DISTRESSED DAMSELS: "Rose & Lily vs. Troops," pt.1! (Patreon)

Behold, the first pages from a commissioned Dirty Pair comic story in proto-Empowered format, created back in 2003 during a time when I assumed that I wouldn't be drawing comics professionally any more, due to my disenchantment with struggling through conventionally penciled and inked comic pages.

In retrospect, I clearly still wanted to draw as well as write comics at this time, but not via the slow, grinding, miserably tedious work process I had largely abandoned; only a year or two later, I would belatedly figure out that I could, in fact, publish comics in this pencil-based "tight layouts" format, and Empowered would result.

So this final, quite lengthy damsel-in-distress commission wound up being this close to a real Dirty Pair story, as it included many more of the "techy" elements from my actual DP continuity than most of these DiD pieces, yet still featured the rather unlikely situations, heightened cheesecake levels, and distinct costuming—that is, the high-heeled boots—of a damsel-y DP scenario or simulation.

However, this story also wound up being weirdly gritty and distinctly unpleasant, as poor Kei and Y—nay, Rose & Lily—not only start out the comic having had their butts kicked in a failed mission pitting them against a bunch of nameless, geared-up "Troops," but spend the rest of the pages struggling desperately against these frequently cruel if not outright sadistic goons. In fact, I'm going to skip a latter section of the story in which the a-hole bad guys take matters way too far (though they do pay a dear price for stepping over the line, which you will see).

And now, a few words:

Lordy loo, the snaky midriff and torso on that first shot of Yu—nay, Lily above is a prime example of the dreaded "Mysteriously Intermittent Post-Millennial Torso Glitch" that recurred seemingly at random during my cheesecake drawings in the early 2000s, as I've often mentioned in my webcomic commentaries on the initial volumes of Empowered. No idea why this was happening, nor why the glitchy torsos weren't always occurring. Mysterious!

Note also the presence of a comlink-blocking (or at least comlink-frustrating) device as, apparently, standard Troop gear, which seems indicative of a heightened reality "DiD simulation." (BTW, typing the proper term for said device triggers a Patreon content notice, amusingly enough.)

I've actually considered reusing this particular "somewhat inexplicably chained to a lamp-post" situation for Empowered, but never quite got around to that; as you'll see shortly, however, I did wind up repurposing an element or two from this episode for vol.9 of the series.

I do still like the idea that Rose and Lily (ignore the of-course-erroneous "K&Y" names) have "backup neurosoftware" implants that can be contacted via comlink.

(Note also that final panel's "Rose pose" for future reference a paragraph or two hence.) 

And there's the ol' Torso Glitch again with panel 4's view of Rose, though not as bad as Lily's pose on page 1. Mysterious, I say!

So, this story, obviously never intended for publication, wound up having an element or two reused in 2013-14 when I was drawing Empowered vol.9's long ordeal of Emp bedamseled by an exhausting series of supervillains.

Behold, Emp gets a similar water-bucket wake-up call: 

Afterward, a few pages later in this scene, I based an Emp pose on Rose's introductory shot seen earlier: 

Go figure, the term "kyriarchal" seems to have long ago fell outta favor in progressive circles. But roughly a decade ago, the term was in (admittedly uncommon) usage, I swear!

Anyhoo, hope you $5+ folks liked this post, as it just cost me an hour and a g-d half outta my all-important Empowered vol. 12 morning shift. Ouch! (And now, back to the drawing table.)

NEXT TIME ON "ROSE & LILY VS. TROOPS": A desperate Lily springs into nicely choreographed action, despite being hampered with a serious degree of difficulty...

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: Not sure, TBH, but something will be going up on Monday, I can assure you.