The Master of His Domain announcement and comments

[Adon]

True, but in my own defense as you yourself said, I only have what I have seen to go on. And as a reader, that is ALL I have to go on, so if she's left a bad impression with me, it's because she hasn't done anything that I can see that mitigates that bad impression as yet. That opinion may change later on if she acts on camera as having more to her than playing the vamp, but I only have what is actually in the comic to go by, yeah?

To put it in perspective, I'm aware of some of your frustrations with some of the comics on this site, specifically how the heroic part of the heroines is so heavily underplayed that it undercuts their status as heroines. And that, I think, is a fair assessment. While we're sometimes told that so-and-so is well respected and successful, it is very rarely actually seen. What we see is them walking into traps over and over, being defeated with humiliating ease and enslaved. If/when they do get free, it usually amounts to dumb luck and flukes. So the narrator's assertions aside, all the evidence I actually witness says that these people are woefully incompetent --especially because these things have happened to them before and they have not learned from the experience at all.

Ultimately, what I'm getting at is that it's well and good to say to me here in the forum that Carol isn't as bad as I've been making out, but in the actual comic there hasn't been much displayed to the contrary. I'm definitely a believer in that the main source to go by should always be the actual text, and if the writer (not singling you out, it happens a lot in general) finds that an impression they didn't intend has been made, they need to communicate and correct this in the text itself.

[Tecknophyle]

Not disagreeing with you in the slightest.

The problem comes from balancing what you've thought about a character to what you've shown of the character. To be honest, I hadn't really formulated Carol's character when she first showed up. I didn't really have a sense of her motivations. Now I have a very clearer picture, and that's going to become apparent shortly, which should add some significant depth to someone who has been, thus far, fairly one-dimensional.

In this case, having a couple of weeks of work prepared is actually biting me in the ass. I took your initial comments about Carol and realized that they were correct, and not what I intended, but because of the completed work, I couldn't do anything about it right away. So what you're seeing is a bit of the frustration of someone who knows they've (hopefully) addressed an issue having to deal with the time delay before other people can see it.

[Tony]

Looking forward to the third generation getting "involved"!

[NoneNeeded]

I just wondered why the gangster had to change into a physically attractive woman rather than keep the old appearance but just change the part inside the pants? He could have server his/her master as a cross-dresser.

[Tecknophyle]

I just wondered why the gangster had to change into a physically attractive woman rather than keep the old appearance but just change the part inside the pants? He could have server his/her master as a cross-dresser.

One of the limits of the powers people are possessing is belief: they have to believe their power will work on something for it to happen (along with the other limitations).

For instance, in the case of Rudy, if he's standing on ground he owns but doesn't know he owns it, his power won't work because he has no reason to believe it will. Lorenzo's power only works on women, so from a psychological standpoint, he has to firmly believe his victim is a woman (as well as being biologically female). Having a person, however biologically female, look like a man except for what's in the shorts, isn't going to do it for him. Which leads to the conclusion that a woman sufficiently disguised as a man would be immune to his power as well until the deception was revealed.

Also, Lorenzo is an asshole.

[Tecknophyle]

Carol Carter was well known to be dying with only a few weeks left to live when she found a new lease on life. That could be be bit awkward to explain...

Episode 09 of Master of His Domain now available in the gallery at:

http://www.mccomix.com/gallery2/main.ph ... emId=53841

[kakyo001]

he doesn't care where they dump here... bad wording to someone he's only partly controling (and who's obviously hating him)
all the Alpha's need to do now is to dump here somewhere where his enemies can find her

[Champ]

Geez, this story is so awesome. Waiting each friday is torture but its worth the wait.

[Adon]

Definite character building here. And as promised, Carol, or Carrie, is showing a lot more depth than she has up to now. It doesn't negate what she's been doing, but that's rather the point, isn't it? People can do both good and bad things, for good and bad reasons both, and Carrie's not exceptional there. I do like her insight into Virginia's mindset, that submitting to Rudy = happiness and so why shouldn't she spread that gift? It's also good to know that Carrie and Ginny aren't completely like minded on the hows and why's, and that Ginny has her own issues that could become destructive if she manages to coax Rudy into doing as she wants. While Rudy has power over her, she has a lot of power over him -- he loves and trusts her implicitly, at I don't think he's even contemplated as yet that she hasn't been telling him the truth. Combined with his natural desire to please her she has the ability to make a lot of things happen. My big concern is how Rudy will react when he finally finds out... while it's no guarantee, Ginny can't be perfect in covering her tracks and Rudy isn't stupid by any stretch.

It's also interesting to see Lorenzo showing his petty side. Not to say that he hasn't consistently been a complete asshole -- he has -- but how different his tune is when he loses his composure. It does sort of fit... he's become used to having everything go his way and really doesn't like it when a spanner gets in the works. He also is very sloppy when he's angry. Not just about the vaguely worded command he gave as somebody mentioned earlier, but at any point he could easily have used his abilities to confirm the story. He didn't because he wanted to make the agent suffer, and it didn't seem to occur to him. It also gives me the impression that he fancies himself a lot smarter than he thinks he is. Not to say he isn't smart, but when everything routinely goes your way because you have a supreme ace up your sleeve, it's easy to get overconfident. That's good -- the villain (or at least one of the villains) is shown to be very dangerous, but not invincible. It's well and good for characters to have flaws, but it's important that those flaws actually have an impact on their actions. Rudy is trigger-shy and trusting of those close to him. Ginny sees no problem with increasing Rudy's circle of control as much as she can. Both Ginny and Carrie have no problem working behind Rudy's back for what they see as his best interests. Lorenzo is a misogynist control freak who throws a temper tantrum when denied. Dennings, from what I've seen, is smart, but arrogant and dismissive. All faults that do come into play.

Good stuff.

[NoneNeeded]

I just wondered why the gangster had to change into a physically attractive woman rather than keep the old appearance but just change the part inside the pants? He could have server his/her master as a cross-dresser.

One of the limits of the powers people are possessing is belief: they have to believe their power will work on something for it to happen (along with the other limitations).

For instance, in the case of Rudy, if he's standing on ground he owns but doesn't know he owns it, his power won't work because he has no reason to believe it will. Lorenzo's power only works on women, so from a psychological standpoint, he has to firmly believe his victim is a woman (as well as being biologically female). Having a person, however biologically female, look like a man except for what's in the shorts, isn't going to do it for him. Which leads to the conclusion that a woman sufficiently disguised as a man would be immune to his power as well until the deception was revealed.

Also, Lorenzo is an asshole.

Umm... OK? Sounds to me like he just didn't think of it. Just as well. It would make it even harder to catch on to what he was up to.

Body changing, neurotoxins fingernails, Sounds like someone read some Jack Chalker when he was younger. With that to draw on, Rudy could have some REAL interesting adventures. So we have seen Soul Rider(much like his power) and Well of Souls. What else does Rudy remember?

[Tecknophyle]

Lorenzo isn't playing nice any more and his rampage has tragic consequences, while Rudy, Ginny, and Carrie come across one of his earlier victims. And an innocent slip has immense ramifications.

Episode 10 of Master of His Domain is now available at http://www.mccomix.com/gallery2/main.ph ... emId=54626

For the information of readers (and I thank you all for doing so), the next few updates will be fairly large: Episode 10 clocks in at 48 pages (not counting the cover) and Episode 11 is looking to be even longer. Due to a situation which will be announced shortly, I'm pushing to finish this arc by the end of September which has resulted in the number of episodes reduced from my original plan, and therefore each being larger as a consequence.

Once again, I thank the readers, and especially those who have commented, on my little project (which somehow expanded when I wasn't looking).

[MacroLass]

.
That...was quite the shocker. M. Night Shamalan would be proud. ("What a tweest!")

I'm interested in seeing how it goes from here.

[Adon]

Seeing all the threads come together. I'm enjoying the craftsmanship here... there's very little throw-away fluff, and even that fluff serves a purpose. The main thing for me though is that it makes sense. Not so much that everyone is logical, that isn't the case of course. But things a person did are followed up. The Alphas are indeed finding loopholes in their instructions. Lorenzo's carelessness has come back to haunt him (not that he knows it yet). What especially hit me, minor I know, is that Rudy did catch the slip Ginny made. In a lot of comics, both here and elsewhere, that slip would have been missed or forgotten. Which would require Rudy to be uncharacteristically stupid... to use another trope because my life is destroyed, he'd have to hold on to the Idiot Ball, also known as plot-induced stupidity. But we've already seen that Rudy isn't stupid, he's got a definite knack for seeing far-reaching consequences, and so the person (?) who tweaked Ginny's mind is revealed. Knowing Rudy, he'll definitely have a lot of means/ends issues when this is explained to him, and I'm curious if he will be convinced that it's all necessary. And even if he isn't, he may have to 'get with the program' anyway because this alien(?) has a clear agenda and it doesn't look like she's willing to take no for an answer.

[Champ]

The plot gets thicker and we get closer to the show down.

[Ghosthand]

To be honet at the start this comic didn't really appeal to my tastes. rudy isn't the typical evil mind/body controller I enjoy. But after a few chapters it has really grew on me, primarily because Rudy isn't the normal evil mind/body controller I usually enjoy He is a bit of a drama queen but it kinda fits him. I also am falling in love with the Carol/Carrie character, she is just a awesome character, and very hot to boot! Lorenzo is the perfect bad guy that you just love to hate, i don't even like his name!! Very nice work on his character.

As for the rest of the cast they are adding to the story perfectly, none of them seem to just be something thrown in to fill the part. The whole story seems to be shaping up nicely.

Also, two thumbs up for getting Bruce Willis to play the part of Dennings. I don't know how you pulled that off but he's one of my all time favorite actors