And thus ends “Amorous Audacity,” and with it ends our long, tangent-filled, roughly 60-page tale of Emp’s Really Bad Night On The Job. Yeahp, we kicked things off all the way back on page 94 with Emp arriving back at the apartment in tears, followed by the Demonwolf’s “tough love” speech, Ninjette’s ill-fated attempt to earn Emp’s respect and subsqquent “ninja flashing” of Thugboy and Demonwolf, and finally this last chapter’s exploration of the erotic secrets of Emp’s supersuit. As you might guess, I wrote all these various meandering “plot threads”—if that’s the proper term for such goofiness—on the fly, each time heading off on a different tangent as I asked myself various “What If?” questions. As in, “what if the Blazing-Eyed Devilgoat tried to be emotionally supportive? What if Ninjette disguised herself as Emp?” and so on.

That’s the kind of flexibility and spontaneity you’re allowed when creating a comic one page at a time, like most webcomics—and unlike the necessarily stricter and rigorously planned-out experiences I’d previously had during my time in print comics. Yeahp, Empowered was, in effect, produced like a webcomic over a decade before it ever actually appeared as a webcomic! Huzzah!

Next up is an incongruously bloody and disconcerting chapter, “A Hundred Pieces, Artfully Arranged.” This rather ominous short story is, to put it mildly, a change of pace for the volume, if not the entire series so far. (Hint: A notably bloodthirsty ninja clan is involved.)

-Adam Warren