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Description
Behold, a page from the second volume of EMPOWERED, my “sexy superhero comedy” published by Dark Horse comics.* Behold, in particular, a page from the story “The Aryan Ideal of Shoulder Candy” [link] ...a story which, alas, has garnered some highly problematic misinterpretation from at least one outraged reader. Read on, and I shall attempt to clarify and explain the matter at hand.

As is made clearer in later volumes, the characters within the “Empverse” depicted in EMPOWERED operate by a set of so-called “Unwritten Rules” governing superhuman-related behavior and interactions. These rules are, alas, occasionally fudged and sometimes broken entirely ...with the literally burning example of this being the uber-horny supervillain “Willy Pete”.

In particular, one story in vol. 2, “The Aryan Ideal of Shoulder Candy,” features a female character who gets rather, ah, excessively forward with Emp, to the point that I actually considered cutting the story entirely. However, I wound up leaving the story in the volume anyway (though with a few cuts), as that character later winds up as the improbable, kinda-sorta superheroine “Ocelotina” in EMPOWERED vol. 3... and, furthermore, the story in question features the volume’s primary appearance by Emp’s nemesis Sistah Spooky (whose motives in said story may well be misunderstood, but I’ll worry about that later).

At one point in “Shoulder Candy”, the future Ocelotina fondles a naked Emp, a move which is meant to be wrong and inappropriate within the context of the story itself, and is, in fact, a clear violation of the Empverse’s “Unwritten Rules”. As you will see in future Ocelotina appearances, however, this self-absorbed, highly overconfident young woman does not believe that ANY rules apply to her. Unlike most of the other characters in EMPOWERED, she is wholly unburdened by insecurities or self-doubt... nor by many (or, indeed, ANY) thoughts regarding the consequences of her actions. You’ll note that she strictly forbids her brother from making any “bad touches” to Emp... but she herself, of course, considers herself to be allowed to do whatever the hell she wants.

Now, we come to most the problematic part of this story... In three panels of “Shoulder Candy,” on pages 67, 68 and 69 of EMPOWERED vol. 2, the future Ocelotina is most definitely touching Emp in a wrong and inappropriate manner. Let me state for the record, however, that she is NOT, repeat NOT digitally penetrating Emp in those panels, as several readers have unfortunately misinterpreted to be the case. She’s still certainly committing a “bad touch”, to be sure, but not THAT bad of a touch. (Also for the record: ANY touch made to a naked superhero or superheroine is considered a “bad touch” under the “Unwritten Rules,” which will be addressed in greater detail in the future.)

I wasn’t particularly comfortable with leaving those three panels in the book, to be honest, as it occurred to me that they were ambiguous enough to possibly be misinterpreted in this manner. I just didn’t have the energy to completely redraw them at the time I was handing in the book’s artwork, after relettering and correcting roughly 200 pages over the space of a week or so. (Yeah, yeah, boo hoo, I know.) In any event, in the second printing of EMPOWERED vol. 2, I’m going to redraw those three panels (and move ’Tina’s hand WAY the hell away from Emp’s “danger zone” ) to make it absolutely fricking clear to all readers that Emp is not, repeat NOT being fingered, okay?

Furthermore, later on, I may establish that Sistah Spooky wiped Emp’s memories of the whole incident... The idea being that Spooky doesn’t want to leave Emp any recollection that bad guys might’ve theoretically found her more attractive (or that a sleepy Emp might recall some fragment of Spooky’s subsequent berating of said bad guys). Still not sure if I want to go that route, as I might want Emp to recall that she's met Ocelotina before when the latter chica reappears (as an alleged superheroine) in vol. 3...

Actually, the Spooky appearance in this story was one scene that I was almost SURE would be misinterpreted: Spooky does NOT, in fact, want to wind up as any villain’s “shoulder candy”. She DOES, however, wish to be taken into consideration for such a role, so as to assuage her highly unstable vanity. Yep, so extreme is her own degree of insecurity that she chooses to interpret the worst part of Emp’s superheroic career (our heroine’s frequent bouts of distress and/or peril) as somehow being a slight to herself.

In truth, this damn story’s given me quite a few hassles, over the last year or so. The original version ended completely differently... and in a manner that I personally found wrong and inappropriate, to boot, which is why I spiked said original ending! I often grow tired of working on the longer stories in EMPOWERED, and that definitely happened here... Around page thirteen in the original version, I just said “screw it,” and decided to end the story as abruptly as possible. Specifically, I jumped directly from the scene of (the future) Ocelotina fondling Emp in an automobile’s trunk to a scene of THUGBOY fondling Emp in bed, as she suddenly wakes up from the dream sequence that took up the previous thirteen pages! Yep, the rest of the story was naught but a dream... (Groan. Yep, I was gonna go THERE once again.) Actually, I might post that unused page of Thugboy and Emp in bed sometime, as it’s reasonably hawt... and would’ve provided a welcome bit of “the sexy” to a book that featured quite a bit less in the way of carnal shenanigans than the previous volume.

However, I got rid of that ending entirely, and tacked on the much longer Sistah Spooky section of the story instead. Why did I do that? In part, because I needed a Spooky appearance, and also because I already had another dream sequence, the Thugboy nightmare dealie, planned for later in the volume... (and Lord knows, I’ve spent most of my career running the “dream sequence” concept into the ground.) The main reason, though, was that I thought the original ending might well be misinterpreted as Emp, in effect, fantasizing about getting tied up! That, boys and girls, would be SERIOUSLY wrong and inappropriate, as Emp doesn’t particularly appreciate her frequent forays into peril. No, really, she doesn’t.

So, I changed the ending, and promptly managed to stumble into a completely different and considerably thornier thicket of reader misinterpretation. Just grrrrrrreat!

*You can pick up EMPOWERED vol. 2 at your local comics retailer or bookstore; if it's not in stock, they'd no doubt be happy to order it (if only you ask) , so as to garner your caysh, yo. Heck, even my local Barnes & Noble briefly stocked EMPOWERED vol. 1, albeit in the jumbled hellscape of the regular comics section, as opposed to the orderly paradise of the manga section... or you can order EMP 2 from DH online at:

[link]

...or from Amazon. com at:

[link]

Description
Behold, a page from the second volume of EMPOWERED, my “sexy superhero comedy” published by Dark Horse comics.* Behold, in particular, a page from the story “The Aryan Ideal of Shoulder Candy” [link] ...a story which, alas, has garnered some highly problematic misinterpretation from at least one outraged reader. Read on, and I shall attempt to clarify and explain the matter at hand.

As is made clearer in later volumes, the characters within the “Empverse” depicted in EMPOWERED operate by a set of so-called “Unwritten Rules” governing superhuman-related behavior and interactions. These rules are, alas, occasionally fudged and sometimes broken entirely ...with the literally burning example of this being the uber-horny supervillain “Willy Pete”.

In particular, one story in vol. 2, “The Aryan Ideal of Shoulder Candy,” features a female character who gets rather, ah, excessively forward with Emp, to the point that I actually considered cutting the story entirely. However, I wound up leaving the story in the volume anyway (though with a few cuts), as that character later winds up as the improbable, kinda-sorta superheroine “Ocelotina” in EMPOWERED vol. 3... and, furthermore, the story in question features the volume’s primary appearance by Emp’s nemesis Sistah Spooky (whose motives in said story may well be misunderstood, but I’ll worry about that later).

At one point in “Shoulder Candy”, the future Ocelotina fondles a naked Emp, a move which is meant to be wrong and inappropriate within the context of the story itself, and is, in fact, a clear violation of the Empverse’s “Unwritten Rules”. As you will see in future Ocelotina appearances, however, this self-absorbed, highly overconfident young woman does not believe that ANY rules apply to her. Unlike most of the other characters in EMPOWERED, she is wholly unburdened by insecurities or self-doubt... nor by many (or, indeed, ANY) thoughts regarding the consequences of her actions. You’ll note that she strictly forbids her brother from making any “bad touches” to Emp... but she herself, of course, considers herself to be allowed to do whatever the hell she wants.

Now, we come to most the problematic part of this story... In three panels of “Shoulder Candy,” on pages 67, 68 and 69 of EMPOWERED vol. 2, the future Ocelotina is most definitely touching Emp in a wrong and inappropriate manner. Let me state for the record, however, that she is NOT, repeat NOT digitally penetrating Emp in those panels, as several readers have unfortunately misinterpreted to be the case. She’s still certainly committing a “bad touch”, to be sure, but not THAT bad of a touch. (Also for the record: ANY touch made to a naked superhero or superheroine is considered a “bad touch” under the “Unwritten Rules,” which will be addressed in greater detail in the future.)

I wasn’t particularly comfortable with leaving those three panels in the book, to be honest, as it occurred to me that they were ambiguous enough to possibly be misinterpreted in this manner. I just didn’t have the energy to completely redraw them at the time I was handing in the book’s artwork, after relettering and correcting roughly 200 pages over the space of a week or so. (Yeah, yeah, boo hoo, I know.) In any event, in the second printing of EMPOWERED vol. 2, I’m going to redraw those three panels (and move ’Tina’s hand WAY the hell away from Emp’s “danger zone” ) to make it absolutely fricking clear to all readers that Emp is not, repeat NOT being fingered, okay?

Furthermore, later on, I may establish that Sistah Spooky wiped Emp’s memories of the whole incident... The idea being that Spooky doesn’t want to leave Emp any recollection that bad guys might’ve theoretically found her more attractive (or that a sleepy Emp might recall some fragment of Spooky’s subsequent berating of said bad guys). Still not sure if I want to go that route, as I might want Emp to recall that she's met Ocelotina before when the latter chica reappears (as an alleged superheroine) in vol. 3...

Actually, the Spooky appearance in this story was one scene that I was almost SURE would be misinterpreted: Spooky does NOT, in fact, want to wind up as any villain’s “shoulder candy”. She DOES, however, wish to be taken into consideration for such a role, so as to assuage her highly unstable vanity. Yep, so extreme is her own degree of insecurity that she chooses to interpret the worst part of Emp’s superheroic career (our heroine’s frequent bouts of distress and/or peril) as somehow being a slight to herself.

In truth, this damn story’s given me quite a few hassles, over the last year or so. The original version ended completely differently... and in a manner that I personally found wrong and inappropriate, to boot, which is why I spiked said original ending! I often grow tired of working on the longer stories in EMPOWERED, and that definitely happened here... Around page thirteen in the original version, I just said “screw it,” and decided to end the story as abruptly as possible. Specifically, I jumped directly from the scene of (the future) Ocelotina fondling Emp in an automobile’s trunk to a scene of THUGBOY fondling Emp in bed, as she suddenly wakes up from the dream sequence that took up the previous thirteen pages! Yep, the rest of the story was naught but a dream... (Groan. Yep, I was gonna go THERE once again.) Actually, I might post that unused page of Thugboy and Emp in bed sometime, as it’s reasonably hawt... and would’ve provided a welcome bit of “the sexy” to a book that featured quite a bit less in the way of carnal shenanigans than the previous volume.

However, I got rid of that ending entirely, and tacked on the much longer Sistah Spooky section of the story instead. Why did I do that? In part, because I needed a Spooky appearance, and also because I already had another dream sequence, the Thugboy nightmare dealie, planned for later in the volume... (and Lord knows, I’ve spent most of my career running the “dream sequence” concept into the ground.) The main reason, though, was that I thought the original ending might well be misinterpreted as Emp, in effect, fantasizing about getting tied up! That, boys and girls, would be SERIOUSLY wrong and inappropriate, as Emp doesn’t particularly appreciate her frequent forays into peril. No, really, she doesn’t.

So, I changed the ending, and promptly managed to stumble into a completely different and considerably thornier thicket of reader misinterpretation. Just grrrrrrreat!

*You can pick up EMPOWERED vol. 2 at your local comics retailer or bookstore; if it's not in stock, they'd no doubt be happy to order it (if only you ask) , so as to garner your caysh, yo. Heck, even my local Barnes & Noble briefly stocked EMPOWERED vol. 1, albeit in the jumbled hellscape of the regular comics section, as opposed to the orderly paradise of the manga section... or you can order EMP 2 from DH online at:

[link]

...or from Amazon. com at:

[link]