Ooh I love the world of bugs in these, with the bug morgue, and the bug church. I want to peek more into these worlds.

Corn: BRUTAL. Also, BUG IN A HAT BUG IN HAT. Great horror story setup here, and Talbot and Scroop feel at home in it (well until they died).

Zee: Oooh, I am loving those visuals, the muted colors, the silhouettes and curves! It's beautiful! And that last page is one heck of a way to begin a death tournament...

I was really hype for this cause i knew you all would pull this sort of quality. Hnnnnnn Artgasm.

@cornbread -
I absolutely love the setting of this, and I really really love the movement you put into Scroop! He's probably got some of my favorite expressions in this comics. I LOVE THAT YOU USED THE CORDYCEPS. Honestly one of my favorite buggo weirdnesses. Zombie mushrooms are so cool, and I appreciate that it was addressed here.
Things I would have liked to see: When you got into the thick of the "action" and the scenes were at their most tense, I would have appreciated more contrast. Your text also needed some commas. Panel 1 of page 7 particularly felt off with that. I'd just keep in mind that wherever you pause for a breath in speech, even if its a little small portion of time, the commas will help illustrate that when we read. The capitalization of the first letters in speech bubbles was inconsistent as well, but overall i really  loved this entry and tbh I wanna fight Prendergast.

@zee - oh man the MOOD you conveyed, holy wow. Those sickly yellow-grays, the dirty reds and purples in the chapel. I really need to study your stuff for color. The first panel of page 4 was so great too! WONDERFUL movement. My only wishes for this would probably have been an extra panel or two on page six, and it specifically because... insects with hemolymph tend to "pop" a little bit when lit on fire. (please don't ask) like. oh man it'd have been extra badass to see that too.
I do not actually understand why scroop would be upset about going to hell, but maybe the theme wasn't so heavily touched on in the prior pages, or maybe I just missed it. Overall this was great to read.

Yo these are fuckin' gOOD

Corn - The colors and characters are really good here.  That first shot has such an aesthetically pleasing mixture of colors, it's a shame the colors throughout the comic are a tad bit more muted and clinical, but that scheme does fit the setting and the grittiness of this tale well. The poses though - Prendergast is so imposing, I especially love that shot where his face is silhouetted so all you see are his glowing eyes. As pyras said, though, there is a definite lack of kinetic motion in this comic - Those action shots on page 6 are pretty unintelligible, and once i figured out what was going on the moment had passed. However, I can't shake the feeling that you were doing this on purpose to give this comic a feeling of still dread, but I think had there been an explosion of movement it would've created a vital contrast here. Ultimately, a really awesome entry.

Zee - This is simply gorgeous. Both the story and the art here are top notch, and I always feel a bit bad when I can't find anything to critique, so I guess i'll gush - Oh man that first panel on page 4, oh baby the shift in color and tone, oh baby the way you drew Prendergast and his goons- it's just magnificent.

The hardest decision to make of round 1 U____U

Cornbread: These renders are gorgeous BUT there is a significant flaw in your action that I think is holding you back (and it's something I've noticed in previous battles of yours too) Despite how well drawn these action moments are, they have like 0 kinetic motion in them, they feel like still frames of a photograph but for comics that doesn't help with the flow of movement from one panel to the next. You're lacking in action lines, swish motions, little movements that better show where a character's moving next. Lacking this, we have photographic moments that feel disjointed, the eyes needing to dead stop on each panel to fully understand what is happening, like you have actions A and C but no B. Page 6 suffers since we don't have a shot of Scroops opening the door, we skip straight to the zombie attack from the door being bust open, and because that panel isn't larger we aren't cued that this is meant to be a high impact moment. Probably could have used some screams and groans too to elevate the horror. I really like that someone used Cordiceps in this tournament though

@zee if this is what you call "all over the place" I wish I had this level of "all over the place" Once again you're blowing me away with the world you've created, the characters you've crafted, the very real stakes and tension present throughout the story. It could probably use more backgrounds but it still looks like such a polished finished product it's hard to really hammer at it when it's so solid

Both of you are terrific, please keep making more

....lol can't decides both so good

Corn: That doc is BRUTAL. And Damn, Bug Sombie epidemic? Just a regular week in Void I guess.

Zee: you nailed it with that! i got a "body snatchers" vibe, it was so cool. (almost thought for a sec the doc would suddely leap from the church like the THing in Carpenter's The Thing

Ugh. UGH. UGHHHHH. You're both killing me here. Don't make me choose. DON'T MAKE ME DO IT.

But I gotta, and I did.

Corn,

I like the direction you took things. The only thing that I really have a critique on is I'd really like you to practice mixing up the angles and positioning of characters. On page 6, specifically, it took me a couple reads to really see the scene. I actually didn't realize that Talbot had died until my second readthrough, but that might have just been me being dumb. Your speechbubbles are also a sticking point for me. It's fairly obvious you used the tool. I'd suggest hand drawing the tails so you don't end up with icecream cones. Overall, though, it was a fun read!

Zee,

Go to hell with your damn bugs and your damn comics and youR DAMN HANDS. Look at this. LOOK AT THIS. Your paneling is smart, your use of textures is on point, and I really appreciate how you used Prenderghasts blacks to fill in space where it was needed. Not only did it help you on coloring, it made him look /big/ which I'm in love with. The only thing I'd really point out is that you've done a lot of hip-up shots where I think a different angle might have worked better. But you got ambitious and rocked it!

I'm super attached to both of your guys' characters and it kills me to have to vote. Good luck, you two.

@Corn
I'm not gonna lie, I knew this was going to be really really good, but I didn't expect it to be this freaking amazing! All the characters really look nice in your style, and everything looked really smooth and pretty.  I definitely super much loved the backgrounds, and yeah. I got a bit confused on page six, and I'm still kind of confused. Those were the effects of the plague that did that to Talbot, right? Or is she secretly, a monster, and had the plague? I can't really tell that well, but still I'm really impressed by this comic overall! I had a lot of fun reading!!

@Zee
Okay, so you already know I really like your characters, but I'm just gonna say, yeah I really do, even after seeing this comic! I know it didn't come out as well as you wanted, but I still actually found it really enjoyable. The quality may not be all there everywhere, but honestly the pages came out looking amazing all around. My favorite part had to be the top of page 6. It looked absolutely amazing if I'm being entirely honest! To be honest, the only real issue I see in the comic, is the quality difference. Your comics are always so high quality, and such a thing is definitely to be commended on!

SUBMITTED!!
I was a bit too ambitious with this one I'm afraid, sorry that the quality is kind of all over the place. 6_9;

Oh man I feel like this is gonna be such a close battle! I'm so excited!

This should be a fun battle.
Best of luck, Corn!

OH MY!