Technically Speaking
I wanna hit you suckers up with some more concept art from She-Devils, but first thing’s first.
It looks like the final issue of Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X will hit comic shop shelves, iOS / Android devices, PCs, and Macs everywhere on February 1st. That’s next Wednesday.
So, y’know, get it.
All right, on with the show. We’ll be looking at some of the iconic gear that let’s the She-Devils do what it is they do!
First up JETPACKS!
The Wegs sez:
Felt compelled to do a cut-away showing a bit of the internal workings of the She Devil’s jet packs. Normally all the fans would be in line with one another, but this design uses a differential joint, rather than just ducting, to redirect the thrust.
In reality this would probably put unimaginable stresses on the fan system, but hey, this is comics and I wanted that little swoop. The basic design however is modeled after a real turbofan engine. I always like a little reality in my fantasy.
The name comes curtesy of my wife.
I also felt like doodling a few submachine guns. Ernie Pyle, writing about the U.S. army in Africa in 1943, referred to a soldier’s job as “the craft of killing”. The idea of war being treated as a trade, rather than as some romantic and heroic thing, really struck me. The cheap stamped steel and relative simplicity of what would be mass produced during and shortly after WWII is very blunt and work(wo)manlike, and stands in sharp contrast to pre-war guns like the complex and expensive to manufacture Thompson submachine gun.
This idea of a weapon as a tool (like a hammer) calls back to images of Rosie The Riveter, and I think it’s something that works well with the She Devils.
And what would jetpack air pirates be without an airship?
The Wegs sez:
The Tigermoth is a one-of-a-kind airship operated by the She-Devils. It is primarily used as a transport and mobile command post.
Built from the salvaged hull of a Short Sunderland flying boat, the Tigermoth retains most of the aircraft’s original features. The forward compartments -bow, gun room, ward room, and galley- have been little modified. The bomb room and after compartments have been extensively overhauled to create a “flight deck” for the jetpack equipped pirates. The Tigermoth’s fuselage contains two decks with six bunks on the lower one, a galley with a twin kerosene pressure stove, a yacht-style porcelain flush toilet, an anchoring winch, and a small machine shop for inflight repairs.
Two of the original four Bristol Pegasus XVIII engines were salvageable, though neither of the surviving motors is terribly reliable, being constructed from the cannibalized parts of four non-functioning engines. They are mounted on struts which run through the mounting frame of the semi-rigid lift bag. The Tigermoth carries 4,487 U.S. gallons of fuel.
Armament is limited to an electric FN.A4 turret, mounting four .303 Browning machine-guns in the tail, and a manually operated turret in the nose containing two .05 Browning machine-guns.
