adaptations because the art was so unbelievably horrible apparently fueled by that old "drawing Japanimation is easy; just draw big eyes on your chicks" adage that I never got past the "coming soon" ads. Me and the lads'd flip through copies of his books at Oxford Comics and say rude things. Flash forward to the late 90s. To throw a little business to Athens' struggling Main Street Comics. I started picking up three titles there. One of these was the guilty cheesecake pleasure of
I cannot recall a single storyline from any Gen 13 comic I have ever read with the surprising exception of a very very good and extremely clever two-part fill-in scripted by Warren about a pop song nobody can get out of their head actually being a sentient entity. Warren didn't draw it apart from the hideously ugly covers which were done in his agonizingly dull style where all characters are stuck "super-deformed." The script though was first-rate. So.
This is a superhero bondage comedy for grown-ups. It is hilarious. It's about a heroine who gets remarkable strength from a skintight self-regenerating black costume which shreds at the teeniest touch leaving her helpless bound and gagged almost every time she tries to fight crime. It takes every cliche of all those awful American superhero books which look like fetish parades anyway and plays them for laughs. It's remarkably kinky but at the same time playfully coy with the sex and nudity hidden just off-panel or behind props with a single hysterical exception when Em demonstrates her suit's "invisibility" feature only to have it malfunction on her. Even the adult language is hidden behind black bars. The only thing I dislike about the script is an overreliance on contemporary slang and hip-hop patois (chica / ho / homey / sistah) which (God willing) is going to date the book horribly in a decade's time. He really comes up with some hilarious situations and rants and a section where Em is reading embarassing slashfic about herself on a superhero fan board is great. But the art? Well. Warren proves himself surprisingly incredibly adept at pacing and timing. His storytelling is rock-solid and his grasp of anatomy has mostly improved hugely except for...
I couldn't read more than about fifteen pages at a time; it's that ugly. I realize that complaining about Warren's style is churlish if not downright pointless since he has built his career and fanbase from his influences. But let me put this another way there's a cute little in-joke where Em does her cooking wearing Kyoko from
's "piyo piyo" apron. I'd sacrifice that gag in a heartbeat if I could own a copy of Empowered from a parallel universe where Warren's chief art influences were Bilal. Manara and Moebius. If you're a grown-up and you like that art then this is recommended. If you don't like that art then don't bother.
I didn't care for his Dirty Pair artwork - and it has probably nothing to do with his work it's just me - but it really seems that since then he's loosened up a lot and his work is a lot more fun. I saw some pre-Eclipse Dirty Pair fan comics he did that were pretty cool actually. He's a really nice guy too at least he was when I met him at A-Kon years and years and years ago. You know. I always figured that Moebius was somebody whom I would really like when I got older and so far I'm 38 and that hasn't happened yet.
Related article:
http://hipsterdad.livejournal.com/264037.html
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