I’m not terribly fond of having used an “all-close-ups” approach on this page. Then again, every time I pull the camera back in this setting, I wind up having to draw details of Emp’s apartment that I don’t especially appreciate drawing, such as those DVD-lined shelves visible in the background of panel 1.

Panels 1-2: The Caged Demonwolf presents a tricky issue for avoiding “overdialoguing,” as his stentorian and verbose ranting is essentially his entire shtick. Pareidolia or not (see “hover text” above), his faceless appearance certainly doesn’t lend itself towards the silent but expressive shots I might use for human characters like Emp, Thugboy, or Ninjette. Still, I think it’s probably a good idea not to have the Devilgoat unleash successive panels of heavy text like this. A better approach might’ve been to allow him only one word balloon in panel 1, while leaving panel 2’s more dramatic barrage as is.

Then again, another overdialoguing issue is the fact that my hand lettering is relatively large, compared to the much smaller software-generated fonts used in most modern comics. While I do often rail about excessively small font sizes in contemporary comics lettering, it should be noted that Empowered’s hand scrawling is often a fair bit larger than might be ideal. Some of the pages I’ll be criticizing for excessive text might not actually appear so if I used a smaller font size; problem is, there are distinct limitations to how small I can comfortably letter, given that I’m using ultra-soft 5B or 6B 2mm pencil leads on 8.5” X 11” paper, which is a much smaller original-art size than most comics creators use. 

-Adam Warren