DISTRESSED DAMSELS: "Rose & Lily vs. Troops," pt.4! (Patreon)

Following up on an earlier post, here are more 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 an upcoming 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).

NOTE: As mentioned in the previous, copy-pasted paragraph, I just skipped over a four-page sequence that was waaaay too skeevy even for this often misguided story, in which an especially obnoxious pair of the Troops pulled some highly inappropriate retaliation on a recaptured Lily, who subsequently turned the tables via her "smartsuit" membrane as seen below:

Note that these are smartsuit functions only vaguely hinted at in my final published miniseries, 999-2000's Dirty Pair: Run from the Future. (Then again, this isn't a canonical-to-my-version story, either.)

And on to another fight scene, but conducted with the early-Empowered-style mantra of "cheesecake in every g-d panel":

Gotta say, the "cheesecake in every panel" approach (or "Every Shot Must Be Hot," as I dubbed in it early Empowered webcomic commentary) makes for difficult storytelling challenges at times.

More table-turning and unfortunate reversals will ensue, given that this commission went on for quite a few more pages, as you'll see in future installments. I might take a break from the grinding grittiness next week, though, and post some other DiD content with less of an ugly edge.

And now, back to drawing what is, technically, the final story page of Empowered vol. 12! Yay! However, that's only the final story stage in sequence, as I still have to go back and draw probably another 5-8 pages of content from earlier in the volume. Still, the end of my years-long EMP12 ordeal is at last in sight!

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: Not sure, TBH, but something will be going up on Monday, folks!