Volume 4 Page 108
Posted May 16, 2018 at 12:01 am

Aaaand we’re back to the bondage riffs that constitute the initial—if dubious—origins of Empowered as a bunch of mildly salacious commissioned sketches. Note that the euphemism for such imagery—that is, “damsel in distress”—could arguably get confusing when commonly abbreviated to “DiD.” Wait, are we talking about dissociative identity disorder, the currently preferred alternative to what used to be called multiple personality disorder?

Or might "DiD" refer to the English title of the manga Delicious in DungeonLord knows it’s not impossible that I could theoretically be asked to draw a bondage commission that also works in dissociative identity disorder and a Delicious in Dungeon character. (Believe, I’ve drawn much stranger requests than that.) 

Despite the frequency with which I had to draw such sketches during the (many) low points in my so-called "career in comics," I rarely bothered with digging up much bondage reference, instead preferring to "just wing it" with visual tropes recycled from DiD imagery in "regular" superhero comics. That said, I might have used actual reference for this image, as the double lines of rope aren't my usual, hacked-out, off-the-toppa-the-dome crap; that might be a shibari callback, referring to the Japanese art of insanely complicated rope bondage. A kindly mangaka sent me a shibari photography book a while back, which I confess I've rarely consulted, as the knots and whatnot (ha ha!) involved are far more detail-intensive than I care to spend much time trying to draw. (My insincerest apologies, shibari aficionados.)

-Adam Warren

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