Thank you for all the feedback, everything is greatly appreciated.

I'm always up for pushing myself to work harder. I will try cleaning up my lines next time, but I always strive to keep my style simple and clear.

As for the story, it's not meant to be taken seriously. It's definitely something that I wanted to be silly, that the scarecrow's attack was unwarranted. Next time, I'll take the opponent's character and personality more into consideration.

Will, it's not about the subtle hint in the dialogue. It just simply doesn't work as a concept. We can assume the munchkins *can* be zombies because they are/were fleshy living midgets. A scarecrow isn't and the explanation of how it could be would just be too far reaching.

Also, I really hope the latter comment isn't a jab at my abilities to read a comic. That's a fast way to turn me off.

Mine is more colorful.

Actually, Will, that advice is: Assume everybody is stupid, and they really hate you.

Sorry I haven't been critting much, but I feel like Kuro and shade have been doing a good job of getting hte major points and other people have filling in gaps...but just a story thing.  Shade complains that there is no prompt for the scarecrow to attack Madelyn but from what I figure, he's zombie too as your version of Oz is full of zombie munchkins and Nevermore's cry of brains leads me to believe this but perhaps it's too subtle?  As a one weeker, the pacing becomes an issue but perhaps there could have been a bit more of Nevermore's introduction as a zombie so that the audience understood the purpose of their confrontation.  Some good advice I've often heard here on Void is, assume your audience is dumb as shit (because half the time it's true) so don't assume they'll understand the situation from subtle things or simple points in the dialogue.

xin, I still think you're approaching this more from the storyboard side than the comic side. Storyboards are used as thumbnails to something else. A comic is its own finished product. And this doesn't look polished enough. I mean if these were storyboards for an animation, would your short come off as being this loose? While the values are wonderful, there are times where this gets way too messy. And it seemed like up until the end, panel after panel was the same shape. You started to vary your layouts but it felt like it should have started sooner. The art's great. In fact it's fantastic. But overall, it needs more care & effort placed into it.
And as the analogy went, it worked & I got a bit of a kick out of it, but of the fractured fairytales, wizard of oz is the easiest to do & at this point has been done to death. That was my only qualm with the story.

blink, the one thing that turned me off right away was the beveled captions. The font choices & lettering in general detracted more than adding anything to this. In most cases, I find it's best to stay simple & consistent throughout & handletter your own sound effects. Beyond that, the backgrounds were really lacking. Drawing a building's ledge diagonally doesn't mean it's following the rules of perspective. Nothing foreshortens or tapers to a vanishing point. Also, it feels like you're only drawing the anatomy we see in the panel. For instance, if you draw an arm bending & the elbow is below the edge of the panel, the bend doesn't look as though it matches up. So draw out the whole arm, even if the elbow's off panel. That way it'll still look natural & have a proper bend.

Xin: I'm not liking the sketchiness on top of the muddied application of colours close in value. Your first page was the best for clarity though it still lacked visual punch in palette and you need to be mindful of the boundaries you set down for each panel. Overall it was hard on my eyes. Having hand done the text meshed well with your overall work, but the lack care in line and colouring still hampered this as well. It should be noted your effort in backgrounds and ability to place figures in locations. This is your strongest area so keep it up.

Story wise I found the premise too simple. Just because the players can fit the roles in Wizard of Oz doesn't mean they should. I don't find doing it much different from remakes of today. And unfortunately I don't find the differences to be all that clever. There's no reason to why a scarecrow would suddenly attack a woman and her dog.

Blink: I found your overall work to have visual clarity more akin to comic work which I found more pleasing to my eyes. While a gray-scale + hue can be good I think you needed to be more decisive. Don't just throw in other arbitrary hues as well. I.e. you made a bandanna green on the first page despite having done orange/red majority.  Also be mindful of what you make coloured because it will instantly draw the eye to that object. So if you're going to make a patch on Nevermore's hat red ask if it's important subject matter. Personally I would have made my hues range from yellow to orange and integrated it into more things. Your decision to render thought boxes the way you did wasn't a good one. It didn't mesh at all with your work the way the dialogue renderings did. Also avoid the trap of creating brick walls with your panel layouts. Same conclusion for the bgs as other comments. Work on this.

Story wise I found yours to be more interesting even though you did one less page. You gave reason for conflict not once but twice. And the results from Madelyne having emptied her gun and also getting angry over Hobo being injured did illicit a smile from me.

Xintastic! Lovely lovely colors! The reference was very fitting for your match!

Blinkspeed! An excellent intro for your character. Great humor too.

This one was a bit hard to vote on so I hope I was fair. Good luck to both of you!

Not bad you two.

Xin: Very good work here, art was good but a bit too simplistic for me (this is just personal taste here), but the story was short, sweet, and too the point. Granted it's the void standard, I was expecting this from a lot of others so no need to worry about that either.

Blink: Also a good comic, but backgrounds are really lacking here dude, you've got a good style and a nice story, but your backgrounds need love too.

Vote goes to Xin.

Xin: Neat idea for a quick comic, I love the theme and the characters worked really well for it.  Really nice texture to your work without being sloppy, really beautiful stuff.  And apparently Nevermore isn't a very scary scarecrow...

Blink: Great work, fun and consistent.  I'm gonna agree with Otamie on the silhouettes, those panels looked good, but were a bit distracting.  Rather they be just penciled like everything else.  Looking good otherwise!

Great job to both of you, I enjoyed reading both of your comics very much.

@ Xintastic: I LOVE your style and colors.  I also really like your take on the Wizard of Oz story.  Every time I see read "If I only had a brain!"  I crack up so much.  I'll never look at Wizard of Oz the same way ever again. XD

@ Blinkspeed: I liked the story and pacing of your comic.  Nevermore is a fun character.  I liked the misty white text you use for his dialog.  I think most people have hit on what you need to fix so I won't repeat them.  Keep up the good work.

It's something that doesn't really help the overall flow of reading the comic. If it doesn't help, get rid of it-- this actually impedes as the white text on the white part of the gradient was difficult to read. It's alright, though! It's just something to learn and keep in mind in the future.

Haha, thanks dude. That means a lot coming from you.

Haha just saying you're wayy too awesome!

Q-que?

Thanks so much for all the critiques everyone. Looks like I got a lot of work to do.

Ok, so apparently everyone HATES the gradients, I should probably keep that in mind for next time ^^; (although I didn't think it was all that bad but I digress). Anyways, thanks for all the critiques everyone! Looks like this is gonna be a close match.

Xintastic, get out of here!

Xintastic: While I adore your choice of palette as well as your overall style, I found myself a bit overwhelmed by some of the sketchiness of some of the panels. Granted, there were moments where it really REALLY worked and those more than made up for it for me.

Blinkspeed: Your style is not terribly complex, but damn if it isn't charismatic. I also found your choice of page layouts quite complementary to the dialogue; which in itself was quite entertaining.

Overall I found myself gravitating toward Blinkspeed's contribution because of the representation of the characters. I kind of feel like Madelyn was given more of a role in Blinkspeed's comic than Nevermore was in Xintastic's.

Regardless, it's a shame that only one of you will be able to progress in the tourney.

Xintastic: Great comic! I really love your art style and the whole wizerd of oz made me laugh out loud. Around the end (with the crows) it became a little messy to me which slowed me down but overal it was a GREAT comic.

Blinkspeed: Very nice comic blinkspeed i remember your stuff from civilwar OCT on DA and this is definitely a step up. Its good to see people getting better as they progress. Your passing felt a little bit better then your opponent. The only problem that i had was with your spotblacks. I loved how thight you made your ssilhouets but your normal art has this small sketchyness to it (still feels DONE though) so i found those two styles to set each other apart to much. Still awesome comic though.

Very good battle, both of you did really well!  

Xintastic:  Beautiful colors and a great style as well.  The pacing, perspective, and general atmosphere was really impressive.  I like the idea for the comic as well, and the story, while short, was cute and well thought out.  

I look forward to battling you at some time!  

Blinkspeed:  I like you comic a lot too.  I think you convey emotions really well and naturally and I felt the pacing was pretty good.  My biggest crit would be to work on your perspective, and to not use gradient backgrounds.  Perspective is quite simple but the concept is very hard to grasp (In my opinion atleast, it took me a LONG time).  So make sure to use those guidelines and vanishing points.  Gradient backgrounds would be better replaced with real backgrounds OR a clever use of negative and positive space.

This was an interesting matchup! Crits:

Xintastic: Excellent art! Beautiful colors, great form, perfect perspective. The story was a bit confusing (why did Nevermore attack her, then get attacked by crows? Was a bit odd to me) but it was a good read nonetheless! Excellent job!

Blinkspeed: My only complaint are the gradient speechboxes. Those are really annoying! Other than that, I liked the expressions and the interactions, but the pacing was a little awkward. Great job, was definitely fun to read!

Xintastic, I really loved the style you used in there, very whimsical and pretty.
Blinkspeed, Great humor, simple short entertaining story.

Well done both of you!

Haha good job to both of you!

Blink, the only thing I can say is that I had a hard time reading the word boxes that had gradients on them! But cool stuff both of youz

Haha, I laughed out loud reading your comic. I really like how you drew her. Nevermore would probably be immune to zombie bites as well as bullets. It was a pleasure drawing him, yeah-- my comic ended up being a little dark.

You know? I was kind of expecting a Wizard of Oz thing to be snuck in somewhere (I would've done that if I found a way), but that was BRILLIANT! If not slightly unsettling... but still amazing! XD

Uploaded.

Ooh, i like this matchup! I like it a lot.

YEAHHH

I like both of your characters a lot. Can't wait to see what you guys do with them!

Haha, yeah sorry for the crazy names. I'll do my best as well! Your character is coool.

this is gonna be great! I'll do my best to present something worthy to you Xin! (Mishi? Leyli? ...whatever.)

Oh shat, it's Leyli? Saw your post on Drunkenstyles match. It's Kieden on this end. Small world it is indeed!

Madelyn

is my new favorite character 8,I

Welcome to void you two, just remember to do your best, the minimum is a mere 3 pages too! And yes I am going to say this to everybody.

Actually... that last part was a lie apparently, I didn't say the exact same thing to everybody.

WOOWOOWOO!

Good luck!

Fffffff...

Good luck you guys!