adamwarren
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DIRTY PAIR: QUICK & DIRTY, part 7 (a 2003 layout-page-only story)!
🕑 Added 2020-04-16 13:01:01 +0000 UTC(You can check out the previous installment of this story here.)
Folks, here are (layout) pages 34 through 38 of an unpublished, 48-page story titled Dirty Pair: Quick & Dirty that I wrote and drew back in late 2003. I'm glad that this "camera zooms up into the sky, then up into space, then into and through a space station" sequence happened to fall completely within this week's installment of pages. Yay!
Below, I'll cut & paste my notes from the initial installment of the story:
My reasons for creating this story—and for drawing it in this rather odd, proto-Empowered "tight layout page" format—now seem hazy and unclear to me. At a time when my (ahem) "career" in comics was not going well at all and I was flailing around desperately for work—as opposed to nowadays, when I'm still flailing around desperately for work!—I believe that I was trying to interest Dark Horse in doing more Dirty Pair comics, around the time that the DP license was about to expire, or possibly already had.
Ah, but did I intend to have Quick and Dirty eventually published in some more finished form? Almost certainly not, as I'd abandoned any attempts at creating comics in a conventional comics format after 1999-2000's miniseries Dirty Pair: Run from the Future. My godawful work technique back then—loose roughs, extraordinarily tight layout pages like the ones above, then recopied and even tighter pencils on Bristol board, then finished inks, then color guides for a separate colorist—had become so maddeningly slow and repetitive that I swore off drawing comics after Run from the Future's miserable work experience.
I think my intention was to show Dark Horse that this was the sort of Dirty Pair story I would write for other artists to draw, but nothing came of this admittedly rather puzzling effort, as I'm fairly sure I just couldn't get any other artists approved by the Japanese license-holders to draw these (theoretical) books.
I wound up paying dearly for not investing in myself and creating wholly creator-owned comics earlier in my career, folks; let this be a lesson to all and sundry! Work-for-hire at handsome mainstream page rates is one thing (which I'm still interested in doing, from time to time), but investing decades of my life on a pseudo-creator-owned property that, importantly, I didn't actually own was an incredibly foolish choice on my part.
What does seem clear to me now is that I still wanted to write and draw comics, but without the stifling repetition of my old work approach. After Quick & Dirty, I began to realize that, hey, maybe a comic's art could be reproduced from tight layout pages along these lines—and by the summer of the next year, I started scribbling the first stories that would eventually evolve into Empowered, my (still-)ongoing, creator-owned "sexy superhero comedy" series.
I'll never draw another published Dirty Pair project, though in theory I wouldn't mind writing one. In reality, that's really not likely to happen, as Dark Horse hasn't been able to get approval to reprint my old DP work, let alone get new projects rolling. I do hope to write and even draw new SF-oriented comics down the road, though.
Only two more weeks to go before Quick & Dirty wraps up, folks! (I'll probably be going back to serializing the prose experiment I Am Empowered on Thursdays after this, BTW.)
Tomorrow on this here Patreon: Con sketches are definitely on the schedule, though I'm not yet sure if they will be vintage pieces or brand-new "conventionless con sketches" I've done over the last few weeks. Find out Friday at 9:00am East Coast Time, folks!
Comments
Burninator
Ehh, the pay might not actually that good; in my experience, this type of operation often pays more in grand promises of a glorious future then real live actual money, but if the promises are good and convincing enough, an outfit can string people along for quite a while before they quit. Also, the Vast Conspirators seem like they might be genuine loyalists to the cause, closer to cultists than mercenaries, and cultists are notoriously cheap dates. Heck, sometimes you can get cultists to pay for the privilege of working long hours for you; worked for the Scientologists.
Strypgia
ML must pay well, given how many recruits he seems to have rolling around! Fun to see the Angels on a more 'regular' mission, too, as opposed to their usual 'small problem case that rapidly snowballs into utter chaos.'
Adam Warren
You're very much welcome!
Adam Warren
Pretty sure I had a master list of all of 'em SOMEWHERE, but danged if I can find it...
Dean Reilly
Kickstarter.
Joshua Wolfe
Sooo many epithets, and they are all great.
Tim
He's.... repeating himself quite a lot there. I'd say his cerebellum got a *bit* more than just 'dinged'.
Burninator
In my experience, the answer's usually either "megarich weirdos with some political/religious axe to grind", "they're useful for some government to have around", "they're selling something valuable, illegal, or both", or a combination of the above.
A Patreon of the Ahts
This is great thank you, but maybe I'm getting old, but whenever I see a conspiracy like this my first thought is 'Who's funding this?'
Ruth and Darrin Sutherland
Loving the opportunity to see this unpublished adventure! Thank you!
