empowered volume 5

When I got back on Friday I was greeted by a pleasant sight - the latest volume of Empowered had turned up.

Empowered is by Adam Warren, who I'm something of a fan of. His drawing style is what's called (or now called - there's something of a plethora of different terms for it) Original English-Language Manga, or OEL.

In other words, he draws in a manga style. It's not an entirely traditional manga style - over the years Warren's style has grown and developed as you'd expect of any artist - but manga-influenced, nonetheless.

Empowered is his latest project - it's been going for a few years now, and this is the fifth volume. Give-or-take, each volume of Emp is better than the last, although my personal opinion was that it dipped a little in volume 4.

Perhaps that's something of a reflection of how much I enjoyed vol3, but I think it was more to do with the extended fight at the end of the volume. It wasn't bad or anything, it just felt a bit 'been there, done that' for some reason - superheroes fighting for huge page counts is in every other book too.

Anyway, the point is that volume 5 is an absolute cracker. It too has a long chapter at the end, which also involves a big old superhero fight, but here Warren does what he's best at in Emp and kinda subverts that. Basically, it all goes tits up and they get wiped out in five minutes and then the rest of the story is about Emp simply trying to survive. Also, we get some true heroism in the form of people sacrificing themselves to save others.

See, there's nothing wrong with Emp using powers to do the superhero thing like in Vol 4, it's just that the book works better when it's subverting (that's really the wrong word, but I can't think of a better one) that idea and showing the other side. The Emp et al being human side.

I mean, in a sense, that's the core theme of the book - if Emp's very fragile suit gets torn up, she looses her powers, yet she still leaps into danger. And also, even when it does get torn up and she looses her powers she still manages to save the day. It's all about the true heroism.

Anyway, enough of the deeper analysis stuff.

What's also great about this volume is that it contains a good balance of "other stuff" too. As the volumes have progressed, the number of characters has greatly increased, as you'd imagine, and quite a few of them are more than just background characters. They're not quite stars of the book, but they're a bit more than supporting characters.

One of my favourites is the caged Demonwolf, a mega-powerful evil entity in the Lovecraftian vein who Emp trapped inside a sort of bondage belt thing. He now basically lives on Emp's coffee table and is essentially just a voice.

But what a voice - he has quite the way of words and is often used by Warren to narrate stories. These take the form of more fanciful/possibly-fictitious accounts through to more realistic narration.

What particularly amused me this volume is that the Demonwolf relates a story and quotes some of the character, but what they say gets processed through Demonwolf speak and becomes very humorous.

There's also a good chunk of Ninjette in the book and a character called Ocelotina recurs too.

This is actually an advantage of the way the book is structured. The book is written as a proper graphic novel, rather than being a collection of individual comic books. This means that chapter length varies, which means a shorter (or longer) chapter featuring a secondary character can be included without needing to batter it into the required page count.

So yeah, check it out.

The last few pages put a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye - if there's any higher recommendation than that, I don't know what it is.

empowered volume 4

I got Empowered volume 4 this week.

For anyone not in the know, empowered is the latest work from Adam Warren. Warren was one of the first American artists to adopt an anime style that I know of. He also holds the rights to the manga/comic adaptation of the Dirty Pair, who have always been one of my favourite anime franchises (if that's the right word).

Anyway, Empowered, although obviously drawn in Warren's anime-inspired style, is actually a superhero book. Although it's not a normal superhero book.

It's kinda a riff on that idea of "what would superheroes really be like if they really existed?" and a lot of the book is devoted to the personal lives of Emp, the hero, and her friends, acquaintances and cohorts.

It's also quite adult - the parental advisory sticker on the front and the shrink-wrapping is definitely there for a reason. I mean, it's not really explicit - it's not porn - but it's not for kids, either.

So yeah, volume 4 arrived at my house this week and I've been giving it a good read. I'm not sure I'd say it was quite as good as volume 3, which is my favourite so far, but it is very good. It's actually set in a shorter time period than the previous books, or it seems that way anyway - there's certainly a clear linear structure to the stories, whereas in the previous volumes there were normally at least one or two random stories that were independent of the main plot for the book.

Not that that's a complaint, it's just interesting to see Warren developing things. He's definitely layering in a lot of stuff in this volume that I'm guessing will have some big payoffs later.

Given the origin of Emp, it's not surprising that some of these are only coming in with volume 4, as he's kinda been writing it on the fly to some extent. It does add a lot of depth to the series, though I must admit I missed the purely comic side bits a little.

But then there's always the caged demonwolf to inject his own particular brand of wit to proceedings. I love the demonwolf - I mean, really, as a character it's just a disembodied voice, but the great thing Warren does is to make him more than that.

It's difficult to explain - I guess you'll just have to go and buy your own copies to find out!

And I'd highly recommend you do :).

It's going to be a bit of a busy (and expensive) weekend, I feel.

I got another letter from the post office telling me I have a parcel from Japan waiting. I'm guessing this is going to be a regular thing now as I must have gotten on Customs radar :(.

The other big expense is that my dehumidifier has packed up, so I'll have to buy another one. Looks like the cost of them has come down a lot since I bought my original one, but we're still talking ballpark £100+.

I have to have a dehumidifier where I live. It has horrible problems with damp (I think the damp course is shot) and occasionally things have gotten quite mouldy, so the dehumidifier helps to keep those nasty little spores at bay.

Plus I'm going for a few drinks this Saturday and I have to do all my cleaning and stuff this weekend too.... yeah, you're right I'm just pre-empting some sort of "I didn't manage to get x done" post on Monday :).

who watches the watchers of the watchmen?

I finished reading Watchmen this last w/end.

I'm kinda unchanged in my opinions on Alan Moore, being that I'm not his biggest fan. I know a lot of people love his stuff, and more power to them, it's just for me he doesn't quite work.

The problem I find is he doesn't really seem to write comic books--he seems to write novellas that someone else then draws accompanying pictures for. They're very words and there's very little real reliance on visual story telling, which is really what comics are all about.

Really, the purest form of comics would have no speech at all. And it's like the decision in watchmen to not have sound effects--it's backwards, really to be a proper pure comics, s-fx should be the only text.

Which isn't to say that watchmen doesn't achieve what it set out to do--it's got a complex, interweaving plot and lots of sub-texts and all sorts of other clever things. I'm just not sure that makes it an entertaining comic book.

It's also far too dense as a 12-part comic book--really it's 24 part comic book (or novella, as a mentioned) that's been squeezed into 12 parts by the clever use of tiny panels.

I could go on with loads of other tiny quibbles, but those are my main feelings.

That's some good reading

Started re-reading Empowered Volume 3 last night.

I have a thing with Trade Paperbacks/Graphic Novels where I always read them twice. I dunno why I started this - I think it's cos so much of my stuff ends up packed away in boxes or fairly promptly re-sold on e-bay it helps me feel I've got better value for money out of it. It's a bit like watching both the dub and sub version of an anime - one time you can appreciate the story, the next you can look more at the art.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say I really think Adam Warren knocked it out of the park with this third volume of Empowered.

For anyone not in the know, here's the wikipedia article about Empowered. Basically it's one of those "If super heroes and villains were really real what would it actually be like?" ideas. A bit like the telly show Heroes, but a bit sexier and funnier and better and with Adam Warren's lovely art skillz.

I've been a fan of Adam Warren's for quite a while - his Dirty Pair stuff was around at the time I was first getting into anime and manga and I find his stuff quite funny and his techno-fetishistic-ness appeals too. You can get a look at what Mr Warren is all about by checking out his deviantart page here. He also pimps Empowered quite a bit, so you can check out stuff about it there.

Anyway, back to the point again - Empowered volume 3 is very good.

Empowered apparently started as a commission that developed into something more, and if you check out the books you'll see Volume 1 is lots of very short (2-4 page) stories. The stories have generally gotten more coherent and formed a single narrative arc as the volumes have gone on and with volume 3 we have some of the longest tales, but the thing I like is that they still vary in length.

Because the volumes are released as larger trade-paperback style it gives more of a freedom that allows each story to be just the right length, and I like that a lot.

Another thing I like is one of the characters - the caged Demonwolf. I guess the best description I could give of him is that he's a super-villain in a kind of Lovecraft-ian vain, but his essence has been trapped in an alien belt-like device that therefore renders him powerless. In fact, all he can do is talk and see via some sensors.

It's a little difficult to express quite what's so awesome about the caged Demonwolf, but think early Stewie from family Guy - arch super villain utterly trapped by his circumstance. It's the juxtaposition of pretensions of grandiosity with the mundaneness of reality.

He's not in volume 3 so much, but what is in volume 3 is very good, with some really meaty story arcs and some interesting character development, with few laughs and some genuine yaoi doujinshi too... Anyway, you should definitely check it out.