Panel 1: Probably should’ve “flopped” this panel, in that the Demonwolf should’ve been placed on the left and his word balloon on the right. That way, this panel would have echoed the “Demonwolf on left, Ninjette on right” orientation seen in panels 3 and 4. A minor quibble, but something to keep in mind in your own conversation scenes, comics creators: best to maintain such a “who’s facing left or right” orientation whenever possible, as it helps “anchor” character placement in a scene, even if most readers wouldn’t consciously notice what you’re doing.

Panel 2: Not entirely sure why Ninjette found “men’s eyes laid upon you” so striking a line as to make her imagine a literalized depiction of the phrase—in truth, the Blazing-Eyed Devilgoat uses far more baroque and colorful vocabulary flourishes than that one. Still, makes for an amusing little narrative tangent, I gotta say.

Panel 4: I’ve been using the term “callipygian”—meaning, “having well-shaped buttocks,” per Merriam-Webster—since my early Dirty Pair days, possibly in regard to Lovely Angel Kei’s self-proclaimed “Hypno-Butt.” (That is, per the old SNL bit featuring Dana Carvey as Faith-era George Michael that inspired it, “You can’t look away! You can’t look away! You’re hypnotized!”)

Y’know, it’s belatedly occurred to me that I should probably dump one of my “bio” text pieces in the “About” link in the Empowered heading above, as I’m fairly sure that most new readers would have no idea whatsoever about my personal history in the (print) comics field—which I’m often referring to in these commentaries, whether invoking Dirty Pair or Gen13 or Livewires or the like. (Right now, the “About” section contains only the default recap I use for most Empowered stories, with a fourth-wall-breaking Emp filling in the reader on the basics of her story.)  

-Adam Warren