Note that panel 1’s lower gutter slants downward on the right side, so as to allow more space for the foreground view of Emp. This is a trick I used far more often on my older comics work, as I would constantly “cheat” more space out of a given panel by slanting its horizontal gutters a bit. Empowered is ordinarily laid out on a grid, though, as the paper I drawn it on is far too fragile to be taped down and have borders and gutters ruled on it with T-square and triangle, as was the case with my old comics. Instead, I mark off panel borders by measuring from a preruled grid, which I’ll attempt to attach below:

So, most Empowered panels are right-angled, based on whatever proportions I marked off from the “master grid” sheet above. Ah, but every now and then I revert to the old ways, and work in one of my beloved “slanty gutters.” Beyond allowing a bit more space, though, angled borders tend to add a wee bit of ineffable visual interest to a page, in my eyes. Whenever I draw a five-panel page of horizontal, panoramic panels, for example, I always slant its gutters upward or downward a tad, as that seems to subtly boost the energy level of the page for me. (Your Mileage, of course, May Vary on this matter, though.)

Panel 4: Believe it or not, this caption’s goofy use of the bold new adverb “nubilely” becomes a plot point—though an exceedingly minor one, admittedly—in an Empowered story much further down the road. As in, midway through vol. 9(!). I’m not kidding when I claim to be “all about the long haul” in this series, folks.

As for Emp’s as-yet-unclarified metacommentary in this panel, she arguably might have been better served by weighing in on the narration’s wacky reference to her “pert breasts pitter-pattering wildly,” which certainly makes for a colorful mental image.

-Adam Warren