The Powernaut
Powernaut: Home 1941 1944 1948 1954 1955 1962 1966 2005 (with Stories) 2009 (with Stories) 2011 (with Stories) .
Powernaut 2005: 1 2 3 4 5 6 .
The Rest of the World: Home Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 The Maker .

POWERNAUT 2005!

Episode 2

PARTY 'TIL THE WORLD OBEYS!

Greeting

Hello, my Power Patrol! Welcome to more of my 2005 adventures - me vs. the modern age! I've got lots of details at my old web log of the Power Patrol! (ref: http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/fergletter_may.htm) I can't explain all the stuff that went on back then, because it was full of reality shifts! But this story starts in the middle of that log. Keep reading, and you'll figure it out!

Other people have been writing about this stuff - so I have guest commentary! Enjoy!

(signed) The Powernaut!

Hi, everyone! I'm Vince Cortez. I referred to the previous Powernauts in my own web log, which I named after them. (ref: Powernaut the Web Log) I am so excited that there's a new Powernaut now. I felt so honored when his publishers asked me to *appear* in the first episodes of his 2005 comic strip. Now I'm glad to give commentary.

I work with the FERG, the Freedom Engineering Research Group. We've been involved in some national crises, for instance the Reduction of Nappanee this May. We published an account of that crisis, with a summary of superhuman affairs. (ref: http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/fergletter_may.htm) We've kept track since then, so we can give world updates up to August.

Karl Scribner worked with us back in May. Now he works with the Powernaut. He'd lost track of me for a while, while I took a leave of absence. But I'm back, and I'm honored to collaborate with Karl again.

Search the Powernaut Archives!

Yeah, The Cool Stuff is Flashbacks

Bonus Section: Commentary from Vince Cortez! What's Been Happening?

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/ .

The previous Powernaut 2005 strip mentioned how the Space Jellyfish had taken over Earth. This happened during a severe and ongoing reality shift. (ref: humans.htm) Before the shift, in the United States we had Ms. President Rodham. Now, we have Mr. President Bush Jr.

The Jellyfish seem to be benign. Apparently they've dealt with reality shifts before. They're not part of an alien invasion; it's just a few of them on our planet.

As for the superhumans, Karl put it best: "Brawny heroes and buxom heroines are probably fighting to reverse this 20-year-record-size reality shift." The Powernaut has his own records of this stuff, alongside legendary extra-universal characters such as Superman and Thanos. The rest of us *don't* have those records. So the people who publish the Powernaut's comic strip have skipped those accounts, and I don't blame them.

The current strip mentions the Powernaut's recent trip to Chicago. (ref: powerpatrol1.htm) An infestation of stone men arose then, throughout the metro area. He actually saved the Hurrier from them, at a theater on the outskirts. No one is quite sure where the stone men came from yet; they could just be a side effect of the reality shift. They look like the 1990s mercenary Rock Pile Jim, who was a human transformed into a rock-like body.

I'm familiar with the ghost research the Powernaut mentioned. Private enterprise started it, the Government tried to acquire it, and I helped disrupt it. (ref: fergletter_may.htm) Now they're rebuilding. They say they need to monitor the feelings of dead people after terror attacks such as the Reduction of Nappanee. Uh, fine, but we'll need to stop them capturing people like they captured my friend's brother.

The Powernaut reported the American debut of a German adventurer named the Hurrier. Wyatt Ferguson has revealed, the Hurrier publishes his diaries. (ref: pentahedron.htm#hurrier) Perhaps the Hurrier will make himself more known worldwide in future.

Finally Action... Where's My Tie?

Powernaut... No, Karl!

Bonus Section: Commentary from Vince Cortez! Karl and Steffi and Hypergaard

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/ .

Hypergaard's a mystery to me. But someone purporting to be Wyatt Ferguson wrote of extradimensional superhumans earlier this year. (ref: pentahedron.htm) Perhaps there's a relationship.

In any case, Karl Scribner and Steffi Brock seem to have their own relationship with Hypergaard, going back to 1969. They're both barely old enough for that, though they would have been children then. There's definitely a story to tell there.

Don't You Want the Powernaut?

Bonus Section: Commentary from Vince Cortez! The Test

On the surface, this looks like a very silly test. I looked online and couldn't find any test givers who would admit to asking questions like those. The online sources said they take their questions and even testing environments seriously, to reduce test anxiety. But it seems to me this test might have been designed to gauge performance when anxious. Since it's an online test, they can measure how long it takes to answer each question too.

I noticed all the questions seemed to measure tolerance of villainy. Karl's no villain, but he still passed. He once told me he wouldn't shoot Hitler, he'd find him a nice Jewish girlfriend. Yep, that's Karl.

Powernaut, Where Are You?

Bonus Section: Commentary from Vince Cortez! The Conclave

The conclave was private, but we found its records later. Among the attendees:

  • Russell Anvernacht, mayor of Maquoketa-Iowa, USA.
  • Philippe St. Joseph Lateran, Quebecois exorcist and activist.
  • Rod Blagoyevich, governor of Illinois, USA.
  • Viktor Antonenko, Russian capitalist.
  • Symmetria San Giacomo, Italian heiress and activist.
  • Osama bin Laden, Arabian heir and activist.

Kind of Busy, Boss

The Power Patrol Takes Over

Pay Up!

Not With Those!

Bonus Section: Commentary from Vince Cortez! The Cleanup

All the links here can be found under http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/ .

One may wonder what the governmental response would be in a world where people really can move hurricanes around by wishing. I can say, they take it seriously. But this isn't quite the government we're most familiar with... This series has already mentioned, the world was ruled by the Space Jellyfish. If you look closely, you can see they were on the Powernaut's side in this confrontation. I don't know exactly what they did with the villains, but there was no trace of them until... well, you'll have to read more Powernaut stories to find what happens later.

Speaking of more Powernaut stories... We haven't yet heard from everyone who was involved in this incident or in hurricane relief efforts. I'm sure there will be more stories from many people. But the Powernaut has already published his own notes. (powerpatrol2.htm) If you prefer your Powernaut adventures as comic strips, Karl's told me the next modern-era episode will come online early next year.


Author's Notes:

Comic book publishers give away free printed comic books once a year, in May. Not free web comics; just printed ones. I always give away free web comics, but once a year I give free printed ones too. The first Free Powernaut Comic Day was in May 2013. It featured the four strips of Powernaut 2005 - which promised this sequel. As a result, hundreds of people could well be expecting the Party 'til the World Obeys. The series has been plotted for about a year now. The time has come to publish!

We join this story already in progress! The Powernaut was inserted into an existing plot line in 2005, and I've chosen not to slog through the whole thing. I've tried to have the in-story characters provide commentary to explain what I've skipped.

The more I write commentary, the more I reaiize: This is a Big Story. This is where I start to explain everything I've ever written, for the benefit of a new audience. I hope the commentary will keep up. But I'll have some Author's Notes too.

First thing to note... The Powernaut had taken over my plotline then. The Hurrier would take it over three years later. Power Patrol #1 was the first recorded appearance of *both* of them. How they met is a moment for the history books, so it has been preserved and commented. And it says a lot about them.

The guests at the Party 'Til The World Obeys deserve some mention in a way the 2005 commentator may not be able to provide... Wyatt Ferguson met a council of villains in 2007, whose membership closely resembles the people on panel. (The Siege of Raleigh) Eric X from the 2011 series is leading the conclave. Russell Anvernacht and Philippe St. Joseph Lateran (characters both longstanding and future) are prominent. Osama bin Laden's in the audience too; I actually used the cover art from my 2007 story for artistic reference.

The hurricane deserves similar mention... In the "real" world, Hurricane Katrina went from Category 5 to Category 3 before landfall. To my knowledge, no one's taken credit for that. But it's the kind of thing the Powernaut would do. It undoubtedly helped that he was on site, with a reality control device, plus lots of moral support from the Power Patrol. But he gave credit to you and me in the original Power Patrol story, because we believed.

Powernaut comics are optimized for download speed, not for art quality; it takes at least eight Powernaut strips to fill as much bandwidth as one comic from other people. But I'm trying out some new artistic tricks to increase my pixel budget, particularly where reality storms and Pentahedrons are involved. I'm also compressing the artwork more than ever before (indexed instead of RGB mode), which reduces my pixel budget. Hopefully these two trends will keep each other from extremes. And if the art with Hypergaardians in it makes the other stuff look flat, that's really not a bad thing. The visitors themselves look as flat as everyone else (so far), because they're trying to fit in. But space tends to bend around them.

One thing I've found in this series is, the Powernaut really is the only inspirational hero of his Earth. Even the extradimensional visitors are deferring to him. There's probably a story about why they do that. But it's already been well demonstrated, the Powernaut is the world's only Superman-style hero. Everyone else may have powers, but that's part of how they work for a living. The Powernaut does it for the joy of it, and he usually lets it show.

Something weird happened while I was checking my web site for Powernaut traffic... The Web-reading public noticed some backstory I'd forgotten!

  • According to the World Journal Monthly in 2006, the Hypergaardians and the Powernaut got a vigilante named Mister Discipline plus Ultimate Low C, the avatar of Cold, to help cool down the hurricane! (2006/journal_c.htm) For the record, Hypergaard still did this, only off-panel without the Powernaut's knowledge. As you can see, the Powernaut and his assistant were both busy...
  • The Powernaut's cartoon page is decreasing in traffic, but the old World Journal Monthly story of the Powernaut vs. Super-Hurricane Katrina is currently the most popular single web page inside Eilertech.com! Apparently some untraceable but mighty force is making people search for Hurricane Katrina *and* the Powernaut! I simply have to get them to the *current* plot line somehow. So I've refitted the old story with a Party 'til the World Obeys link.

The end of this series will have the 98th Powernaut comic. Looks like #100 will be 1966 #2, probably sometime in October. In related news, the Powernaut's old rival the Domination of Eiler is probably launching its Second Continental Offensive that month. Boy, life is going to be interesting.

I write this postlude on the eighth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall. Perhaps it is tasteless for me to write a comic strip about it - but even at the time, that hurricane was a guest star in a Powernaut story. I think this episode shows the Powernaut's unique attitude toward it and all life's crises: smile and start rebuilding.

(signed) Scott Eiler, 29 August 2013.


Powernaut: Home 1941 1944 1948 1954 1955 1962 1966 2005 (with Stories) 2009 (with Stories) 2011 (with Stories) .
Powernaut 2005: 1 2 3 4 5 6 .
The Rest of the World: Home Startup Escalation 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 The Maker .

All artwork and characters in this fiction are copyright © 2013 by Eiler Technical Enterprises.