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 :).