Tag Team Tournament 2020, Round 1

underworld squad: yooo, this is a TIGHT story you've plotted out, and it's got some very fun and interesting compositional choices to go with it! i'm super impressed by this. i don't have much else to comment on, i'm just a huge fan :0 artists who are making a big exciting return after collectively posting one comic on void since 2018: excellent artwork as always for the both of ya! some great dynamic shots and whatnot. scriptwise though it let me down. it really feels like you were deadset on making a big actiony comic against your opponent, and got handed opponents who do not do big actiony, and you had to scramble to come up with any reason you'd have to fight with them. i have no real problem with the light-hearted adaptation of their story because there's some thick lore going on in zoey's narrative, if you don't wanna make the comic about their sorrow you probably have to compromise on it instead. but as a result, there's a super arbitrary framing narrative that makes the gravediggers here a nonentity, and zoey naturally basically absent. the fight was fun, yeah, but felt totally inconsequential, and it distracted me. aaaaalso even though i did see the establishment of the corn, i feel like there ought to be a shot of it explicitly falling off the building to maintain continuity. regardless, i did still enjoy this comic!!

WOW..both comics are superb. This is such a good match up it almost feels like the finals! Pitamel - reinterpreting your characters as humans was a pleasant surprise. Separating the scenes that are seemingly unrelated and then converging them later is such a nice way to go about this. The art is nice but I can tell that you ran out of steam towards the end due to time constraints. Still, the story was still able to deliver. The text is too small too in some points and I had to lean closer to my monitor (yeah I wasnt even reading in mobile lol) to see. I wish Winslow didn't put the chick on the ground though hahaha. But man, it's such a heartwarming story. I love it! Magipock - The art is AMAZING and I love both your styles. It's the type of quality that I expected from artists your caliber but I am still blown away. The story is simple but quite effective and really cute! Aaah it's so good I wish there was more interaction with them and that's the only complaint I really have. Both teams did extremely well. Thanks for bringing us such a good battle.

It's a bit weird, but it took me some time to appreciate both of these comics. I thought both had good art, but the stories didn't click with me on the first read. After rereading a couple of times, I'm not really sure why? Maybe it was the scale and simplicity, but that stuff doesn't really matter thanks to the visuals and charm that both of these oozed. Pica: I love when people take risks and explore doing creative things with their characters, and this did not disappoint in that regard. Using normal, human AU versions of such awesome characters was honestly pretty brave to do in a tournament. I think for the most part it was a success, as the comic was a nice read. However, I do think overall that it might have hurt some, as it seemed to take away from the uniqueness of Zoey & The Gravediggers, and cause a huge focus on your opponents' characters. Magocket: IMO, this is the best looking comic of round 1, and I think a big part of that is how well every aspect of it goes together. That points to some great teamwork. It was a good length, had great flow, and had a sweet moment or 2. The only thing I could really see hurting you all in the long run is that not a whole lot happened story-wise. If the visuals stay this strong, though, that might not end up mattering.

So I'm just gonna gush for a bit Pitamel: This is like my favorite comic from this round. You both did a stellar job in 'humanizing' these characters. Yea, the writing is great; both the dialogue and visuals. The bottom left panel on page 3 with the fridge really hit home Winslow's situation as someone who is having issues with controlling his destructive abilities. Then the long page with the baby bird falling had me audibly gasping. The fact that it's the one page that's longer than the rest got the high marks in creativity for me. only real negatives is Klippo and Lev could have gotten more character and the last two pages looked rushed by hey. It's two weeks and four characters, two of which are brand new, so I get that. Also hey, JaJa and Saal? cameos get Footini points for both of you. PoMags: We've reached critical sweet levels. Again, this was my favorite match this round. Both of you manage to make some pro level artwork that's some of the best on the site. It'll take someone with a better eye for art than me to find anything wrong. You just got a pretty straight forward battle comic but it's done well. Action's easy to follow, panel's got good flow and yea, super mega death chicken pretty good. It was an odd choice to have such a wholesome character go full monster mode which kinda meant her personality was gone for some of it but it wasn't a big enough change to ruin it for me. Great job both of you.

Camel and Pita Godd those are some gorgeous gorgeous panels, I stared at the 3rd panel in the first page for a long while, the light filtering through the leaves just made me want to keep staring. Felt like I was there, very very nice! I gotta admit though, seeing that sort of careful lighting gone from the rest of the pages threw me off a little. Loved the details about broken items in Winslow's apartment! It's a very great way of telling a story through environments! The therapist storyline was very heartwarming too! And while I -loved- the alternate versions of the characters in this- it left me a little confused, since I was expecting to see the Gravediggers as ghoulish characters. Zoey's rebirth is very easy to follow, since she's still a little bird, but the Gravedigger's re-debut kinda threw me off, it's probably because I'm a little bit of an airhead, but it took me two reads to get it was them. All in all, it was a great and heart warming read! Magistelle and Pocketmouse: I am SPEECHLESS. This was so damn GOOD. The characters' chemistry between them all worked SO PERFECTLY. It was very sweet how the Gravediggers wanted to help Zoey visit the surface again, Winslow and Lev's friendship felt so natural and organic! AND THE WHOLE CLIMBING-THE-GIANT-CHICKEN THING?? I have NO idea how you came up with it but it's... P E R F E C T. The backgrounds were amazing, the art quality was so so good and consistent through the whole thing. The ending was very sweet, kinda bittersweet with Zoey and the Gravediggers returning to the underground, but that's a big part of the appeal. It felt as if your favorite childhood show reached its end. Very very sweet This is definitely one of my favorite comics in void! absolutely loved it!!!

Birb and Reaper Connection: Y'all comic was great, i think what 4:00 said about outpacing yourself is true, as it made the last page, in particular, suffer in the art apartment. But man, I loved the way you told the opponents stories in parallel to each other and I am not sure people understand how difficult that is to do effectively. There is a reason why movies and books that use that kind of narrative structure are either heiled as brilliant or is considered a poorly thought out mess. GOOD WORK, i love your guys' style when working together! Also, the therapy session segments hit home pretty fucking hard, in a very good way. Good Boys United: Oh boy. I have feelings for these boys. They are so precious together. I worry that Lev is gonna grow destitute if they keep up the highfiving though, those things can't be cheap! Flow wise, this comic moves FAST much like gregly points out. ITs hitting beats really quickly, and yet, very effectively and while we are not left to dwell on one thing, we already know enough by the time the next beat is hit. You two are exceptionally good at emotional beats and even in this more lighthearted, surprisingly actionfilled (seeing who are involved character-wise!) comic. The one thing that stood out for me was the art that felt rushed or incomplete in regards to some of the surroundings, again much what Gregly pointed out before me.

Pita and Camel- I think it was interesting that you used AU versions of your characters for this. It was a little odd that your opponents' characters don't know or meet each other but the parallel story approach worked for me. I also liked the very void notion of- 'there's a huge cliff here now where a bunch of people got blasted... rock climbing contest!' I also appreciate that you researched rock climbing races, I didn't know you could 'steal' an anchor and force someone to take another route-- but the narration in that moment explains everything succinctly, and the big bright red climbing ropes help to show exactly what's happening. Stacking 3-ish pages together for page 8 also was a good idea with everything that happens then. Solid work! Magistelle and Pocketmouse- This comic moves fast, in a good way! In just a few panels on page two you introduce your characters and their personalities very clearly. The setting is well drawn, if a little sparse at the beginning... that big plastic corn really drew my eye when i first saw it so I was happy to see that you brought it back at the end and that it was there for a reason. Zoey's two transformation panels are great and the word bubbles are clean, but the thing that stands out to me are all the little piles of rubble in the background which look so good. I've been struggling to draw rubble heaps for bgs lately so I know it takes a long time, especially when they're detailed as this. Good heaps, heaps good

These were both super sweet ;; I’m really gonna have to mull over how I vote for this one. Camel/Pita - This comic honestly has me so torn. I really loved the storyline with Winslow and Zoey, it was very poignant and the baby bird part really got me. It was very well crafted in general, you didn’t have to spell anything out verbally with all the great environmental storytelling you two did. The art and emotional beats were done very well. You’re a powerful collaborative team. But I was very, very thrown by the fact that your characters pretty much didn’t show up? Zoey was there yes, but in a totally different form, and Klippo was basically just there as a name. AUs are cool and I know you two had to pour a tonne of extra effort in to design their human forms, so kudos for that, but I didn’t feel like they were recognisable personality-wise either. Klippo only shittalks and climbs. Whether it was intentional or not, when I’ve read their comics in the past, for me a lot of what makes these characters them comes from their setting and goals.* Granted, you may have found it difficult to have such different characters interact, but you entered the competition with that knowledge. This comic would have been damn near perfect for me as a stand-alone, but in this context, for me it doesn’t fulfill the role of these characters specifically vs Winslow and Lev, and I’m kind of surprised it was approved (though I’m glad it was). *Camel, I skimmed The Gravediggers archive for this and seeing as you’ve done AUs for them a lot, I'm gonna assume this was your idea? In which case, I kind of wonder why even make these characters to be specifically reapers/gravediggers if they’re going to be basically different people every time? It’s very weird having characters called “The Gravediggers”, their name and whole identity summed up by their job, when more often than not, they have nothing to do with graves or their original forms at all. I just wonder why not make them specifically malleable/be involved in multiple universes if you’re going to do this type of thing so often. I feel like the creative energy poured into repeatedly remaking these characters could be used to figure out how their original forms would interact with others. Because otherwise, what’s the point of setting and battling with a specific character at all? Magistelle/Pomo - Wow. The Quality. This really did look like professional level work. Winslow and Lev’s relationship is so pure, I’m glad Winslow has at least one friend who isn’t scared of him and is so ready to be there for him. The ending was so sweet, Zoey was also drawn adorably. This definitely felt like a Lev and Winslow comic though as opposed to a battle. Cursing Zoey and turning her into a monster of the week felt like a cop out to me.

CamPitaThis story was so sweet and fun. I love that you guys got experimental with how you portrayed your characters, and the relationships you created between the characters are fun. I think your styles mesh together really well, and I want to see more of it! My biggest issue with your comic is just that these two storylines barely connect at all. It would be fine if there were more thematic parallels, and maybe my brain was just too smooth to see them, but I don't think the two stories connected well enough to feel like a cohesive narrative. Still, the two stories on their own were wonderful, and Winslow being able to overcome his fear to save a baby bird, possibly the most vulnerable thing for him to touch, was beautiful. I think out of all the characters, you did him the best. I hope you guys keep working together, because you work together really well! PoMagsThis matchup truly is a collection of soft bois and goils, and your comic perfectly illustrated that. Lev's and Winslow's relationship is one of the purest things I've ever seen, and I especially love how much Lev emotionally supports Winslow. I'm not sure he even realizes it, because it's just how he is. He's truly a gem. And I love Winslow's sincere concern for others, doing his best to protect them both from external threats and from himself. Lev telling Winslow he didn't have to hug back at the end was just such a beautiful illustration of their friendship. I do think your opponents could have been better represented in your comic. I didn't feel like their character motivations or relationships were as strongly represented as your characters', although that's kind of just the nature of making comics where you don't "own" all the characters involved. So I can't really blame you for it or ding you points, it's just kind of a problem with VOID comics that you have to navigate. Your comic was still strong regardless. I've had my eye on you two as super strong artists who have done a lot of great stuff both on and off VOID, and you seem to work together seamlessly! It was so nice to see some of the really strong elements of both of your art styles represented here. And your characters are beautiful and I want to hug them both!

Camel, Pita, Some of your establishing shots ,backgrounds, character placement, was straight up cinematic. Your choice of image and choice of flow were immaculate. I think the only problem here, is that even with all the great pacing that takes place in this comic, you Out paced yourself. Meaning you did too much and caused yourselves a clear drop in quality around page 8. Though I really like the storytelling, the quality drop around that page lessens some of the impact of your story's climax. It's a great comic, but against your specific opponents the drop hurt you badly. I think going forward you should continue to make story completion your main goal but try to say more with less panels. Lastly I think it was brilliantly creative for you to have done this story without showing your characters , only doing a story about your opponents. It would have been cool though, if you had your guys cameo in the background or appear on a T shirt or something. Magistelle, Pocketmouse, WELCOME BACK! I think you guys made a professional level Webcomic. Enjoyed the whole thing, liked the pacing, impact ,and 4th wall breaks. I also really enjoyed your lay out and paneling choices. your colors were tight and you kept a steady quality through out the story's entirety. Great Work . The only things I don't like are the pencil line you choose makes your lines look fuzzy like pixelated in places to me. Also Story wise both comics did this , but I dislike Winslow being afraid of his powers in a place like void where there would be plenty of beings and environments to test his strength. it seems to me a character like that would feel freer in void than anywhere else. that's just personal preference though.. Pro comic.

Let's do this!!