We continue serialization of the collected version of the three-issue 2017 miniseries Empowered and the Soldier of Love, written and laid out by me and featuring full-color artwork by the Chilean webcomic artist Karla Diaz.

Panel 2: TBH, her "tactical love powers" are pretty much always activated (or at least don't require vocal commands), so you might consider this a deliberate invocation of the magical girl trope of "calling out one's powers."

Panel 4: Interestingly, this mundane shooting pose from El Soldado is based on a single hyper-obscure panel from the 1990 manga Space Fairy SPRITES, a book from which I've derived a fair number of cute flying poses in decades past; not sure why, but this one gun pose has lodged in my memory ever since, despite not being especially striking.

Today’s Patreon update: Originally done as a means of scratching out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. However, my vast archive of years of Patreon posts—extensive Empowered previews, work-in-progress updates on developmental projects such as fantasy comics The Chaste and the Chained and The Last Party, vintage con sketches, work stages on covers, "damsel in distress" commissions, life drawings & much, much more—remains available for Patrons' perusal.