Another example of cartoonishly exaggerated super-long hair on Emp in panels 1 and 3; as I’ve mentioned before, this is a stylistic flourish I liked to do back circa 2007—or whenever the heck I actually drew this page. This peculiar riff hasn’t occurred in my work in quite a few years, though.

Panel 3: Behold the sound FX “VWIPP,” a personal favorite for its unusual flexibility, such as its use here. I think I made VWIPP up on my own, as it doesn’t sound like one I picked up elsewhere. That’s as opposed to the families of “OKK” and “UDD” sound FX—WHOKK and WHUDD, mainly—which I’m fairly sure are taken from Frank Miller’s comics work. Of all the storytelling riffs that Miller’s praised or reviled for nowadays, his unusual gift for devising evocative and useful—and ripoffable!—sound FX never seems to get mentioned. An inscrutable algorithm in my head determines that I find very, very few (English-language) sound FX to be truly acceptable, let alone pleasing, but Miller came up with a surprising number that work for me. 

-Adam Warren