Thanks guys for the crits. I definitely do not feel like I have handle yet on my style concerning short deadlines. When I get into rush mode I do tend to clutter up the image just due to lack of time and cutting corners, rather than carefully placing things like if I were to do an illustration. It's still something I need to figure out how to do quicker so in the future that is something  I am going to try and work on. Like I said I feel comfortable with it in standalone drawings, but the comics side of things suffers from time constraints that I haven't found a groove yet with.

I am looking at some of my inspirations to try and figure out that balance to do it more effectively, so we'll see what I can do going forward.

Monday: I think you've made a few mistakes in this battle that really hurt the quality of it. The text and a lot of the action gets very muddied here. Your narration itself is fine, but by just putting over your art, it gets lost super hard. You really needed textboxes or better space created for your narration. You really kind of squeezed the dialogue into the speech bubbles in a way that gave them no buffer-space or breathing room.

I'm okay with everything art-wise until you get past page 5. I don't know why you suddenly switched to a double page spread from here on out, but it seems completely unnecessary at best and I become lost in the flow of the comic at worst. I'm also a little confused as to how page 6 leads to Leader and Black appearing above AAA. You have a lot of visual cross-over and it really kind of messes with me in that order thing too. Working in black and white (with some grey) really sort of makes a lot of stuff get lost if you're not careful. I also got sort of confused where Black went at the end and where Leader went. A lot of stuff has to be taken for granted in this and it bothers me.

Overall, the comic was okay, but you probably should have stepped back and got a second opinion before going through with it, because there are some very core flaws that tarnish the total package. It was nice to see Black and you again. Hopefully you participate sooner again!

Orange: It's nice to see you finishing things again. It sure beats dropping out of the tournament! I think you need to be careful with your inks, because there's a real chance to lose definition within your work. I've been kind of noticing this with this comic and your Queen of Void entry, there's a lot of possibility for muddiness and it hurts sometime. Page 1, 69A's "death" in the 3rd panel is a bit confusing to look at visually, because by having a small white outline around that character, it feels like more detail and I'm trying to understand what I'm looking at and it gets hurt by that sort of thing, especially when the blood flying off of him already has a white BLAM BLAM behind it to give it definition. I think you go very deep into trying to squeeze out as much contrast value as possible, but the end result is by throwing in all these complex lines and shapes within it, it runs the risk of becoming visual noise and just something to scroll over instead of appreciate.

Your story was fun, I thought Agent Black's King Piccolo moment was funny and your general treatment was pretty amusing. I laughed at your "unfinished" page and really overall, I liked this story and it was good you didn't back out of this tournament. I hope next round you come up with an even better show.

Wowee I am blown away by the both of you!!

Monday- love the story, gotta say I've always been jealous of your black and white style. Love all the action! Ending was a little abrupt.

Charlie- HELL YEAH MUTHFUCKA that is my entire critique.

monday - what's with the random double page spreads? like some pages are single pages and some are not. It totally works on some pages: p5 is ace! But others got me totally confused, especially page 8 where it feels completely unnecessary, where it could be just two separate pages.

charlieeee - whooo it looks good! <3 <3 <3 I agree with Nachte tho like even one shade of grey or whatever would make it a little more readable. Also like.. when you said you were going funny with this - i didn't really find it that funny I think this was a wee bit too tame to be totally hilarious.

Monday,
Couldn't you just upload your pages up at a bigger size, I did mine at 900 pixels wide I think, seems good? Might make it easier for everyone to read it?

The 'messy unreadable art' comments below, its pretty damn clear in the first half, but then things get a bit muddied. I think that its the special effects that you draw could probably be improved (page 6) they just muddy stuff up as opposed to communicate or clarify anything.

Page 8 didn't really work for me. Both the text and images seemed pretty dull. It just didn't really seem to gel with the rest of the comic with this high octane action moving abruptly to these static pages.

Like it seems for most comics this week, I would say, cut your page count down and focus on quality over quantity. Your quality is pretty darn brilliant anyway, but I'd want to step it up a bit. So give each page a little more love.


Charlie,
Having seen your art with colour thats all I wish for with these comics. Just shorten it and give me some colour and I will be happy. I guess the colouring you do is quite a time sink. So maybe try a new approach? Draw on top of a textured coloured background, erase highlights out, do some sneaky shortcuts. I don't know, I think you have the room to be experimental. Push into some new territory, it will be exciting for everyone!

Both great comics.

Monday: Pretty sick art, but gargh those text bubbles are UNACCEPTABLE! I really like how you do your art, but naturally the problems are in the clarity. Gets pretty hard to understand what's  going on in the action sequence near the end. Will say I kinda sorta get the plot though, which is good.

PS. srsly don't do that with the text bubbles GRGHH

Charlie: Woohoo! You finished! Very sick inks here, if a little rough along the edges at some parts. Nothing major though. Just going to nitpick at the top panel of pg 4, with Black firing many shots. The sounds say many, but the pose and effects say 1 shot. Just a bit of something that can imply movement like his arm recoiling will really add to that and make it look like multiple shots. Also, I'm seeing a lot of  Imaishi influence in there, which is fine, but I'm feeling a little too much of that(?). It's cool if you wanna stick to it, but I just feel a little uncomfortable with that. Just a personal feeling really.

I don't know if I've ever seen a bunch of pages more drenched in Black (ba-dum-dum-tsshh). Beautiful.

Monday: Your action scenes are strong, damn strong, but I think where I'm losing it slightly is with the establishing shots. Maybe we could see more? Or maybe just pulling out on existing shots in general. I feel sometimes were flitting from head to head without being able to get a purchase on the spacial relationship between characters and environment. Lastly, and I'm mentioning it just because it's the first piece of text in the comic: that first section of exposition is a bit of a run-on sentence. Could have done with being broken down to avoid the sense of getting bombarded with info right outta the gate. But props on the art, even enjoyed the understated set pieces like the motor bike and it's shadow.

Charlie: I mean, dude. Humour abound. And your self-dig was noticed and hilarious. I don't wanna be the guy that tells you that the final page was the best, but shit, did it get me. I kinda feel like I saw this incubate and grow as you worked on it, and it certainly shaped up! I agree with Qyz regarding tones. It's all very stark and contrasty and my brain sometimes struggled to get a grip on the narrative as a result. I know you're all about the physical onslaught of anime blood action, but I think working in some breaks would do you a world of good (easier said than done when you're writing a comic like this with a heavy stream of gags, granted). Should be very proud. I am.

Monday: While your comic was good (especially the Mad Max inspiration), I had some problems with your comic, such as how some of the panels were hard to read because there was too much going on in them. But my biggest concern is the lettering; Firstly, a lot of the text is not centered well, secondly the text changes sizes (mostly too big) in order to fit the word bubbles instead of using one size, and last the text gets cut into the border of the word bubbles instead of fitting nicely inside of it. My guess for these problems is because of the size of your pages being so small and you needed the text to be readable for the viewers. I can suggest two things: One, make your pages a bit bigger, width-wise, than 550 px. What I do in my comics is make them 800-900 px wide, that way it's big enough to make text readable but not too big or small for today's monitors and resolutions. Second, I would suggest making the text first (and in one size) and adding the word bubbles second instead of the other way around, and practice trying to fit the text in the panel where there's enough space to put it in so it's not blocking the art. That way, the lettering would be much cleaner rather than trying to cram the text into pre-drawn word bubbles.

Endshark: I like this comic. The art, the writing, and you actually finished something for this site! I hope to see more of that in the future.

my pages were like 4000 x 2000 something and i really regret crunching it down to glance sized pages ;<

@ monday: Wish pages were bigger, stop being so lazy with your text jerkface.

@ charlie: finish shit more often, chumpnugget. Lookit this. You really only need one shade of grey here and here in the future. Don't think you gotta go overboard with grey.

I liked both. I like both styles.

Monday: That text.... that shit's hard to read. Your art is so... hard to follow. Your characters, when in static poses, talking, is quite good, but as soon as you do action, it's hard to make out what things are or what's happening...

Charlie: Finish stuff more often! This was really good. It did need your pre-comic that you didn't upload/finish, for context and such, but even without it, it's still enjoyable and makes some sense. My gripe with your art in this is... it's busy. It looks great, but there's nowhere for the eye to rest. I know you wanted to tone, and with tones, I'm pretty sure it would have alleviated the issue, but as a black and white comic, it simply doesn't have enough negative space. Good shit, tho

I am confused as to what you mean tofu as Ferdinand has like... One speaking line and he has a huge x on his face, no nose, and most shots of him are of his crotch haha. But thanks! I will have to read your comic when I get home from work Monday!

monday: Your painterly/sketchy style is unfortunately not quite working out here--a week is tough to churn out something finished and polished, but some panels are hard to read. The text/bubbles were clear (which was good), but the text really needs to be resized to fit in the bubbles.

endshark: you finished something! Good action and polish, could use some tones or color to make the super contrast shading really pop, but still readable! One small crit: it was a bit hard to tell if Ferdinand or Agent Black was talking, as there are a lot a similar faces/face structure in this comic.

Aside from that, good show, y'all!

I'm excited to see your side Monday! I'm checking the site like mad here at work haha

Also I hope nobody is expecting this to be my usual kinda somewhat serious comic, this comic is totally dumb (intentionally) and makes fun of -everything. I am not sure if I nailed it as well as I'd have liked, and I'm worried it might come across different than how I intended but I hope people enjoy anyway.

Finally uploaded after having to find some internet decent enough to send all the way through. AAA was a visual delight to draw :O !

Uploaded. It is finished, it's not the best I think I could do (I've got a lot of rust) but I hope people enjoy the first comic I've finished on this site in 2+ years.

Edit: Also, for some extra context I made a prologue comic that I sadly didn't finish 'cause I got sick right as I worked on it. http://endshark.tumblr.com/post/120245058978/void-srt-prologue-comic-pages-that-i-dont-think

It's not necessary but it gives a bit of context.

Holy shit.

Intense right off the bat! Good luck!

The funny thing is, I will be doing this AS work.

Looks like I'll have my work cut out for me this round, better not slack. I'm viewing this at work and I'm mad nervous but I still hope to have a good fight.

Hope you have a good fight too Monday!