Stay off my power lines!

February 4, 2003 5:10 AM

It's a bird, it's a plane, It's....Major Power! Celina Utilities has come up with a comic book superhero whose job it is to keep the power flowing. His arch enemy? Squirrels. Those little tree rats are jumping on his power lines and making life generally difficult for the rest of us. And he's not happy. There are some little comic strips on this page, and a link to the artist, Dan Davis, who has a decent resume himself. Via the Wall Street Journal
posted by djspicerack (7 comments total)

Respectable, though Mr. McCloud may have a thing or two to say about adapting print comics to the web... Noone loves the scanned-page-scrolling-half-an-inch-to-get-those-last-couple-lines-of-text method.
posted by kaibutsu at 5:40 AM on February 4, 2003

"Don't worry, if I hit [an electrical line], I can just let go of the shovel."

"Hey, that wire's down. Maybe I can drive over it."

(Major Power intervenes.)

So basically, this Major Power... he's, like, the enemy of the Darwin Awards?
posted by Shane at 6:13 AM on February 4, 2003

What's fascinating about the comic book (haven't looked at the strips) is that it has very little to do with practical, hey-don't-fly-your-kite-near-the-powerlines safety tips. It's basically an old style 8 page superhero comic. Although in fairness I do now know that I shouldn't send out my army of robotic squirrels to sabotage the city's power supply. But that's okay. I'll find other uses for them.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:22 AM on February 4, 2003

Yeah, usually for jobs like that they try to fill the script with as much facts as possible and it winds up making the visuals really awkward. It's actually pretty, uh, clean for the genre.

I like how Major Power apprehends the Squirrel by dumping acorns behind him as he runs away.

I also like the depressing trade show pictures.

So this somehow rated a mention in the Wall Street Journal's "Utilities Can't Stomach Fried Squirrel" article, I take it?
posted by furiousthought at 7:21 AM on February 4, 2003

Is he any relation to Max Power?
posted by padraigin at 10:39 AM on February 4, 2003

Major Power failed to follow a basic safety rule - don't short the city's power grid with your body.
posted by eddydamascene at 11:30 AM on February 4, 2003

here's the wsj article, it should work... as long as those damn squirrels don't screw it up! (also there're more "rodent tails" off to the side, just insert a '_email' after the article :)
posted by kliuless at 6:46 PM on February 4, 2003