Adam Warren's Blog, page 4

Since The Avengers DVD came out this week, I figured this was as good a time as any to post a recent con sketch riffing off Black Widow's chair-intensive introductory scene from the movie. So, here's a Natasha illo I did back at FanExpo in Toronto, as captured (ha!) by the cellphone camera of the great and kindly *Zubby.

Medium: Sharpies (Fine & Extra Fine) and HB pencils on 11" X 14" Bristol board.

Say! Speaking of occasionally* distressed superheroines, you might take a look at Empowered: Hell Bent or Heaven Sent , the upcoming one-shot comic that's just the latest installment in my ongoing "sexy superhero comedy" series published by Dark Horse Comics! Click on the jazzy thumbnail below for more details!



*Or "more than occasionally," alas, in poor Emp's case.

Behold, my wee thumbnail sketch (4.25" X 5.5") for a page from Empowered: Hell Bent or Heaven Sent , the upcoming one-shot installment of my "sexy superhero comedy" series! I wrote the story, and contributed roughs like this one to accompany the script (and drew some pages of my own, to flesh out related story points).

Howeva, Talented Guest Artist did the finished version of the page, along with the bulk of Hell Bent or Heaven Sent 's lusciously full-color artwork, adding up to a full 30 pages of bold and brassy story. Here's the book's cover, featuring Ryan's art:



And here's one of the issue's B&W pages, as drawn by me:



This "floppy"-format installment of Empowered is due out Dec. 19th from Dark Horse Comics: [link] Here's the book's scintillating solicitation copy:

This time around, the "sexy superhero comedy" ensues when costumed crimefighter Empowered makes an ill-fated visit to a top-secret dumping ground for ultra-tech "superdebris" and wrecked "villainware" left over from cape-on-cape battle. Can our heroine and her hapless teammate, cyborg-with-a-secret Mechanismo, possibly hope to survive when the junkyard begins nano-spawning an apocalyptic cheesecake plague of flirty but lethal "cyber-angels" and sensual but savage "devil mecha"?

But wait, here's even more text that I wasn't able to fit in the solicitation copy:

Hell Bent or Heaven Sent also includes: Literally superhot genderswapping! Fire-breathing jealousy and piercing blue eyes as more than just figures of speech! Jet-propelled mecha body-boarding! Grotesque mastication by 100-foot-tall giants! Hot angel-on-ladycape action! Desperate navigation of a hellishly unhelpful help menu! Emp suffers the agony of high heels! The imminent threat of searing, fiery extinction looms nigh! All this, plus something very, very gross is none-too-subtly hinted at!

Anyhoo, this December one-shot's available for pre-ordering at your Local Comics Store right now; I'll see if I can dig up its Diamond ordering info, if that would help out. Note that Empowered: Hell Bent or Heaven Sent will not be available in collected trade-paperback form for quite some time, if ever. If all goes well, and these Guest Artist one-shots sell decently enough, this issue will be included in a special collection of one-shots... but that won't be happening for several years at best, I'm afraid. So, yeah, pre-ordering this one-shot is a Big Frickin' Deal, as most comics stores aren't likely to stock very many copies (or any at all, in some cases) unless you specifically ask 'em to.

In the interests of floggery, I might as well mention the current Emp product on the shelves:



This is Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 , which collects volumes 4 through 6 of the series in a big, bold, brawny, 656-page $59.99 hardcover printed on pretty, pretty paper (and including a fair chunk of bonus material): [link]

This weighty new tome's already on the shelves of your Local Comics Retailer, and should be be available in conventional bookstores shortly. Alternatively, you can order it from Dark Horse's online retail site here (for 20% off): [link]

Note that Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 1, which collects volumes 1-3, as seen below:



...is already on sale at your Local Comics Retailer or bookstore, in theory at least, or can be ordered online from Dark Horse: [link] or Amazon: [link]

In closing, I must of course paste in the requisite general-purpose Emp -related floggery: Print copies of Empowered 's first seven volumes (and a pair of one-shots in comics format) can be found on the shelves of your Local Comics Retailer or bookstore, or online at Dark Horse's retail website [link] or on Amazon.com [link] .

All the existing Empowered books can be purchased rather more cheaply in digital form as well, via the Dark Horse Digital store: [link] Note, however, that these Empowered Deluxe Editions will remain a "print-only" proposition, alas.

While I figure out what artwork I should post next to help promote the Dec.19th release of my new one-shot Empowered: Hell Bent or Heaven Sent , as seen below...



...here's a sketch of Wonder Woman I did at the Toronto Fan Expo this year, courtesy of *Zubby's cell-phone camera.

Two weeks earlier than originally scheduled(!), August 15th* sees the release of Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 , which collects volumes 4 through 6 of of my ongoing "sexy superhero comedy" series Empowered in a big, bold, brawny, 656-page $59.99 hardcover printed on pretty, pretty paper (and including a fair chunk of bonus material): [link]

Anyhoo, here we see the full "wraparound" for the hardcover, consisting of back cover, spine, and front cover.
Glorious colors on the front cover illo by ~GURU-eFX, line art by me, as seen in B&W here:


Say, here's a thumbnail for an Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 2 page�

�in which the inimitable Caged Demonwolf introduces the book's bountiful "Mega Extras" bonus section, which does indeed feature a whole bunch of Emp -related work that few have ever seen, not even the folks on the nigh-legendary Top-Secret Emp E-mailing List. (That is, sketches, unpublished stories, design roughs, layout pages, work stages, color guides, page-by-page annotations, etc.)

As mentioned earlier, this weighty new tome will hit the shelves of your Local Comics Retailer August 15th, and be available in conventional bookstores some time after that. Alternatively, you can preorder it from Dark Horses's online retail site here (for 20% off): [link]

Note that Empowered Deluxe Edition Vol. 1, which collects volumes 1-3, as seen below:



...is already on sale at your Local Comics Retailer or bookstore, in theory at least, or can be ordered online from Dark Horse: [link] or Amazon: [link]

In closing, I must of course paste in the requisite general-purpose Emp -related floggery: Print copies of Empowered 's first seven volumes (and a pair of one-shots in comics format) can be found on the shelves of your Local Comics Retailer or bookstore, or online at Dark Horse's retail website [link] or on Amazon.com [link] .

All the existing Empowered books can be purchased rather more cheaply in digital form as well, via the Dark Horse Digital store: [link] Note, however, that these Empowered Deluxe Editions will remain a "print-only" proposition, alas.

*I'm told that the book shipped in an unusually speedy fashion from the printer overseas, which conjures forth unlikely images of Empowered Deluxe -laden cigarette boats tearing across the Pacific at high speeds.

From the bygone depths of the late 90s, here's an illustration I did for SPIN magazine. More specifically, it's an illo for the periodical's tech-related "ICON" column, in which I had to take one of the featured subjects and crank out a (vaguely) related illo that featured a "cute anime babe." This proved to be somewhat problematic at times, given that some of the techy topics did not lend themselves especially well to the depiction of "hawt manga-style chicas"; thus, some of my pieces wound up rather weird and abstruse.

Anyhoo, this piece (I presume) probably accompanied a brief article about late-90s-era "retro gaming", probably mentioning hardware (shaped like an Atari 2600 controller, for example) that hooked up to your TV and played (very) old-school games from the late 70s and early 80s. (Either that, or emulator software was making an appearance.) I sleazed up a retrogamer patterned as a female version of Capcom's Ryu (for no relevant reason), armed her with an Atari joystick instead of a Hadoken, and the rest was, uh, history.

Line art by me; marker-based color art by my buddy Joe Rosas, who was at that time Lord of the Marker-Based Color Guides at Marvel, back when color guides were still used (before the true advent of digital coloring).

S'more SPIN-illo examples: