Panel 5: Ah, yes, the comics riff of extraordinarily exaggerated electrical arcing to indicate a character getting zapped. Then again, Lord knows that movies feature equally obnoxious forms of special FX to impress upon the viewer that “dude is getting shocked, yo!”

I recall taking a different approach with an issue of Gen13 I wrote and laid out twenty-odd years ago, in that I asked for an image of Caitlin Fairchild getting electrocuted (by a mecha sister of robomaid Anna, but that’s another story) without any telltale electrical arcing. The results were oddly compelling but disturbing, as the reader saw only sound FX and Caitlin’s body convulsing wildly. (I based that loosely on my own childhood experiences of getting shocked; perils of being an ignorant assistant while my handy-but-not-an-electrician father was wiring up electrical systems during house renovation.)

BTW, if you’re one of those would-be linguistic purists who insists that the term “electrocution” refers only to a fatal injury, I’m afraid the horse was already outta the barn on that score as of a century or so ago.

Next week on the webcomic, brace yourselves for the delivery of this volume’s requisite dose of “damsel-in-distress” content, folks.

Today’s Patreon update: Probably another dose of Vintage Con Sketches, from the late-90s/early-2000s era when I was cranking out a ton of ’em.

-Adam Warren