Not much to say about this page, other than the disturbing fact that, looking over it, I find that I presently no longer have much interest in drawing dialogue-based scenes like this. Work on Empowered vol. 12 is currently stalled out because I’m in the midst of a lengthy and Very, Very Important Conversation between Spooky and Emp, and just can’t work up any enthusiasm to grind my way through penciling another 15+ pages (minimum) of Significant Speechifying. Can’t get fired up to jump back in the book’s timeline, either, as I’ll only wind up drawing one of several other Very Important Convos from earlier in the volume.

A possible ray of hope howeva: Last night I thought of a radically different approach to Emp vol. 12, with a much bolder and far less dialogue-heavy orientation that might interest me more as an artist. I’d likely have to crank the SF level of the story much higher than the norm and assault the reader with a severely non-linear and assumption-challenging narrative structure, but that wouldn’t be the end of the world, I think. 

Panel 2: Sexy Librarian Emp ahoy! This scene is presumably from the vol.2 story that introduces said cosplay riff, but I don’t feel like looking up the actual page; sorry for the lack of linkage, folks.

Today’s Patreon update: As it’s a Wednesday, time for the $5+ Patron tiers to get their weekly dose of commissioned damsel-in-distress content! This time around, we’re serializing a lengthy narrative of a familiar lass imperiled by a goofy, gluegunning varlet (among MANY such varlets, as we’ll see); in fact, I’ve long considering redrawing this one as an Empowered story, but will almost certainly never get around to doing so now.

-Adam Warren