For the most part, I often produce Empowered on a page-by-page basis, meaning that I write, rough out, letter and pencil a single page completely before proceeding on to the next one. By contrast, for a more conventional comic project, I would write all, say, 22 pages at a time, then scribble roughs for all of them, then go on to pencil and ink all 22 in order. With the greater openness and flexibility allowed by Empowered’s straight-to-trade-paperback format, though, I am allowed the relative luxury of writing and drawing the stories one page at a time—not unlike many natively produced webcomics, come to think of it!

This page-by-page creative process grants me far—nay, faaaaaaar—more spontaneity and playfulness than any conventional comic ever has. Case in point, here, was my original idea for the ending of this story, which would’ve featured an annoyed and frustrated Ninjette stomping off and leaving a trussed-up Emp behind; cue the “sad trombone” as our heroine realizes that she once again avoided a dire fate solely because of unreliable thuggery. Then I asked myself, “Hey, self, what if Ninjette instead stuck around and hit it off with Emp?” So, one of the series’ most important long-term elements, the close friendship between ninja and superheroine—er, SPOILER ALERT?—came about only because the Empowered format allows me the freedom to rework its stories on the fly. Yay, Empowered format!