adamwarren
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DIRTY PAIR: QUICK & DIRTY, part 5 (a 2003 layout-page-only story)!
🕑 Added 2020-04-02 13:00:03 +0000 UTC(You can check out the previous installment of this story here.)
Folks, here are (layout) pages 24 through 28 of an unpublished, 48-page story titled Dirty Pair: Quick & Dirty that I wrote and drew back in late 2003.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 and 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.
Tomorrow on this here Patreon: I'm breaking with the usual Friday format to post character designs from a brand-new project that I just thought up over the weekend. Huzzah!
Comments
Tony Frickey
I like that the bad guys look like bender...
A Patreon of the Ahts
The reason she can't find his feed is because there isn't one. Hes THERE. He's one of the guys in the suits.
Strypgia
Their lovely plan foiled by one of the mooks being a lazy jackass who wanted some fresh air. Sadly, 100% on-brand for them. The 'Pert-buttocked destroyers of worlds' are looking _particularly_ fine top of page 2, as well.
Burninator
You know, the little bit on P2 about Kei and Yuri’s relationship reminded me of another unsolved intra-team relationship matter that I like to call the “Mughi Problem”. 1. Mughi is fully sentient, maybe smarter than one or both of the Angels. 2. Mughi has very articulate tentacles as well as, presumably, the “usual components” 3. Mughi has the ability to manipulate electromagnetic fields, and through this could plausibly pull off an “XTC Gun” effect. 4. Mughi is, IIRC, the last of his kind or nearly so, with limited or no in-species romantic prospects as a result. 5. I believe that some of the voyages of the Lovely Angel are reasonably long and isolated, and I’m fairly sure that Kei and Yuri are known to run into dry spells besides. I shouldn’t need to spell out the implications. PS: Speaking of Mughi, I also wonder if he survived Plague of Angels. IIRC, he was last seen on the station that ended up depressurizing, and he never showed up in any of the later comics. Conceivably he could show up later in this comic and render this moot, but otherwise?
Jack Hallows
nice
ANTi GRAV
Man, you might have some regrets working on dirty pair, but the feel was wholly it's own compared to the original property. I discovered your stuff back in Antarctic Press's how to draw books alongside Fred Perry, and your style has only gotten more interesting as time went on. Fatal but not serious was where I could start seeing that style emerge, then expand in run from the future , and really take stride in Empowered (which I can fully say is the best super hero comic I've read). IDK how much more Empowered you plan on doing, but I'm on board for it, and whatever crazy thing you do next. (Cyberpunk is still alive and well if you're looking to reforge that path with your own property. Food for thought).
