Little too much text on this page, gotta say. Bit of a harbinger of much more “overdialoguing” in future volumes, I’m afraid.

Panel 1: Alas, out here in the real world, the whole “sexy, bondage-prone superheroine” thing isn’t really a license to print money. Then again, come to think of it, I’ve actually earned more from Empowered in total than I have from all my bygone days in mainstream comics. I got paid a vastly better pagerate working for Wildstorm/DC and Marvel, but the fact that this goofy little series has stayed in print and earned me royalties every quarter (as wildly as they might vary each time) has added up over the last decade. Almost all of my older work-for-hire comics are long outta print, for the most part; one enormous advantage of creator-owned comics is that you have the option to keep the work in print and out in front of potential readers.

Panel 5: One might say that she’s echoing the Caged Demonwolf’s ringing statement from Empowered vol. 2: “Be not ashamed, ninja wench! Shame is for unattractive people!” Undeniably, shamelessness is Ocelotina’s modus operandi.

Panel 7: Ocelotina is referring, of course, to the jackasses who tormented Emp in the earlier Empowered vol. 3 story “A.R.R.!”, in case you’ve forgotten ’em.

-Adam Warren