I just wanna be a little sappy and say thanks to everyone who read and voted and commented, this comic is my first "B" rank on the site, and I totally smashed some of my best individual comic scores. I'm super happy and really feel like I've levelled up thanks to Void and the environment it provides. It would've taken who knows how long to get to this point without the blood, sweat, tears, and (healthy) levels of stress this site provides!

Super special thanks to Pomo, Shojin, and whoever decided it would be a good idea to let me into this tourney, you all make me want to be better than I am today!

I can't see anything crit-wise that hasn't been said already so i'll just say what I like about these comics!

Pocketmouse: 15 year old Merrick is adorkable ahaha. the details in the bar are real fun to look at, especially when you go back and look at it again, subtle touch with the spider legs at the establishing shot and I definitely didn't notice it in the first read! and is that Gwen's hat at the table?? and maan I really like your colours. There's a nice touch of warmness even with the colours not so saturated, it compliments well with the cooler tones of shading you've used, then that teensy amount of texture on top goes nicely with your inking style

Mintleyy mang i'll say it again how is your wrist not dead from all those tiny details?! I still love that table texture and the first few pages really helped established the mood and atmosphere of the bar. This is definitely a big step from your last comic and I love how it comes together at the end, I really liked that bit of foreshadowing at page five :0 and the basemeent, same basement all the way from vs Ms clean? yay continuity! and more new questions! I'm pretty curious to see how you'll portray Bartender in future matches now.

You guys need to stop. Seriously. Stop it with this level of quality. Except don't. Not really. It's glorious to look at and read, it just makes voting for who should win THAT much harder. Like How?

You both are really weaving something great with your respective stories you're bringing along from round 1. MINT, you are really punching up your inks this time around ,but I feel like you might be afraid of the black. Scenes in the hellish cavern simply beg for more black. Black behind the big screen showing off who v.s who, or the blank BG in the panels on page 11. You got the right idea in some, but don't be afraid to really punch it! Still, its clear where you showed your tlc- the panels where we see drinks being made is just supberb detail. I can't stop looking at the pour on pg 3 panel two. Not to mention your detailing of the bar really shows some personality.

POCKETMOUSE, you are obviously having so much fun with your backgrounds and environments because it shows. Little things from the telltale roof cobwebs in the bar, to the embellished railing on page one that Merrick flips over. You really make this world and actual world, and I for one appreciate that. Also, I look forward to your title card page every time. Great angle seeing the King of Void from the bottom of the barrel. It was so clear, I don't think you needed to add that text on the bottom right as you did. Also its super neat to see all the opponents you're up against as old. I wanna see old Mimi!

Wowowow! @w@ the quality in both these comics are both so impressive and so beautiful to look at that I got super hype just looking at the previews!

Pocketmouse: your quality in both art and storytelling is so amazing D: I find myself constantly in awe of it~ that being said - I feel like this wasn't as strong as your previous submission. There was something about it that was missing... maybe there just wasn't enough oomf although I did enjoy finding out more and more about Merrick as a character~ Either way, excellent work!

Royal Mint: I look at these comics you've been putting out and just feel in awe at how much effort you've put into them! The little details are great and I'm such a big fan of plot twists, that the ones you had going in this comic made me squee in excitement. I do get what some people are saying about possibly making differentials between the characters and the buildings, as they did tend to blend together sometimes, making it hard to follow. But yeah... I feel like this comic is great in that it answers as many questions as it raises and raises a few more hehe, I can't wait to see more of Cameron (hopefully soon!)

Again, great work you guys ;w; I'm so impressed and happy to have read these! :3

Pocketmouse: solid solid all around, if you make it to the next round I can't wait to see where this all leads

royal mint: throughout this tournament I've been really impressed by how you write Bartender's cleverness and survival tactics, his moral ambiguity is really compelling so far. I hope we get more insight into him and what this all means in future comics. I think the pages are a tad on the big side, and although you have good detail in most of these pages, it woulda helped probably to get some shading in and/or work a lil more on your anatomy.

keep up the good work guys!

Thanks for the feedback so far! Maybe i should write time-travel based comics more often lol.  

Dino- Awesome! Glad you enjoyed what i put up!

Rob- I'm super sad about that grey outside of the lines, but that's what I get for trying to do it in a rush.  I actually got about five pages in with *actual* greyscale, but it was either finish the greyscale or put on the text, so I chose to flat the panels instead so it wouldn't all be stark white.  That's what I get for taking the magic wand shortcut haha. Speech bubbles was a real problem, let's just say I had some technical difficulties when I was nearing the tenth straight hour of working on the comic on Tuesday and I just did nooot care how it looked as long as it was there by the end of it.

Shen- I wish I could've gone even further with the art than I did haha, I see what you mean about characters getting lost, I think Rob's suggestion to add white would've helped a lot, but I just couldn't do it. Maybe I'll post some of the greyscaled pages later as an example of what i was trying to do, maybe it would've been even worse, who knows!  I'm working mainly with five different pens, 0.05, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7, so I know I don't have a ton of variety.  i tried to add it there but found that some of my details were countering the thickness variation in some places and I could've cleaned it up a bit better.

I'm super glad to hear you enjoyed it, too, and I won't lie - I would be both terrified and honoured to go up against you in the future hahaha

PoMo- your art is rad as always but this time I feel like your story lacked a bit, it was a lot of buildup with no real payoff- I feel like you were trying to lead into a big finale with some atmosphere and exposition and I was all for it, especially with Spider!Cameron but then nothing really happened? I wanted to see some more of the mutant zombies myself lol but shit though your art is always on point. The very last panel though I was confused for two seconds because I thought there was a spider in the foreground and i was like "haha thats a weird tangent, bartender looks like a spider pers- AUGH FUCK"
MINT, my man- your art game is stepping up! I'm all about all these details to the environment. I like the design of the oxygen bar, though on the very first panel Merrick gets lost just a teeny bit. Actually looking again that happens a couple times- your foreground and background have roughly the same line width so its hard to follow the characters, especially in the crowd scene. Your storytelling is really compelling- at first I confess i was a little confused like "whats all this cube stuff, whats going on with angels, god damn I can't follow time travel plots" lol but in the end it all came together and whoa, shit, I didn't see that coming! I'm really interested in Cameron right now, lately his stories have a lot to do with Hell- you know that if that continues I'm going to have to fight you, right? =P
Great comics from both f you!

Pocketmouse - Fuck you for spiders   -___-  Your art is pretty, your colors are glorious and I envy your mad skill. But still. Spiders. How dare you. Oh, and the first page was confusing a bit, the giant city panel was cool but I had to ask Fred how the big panel corresponded with the littler one because I could not figure out that the puff of white was his rocket board thingy. Maybe would have been a bit more clear if there was more white puff in the littler panel. Yep. The idea of "Lets just travel along this random pipe thing and HEY LOOK A BAR!" is absurd and I love it and it works here. I would say well done, but you know. Spiders.

Mintley - The size of the pages was a bit of a turn-off. The text seemed very squished in the speech bubbles, it seems like it was a bit of a struggle for you to fit the text in? Some of the grey goes outside of the lines and it looks a bit sloppy. I liked the amount of detail you put in the linework, like the little line texturing on the archube. I liked the black, but the flat greys would have maybe worked better with some white highlights, to make the speech bubbles blend a bit more and seem like they were more part of the page. Merrick was a little too easy convinced to hop into a portal to Hell. He didnt seem that interested in the archube beyond "WHAT IS THE THING" and didnt express any "Ooo Ahhh I want the thing!" that I noticed. I liked the last page, the "Master" one. I don't understand what it is or why its there, but I really like it for some reason. Also, your portal on the 2nd to last page (before the master page), looks like naked ladybits and that amuses me.

Edit: Fred explained what the Master page was for, and I was like OH. I didnt read it like that at all.

As always, Pocketmouse's vivid artwork shines.  The inks and colors are just fantastic, and I always love your title pages.  I also like how you continue the action from your previous bout, having Merrik delving deeper into the tunnel system, with those ominous mushrooms illuminating every nook and cranny.  I think my favorite touch in this comic has to be the bar itself.  The background details here are just so great.

Royal Mint, I gave you the nudge here, though.  While I don't find your artwork as appealing as Pocketmouse's, it is quite good, and consistent.  I found the beginning to be a bit slow, but your ending is what made me lean in your favor.  I love the deception and sense of dread you evoke with the out-of-body concept, very well executed.  

Overall, awesome work from you both, you guys certainly belong here!

I'm having a total fanboy moment here, Merrick is one of my favourite void characters and it's an honor to battle with you, Pomo.  I love what you came up with, and hope you enjoyed mine as well!

Uploaded! Looking forward to what you put up, Pomo

Good luck to the both of you! Lookin' forward to these comics!

Stoke worthy battle right here!

OHHHHHHHH MY GOD. I'm SO stoked, I hope you're ready Pomo I'm gonna bring it as hard as I can!

good luck!! can't wait to read these!