The original version of this notably brief 2-page story was an even briefer single page, packed with a rather startling—and very, very small—8 panels. (I'll attempt to post the original version in the comments section for the next page, if posssible.) Empowered, if you recall my earlier blathering, is drawn on the relatively teeny medium of 8.5” X 11” copy paper, which is considerably smaller than the roughly 11” X 17” format of most comic artboard. (Though, it should be said, Empowered original art uses every available bit of the copy paper, whereas comic artboard’s ruled-out pages use much less of the paper stock’s surface area.) This comparatively wee amount of space prevents me from indulging in the high panel counts and intensive detail possible on much larger original pages—not that I necessarily minded missing out on such labor-intensive practices, to be honest. Another restriction is my use of very coarse and detail-unfriendly drawing materials, as the soft and chalky 3B(!) pencil leads I used for these pages are ill-suited to rendering the wee, noodly details that my old Japanese maru (round) pen tips and .35mm technical pens once allowed. That said, the series’ initially sketchy and scrawled detail level advanced steadily over the years, to the point that the tightness and crispness of modern Empowered artwork isn’t all that far removed from the inked art of my older comics work.