Whew! I'm glad I was able to give Berto a decent fight, it was fun! Thanks everybody for taking the time to comment and critique, seriously.
Regarding the somewhat confusing story I had going on here (although it seems like more people got it than I expected. Honestly, immediately after submitting this, I suddenly hated it and thought nobody would understand what was happening because I failed to deliver the story and exposition well enough), essentially, Ponbiki's soul was sent into a new vessel after the old one was destroyed (see Rtv! and Frequency6: BUZZCUT vs. The White Dwarf and Drednaut vs. Estrella D' Muerte and Kaisho Ponbiki). The new vessel for Kaisho Ponbiki (who is actually a giant monolithic being in space/another dimension, as I understand it) is the Ponbiki we see here. The Smile is sent to kill Ponbiki, and reveals that he is, in fact, in the employ of Estrella D' Muerte, whose motivations are a mystery at this point. After destroying this vessel, Ponbiki, in an impulsive move, sends his soul into The Smile, who emerges from the smoke as a new being, both Kaisho Ponbiki and The Smile, who sets off to find Estrella.
Now, aside from the obviously slapped together pages 6 and 7 (and 8, which was used purely for pacing reasons, I normally hate doing that, I would've much preferred to design the layout to convey that dramatic beat without using a blank filler page), I think I made a couple of poor choices that muddied the clarity of my comic. Rather than make Ponbiki buff to show that he's not the same Ponbiki, I should have left his body proportions the same, but updated his costume. This would make the reveal on page 10 more obvious, as Ponbiki and The Smile's body types wouldn't be so similar. Alternately, as Mortooncian said, color would have done the trick as well. Other than this, I probably should have just used some more captions to divulge this information, which also would have kept the tone of the comic a bit more in line with page 1.
Had I moved on to round 2, my idea was to have Ponbiki encounter my next opponent while attempting to seek out Estrella D' Muerte, all the while having an internal power struggle with The Smile as he attempts to regain control of his now superpowered body. Shenanigans ensue.
So there's my DVD bonus features. Now, I shall retire to my bucket of popcorn for round 2.
Berto - I liked this! The sketchy style does appeal to me but it actually seems a little too loose and too messy in the first few pages, but gets better in the last few once you start getting into the gag. The lines get a bit thinner and easier to read - and the tones get a little smaller too. I think moving forward with smaller -everything- might do some good for your pages. Make the tones smaller, make the text smaller etc. The text is massive and I feel like you could get more across by having it smaller and letting your drawings take up more room/fill in the panels more because they are so good!
DNO - Nice drawings! Its too bad that there is some unfinished parts in this comic but the deadlines in these tournies sometimes can get ya. I really like your style - however I feel like the comic gets really hard to understand at the end? Did the characters fuse? I am not too sure of what happened there or why it happened and what happened with Ponbiki. If he was killed and his soul was elsewhere how was he in the comic in the first place. I think it just confused me is all. Still - your character is awesome and I like your comics!
Berto: I'm not sure if it was intentional, or just coincidence, that the panel borders were solid for most of ponbiki's transitions, but Smiles became rough and quick, but I noticed and thought it was neat. Plus, I love the emotions you gave the bar onlookers.
DNO: Love the panel work you've got. a lot of feeling in that gunshot and a heck of a moment in the last two pages.
man, like shen said, am i even WORTHY
Berto: Though simple, the gag in this is amazing, and Smile just FLYING across town is great. My only problem is, is it set in-story that it's Heavyweight (like, how in Magistelle's Mammon knows of a Heavyweight Tournament)? Otherwise, why are they opponents?
Then again, a [former?] legendary superhero and a Mafia hitman seem like they'd fight no matter the context, so maybe I'm just nitpicking.
Nebitt: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THESE PAGES
Though it mentions backstory, the exposition isn't forced at all, and helped me understand the plotline you were going with. However, people may not exactly catch on that he's now JOEBIKI. The solution as you said was either color, or forced exposition, so I guess next time, just coloring in the last panel would've worked for the conveyance. Otherwise, because people seemed to have caught on regardless, I still think it works and this is a hard match to critique
BERTO: I think a lot of people have commented on the size of the tones but I think it's the volume of them and different types that is what takes away mostly. It's a good experiment though and I would just work on being a bit more conservative maybe? With that said this comic is so great and full of life and good humour. I think the only other point of feedback I have is that occasionally the text hits too close to the edge of your bubbles/boxes. But really fun simple gag comic that I liked a lot.
DNO: The exposition at the start was well handled and this comic hit a good balance of calling back to an old story while still doing something new. The horror on page nine was also really cool and well drawn to lead into Smile's transformation. Love the cartoony expressions on Ponbiki a lot throughout this and it is as others say a pity about the two sketched pages - but they're clear enough to still know what's going on so a good effort. RIP Taco.
I loved both comics equally. Ponbiki and the Smile are among my favourite characters and seeing them one on one against each other is a real treat.
Berto: I won't lie, the tones did hurt my eyes a little, seeing how big they were up close, but they can easily be fixed for next time. Also love the way you stylised both Pon and Smile. At any rate, happy to see Ponbiki in action again!
DNO: It is a shame you couldn't fully finish yours, DNO. But I was pretty much in the same boat in not finishing all my pages either, so I know how that feels. Not to worry though! One of these days, I'd love to battle the Smile.
Thanks everyone!
Sorry for the big tone dots... I was experimenting with them.. but didn't have time to go back and resized them I'll make sure not to do that again.
It was a blast trying to come up with something that worked for Smiles. He was fun to draw, I wish I had more time to work on it, I wanted to do a bigger fight. I was surprised to see you use the old story and it brought me some feels. Then the alternate Pon had me laughing with his lines and how violent he was. Then Smile becoming the new Pon was a good twist. great job! loved your line work and Pacing!
Thank you all for the love, comments and critiques. keep 'em coming.
Berto! I was so hyped to see what your side was gonna look like, and you did not disappoint! I love your take on the Smile, man. Really cool, fun comic. Thanks for the battle, may the best comic win!
And to those who have commented, and those that will, thanks for the critiques, they are much appreciated.
Im gonna start this by saying i feel underqualified to critique either of you because you guys are just too damn good and these were magnificent and i loved them
Berto I loved the simplicity of the story told in such an exaggerated fashion, I love how mASSIVE The Smile is especially compared to Ponbiki, i love when he kicks him across town, the backgrounds are AMAZING you do great to fill a space, details get lost in the way that you ink but not so many that it becomes unclear. If i had to critique, the fight on page 5 was a bit hard to follow, and also at first i thought his eyes were bleeding. thats basically it though i otherwise adore this~
DNO- ahhh i love how you ink so much! its too bad this kinda fell apart in the middle ^^; the smile is such a cool character i love to see him back around! i like what you were trying to do in incorporating Ponbiki's previous storyline, though i find it strange not seeing him small haha! Im not really sure what to critique, you know where its incomplete, and the pages that are on are too on for me to be able to say anything bad!
Berto: You're one of my favorite artists to ever grace this site, and I love this comic. It was really hard finding something to critique but I found something: the screentones in page 2-5 are too big and spread out, they distract from the rest of the art rather than complement it, so I'd avoid that size in the future
DNO: This starts off and ends off really awesome but the middle end is incomplete and it was gonna be the juiciest part! I'm a little confused as to what's happening, whether this is a parallel world or something, but it was really pretty
The two of you should be publishing comics already, I would buy them
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