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DIRTY PAIR: QUICK & DIRTY, part 9 (a 2003 layout-page-only story)!
🕑 Added 2020-04-30 13:01:00 +0000 UTCFolks, here are the concluding (layout) pages 44 through 48 of an unpublished, 48-page story titled Dirty Pair: Quick & Dirty that I wrote and drew back in late 2003.
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.
And that's it for Quick & Dirty, 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 probably 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
Peter Froehlich
This is really what I want to see here (and after scrolling all the way down here I think maybe I am alone in that): Kick Ass Dirty Pair. I don't really care for all the damsel stuff regarding DP, I was like 10 when I discovery your work and it told me that women can kick ass and take names. The sexiest Yuri is the one standing grinning over the smoking husk of her enemy!! >_<
KranberriJam
Loved it!!! Such a fun little story with a good ending.
Adam Warren
Never considered that but, yeah, the bombastic codenames very well might have laid the future groundwork for the C-D's ranting. Thanks for the feedback!
Thos. Merchant
"Gore-Drenched Kill-Kittens", yo! (Tho "The Violent Death That Make Men Go 'Rowrr'" comes a close second!)
Strypgia
And they're still going to get blamed for it. Booo. Very nice Yuri-booty in pg 1 panel 4, though. "The Panty-Flashing Progeny of Satan" is my favorite, I think. Sad that this will never be properly published. Good thing I can still throw $$ at you this way to 'buy it' anyhow!
chantienyee
It would be so amazing to have an omnibus of all the old Dirty Pair books, with these unpublished pages included. Sooo good!
AdamVanWyk
Bravo! Most excellent story. Love the many reversals of fortune. I can totally see the camera flying around Peter Jackson style. The many bombastic codenames feel like you were building your way to one of my favorite characters, the caged Demon Wolf. And just when I was thinking the "Whenever I hear the name Kei..." gag was wearing thin, you turned it on its head and provided the perfect stinger for the end. Love it. Sorry for the heartache this project caused, but if it lead to doing your own thing with Empowered...totally worth it.
Burninator
Sweet comic, and kinda amusing that its publication here coincides IRL with both the Supreme Leader possibly kicking the bucket/being brain damaged and a horrifying global disaster. FWIW, Since Adam apparently lost his master list, here’re the 40 Vast Conspiratorial code names that appear in the comic. I particularly like “Gore-Drenched Kill Kittens”, “The Panty-Flashing Progeny of Satan”, and “The Underdressed Avatars of the Bloody-Handed Goddess”. Unfortunately, the other 118 are presumably lost in time, like tears in rain. 1. The Twin Deaths that Walk on Long, Silken Legs 2. The Firm-Fleshed Fiends in Chrome Bikinis 3. Women of Mass Destruction 4. The Supernova-Spawning, Cyber-Enhanced Succubi (Kei would like me to point out that only one of them ever actually spawned any supernovae, and it wasn’t her) 5. The Taut-Torsoed Terminatrices 6. The Red-Headed Doom Disguised as Hotness (Kei only) 7. The Soulless Scantily Clad She-Wolf (Kei only) 8. The Jiggling, Genetically Upgraded Jannisaries in the (Nubile) Flesh 9. The Redheaded Devil and the Black Haired Demon 10. The Silky-Skinned Slaughterers of Millions 11. The Panty-Flashing Progeny of Satan 12. Those Who Trample Freedom in Four-Inch Stiletto Heels 13. Half-Dressed, Hell-Raising Harlots 14. Pert-Buttocked Destroyers of Worlds 15. Bloodthirsty Beasts in Bikinis 16. The Annihilating Twin Menace That Pleases the Eye (Kei must have borked up the Maximum Leader’s grammar as well as his speech, should be The Annihilating Twin Menaces that Please the Eye) 17. Armageddon in Skimpy Chrome Wrappers 18. Gore-Drenched Kill-Kittens 19. The Blood-Spattered Holocaust Harpies 20. The Hotness That Kills 21. The Bare-Midriffed Mass Murderers 22. The Well-Endowed, World-Wrecking Witch(es) (only used in the singular form) 23. The Belligerent Bikini’d Brutes 24. The Underdressed Avatars of the Bloody-Handed Goddess 25. The Callipygian Catastrophe Magnets 26. The Nice-Racked Nymphets who Nuked Nimkasi (That’s rather unfair, they didn’t actually do any of the nuking there) 27. The Second-Rate Supermodels Strutting Down the Catwalk of the End Times 28. The Voluptuous Destruction Incarnate 29. The Nearly Naked Twin Nightmare Scenarios 30. Mindlessly Violent Vorpal Vixens 31. Annihilation with Salon-Perfect Nails 32. The Grim Reapers Without Cloaks Nor Much of Any Other Clothes to Speak Of (Pretty sure their smartsuits could become cloaks if need be) 33. The Cold-Blooded, Cleavage-Wielding Killers 34. The Unnaturally Endowed Valkyries Who Herald A Modern-Day Ragnarok 35. The Cyber-Augmented, C-Cupped Scylla and Charybidis (Wait, “C-Cupped”? As a dude whose knowledge of fashion amounts to “I probably should wear pants”, I may not know much about bra sizing, and my research failed to turn up canonical bra sizing for any version of the Angels, but I’m skeptical that “C-Cupped” is even in the correct alphabet for Our Heroines.) 36. The Subhuman-Yet-Supple She-Creatures 37. The Brutal Yet Undeniably Bootylicious Butchers 38. The Violent Death That Makes Men Say “Rowrr” 39. Les Belles Dames Sans Merci Et Avec Fusils Automatiques 40. The Lithe, Long-legged Lethal Ones
Warren Beall
God..I miss Dirty Pair stories. While sad this never made it to comic form I could buy, its great getting to see the lovely pair get one last adventure. And even your "roughs" are amazing. Thanks!
