Panel 2: Note that this scene is the source of the seemingly cryptic “plipp plipp plipp” panel from the flash-forward(?) montage story “Time’s Arrow, Flying Differently” that opened up Empowered vol. 7.

Panel 4: To belabor the obvious a tad, Ninjette’s unnamed father is another of this series’ genuinely horrific Big Bads, despite (seemingly) lacking the high-level powers of Willy Pete or Deathmonger or Mindf**k’s brother. 

Note that, in this tight close-up, he incongruously sports a bit of the “big chin” character design of Kenichi Sonoda’s Riding Bean from Gunsmith Cats (and, er, Riding Bean). In a somewhat aggravating turn of events, by far the best depiction of Ninjette’s father was drawn by guest artist Takeshi Miyazawa in the one-shot Empowered: Nine Beers with Ninjette, which was a spinoff of sorts from this volume’s storylines. (In fact, it’s a story I originally intended to include in vol. 7, but ran outta space.)

Takeshi depicted Ninjette’s father with a memorably scrofulous and dissolute flourish that really served such a violent, abusive alcoholic well, even though (as here) we never saw the character’s eyes. Nicely done! And yes, webcomic readers will see Nine Beers with Ninjette serialized here someday, though likely not until after I’ve completed posting of all the “mainline” Empowered volumes. (That said, I’ve considered putting up Nine Beers immediately after vol. 7, as it is indeed a direct sequel of sorts; but the sudden art change would, I think, be too startling for webcomic readers.)

Panel 5: That’s a tough, tough camera (down-)angle to draw a muscular dude from, so it’s no surprise that Decade-Ago Me botched it a fair bit. Hell, I’d likely still have trouble drawing this pose after a few years of life drawing practice, though the results would undoubtedly be better than this shot.

Today’s Patreon update: Open slot in the weekly schedule today! Not sure what I’ll be posting, but something will go up today. I’ve been posting every weekday (sometimes multiple times per day) on this Patreon for over a year, so why stop now?

-Adam Warren