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There are now 42 comments on pg 68. It Begins with an Arrest.
What are your thoughts?
  1. Andrew M. Farrell says

    That’s just a “I’m holding your hand to keep you under control”, not a “I’m bending your wrist to inflict pain” on the right there, correct?

    • I was wondering the same thing. I think we may be headed for a Jack Bauer of “24” situation here, where there might be the perception of a supreme emergency. Except, it could be set to detonate when the door is opened. But the police could take the position that they could not know that, in the time I’m debating the issue in my head it might have already gone off. Hurgh, bleh.

    • Looks like a jujitsu hold. Never been in one, so I don’t know how painful they are, but I do know they’re very effective at immobilizing people. I have -heard- they’re not supposed to be too painful unless you struggle.

      • It looks like a standard martial arts hold, it’s not painful if you submit, if you try to get out of it you torque wrist or shoulder and it’s excruciating.

        • I’ve used that hold and had it used on me. Trick to it is that if the person submits there is no pain – unless you keep twisting regardless after his shoulder has already hit the ground. However, it it was being over-applied like that his cheek and shoulder would be pushed to the concrete.

    • Yeah, it’s a wrist lock, a standard hold across basically every martial arts form ever. Good for the take down, or for locking the joint if you want to break his arm or something, but not perfect for a long term hold if he’s going to resist. He can theoretically twist is body around a lot and fight it pretty well, if you’re not willing to just snap his arm for trying, but the fact that they’ve got him there means he’s already at a big disadvantage if he does start something, and they’ll probably be able to transition to a more permanent hold. Seeing how his other arm is lying limp though, he’s probably not feeling like fighting it.

  2. Alectric says

    A local street “tough”? What does “tough” mean when used as a noun? Do you mean something like “thug”?

  3. Librarian says

    I like the Newsboy cap he’s got there. Is he making a fashion statement too, like Gary Game from an earlier strip?

  4. Jeff says

    OMG Shoes? Really?

    I was okay with the OMG Corp diversifying into other types of cuisine – I’ll admit that I eat at OMG Tacos all the time – but they seem to be getting too far from their core business by going into apparel. I think it’s come time to sell my stock. >:O

    • Well, the last time it got us a picture of Pi eating tacos.

      But we couldn’t possibly hope for anything resembling a repeat performance…

      • With their wide brims they’ve always been a bit shady about that business though. I hear they got out of it in the early 60s when Fremont passed a number of hat crimes statutes.

      • With their wider-than-regulation brims, they’ve always been a bit shady though. They had to get out of the business in the early 60s when the Fremont legislature passed a number of hat crimes statutes.

    • Don’t forget, their wholly owned subsidiary, OMG Laboratories, makes a line of quality legal products (e.g.,the GyLTOvaX immunizer).

  5. Raen says

    Looks like he beat the bank rap…

  6. Sean says

    I didn’t even look at the storefronts at first. I was trying to find the OMG on a shoe sole or heel.
    I thought I did, at first.

    Also, is it just me, or are all the cars parked the wrong way?

    I was trying to figure out of the message was to be delivered to the driver or the passenger, but now I’m not sure.

    • Given he’s wiring it to the centre of the car, not to the doors, it’s probably rigged to the ignition, which would suggest the driver is the target.

      • Yes, but if this is a typical front engine style American car, the driver is on the left, and he’s wiring it up on the right side.
        Except all the cars are parked with their left sides to the curb, when the flow of traffic, at least on two-way roads, has you parking with the passenger door to the curb.

        • I don’t think the dynamite’s been placed yet — though if it were up to me I’d park it on the fuel tank rather than under any particular seat. Even a few gallons of gasoline is amazingly more explosive than a few sticks of dynamite. The car and everyone in it would likely be obliterated. [Do not attempt.]

          As for the car directions, many cities have one-way streets like so:

          • The car would be a roasted hulk, but it’d still be sort of intact (they did this on mythbusters once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFXw0cDC-A4 ) Given he’s trying to make a point, the petrol tank is still probably your best bet for blowing up. At a guess under the seat would be slightly more likely to be a kill, but that probably wouldn’t matter too much.

              • Sure, if your bomb is big enough where you put it stops mattering. The point is it’s the high explosives that vaporise the car, not the burning petrol, which just makes a fireball. (Can’t seem to find the other half of the mythbusters clip on youtube, unfortunately)

                • IIRC, the idea is to vaporize the gasoline, which the initial bomb does nicely. It’s the vaporized petrol that’s highly explosive — that’s what makes the engine go, after all. I think once vaporized each gallon would have the explosive power of more than a dozen sticks of dynamite, but don’t quote me on that.

                  • Gasoline has a lot of energy in it. A few quick calculations show that one gallon of gas contains as much energy as 16 kilos of dynamite. So, if there were 20 gallons in the tank you would be looking at an energy yield equal to a third of a ton of dynamite. Of course, there’s no way that you’re going to get a fuel-air explosion just by sticking dynamite onto a fuel tank, so this will be released over a few hours rather than a few seconds.

                    • When the TNT goes boom, it both ruptures the gas tank and aerosolizes the gasoline into the immediate vicinity, which then goes boom nicely.

              • Fuel-air explosives are certainly a thing, but I don’t think you could generate a decent blast from just a petrol tank. It also seems like too much effort for too little gain, when you can just use reliable high explosives to achieve your goals.

          • I hate to keep pointing out details on the application of violence – but the point of the car bomb is to kill the driver (typically) not everyone else around.

            Kill the driver and you might have the FBI after you, but you’ve made your point. Kill everyone around and it might be called a terrorist attack and you could be dealing with the NSA and get labelled a ‘terrorist’.

            Besides, who wants to hire a sloppy killer? Precision killing says that not only can you kill people, it is easy enough for you that you can afford to do it well.

            • Who said the point was to kill anyone in particular? This could be a used car bought just to blow it up. Simply exploding a car is a pretty powerful message.

              • Were that the case, it could be rigged in the security and comfort of a garage, not on the street where the owner parked it.

              • Or maybe the car belongs to someone who has defied Bob Chase’s employer and he was going to detonate the explosive when no one was in it, not to kill the owner, but to terrify them into changing their mind and doing what Chase’s employer wants them to do.

              • Yea, but then I figure you’d probably do something that doesn’t have a risk of blowing up someone on the sidewalk.

              • Not typically part of mob tactics as I understand them. Usually if you are going to threaten someone you threaten the people close to them, not their possessions or their own persons.

                That can lead to feuds if the target values their life less than payback.

          • Given that you’re the author, that sounds like a hint that only a blasting cap was placed, which is surely just as good a message as actual dynamite, and possibly Bob’s lawyer might he able to successful fight any major charges.

            It’s been a while since I last worked under a car, but even so, I don’t recognize the first panel.

  7. Esurnir says

    What’s that pink object ? I’m guessing drugs.

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