EMPOWERED: HELLBENT OR HEAVENSENT Angel design

Behold, Guest Artist Ryan Kinnaird's initial designs for a "nanospawned Angel" character from the upcoming one-shot comic Empowered: Hell Bent or Heaven Sent. The latest installment of my ongoing "sexy superhero comedy" series Empowered, this "floppy"-format 32pp book is due out on Dec. 19th and can be pre-ordered right now from your Local Comics Retailer; its Diamond Previews ordering code is OCT120041, if that helps. Alternatively, you can pre-order the one-shot from Dark Horse's retail website here: [link]

Anyhoo, you can compare and contrast Ryan's final designs* for the Angels—here, seen as costume-color variants—with my early, quite crude rough designs for the characters:



So: I'm writing the entirety of Empowered: Hell Bent or Heaven Sent, plus drawing 6-8 B&W pages myself. Howeva, the majority of the one-shot's artwork—for a bold, brassy total of 30 story pages—will be drawn and rendered in luxurious full color by Talented Guest Artist ~RyanKinnaird, as seen on the cover art here:



Here's Empowered: Hell Bent or Heaven Sent's scintillating solicitation copy:

This time around, the "sexy superhero comedy" ensues when costumed crimefighter Empowered makes an ill-fated visit to a top-secret dumping ground for ultra-tech "superdebris" and wrecked "villainware" left over from cape-on-cape battle. Can our heroine and her hapless teammate, cyborg-with-a-secret Mechanismo, possibly hope to survive when the junkyard begins nano-spawning an apocalyptic cheesecake plague of flirty but lethal "cyber-angels" and sensual but savage "devil mecha"?



But wait, here's even more text that I wasn't able to fit in the solicitation copy:

Hell Bent or Heaven Sent also includes: Mysterious new powers for Emp's suit revealed! Fire-breathing jealousy and piercing blue eyes as more than just figures of speech! Adventures in cybererospace! Jet-propelled mecha body-boarding! Hot angel-on-ladycape action! The imminent threat of searing, fiery extinction looms nigh! All this, plus something very, very gross is none-too-subtly hinted at!

And here's an oddly cool-looking, flat-color, preliminary version of the above page:



And here's one of the issue's B&W pages, as drawn by me:



And finally, a few of my scribbled thumbnail roughs for Ryan's pages:



Again, this "floppy"-format installment of Empowered is due out Dec. 19th from Dark Horse Comics: [link] If you're an Emp fan, I respectfully urge you to let your Local Comics Retailer know that you want a copy, as the success or failure of this latest effort will affect whether or not other projects like this one ever see print.

In the interests of further floggery, I might as well mention the current Emp product on the shelves:

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This is Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 2, which collects volumes 4 through 6 of the series in a big, bold, brawny, 656-page $59.99 hardcover printed on pretty, pretty paper (and including a fair chunk of bonus material): [link]

This weighty new tome's already on the shelves of your Local Comics Retailer, and should be be available in conventional bookstores shortly. Alternatively, you can order it from Dark Horse's online retail site here (for 20% off): [link]

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

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...is already on sale at your Local Comics Retailer or bookstore, in theory at least, or can be ordered online from Dark Horse: [link] or Amazon: [link]

In closing, 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 [link] or on Amazon.com [link] .

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

-AW

*_{Oh, and before too many Very, Very Sensitive Males in the audience get their undies in a twist, you may rest assured that a very clear and definite rationale exists for the story's synthetic Angels—and Devils, too!—being mostly nekkid and entirely racktastic. Objectification riff, ahoy! (I'm way ahead of ya, Sensitive Males.)}