The first of two pages from “Smart Girl,” a story appearing in the upcoming second volume of EMPOWERED, the “sexy superhero comedy” book I write and draw for Dark Horse Comics.

For the time being, you can see a 10-page preview from EMPOWERED vol. 2 at Publishers' Weekly: [link]

The repro quality’s a bit lower than normal, here, as I had to level-adjust on a 120dpi jpeg, instead of a 600dpi greyscale scan, as I normally do; also, I wound up relettering all of the wonkier word balloons seen here for greater clarity in the final version.

Several folks on the secret EMP emailing list (who first saw these particular pages a few YEARS ago) pointed out to me that I went too far with Emp’s admittedly over-the-top “Sexy Librarian” cosplay, and in fact had lost much of the less overtly provocative appeal of the “cute chick with eyeglasses.” This is defensible within the context of the story, I feel, given that the tastes of the Empverse’s “supervills” (whom she's supposed to be baiting, here) are rarely what one would define as “subtle” or “refined”...

The title-page illo for this EMPOWERED chapter can be seen at:

[link]

Fo' mo' info on EMP vol. 2, check:

[link]

Side note: Had a bit of a close encounter with a black bear whilst out for a walk, last night... Nothin' too scary, as the critter in question didn't fully emerge from the woods until I'd strolled well past it. Still, gotta love that rural lifestyle...