Panel 1: Pretty sure that Capitan Rivet's gesture is a direct reference to a repeated Tom Cruise visual riff from the prison escape scene early on in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (IIRC). (Sadly, ne'er will we see Rivet clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa.)

Panel 2: "KSHANGG" is a sound FX cribbed from my late friend Toren Smith's localization of the translation for Shirow's manga Appleseed, where he used that FX to convey the mighty footsteps of the series' Landmate mecha.

Today’s Patreon update: Originally done as a means of scratching out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. However, my vast archive of years of Patreon posts—extensive Empowered previews, work-in-progress updates on developmental projects such as fantasy comics The Chaste and the Chained and The Last Party, vintage con sketches, work stages on covers, "damsel in distress" commissions, life drawings & much, much more—remains available for Patrons' perusal.

-Adam Warren