Welcome to the only page in all of Empowered that I know by its specific page number, folks, due to the final panel. Yikes!

You might've noticed by now that my webcomic commentaries often avoid addressing the story proper, and especially avoid answering very many lingering narrative questions or explaining what each individual page might "mean." Wellp, folks, today's page will be no exception, as I'm not going to explain or clarify exactly what the final two panels of the dreaded and much-discussed Page 191 signify. I'm hoping to one day convey to the reader what the "Sea of the Damned" is all about, but that's something that would happen within the context of Empowered's ongoing narrative, and not within a webcomic commentary, alas.

So!

Continuing from Monday's commentary (after a recurring webcomic software mishap on Tuesday), cranking out this climactic story by writing and drawing one page at a time—though based on an outline already well-established in my mind—was a vaaaaaastly more compelling and immersive creative experience than any of my conventionally formatted work in mainstream comics, which was produced in the laborious "write the whole issue, then draw the whole issue" approach that always front-loaded the truly creative stages of writing and layouts then condemned me to weeks or months of non-stop artistic gruntwork with the comparatively unfulfilling stages of pencils and inks.

I know of Western comics creators who will write an entire g-d graphic novel worth of 150-200 pages at a time, then pencil all those those pages, then ink 'em and so on. Believe me, I'd sooner g-d hang myself then spend month after month after month doing nothing but g-d inking—but, hey, some comics creators actually like that approach, believe it or not. God bless 'em, but that ain't for me, at any time in my comics career.

(Continued when the software allows!)

Today’s Patreon update: In an attempt to scratch out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. So, who knows what today's post might feature? Could be Life Drawing or Distressed Damsels content (both of which are featured at least three times per month), or something in the Work Stages, Vintage Con Sketches or Design departments, or possibly something entirely new. Golly!

-Adam Warren