Volume 2 Page 72
Posted September 13, 2016 at 12:01 am

Panel 1: Yeahp, in the Empverse, conspiracy theorists ascribe a different reason for the demise of Chappelle’s Show than in our own more mundane reality. Probably not a great idea to link Spooky’s timeline to a real-world pop-culture reference with a fixed date rapidly receding into the past, but what the heck. 

Gotta admit, “Sistah Spooky” is a rather goofy “supranym,” isn’t it? (The name certainly seemed an easy target for a scornful comedian, hence the Chappelle bit in panel 1.) Well, here’s a bit of ultra-obscure comics history about its origin.

Back in the 90s, a talented bunch of freelance artists worked at the now-defunct Portland-area art studio called “Studio Saurus,” including fine folks like Terry Dodson, Aaron Lopresti, Ron Randall, and Matt Haley—and Tom Simmons, who was my inker on projects of the era like Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone and Dirty Pair: Fatal but Not Serious. In 1995, the studio put together Chix, a one-shot, creator-owned anthology(-ish) comic released through Image that was a cheesecake-oriented parody of comics trends of the day. Though I wasn’t a member of the studio, I knew a few of the artists pretty well, so I was invited to participate in the book. The somewhat loosey-goosey overarching story of Chix ran the plucky blonde superheroine “Good Girl” through a gantlet of female opponents, and in my segment of the book, she was attacked by a lady ninja I’d created named—wait for it—“Sista Ninja.”

This character was never seen again after the one-shot, but I effectively “cannibalized” her concept a decade later for Empowered. The vague concept of a badass kunoichi in a somewhat goofy but revealing black outfit heavily acessorized with shuriken was semi-reused for Ninjette, and Sista Ninja’s name kinda-sorta popped up again for Sistah Spooky’s supranym—though with Sistah now sporting an “h,” notably.

-Adam Warren

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