Empowered Volume 2: Proper ballgag use

As I always say, Where's the beef? one good turn deserves another, so Empowered vol. 1 deserves

Empowered vol. 2

Written and drawn by Adam Warren

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Artist gets commissioned to draw fetish pin-ups of tied-up, gagged girls. Artist gets annoyed, decides to write OEL (original english language) manga satirizing it. Develops into. . . actual. . . story?

See volume 1 here.

WHAT I LIKED: Last volume involved very snappy short stories. Here, we get more development! We get some backstory, and some longer adventures involving Empowered's supporting cast (ie: her boyfriend's dark past, or her best friend's attempt to fix her reputation. . . we even get Empowered's last name! It's Miss "Powers")

Not only that, we have Warren's talent at Totally Making Fun of Normal Comic Book Conventions. Yes.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: It might be me, but I think we might be getting more cuss words (they're censored though). This is probably inappropriate for younger readers. There are also various forms of intercourse, both discussed and shown.

EXTRAS?: The Extras section isn't so big this time, but that's not unprecedented.FINAL THOUGHTS: A good, run romp through the unfortunate events of Empowered's life. We delve a little deeper into everyone's backstory, but most everything is still treated with irreverent sarcasm.

I thought at one point in a story near the end, that this one moment would turn out to be heartwarming, but it just ended up in Emp getting tied up and gagged. I hope to see actual touching moments in volume 3, if I can get ahold of it.

Oh, by the way, you can find a fantastic preview at Dark Horse's site. It's so clever!