's been quietly improving the GDP and quality of life in Galytn proper for a decade, but he knew his push through Mozambique would tumble their military and allow him to step in. The fact is that a lot of the nations in Africa  just don't have the resources to handle a determined and funded enemy. Their best defense, it's sad to say, is that no one really wants what they have, at least not when they can strike wildly lopsided resource rights business deals. When I wrote the pages where Deus pushed into Mozambique, I looked up what their military was like, and their air force did only consist of roughly 15 aircraft, including a training helicopter and several jets which were thought to be out of commission due to maintenance issues. But the fact is that if your neighbor only has 5 soldiers, you can probably defend yourself with 4. There's always a chance they'll roll really good, (It's been about 25 years since I played a game of RISK, so I don't remember how it works, but you get my point.) but it's probably not worth the risk to them when their neighbor has 6 troops. 

Taking Mozambique, Zambia and the DRC just barely cuts Africa in two, though these days, so much trade is handled by sea it probably won't put him in a decisive strategic position, but if I was Angola, Namibia and Botswana, I'd be getting nervous. South Africa is probably safe for a little while longer, as their GDP puts them in the top 50, and is the biggest in Africa. That surprised me. I would have guessed Egypt, but they are the second largest in Africa. Well, I would have guessed either Egypt or some country that you've definitely heard of before but couldn't point to on a map, like Sierra Leone, because it turns out they're the world supplier of some niche product like Nilla Wafers or something. Anyway, it seems like a big part of Deus's strategy is absorbing poor and corrupt nations that wealthy countries just don't care about. So South Africa is probably okay for now.

Unfortunately for Deus, we all know his plans are doomed to failure, because he didn't start his conquest with Madagascar. You guys remember that game?

Whenever I use google maps and zoom way out to go on a tour of, well, usually Africa as I plan Deus's strategy, I get distracted by little speck islands out in the middle of nowhere. And then I get frustrated because more often than not, there's no street view. I want to look around a place that has 20 houses and 4 boat docks and a strip of land that's technically an airfield and that's it. The fact that street view isn't available for massive swathes of Africa, the middle-east, and Russia doesn't bother me nearly as much for some reason.

BTW: Sciona should still be standing there just to Maxima's right, but I'm remembering this as I'm writing the post and I had insomnia last night and got 2 hours of sleep, so... I guess in that second to last panel where she should be seen standing there, I guess she's, uh, tying her shoe? Or re-strapping her strappy heels? Whatever. I'm very tired.

So the move back to Dallas takes place this Friday, and I'm very stressed and ready for this all to be over. Of course, once I get up to Dallas, I have to unload all this crap and find a place for it. Honestly a lot of my parent's stuff will probably remain in boxes for a while. You know how it is when you move. I've been packing their house on and off for two months, and I feel like I'm so close to being done. I went out and got ten more boxes the other day, not banker's boxes, but the Wal-mart "medium" sized box which is like 40% bigger, thinking that 10 boxes was overkill, and went to work on the master closet. Hah hah I'm stupid. Filled them all up and haven't even touched the hanging clothes. Hats, purses, king-sized sheets, towels, folded sweaters on shelves. This is after we donated all of my dad's clothes too. God, he had so many blazers. BTW, "blazer" is way too cool of a word (in an 80's kind of way) for a suit jacket.

All of this is to say that if the comic two pages from now is stick figures, this is why. The comic won't immediately jump back to the fully shaded version I prefer to do right after that. I might try for a bit more of a cell-shaded look, but eventually I won't be able to stop myself from adding in a soft edge here and there, then some bounce lighting, and then we're back to full renders, but this weekend is the turning point.