HOME | DD

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

A startling two weeks earlier than originally scheduled(!), this very day sees the release of Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 2, which collects volumes 4 through 6 of of my ongoing "sexy superhero comedy" series Empowered in a big, bold, brawny, 656-page $59.99 hardcover printed on pretty, pretty paper (and including a goodly chunk of bonus material): www.darkhorse.com/Books/19-008…

Say, here's a thumbnail for an Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 page—

—in which the inimitable Caged Demonwolf introduces the book's bountiful "Mega Extras" bonus section, which does indeed feature a whole bunch of Emp-related work that few have ever seen, not even the folks on the nigh-legendary Top-Secret Emp E-mailing List. (That is, sketches, unpublished stories, design roughs, layout pages, work stages, color guides, page-by-page annotations, etc.)

A major bonus for this honkin' big collection, in my eyes, would be the fact that it represents the first time you'll get to see Empowered vol. 6's artwork—

—reproduced to my full satisfaction. The first editions of vol. 6 ran afoul of printing difficulties, alas, and wound up repro'ing my pencils much, much darker than originally intended. Later printings toned this problematic issue down a good bit, but the version of the book included in Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 looks even better, to the point that I was a more than little bit stunned when I first leafed through a comp copy of the hardcover.

As mentioned earlier, this weighty new tome will hit the shelves of your Local Comics Retailer August 15th, and be available in conventional bookstores some time after that. Alternatively, you can order it right now from Dark Horses's online retail site here (for 20% off): www.tfaw.com/Profile/Empowered… ...or you can preorder it from Amazon, though it won't ship until the end of August: www.amazon.com/Empowered-Delux…

Note that Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 1, which collects volumes 1-3, as seen below:

...is already on sale at your Local Comics Retailer or bookstore, in theory at least, or can be ordered online from Dark Horse: www.tfaw.com/Profile/Empowered… or Amazon: www.amazon.com/Empowered-Delux…

Also, I must of course paste in the requisite general-purpose Emp-related floggery: Print copies of Empowered's first seven volumes (and a pair of one-shots in comics format) can be found on the shelves of your Local Comics Retailer or bookstore, or online at Dark Horse's retail website www.tfaw.com/Search?_results_u… or on Amazon.com www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_nos… .

All the existing Empowered books can be purchased rather more cheaply in digital form as well, via the Dark Horse Digital store: digital.darkhorse.com/browse/1… Note, however, that these Empowered Deluxe Editions will remain a "print-only" proposition, alas.

In closing, on a far more serious topic: R.I.P. Joe Kubert, the much-loved comics-art icon and founder of the namesake Kubert School, where he simultaneously managed to be both the most intimidating and the most approachable of all my teachers. In my mind's eye, I can still see him rubbing his beard contemplatively, breezily dashing off a perfectly inked gorilla head—without any pencils!—on scrap paper for a demonstration, chucking and telling TomRaney , "Tom, you do love to draw," or delivering his patented bone-crushing handshake. Gotta admit, in my Narrative Art assignments for Joe, I nursed a somewhat twisted ambition: I wanted to do such a badass job on my comics pages that Joe would have nothing to point out about 'em during his critique. (ProTip: Scheming specifically to not get feedback from your ultra-knowledgeable comics-vet teacher is a rather counterproductive use of your time as an art student.) That rarely happened, of course—which was certainly for the best, given that I always learned a great deal from Joe's critiques**. Still, it's amusingly odd to consider that, in effect, he posed both an indirect and a direct influence on my work, which is the sort of art-related paradox that only an comics titan like Joe could embody; makes me kinda glad, recalling that my art-school diploma has a Kubert-inked illo of Tor the caveman on it.***

-AW

*I'm told that the book shipped in an unusually speedy fashion from the printer overseas, which conjures forth unlikely images of Empowered Deluxe-laden cigarette boats tearing across the Pacific at high speeds.

**Here's an odd anecdote from one Joe critique: Well into my (ongoing!) phase of manga-influenced artwork, I drew a faux cover illo for an assignment. Looking it over, Joe suggested, "Your composition needs more tension." (Contemplative beard rub.) "What if, say, you drew a tentacle reaching in from off-camera and grabbing your heroine's wrist?" Needless to say, in those innocent, naive days of the carefree 80s, neither Joe nor I had any idea that the words "manga" and "tentacle" would one day take on a very different and entirely more ominous implication....

***Along with Ernie the lizard, of course.