a) You’re right, of course. What’s more, that’s indeed the way T writes his characters.
b) Shanna is disdainful of geeky entertainment in general. That includes zombies.
c) That said, I don’t think games and film are much alike. Certain movies may offer an experience alike to videogames, but not cinema as a whole.
You may be right on the movies, though it should be noted that during the Great Depression, movies were indeed used primarily for an escape from the dreary life most people lived if they could afford a ticket.
More than one. Looks like he’s using his shirt to staunch some blood flow, too. Probably a worse wound than the one we can see, given the fact it seems to be his priority.
That’s why I hat 9mm, it has no stopping power. You need a 15-round mag to put enough rounds into the target to put it down. Good old 1911 Colt would have dropped him with one hit nearly anywhere in the body. The chest hit would have left an exit wound the size of a saucer.
But a 1911 is a model, not a caliber; and while traditionally chambered in .45, 9mm versions exist (often because of the potential increase in magazine size).
That’s why, if you have to use a 9mm round, get a gun with a big magazine. The Calico pistol has a 50 round helical magazine. If you can’t stop someone with THAT many rounds, then you are in REAL trouble! (Or you can’t hit the broad side of a barn… At point blank range!)
This seems like a dumb complication. I mean, I guess it makes sense as a Plan B in case the police didn’t show, and also just to have an observer on the scene who can tell the others “okay cops are arriving keep him busy”. And then if Shanna sees four cops enter and him staggering out, her stepping out of bushes to finish him off could be sensible impulsive judgment call.
Still doesn’t make a great story moment if none of the above was really established, even merely as every-other-panel flashbacks while he’s staggering out.
It’s not really a complication at this point. He’s done. This is where he dies. It is very doubtful he could lift that gun and/or fire it accurately at this point. This is just his final inglorious end.
He fancied himself a man of the world, practical, above it all. Instead he dies nameless in the street and none of it mattered one bit.
It may be a strange timeskip but I have to tip my hat to Phil and T for not doing as I expected and cashing in the buildup of the previous pages for a gory police-slaughtering fight scene. Sepia stays classy noir in the end and that’s a bit better than a Sin City knockoff IMO.
Your welcome. If we had the ability to delete our comments I would have deleted most of mine well before they were read by many. Again I apologize for my freaking out. I have kinda severe OCD and depression and freaking out is well…what I do at times. I’ll try harder to stop myself in the future.
Thus is the risk of having a comments section in a fully-plotted story. Though I suppose that’s less of a risk than comments in an off-the-cuff story, seeing as how those comments could then influence the tale for the worse.
Speaking as a former cop I personally love this bit. I mean I halfway expected him to walk out unscathed because he’s a cool character with lots of development and as a current writer myself I know killing those hurts…
My only complaint is basically, “Four cops? LOL.” I will just briefly try and detail how this would go down in a non-fictional setting. First off, before you start reading, play this in the background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCeIIcPAwv8.
Also note that all this is assuming that the cops had at least 2 minutes warning that a known, professional, armed, hitman was carrying out a hit IN THEIR CITY RIGHT NOW before JJ entered the building.
So Senor ‘Stache goes into the building. Literally as many cops as are on shift pull up. If they were writing tickets when the call went out they would drop the ticket books and drive. If they were getting coffee they would drop it and drive. If they were in a drive through or otherwise stuck in traffic they would drive over the curb to get there. If the were going off shift they would turn around and drive there. The locker room would clear out. The senior officer on duty would jump over his desk and drive. There are no words for the scramble that would ensue. It wouldn’t be just city cops. There would be state police if any were nearby on a highway, there would be sheriff’s deputies, it would be everyone in the fucking world with a radio because dispatch can talk to anybody. Numbers wise, in a major metropolitan area, you would be looking at a dozen cars before the clock hit the 5 minute mark.
As JJ is having his conversation dozens of cop cars pull up. The moment the cars stop officers bail out with long guns. These would be either AR-15s with jacket hollow point or 12 gauge shotguns chambering slugs and/or Federal Load .00 Buckshot. Both these weapons will ruin the day of somebody wearing less than class V military issue body armor with hardplates in exactly one hit to center of mass. (Yes, there might not be penetration by buckshot on some lower grades but the backside deformation would be a bitch..)
The first cops on scene would take up positions either behind the engine blocks of their vehicles or other cover and the shift sergeant would, assuming he was capable, send units to each entrance. Once all the exits were locked down a decision would be made, either to negotiate or storm the building. Since there are multiple civilians inside in various apartments the decision would likely be to go in and at a minimum pin JJ in the apartment if he hadn’t already gone mobile (though he would probably be moving by then, the guy is far from stupid).
So ten-plus cops form a clearing team, all of them with long guns, and hit the building in two sections. One covers, one clears. Against this poor JJ has the following:
– 2 probably low velocity bullets, and presumably some reloads
– A shirt and knit cap
– Best facial hair EVER
– Testicles larger than some land features that can be seen from orbit
None of these things stops buckshot. He might get a few rounds off, but the police are going to be putting out an order of magnitude more fire. More than that, while JJ would need a good deal of luck to put down a cop in body armor with a revolver, one slug or shell of buckshot hitting at point blank would turn him into bag of meat leaking out a hole you could put your hand through. In short he would get dropped like a prom dress.
And that’s the short warning version. If the cops had a half hour things would just get stupid. Overtime would be authorized. The Armored Vehicle would be fired up. Men would dress as ninjas. It would turn into a fucking police party. A festival of unstoppable justice descending like a flaming sword upon the unrighteous. Agencies that normally don’t do more than chase paper would show up, just because. I mean like there would be Postal Inspectors because JJ might, at some point, have touched somebody’s mail during a hit and you have to be sure!
At that point instead of a scratch clearing party JJ would meet a SWAT team. The result for him would make the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid look like a trip to Disneyland. Disneyland with flashbangs.
Now, to be clear, this is not at all a complaint. Love the story, love how this arc is working out. My suspension of disbelief remains utterly intact. I just did this sort of thing long enough to look at that one panel with the two cars and think, “Those poor guys must be so lonely, I mean where is everybody?”
But still, it’s a fictional story. I don’t get all that freaking out because of “Hey, magic and all is fine, but not so proper police behaviour is a no-go!”
I love that story, and as long as it won’t end with “Haha, it was all a dream” I’m fine with Phils work!
The problem with realistic police behavior is that it makes exciting things boring. Boring things aren’t good stories, which is why you almost never see good police behavior in any fictional medium. I’m just a curmudgeon who likes imagining the real version :) This is a great story though, which is why I keep reading it.
See? This is why I believe that the sepia world is NOT this universe’s real world.
(Because I’m such an expert on police operations, no offence (haha…heh)).
But you are right of course, this is highly unrealistic.
Thank god (and Phil) for that :-)
Well, in this case, the rule that gamers can only summon enough NPC henchmen to soften up a level boss trumps reality. I mean, what fun would it be, if a SWAT team stormed in and went to work kill-stealing their target? ;)
You are not really surprised about that, are you? Bad time for a cops-get-killed scene.
Sigh. If only all potential cop-killers would look (and act) like this.
The most horrible things are done by ‘normal’ people, I guess.
Knowing what to show and what to leave to the reader’s imagination is the mark of a good storyteller.
A little risky these days given that the average audience has no imagination to speak of, but the readers here aren’t really average, so it’s worth trying to make something that’s actually good.
Yea…somehow I think the cops won’t be trying to hard to solve his JJ’s murder once/if they figure out that all the bullets inside the two cops belong to his guns and all but one of the bullets in him belong to the two cops. Cops will work hard to catch a cop killer, but I doubt they are as motivated in catching a cop killer’s killer.
Still, two dead cops after a shoot out in your friends apartment while after a chat on Skype… good thing self defense argument is a lock at this point.
Well, he did go there willing to kill them all. He swore on camera that he would kill them all. He (probably) killed at least two officers. He left there, heading to kill them all.
The fact that she managed to get the drop on him doesn’t make her a vigilante.
Of course, the fact that they trolled him into a murderous rage, with the express purpose of getting him riddled with bullets, on the other hand…
Wow! I didn’t expect the cops would be able to hit him once, and it looks like they shot him multiple times! I guess the Idaho police have better aim than most of the country’s police force!
The cops got the drop on him (remember ‘Freeze!’ last page) The fact JJ is the one walking away is No Country for Old Men scary, boarder line Sin City.
There was no ‘freeze’ last page. In all likelihood, he got the drop on them, they knew he was armed and dangerous, but not his exact position in the house.
My mistake, it was two pages ago (missed a update) and it was ‘Police’ when they entered the building. Only remembered JJ’s reaction, need to stop posting so late.
Yeah, that “freeze” did seem to come a little too early, given that JJ went on a whole monologue after… but I guess it may have not been strictly linear. Maybe the two previous pages ended at about the same point in time?
I don’t know what information YOU have in terms of police sidearm accuracy, but the general policy is ‘aim for centre of mass’ and keep firing until it stops.
In a stressed scenario, your aim is shit. But in the middle of a house? With four guys firing until they run out of ammo? Yeah, I’m just surprised he made it out of the house like that.
(though his death is going to raise some eyebrows, I’m pretty sure Shanna is on some dashcams)
My brother in law was a cop. His career ended when he confronted a suspect who he thought had a gun. With full clip at point blank range, he missed ever shot, then the suspect tackled him and broke his arm before running away. This is not uncommon. In a narrow hallway, without making any attempt to run away, Amadou Diallo was shot at 30 times before the first bullet hit him.
People are notoriously bad at actually shooting other people, no matter how good they are at tagging targets at the range. Most people just aren’t psychologically prepared to kill other people, even when confronted with a do-or-die situation.
This holds true even among those who are trained and conditioned to, in theory, be more comfortable doing so. In World War II, only around one in five soldiers actually opened fire on each other in combat situations, and this seems to be historically fairly typical.
Rate of fire has increased in more recent wars, but that’s largely attributable to increased use of suppressing fire tactics…by far more bullets are being fired over people’s heads to keep them down than are actually fired at people with the intent to harm or kill.
Most actual killing is done remotely, via things like artillery and air-strike, because it is far easier to kill someone in the abstract than it is anywhere near face to face.
So it’s not just a question of firearm competence, it’s a question of will and instinct when the shit finally hits the fan for real and you’re staring down at someone across barrels. In the abstract, it’s very easy to assert to oneself that, if it comes to it, you’ll be ready.
It’s much harder for most folks to actually /do/ such a thing.
“In World War II, only around one in five soldiers actually opened fire on each other in combat situations, and this seems to be historically fairly typical. ”
I’m not trying to be rude, but you’ve been completely snookered by a fantasist who pushed that agenda for political gain (or someone was, and they passed it on until it got to you).
The root of those claims is from one particular “study”, which was shown (repeatedly) to be not only untrue but completely unfounded.
Your other main point (about the difference between the shooting range and actually doing it) is partially true. Sufficient practice creates what is called “muscle memory”, and that is often very effective even in stressful situations… but anything short of that is, pardon the bad pun, very hit and miss.
Indeed! It was what turned up handily when I went looking for statistics while composing that post, but on further inspection it turns out you are correct: the statistic was apparently fabricated by one S.L.A. Marshall, a Brigadier General, with what I will characterize as peculiar motivations (his agenda having been largely ‘we need more training so people are more willing to kill’, which seems a bit rhetorical on his part if soldiers are already willing enough…one supposes he was gunning for another star and had nothing better to work with).
Setting that disinformation aside, I believe the basic point about people’s reluctance to do violence unto other people remains essentially intact: you still generally have to teach people to do it and arrange for circumstances in which it is necessary for them to do so. Certainly, there are people out there better or worse prepared to engage in violence, but we’re talking about the difficulties of taking average people and turning them /into/ people capable of killing other people.
It turns out we still get a failure rate between 10 and 20 percent (as reported by combatants themselves, so some grains of salt may be needed here…I’ve /been/ military, and they’re as prone to ‘seeming is being’ as anyone), favoring crew-served weapons like artillery, and diminishing with both habituation/continual exposure to combat situations (which produces other psychological issues, again indicating that it really is not healthy for people to be shooting at each other quite apart from the inevitable lead poisoning), and distance/depersonalization (it still being far easier to kill someone when you aren’t staring them in the face) which again seems to support the general theme even if the failure statistics due to basic aversion are much less dramatic than Marshall’s fabrications.
It is certainly necessary to note that there are many other factors which influence whether or not a given individual fires or does not: it isn’t generally going to matter whether or not you /want/ to shoot someone when your gun is jammed, for instance. Personal aversion may well never come up, and part of the whole point of training is overcoming that in the first place.
As far as it pertains to the police, I would tend to expect it to be more difficult even with more training at the range, both for the reasons I’ve already discussed and for attendant social issues. A soldier has a greater /expectation/ to need to kill: it is expected of them, socially, and it is a significant part of their training.
A policeman, at least in the U.S., has the power to do kill, but the expectation that they will avoid doing so to the best of their ability. So even granting more range time, there’s a greater social pressure against it, especially with current and past controversies over the use of lethal force by police.
A soldier facing down an armed foe has much greater pressure in favor of firing and much less against: they are defending themselves, defending their unit, defending their nation, against someone who, generally speaking, unambiguously (to the best of their knowledge, at least) means all of those people harm, and who is generally never a part of the soldier’s own in-group.
A police officer in the same situation may well be looking at someone they know, and in any case will be well aware that if they kill it will bring vexation on themselves, their family, their fellow officers, and so on.
I thank you for trying not to be rude, but I will suggest that if you wish to avoid coming off as such, it would be easier to do so if you could bring citations so that it isn’t just a counter-assertion, and avoid using potentially emotionally charged language like ‘completely snookered’ when attempting to correct someone who is simply misinformed and amenable to becoming better informed.
This is especially useful in navigating casual conversations about things that aren’t very casual at all.
Your last two paragraphs in particular are a very good point, and I apologize.
Actually finding someone “amenable to becoming better informed” on this topic is a rare and beautiful thing, and I appreciate it incredibly much. Thank you.
IMHO, she shoulda emptied the clip at him by panel 3. While seeing the shock on his face in panel 5 is quite satisfying, the risk that he would not have been wounded enough not to retaliate is too great. Better to strike like a ninja, get away alive, and get your satisfaction elsewhere.
I don’t think it’s satisfaction that’s pushing her. It’s reluctance. Even after everything, her finger probably balks at the thought of making her a killer.
a) You don’t really want to “empty a clip” down a dark, residential street. You might hit some poor innocent bystander out for a walk. Take a deep breath to steady the nerves and aim carefully. It works better, and is scarier for any subsequent hitman who’s doing his research.
b) It’s quite possible she wants him alive. Makes getting a search warrant for Hurricane much, much easier if he’ll talk.
Hypothetically, she might also want him to call Carol to say “mission accomplished”. Hopefully not, though. I don’t think JJ would betray a client even if it was the last thing he did, and he’d probably hold on to what’s left of his pride no matter what the cost.
Why would he do anything Shanna asks him to? He knows she knows if she leaves him alive he’ll hunt down and kill them all, so she’s got nothing to threaten him with.
Huh… Did he actually get shot or did he get attacked by some unskilled sword-wielding ninjas? Because it looks more like it was the second. If it was the first, the cops sure were lousy at aiming.
I dunno, apart from the eight visible surface wounds, there’s at least one entry wound below his left shoulder and one that he’s putting pressure on. And he’s dragging his leg. Their aim obviously wasn’t as good as JJ’s, but I don’t know if it was lousy. Depends on distance and target speed, I guess.
Shanna iz my hero! Don’t know where his story arc is headed but doesn’t Shanna have a history of choking when it is time to pull the trigger? Also, one of the endearing qualities of his webcomic is its habit of switching to the other dimension just when the suspense is getting good. Imma hold onto my seat and see what next.
They have rear cameras, too, sometimes… which may not work if she’s behind something else or otherwise obstructed, but they’ll at least see Mr. ‘Stache go down if he takes a few more steps (if they do have the rear cameras).
The gamers are NOT responsible for the officers deaths, its not their fault Phil and T chose to have these retarded procedure-ignoring Red Shirt fodder officers unrealistically use pistols instead of shotguns and not wear body armor so they could conveniently only manage to collectively maim JJ as he presumably slaughtered them all.
The gamers are NOT responsible for the officers deaths, its not their fault Phil and T chose to have these retarded procedure-ignoring Red Shirt fodder officers unrealistically use pistols instead of shotguns and not wear body armor so they could conveniently only manage to collectively maim JJ as he presumably slaughtered them all.
OK, I’m not sure that I’m going to win friends with this one, but here goes:
If every character in every story did everything they were supposed to do the way they were supposed to do it every time… There’d be no stories worth reading.
I’m not saying having these officers show up only to die in an effort to maim JJ was a poor narrative choice (anymore, I know I said that before). I know (now) this kinda thing is common in comics. I’m only saying the gamers CANNOT be held morally responsible for this instance of police deus-ex-suicidal-incompetence.
I am truly sorry for overreacting Phil, I’ve been kinda stressed out lately helping my dad- who’s in a lot of pain from a total hip replacement surgery. I’ll stop myself in the future and of course you and T have my permission (if that’s even relevant) to delete any of my comments that you wish. I would have deleted most of them if that were possible.
It’s not just comics. Nearly every police show ever, and most of the movies have the requisite suicidally impatient cop scene. Of course, more often than not, they survive, but they get their partners killed. Then, they have to work through their guilt, while working solo, because no one will partner with them. That is, until a brave, young cop, fresh out of the academy requests to work with them, and ends up restoring their faith in themselves and the system.
If it’s a comedy, however, they just get and lose a new partner, every week.
Hopefully she just empties the magazine into him and doesn’t do something stupid like talk to him first, which will in all probability give him a chance to get away. In the words of Tuco the Rat “If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
Very true, specifically I hope she empties that clip into his arms and knees to 100% cripple him and render him harmless. Then she can say some final words/questions if she wants. JJ does NOT deserve a merciful headshot.
Since JJ himself knows Shanna has a history of not pulling the trigger when she needs to, I’m worried the next page is going to have him trying to talk to her some more in order to get close, or to surprise-shoot her himself if he can get her guard down for even a second.
But I’m also kinda not too worried. We can only see her mouth, but that’s a jaw set grimly. I think JJ’s dead here.
” …if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you’re going to die. So they’ll talk. They’ll gloat.
They’ll watch you squirm. They’ll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”
I assume this guy killed two cops and took one of there cars. So my question is why are there not like 50 cops right behind him trying to get him. Usually when you kill a cop the immediate result is more police.
Killed two cops, yes. Currently he has not stolen a cop car, though. It’s probably only been a matter of minutes since the shooting started, if not seconds.
I hope she has half a brain and pulls the trigger, instead of the author trying to force-feed us some after-school special about there never being a justifiable reason to kill a human being, even at the cost of your own survival, or “that would make me no better than you” horseshit.
The Bible’s frequently mistranslated line is: “Thou shall not suffer a poisoner to live.”, in other words, whatever respect you have for human life, an assassin has forfeited their right to it.
Did he kill the cops? Even if he got away from here, that sort of thing really makes the police unhappy. And as they have his face and everything, and now his DNA from his blood all over, getting beyond this would have been a problem… even without the 9mm lobotomy in his future.
And further, why in heck did he think these ‘kids’ would just roll over and die? Not just think it, but be outright offended when they wouldn’t?
Can’t really be surprised at them being unhappy about it. Police are arrogant twatnozzles on the whole, and the idea of mere citizens taking matters into their own hands tends to aggrieve them in any form… the same way any tyrant gets outraged at defiance.
I wanna say he’s already in trouble because of blood loss, but if Zombieland taught me anything it’s that you always, always doubletap.
Given how anti-gamer this universe’s Shanna is, she probably never learned that lesson from Zombieland.
…. though she probably DID learn that lesson from JJ walking over and snatching the gun out of her hands.
…. oh, wait, Zombieland. MOVIE. Duh. What the hell, brain?
Considering how much Shanna hates games for giving people a escaping ‘reality’ I’m sure she doesn’t have much love for film ether.
One shouldn’t overestimate human consistency.
Plenty of people hate one thing yet like another that is much like it.
a) You’re right, of course. What’s more, that’s indeed the way T writes his characters.
b) Shanna is disdainful of geeky entertainment in general. That includes zombies.
c) That said, I don’t think games and film are much alike. Certain movies may offer an experience alike to videogames, but not cinema as a whole.
You may be right on the movies, though it should be noted that during the Great Depression, movies were indeed used primarily for an escape from the dreary life most people lived if they could afford a ticket.
Movies offer an escape, but not all movies are geeky entertainment. I don’t think Shanna dislikes movies.
Not all games are either.
According to my father, when he was young, most people went to the movies for the air conditioning. The film was just a bonus.
hmmm, he only has one penetrated round, everything else looks like it hit the epidermis.
looks like he has less blood on him than you get in a bloodbag.
More than one. Looks like he’s using his shirt to staunch some blood flow, too. Probably a worse wound than the one we can see, given the fact it seems to be his priority.
Dragging one foot, too, which suggests at least one round to the leg.
That’s why I hat 9mm, it has no stopping power. You need a 15-round mag to put enough rounds into the target to put it down. Good old 1911 Colt would have dropped him with one hit nearly anywhere in the body. The chest hit would have left an exit wound the size of a saucer.
As much as I respect the .45 ACP, for JJ, I’d select a 10mm (loaded to original specs).
(( RIA has a 1911A2 in 10mm with a 16+1 mag, and a 6″ barrel. ))
…not sure if troll…
But a 1911 is a model, not a caliber; and while traditionally chambered in .45, 9mm versions exist (often because of the potential increase in magazine size).
Lol you’re avatar is perfect for that comment.
The problem with that is that police primarily operate in urban areas, where overpenetration is a big deal.
Against JJ, I recommend a GAU-8, personally.
That’s why, if you have to use a 9mm round, get a gun with a big magazine. The Calico pistol has a 50 round helical magazine. If you can’t stop someone with THAT many rounds, then you are in REAL trouble! (Or you can’t hit the broad side of a barn… At point blank range!)
Looks like his one lung is perforated. That’ll ruin your day.
He was probably dead anyway, but this is a fitting end for JJ. Put down like a rabid dog in the street.
Biggest shock is he’s balding.
The ‘stache is taking up all his ability to grow hair.
They do that.
Can confirm
What you can’t grow above, you grow down below.
…below your face, that is. What’d you think I meant?
This seems like a dumb complication. I mean, I guess it makes sense as a Plan B in case the police didn’t show, and also just to have an observer on the scene who can tell the others “okay cops are arriving keep him busy”. And then if Shanna sees four cops enter and him staggering out, her stepping out of bushes to finish him off could be sensible impulsive judgment call.
Still doesn’t make a great story moment if none of the above was really established, even merely as every-other-panel flashbacks while he’s staggering out.
Eh. Long established story rule: any plan that works is not established beforehand. Any plan that is established beforehand will not work.
But what now that your established plan is for established plans to not work?
It’s not really a complication at this point. He’s done. This is where he dies. It is very doubtful he could lift that gun and/or fire it accurately at this point. This is just his final inglorious end.
He fancied himself a man of the world, practical, above it all. Instead he dies nameless in the street and none of it mattered one bit.
It may be a strange timeskip but I have to tip my hat to Phil and T for not doing as I expected and cashing in the buildup of the previous pages for a gory police-slaughtering fight scene. Sepia stays classy noir in the end and that’s a bit better than a Sin City knockoff IMO.
Yeah, it’s almost as if the dozens of comments freaking out about this were completely unnecessary.
But thanks, I guess.
Your welcome. If we had the ability to delete our comments I would have deleted most of mine well before they were read by many. Again I apologize for my freaking out. I have kinda severe OCD and depression and freaking out is well…what I do at times. I’ll try harder to stop myself in the future.
Thus is the risk of having a comments section in a fully-plotted story. Though I suppose that’s less of a risk than comments in an off-the-cuff story, seeing as how those comments could then influence the tale for the worse.
Speaking as a former cop I personally love this bit. I mean I halfway expected him to walk out unscathed because he’s a cool character with lots of development and as a current writer myself I know killing those hurts…
My only complaint is basically, “Four cops? LOL.” I will just briefly try and detail how this would go down in a non-fictional setting. First off, before you start reading, play this in the background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCeIIcPAwv8.
Also note that all this is assuming that the cops had at least 2 minutes warning that a known, professional, armed, hitman was carrying out a hit IN THEIR CITY RIGHT NOW before JJ entered the building.
So Senor ‘Stache goes into the building. Literally as many cops as are on shift pull up. If they were writing tickets when the call went out they would drop the ticket books and drive. If they were getting coffee they would drop it and drive. If they were in a drive through or otherwise stuck in traffic they would drive over the curb to get there. If the were going off shift they would turn around and drive there. The locker room would clear out. The senior officer on duty would jump over his desk and drive. There are no words for the scramble that would ensue. It wouldn’t be just city cops. There would be state police if any were nearby on a highway, there would be sheriff’s deputies, it would be everyone in the fucking world with a radio because dispatch can talk to anybody. Numbers wise, in a major metropolitan area, you would be looking at a dozen cars before the clock hit the 5 minute mark.
As JJ is having his conversation dozens of cop cars pull up. The moment the cars stop officers bail out with long guns. These would be either AR-15s with jacket hollow point or 12 gauge shotguns chambering slugs and/or Federal Load .00 Buckshot. Both these weapons will ruin the day of somebody wearing less than class V military issue body armor with hardplates in exactly one hit to center of mass. (Yes, there might not be penetration by buckshot on some lower grades but the backside deformation would be a bitch..)
The first cops on scene would take up positions either behind the engine blocks of their vehicles or other cover and the shift sergeant would, assuming he was capable, send units to each entrance. Once all the exits were locked down a decision would be made, either to negotiate or storm the building. Since there are multiple civilians inside in various apartments the decision would likely be to go in and at a minimum pin JJ in the apartment if he hadn’t already gone mobile (though he would probably be moving by then, the guy is far from stupid).
So ten-plus cops form a clearing team, all of them with long guns, and hit the building in two sections. One covers, one clears. Against this poor JJ has the following:
– 2 probably low velocity bullets, and presumably some reloads
– A shirt and knit cap
– Best facial hair EVER
– Testicles larger than some land features that can be seen from orbit
None of these things stops buckshot. He might get a few rounds off, but the police are going to be putting out an order of magnitude more fire. More than that, while JJ would need a good deal of luck to put down a cop in body armor with a revolver, one slug or shell of buckshot hitting at point blank would turn him into bag of meat leaking out a hole you could put your hand through. In short he would get dropped like a prom dress.
And that’s the short warning version. If the cops had a half hour things would just get stupid. Overtime would be authorized. The Armored Vehicle would be fired up. Men would dress as ninjas. It would turn into a fucking police party. A festival of unstoppable justice descending like a flaming sword upon the unrighteous. Agencies that normally don’t do more than chase paper would show up, just because. I mean like there would be Postal Inspectors because JJ might, at some point, have touched somebody’s mail during a hit and you have to be sure!
At that point instead of a scratch clearing party JJ would meet a SWAT team. The result for him would make the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid look like a trip to Disneyland. Disneyland with flashbangs.
Now, to be clear, this is not at all a complaint. Love the story, love how this arc is working out. My suspension of disbelief remains utterly intact. I just did this sort of thing long enough to look at that one panel with the two cars and think, “Those poor guys must be so lonely, I mean where is everybody?”
But still, it’s a fictional story. I don’t get all that freaking out because of “Hey, magic and all is fine, but not so proper police behaviour is a no-go!”
I love that story, and as long as it won’t end with “Haha, it was all a dream” I’m fine with Phils work!
The problem with realistic police behavior is that it makes exciting things boring. Boring things aren’t good stories, which is why you almost never see good police behavior in any fictional medium. I’m just a curmudgeon who likes imagining the real version :) This is a great story though, which is why I keep reading it.
See? This is why I believe that the sepia world is NOT this universe’s real world.
(Because I’m such an expert on police operations, no offence (haha…heh)).
But you are right of course, this is highly unrealistic.
Thank god (and Phil) for that :-)
Well, in this case, the rule that gamers can only summon enough NPC henchmen to soften up a level boss trumps reality. I mean, what fun would it be, if a SWAT team stormed in and went to work kill-stealing their target? ;)
You are not really surprised about that, are you? Bad time for a cops-get-killed scene.
Sigh. If only all potential cop-killers would look (and act) like this.
The most horrible things are done by ‘normal’ people, I guess.
Knowing what to show and what to leave to the reader’s imagination is the mark of a good storyteller.
A little risky these days given that the average audience has no imagination to speak of, but the readers here aren’t really average, so it’s worth trying to make something that’s actually good.
Yeah, I have no complaints on that score.
Yea…somehow I think the cops won’t be trying to hard to solve his JJ’s murder once/if they figure out that all the bullets inside the two cops belong to his guns and all but one of the bullets in him belong to the two cops. Cops will work hard to catch a cop killer, but I doubt they are as motivated in catching a cop killer’s killer.
Still, two dead cops after a shoot out in your friends apartment while after a chat on Skype… good thing self defense argument is a lock at this point.
They won’t have to work hard, though. The cop killer’s killer is going to publish the full story in mass media.
Like SteelRaven says, very strong self-defense case. They probably wouldn’t even try to prosecute.
They’ll probably make her an honorary officer, honestly. I imagine there’d be police strikes if they tried to treat it like a crime.
Well, there ARE laws against vigilantism…
Well, he did go there willing to kill them all. He swore on camera that he would kill them all. He (probably) killed at least two officers. He left there, heading to kill them all.
The fact that she managed to get the drop on him doesn’t make her a vigilante.
Of course, the fact that they trolled him into a murderous rage, with the express purpose of getting him riddled with bullets, on the other hand…
Plus some cop cars have rear facing cameras. It may be very easy to see who put the final bullet in JJ.
Also given the debate over blowing up the house I doubt the others (save perhaps Xan) were aware of Shanna’s location at this time.
Wow! I didn’t expect the cops would be able to hit him once, and it looks like they shot him multiple times! I guess the Idaho police have better aim than most of the country’s police force!
The cops got the drop on him (remember ‘Freeze!’ last page) The fact JJ is the one walking away is No Country for Old Men scary, boarder line Sin City.
There was no ‘freeze’ last page. In all likelihood, he got the drop on them, they knew he was armed and dangerous, but not his exact position in the house.
My mistake, it was two pages ago (missed a update) and it was ‘Police’ when they entered the building. Only remembered JJ’s reaction, need to stop posting so late.
Yeah, that “freeze” did seem to come a little too early, given that JJ went on a whole monologue after… but I guess it may have not been strictly linear. Maybe the two previous pages ended at about the same point in time?
I don’t know what information YOU have in terms of police sidearm accuracy, but the general policy is ‘aim for centre of mass’ and keep firing until it stops.
In a stressed scenario, your aim is shit. But in the middle of a house? With four guys firing until they run out of ammo? Yeah, I’m just surprised he made it out of the house like that.
(though his death is going to raise some eyebrows, I’m pretty sure Shanna is on some dashcams)
Cancel that. Looked back and there were only two guys.
My brother in law was a cop. His career ended when he confronted a suspect who he thought had a gun. With full clip at point blank range, he missed ever shot, then the suspect tackled him and broke his arm before running away. This is not uncommon. In a narrow hallway, without making any attempt to run away, Amadou Diallo was shot at 30 times before the first bullet hit him.
Just because police carry guns, doesn’t mean they could hit a broad side of a barn.
Think Ron White wrote a joke about your brother,
Bingo. Most police departments only require one qualification a year and 50 rounds.
Your average hobby shooter fires more than that in a half hour. That’s literally one box of 9mm.
It’s not just a question of accuracy.
People are notoriously bad at actually shooting other people, no matter how good they are at tagging targets at the range. Most people just aren’t psychologically prepared to kill other people, even when confronted with a do-or-die situation.
This holds true even among those who are trained and conditioned to, in theory, be more comfortable doing so. In World War II, only around one in five soldiers actually opened fire on each other in combat situations, and this seems to be historically fairly typical.
Rate of fire has increased in more recent wars, but that’s largely attributable to increased use of suppressing fire tactics…by far more bullets are being fired over people’s heads to keep them down than are actually fired at people with the intent to harm or kill.
Most actual killing is done remotely, via things like artillery and air-strike, because it is far easier to kill someone in the abstract than it is anywhere near face to face.
So it’s not just a question of firearm competence, it’s a question of will and instinct when the shit finally hits the fan for real and you’re staring down at someone across barrels. In the abstract, it’s very easy to assert to oneself that, if it comes to it, you’ll be ready.
It’s much harder for most folks to actually /do/ such a thing.
There’s also the difficulties from trying to aim and shoot in stressful situations.
It’s been shown that there is little or no connection between police accuracy on the firing range vs in a shooting.
“In World War II, only around one in five soldiers actually opened fire on each other in combat situations, and this seems to be historically fairly typical. ”
I’m not trying to be rude, but you’ve been completely snookered by a fantasist who pushed that agenda for political gain (or someone was, and they passed it on until it got to you).
The root of those claims is from one particular “study”, which was shown (repeatedly) to be not only untrue but completely unfounded.
Your other main point (about the difference between the shooting range and actually doing it) is partially true. Sufficient practice creates what is called “muscle memory”, and that is often very effective even in stressful situations… but anything short of that is, pardon the bad pun, very hit and miss.
50 shots a year does NOT create muscle memory.
Indeed! It was what turned up handily when I went looking for statistics while composing that post, but on further inspection it turns out you are correct: the statistic was apparently fabricated by one S.L.A. Marshall, a Brigadier General, with what I will characterize as peculiar motivations (his agenda having been largely ‘we need more training so people are more willing to kill’, which seems a bit rhetorical on his part if soldiers are already willing enough…one supposes he was gunning for another star and had nothing better to work with).
Setting that disinformation aside, I believe the basic point about people’s reluctance to do violence unto other people remains essentially intact: you still generally have to teach people to do it and arrange for circumstances in which it is necessary for them to do so. Certainly, there are people out there better or worse prepared to engage in violence, but we’re talking about the difficulties of taking average people and turning them /into/ people capable of killing other people.
It turns out we still get a failure rate between 10 and 20 percent (as reported by combatants themselves, so some grains of salt may be needed here…I’ve /been/ military, and they’re as prone to ‘seeming is being’ as anyone), favoring crew-served weapons like artillery, and diminishing with both habituation/continual exposure to combat situations (which produces other psychological issues, again indicating that it really is not healthy for people to be shooting at each other quite apart from the inevitable lead poisoning), and distance/depersonalization (it still being far easier to kill someone when you aren’t staring them in the face) which again seems to support the general theme even if the failure statistics due to basic aversion are much less dramatic than Marshall’s fabrications.
It is certainly necessary to note that there are many other factors which influence whether or not a given individual fires or does not: it isn’t generally going to matter whether or not you /want/ to shoot someone when your gun is jammed, for instance. Personal aversion may well never come up, and part of the whole point of training is overcoming that in the first place.
As far as it pertains to the police, I would tend to expect it to be more difficult even with more training at the range, both for the reasons I’ve already discussed and for attendant social issues. A soldier has a greater /expectation/ to need to kill: it is expected of them, socially, and it is a significant part of their training.
A policeman, at least in the U.S., has the power to do kill, but the expectation that they will avoid doing so to the best of their ability. So even granting more range time, there’s a greater social pressure against it, especially with current and past controversies over the use of lethal force by police.
A soldier facing down an armed foe has much greater pressure in favor of firing and much less against: they are defending themselves, defending their unit, defending their nation, against someone who, generally speaking, unambiguously (to the best of their knowledge, at least) means all of those people harm, and who is generally never a part of the soldier’s own in-group.
A police officer in the same situation may well be looking at someone they know, and in any case will be well aware that if they kill it will bring vexation on themselves, their family, their fellow officers, and so on.
I thank you for trying not to be rude, but I will suggest that if you wish to avoid coming off as such, it would be easier to do so if you could bring citations so that it isn’t just a counter-assertion, and avoid using potentially emotionally charged language like ‘completely snookered’ when attempting to correct someone who is simply misinformed and amenable to becoming better informed.
This is especially useful in navigating casual conversations about things that aren’t very casual at all.
Your last two paragraphs in particular are a very good point, and I apologize.
Actually finding someone “amenable to becoming better informed” on this topic is a rare and beautiful thing, and I appreciate it incredibly much. Thank you.
This is like a Ultra Violent Scooby-Doo, “I would have murdered you all if it wasn’t for you goddamn kids!”
I wonder who’s behind the mask, then. :P
HR. He magicked everything so hard that even his Arkerra avatar has *its* own avatar in Sepiaworld!
IMHO, she shoulda emptied the clip at him by panel 3. While seeing the shock on his face in panel 5 is quite satisfying, the risk that he would not have been wounded enough not to retaliate is too great. Better to strike like a ninja, get away alive, and get your satisfaction elsewhere.
I don’t think it’s satisfaction that’s pushing her. It’s reluctance. Even after everything, her finger probably balks at the thought of making her a killer.
a) You don’t really want to “empty a clip” down a dark, residential street. You might hit some poor innocent bystander out for a walk. Take a deep breath to steady the nerves and aim carefully. It works better, and is scarier for any subsequent hitman who’s doing his research.
b) It’s quite possible she wants him alive. Makes getting a search warrant for Hurricane much, much easier if he’ll talk.
Hypothetically, she might also want him to call Carol to say “mission accomplished”. Hopefully not, though. I don’t think JJ would betray a client even if it was the last thing he did, and he’d probably hold on to what’s left of his pride no matter what the cost.
Why would he do anything Shanna asks him to? He knows she knows if she leaves him alive he’ll hunt down and kill them all, so she’s got nothing to threaten him with.
That was my point.
Huh… Did he actually get shot or did he get attacked by some unskilled sword-wielding ninjas? Because it looks more like it was the second. If it was the first, the cops sure were lousy at aiming.
I dunno, apart from the eight visible surface wounds, there’s at least one entry wound below his left shoulder and one that he’s putting pressure on. And he’s dragging his leg. Their aim obviously wasn’t as good as JJ’s, but I don’t know if it was lousy. Depends on distance and target speed, I guess.
Shanna iz my hero! Don’t know where his story arc is headed but doesn’t Shanna have a history of choking when it is time to pull the trigger? Also, one of the endearing qualities of his webcomic is its habit of switching to the other dimension just when the suspense is getting good. Imma hold onto my seat and see what next.
You Shannot pass!
I really hope that we get at least a scene of the gamers realizing that they’re responsible for the deaths of at least two, possible four cops.
And also that Shanna realizes that she’s about to gun down a guy in range of the police car’s dash cams.
Consequences will never be the same.
Not a guy, a cop killer. The police chief will probably frame stills of it in his office.
That reminds me, I still need to get a t-shirt with the words “Cop-Killers are the Real Heroes” printed on it.
Dash Cams on police cars have a narrow view, why there was such a big push for body cams this last year.
Wait, why are they responsible? What could they have done differently to prevent those deaths?
Doesn’t mean they won’t feel responsible.
I think she’s behind the car.
They have rear cameras, too, sometimes… which may not work if she’s behind something else or otherwise obstructed, but they’ll at least see Mr. ‘Stache go down if he takes a few more steps (if they do have the rear cameras).
The person reporting a crime is not responsible if an officer is killed in pursuit of the criminal. The gamers aren’t responsible here.
The gamers are NOT responsible for the officers deaths, its not their fault Phil and T chose to have these retarded procedure-ignoring Red Shirt fodder officers unrealistically use pistols instead of shotguns and not wear body armor so they could conveniently only manage to collectively maim JJ as he presumably slaughtered them all.
I honestly hope Shannah gets killed, it’d be pretty interesting to see how the super crew deals with an enraged JJ getting really dirty.
If Shannah’s anything like her Faans counterpart, she’s a deadeye once she gets her gameface on.
The gamers are NOT responsible for the officers deaths, its not their fault Phil and T chose to have these retarded procedure-ignoring Red Shirt fodder officers unrealistically use pistols instead of shotguns and not wear body armor so they could conveniently only manage to collectively maim JJ as he presumably slaughtered them all.
Oh goddamit. EVERYONE PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST^ It was meant to be a reply to Ishmael. Need. Coffee. Badly :(
OK, I’m not sure that I’m going to win friends with this one, but here goes:
If every character in every story did everything they were supposed to do the way they were supposed to do it every time… There’d be no stories worth reading.
Heh. Reminds me of this parody with characters that making senseable choices in horror movies.
I’m not saying having these officers show up only to die in an effort to maim JJ was a poor narrative choice (anymore, I know I said that before). I know (now) this kinda thing is common in comics. I’m only saying the gamers CANNOT be held morally responsible for this instance of police deus-ex-suicidal-incompetence.
I am truly sorry for overreacting Phil, I’ve been kinda stressed out lately helping my dad- who’s in a lot of pain from a total hip replacement surgery. I’ll stop myself in the future and of course you and T have my permission (if that’s even relevant) to delete any of my comments that you wish. I would have deleted most of them if that were possible.
It’s not just comics. Nearly every police show ever, and most of the movies have the requisite suicidally impatient cop scene. Of course, more often than not, they survive, but they get their partners killed. Then, they have to work through their guilt, while working solo, because no one will partner with them. That is, until a brave, young cop, fresh out of the academy requests to work with them, and ends up restoring their faith in themselves and the system.
If it’s a comedy, however, they just get and lose a new partner, every week.
That’s why I love RPGs: I am often surprised how illogical perfectly sane people react in much less stressful situations…
I know we only SAW two cops, but shouldn’t 2 cop cars produce at least 4 cops? How grossly undermanned is this PD?
No. That’s pretty standard. At least for my state. One cop, one car.
Really? It must be very peaceful there, then.
more like under staffed
Hopefully she just empties the magazine into him and doesn’t do something stupid like talk to him first, which will in all probability give him a chance to get away. In the words of Tuco the Rat “If you’re going to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
Very true, specifically I hope she empties that clip into his arms and knees to 100% cripple him and render him harmless. Then she can say some final words/questions if she wants. JJ does NOT deserve a merciful headshot.
That looks like the correct grip for holding that pistol. Bang bang JJ.
Since JJ himself knows Shanna has a history of not pulling the trigger when she needs to, I’m worried the next page is going to have him trying to talk to her some more in order to get close, or to surprise-shoot her himself if he can get her guard down for even a second.
But I’m also kinda not too worried. We can only see her mouth, but that’s a jaw set grimly. I think JJ’s dead here.
” …if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you’re going to die. So they’ll talk. They’ll gloat.
They’ll watch you squirm. They’ll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar.
So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.”
Or a good woman.
From Terry Pratchett, ‘Men at Arms’.
Ooooooh. I like it. So very fitting.
I assume this guy killed two cops and took one of there cars. So my question is why are there not like 50 cops right behind him trying to get him. Usually when you kill a cop the immediate result is more police.
Killed two cops, yes. Currently he has not stolen a cop car, though. It’s probably only been a matter of minutes since the shooting started, if not seconds.
Kind of depends if one of them got the request for more backup off before Mario there plugged him.
Definitely a beast regardless of what kills him though.
I was thinking of the old line about “don’t shoot him, you’ll just make him angry”
Time for famous last words.
“Preserve… my moustache… for posterity.”
This reminds me of the Stomponato arc from Transmetropolitan. It’s a wonder he’s not growling angry things about vets and cats right now.
I hope she has half a brain and pulls the trigger, instead of the author trying to force-feed us some after-school special about there never being a justifiable reason to kill a human being, even at the cost of your own survival, or “that would make me no better than you” horseshit.
The Bible’s frequently mistranslated line is: “Thou shall not suffer a poisoner to live.”, in other words, whatever respect you have for human life, an assassin has forfeited their right to it.
Did he kill the cops? Even if he got away from here, that sort of thing really makes the police unhappy. And as they have his face and everything, and now his DNA from his blood all over, getting beyond this would have been a problem… even without the 9mm lobotomy in his future.
And further, why in heck did he think these ‘kids’ would just roll over and die? Not just think it, but be outright offended when they wouldn’t?
Stupid.
Can’t really be surprised at them being unhappy about it. Police are arrogant twatnozzles on the whole, and the idea of mere citizens taking matters into their own hands tends to aggrieve them in any form… the same way any tyrant gets outraged at defiance.
What is this guy, a rogue T-1000?