At long last, folks, it’s finally time to post my thoughts about the oft-mentioned Mysteriously Intermittent Post-Millennial Torso Glitch, as seen on this very page in panel 3, and in a few additional examples I'll post as well! This rambling speculation about the ol' "MIP-MTG" was originally written a year or two ago as a (never-posted) Twitter rant, hence the formatting. Here goes!

 

So, yeah: Looking through a bunch of original art dating back from roughly 2002-2012, I noticed an odd, sporadic figure-drawing glitch.

 

The intermittent art flaw in question appeared outta nowhere, randomly plagued my work for years, then disappeared just as mysteriously.

 

The art glitch is, I think, a weird combination of incompatible stylistic influence and “eyeballed” figure proportions gone tragically awry.

 

What happened was this: At random points during the first 4 or so volumes of Empowered, Emp’s torso would abruptly get... strange.

 

Here's an example or three, from some 2005-ish Emp sketches. Alarmingly—though, I swear, unintentionally—skinny waists ahoy!

 

 

Below, another 2006-ish inked sketch, with an oddly wonky Emp torso. Not just skinny but, well, strangely constructed.

 

 

Sometimes, the Glitch is just Emp's waist being really tiny; other times, a peculiar, undulating lack of structure afflicts her entire torso.

 

Important, here, is the Mysteriously Intermittent part. This “wasp-waist” phenomenon only occasionally popped up in my drawings of Emp. 

 

Most of the time, I didn’t draw Emp’s waist so exaggeratedly skinny. The majority of this era’s drawings were far less “wasp-y" and many, to my present-day critical eye, remain at least semi-acceptable.

 

I should clarify that so-called “realism”—or the lack thereof—isn’t the issue with these Emp torso glitches. I don’t care about that.

 

Off the top of my head, I can rattle off at least 30 or 40—if not 80 or 100—willfully unrealistic aspects of how I draw faces and figures. 

 

If you’re looking for supposedly “realistic” depiction of the human face or figure, you’re looking at the wrong f**king artist, folks.

 

I’m a distinctly “cartoony” artist. All my major influences, from childhood to the present day, were also strongly stylized comic artists.

 

My problem with the Torso Glitch? It represented a rogue form of excessive stylization that I never noticed I was periodically lapsing into.

 

Emp's glitched torso isn't just out of sync with my current-day sensibilities, but was also out of sync with how I generally drew her back then. Mysterious!

 

Tricky bit: This didn’t occur as a planned, deliberate artistic choice. Today, I can only speculate as to what the hell happened back then.  

 

I work in a primitive, more-or-less instinctive manner: I draw what looks right to me, until one day that no longer looks right to me.

 

Here’s my guess, regarding part of the problem: When I worked on a failed animation pitch circa 2000 with the great artist and animator Bruce Timm (of Batman: The Animated Series fame, among his many projects), I might've picked up part of his style.

 

I was riveted by the raw energy and Jack-Kirby-ish kineticism of Bruce’s artwork, which evoked elements I loved about American comics as a kid.

 

My formative comics-art influences in childhood were Kirby and John Buscema, both of whom feel to me like primary influences on Bruce’s work.

 

(Unlike you young folk nowadays, I didn’t see any manga until age 18. I’m glad, though, that I had years of Western influences beforehand.)

 

Even Bruce’s bold, slick, powerful inking evokes Joe Sinnott, who was far and away my favorite inker back in the (childhood) day.

 

Anyhoo: Beyond raw energy, sheer genius and so on, Bruce is also known for drawing them sessy, sessy ladies with skinny, skinny waists.

 

I suspect, in retrospect, that I was sporadically—and unconsciously—aping Bruce’s wasp-waisted chicas in those early Empowered art glitches.

 

Turn out, alas, that my art style isn’t quite cartoony enough to support the “wasp-waisted ladies” flourish that works so well in Bruce’s work.

 

The weirdly skinny waists weren’t the point in and of themselves, though, as I have no particular recollection of being fired up about that.

 

In fact, I recall drawing a commission for an, uhh, corset enthusiast circa 2002 and thinking, “Man, this is some messed-up stuff, son.” 

 

The tragic irony, of course, was that corset-worthy “waist glitches” were popping into my work without me consciously noticing them.

 

The intent, I assume, was rather to emphasize Emp’s hips via sheer contrast, using an exaggerated waist-to-hip ratio. (Hips, I did like.)

 

Here’s a 1998-ish character-design sheet for the Dirty Pair. You’ll note that their waist-to-hip ratio isn’t especially pronounced:

 

 

In ’98, I recall a (bro)pro saying, “Man, your ladies sure are thick-waisted.” At the time, I ignored the criticism. LITTLE DID WE BOTH KNOW

 

Only a few years later, here’s a sadly messed-up Dirty Pair cover, in which poor Yuri’s torso is a complete disaster:

 

 

The main cause of disaster on that DP cover, though, is part 2 of the issue: Badly botched—and, importantly, unmeasured—figure proportions.

 

One thing’s become clear, as I look over the last decade’s work: I wasn’t quite as good as eyeballing figure proportions as I thought I was. 

 

Much of the time—perhaps even most of the time—I can breezily sketch human figures without measuring out exact proportions ahead of time.

 

But sometimes, alas, my artists’ eye fails me, and I straight-up botch figure proportions to an almost comical degree. (Except it’s NOT funny.)

 

I was often okay with mangled body proportions if the character’s head wound up proportionally too large; a cute “cartoony” look, perhaps?

 

Here, an old Empowered Xmas card, with the torsos of both Emp and Ninjette bearing mute witness to badly eyeballed proportions:

 

 

Problem is, Empowered in particular demands a prodigious production rate. I can’t be laboriously prepping and agonizing over every g-d panel.

 

Sometimes, you just gotta roll with the artistic flow, recklessly eyeball proportions and—as I sometimes think of it—“Use the force, Luke.”

 

While I can and do measure off body proportions and doublecheck figure work, often I have to—and, honestly, want to—blunder ahead heedlessly.

 

That means I have to rely on my artist’s eye to catch wonky torsos and botched head sizes; turns out said reliability can change over time.

 

Ah, but here’s the twist: Emp’s wasp-waisted “art glitches” stopped circa Empowered vol. 4 or so, ending just as inexplicably as they began.

 

I only noticed the early-Emp messed-up torsos recently; only then did I subsequently notice that they’d stopped appearing years earlier.

 

I could wax disingenuous and claim that the Torso Glitch's disappearance was ideological in nature but, alas, that's just not the case.

 

The Torso Glitch popped up at random during the time when Big Pouty Lips reigned unchecked in my work, but that's probably only a coincidence.

 

I didn’t make a conscious decision to start randomly wasp-waisping Emp; also didn’t make a conscious decision to stop randomly wasp-waisting her. Scary, yo.

Not like the Torso Glitch faded away because I actually bothered to learn more about figure drawing. Sadly, I didn't.

Like any number of idiosyncrasies that formerly plagued my work, I likely just burned out the Glitch through sheer volume of production.

Early Empowered volumes sport art quirks now faded from my style: SuperPouty Lips, squared-off Thugboy fingers, the "3/4 overbite shot."  

(The dreaded "3/4 overbite shot" won't appear for another few volumes, but it drove an artist friend of mine cuh-RAZY during its lifespan.)

Besides, I shouldn't overstate the Glitch's severity. It's a mere art flaw that annoys me a bit, but doesn't ruin Empowered's stories for me.

I'm far more upset by poor narrative choices later in the series, when I succumbed to the siren's song of "overdialoguing." I hate that, now.

But a recurring bit of art goofiness like the Torso Glitch? I just shrug that off, honestly—and it gives me fodder for these commentaries!

Still, nonethless, I flinch a wee bit every time I see a messed-up torso in Empowered vols. 1-4. “How could I not see that, son?” Again, no real idea why not. Sigh.

 

In fact, I’m now plagued by exactly the opposite issue, as on occasion I blunder into drawing Emp a bit too thick-waisted and small-headed. 

 

I’m now drawing Emp a bit softer and fuller-figured, to differentiate her from the more idealized physiques of Ninjette or Sistah Spooky. 

 

Ah, but this means that, as of the present day, I do occasionally stumble into drawing her a bit, uh, “thicker” than I might have intended. 

 

And when I bungle Emp’s figure proportions nowadays, I invariably depict her with a head too small for her body, rather than too large.

 

Several times in Empowered vol.10, I’ve botched the eyeballing of Emp’s proportions so badly that she resembles a teeny-headed Robert Crumb drawing(!).

 

While the Mysteriously Intermittent Post-Millennial Torso Glitch’s puzzling reign of terror is over, the threat of tiny-headed, too-thick Emp is very real. Oh, well.

 

-Adam Warren