Tag Team Tournament 2020, Round 1

ArtsandGoodies: I was thinking maybe just each of us doing individual pages on our rather than than the dividing the work into phases. any advice on this would be good to hear. Depends on what you two want to get out of this. Dividing work up into things like story/pencils/inks/letters is better as a learning experience. Like, that is how most creative processes split up work in real world work environments. However, splitting up full pages might be more fun? Do what feels right.

Looks like everyone got the crits down. I was following the story at first then just got confused towards the end and I didn't feel that the opponents were featured as much at all. But I did laugh at the jokes and liked seeing Chica doing toon-style expressions and everything. I think it really added to the effectiveness of the jokes so hope to see more of that in the future. Anyhow, good luck in the next round!

Thanks for the all the crits guys, I feel like it reallys shows that me and Radji never collabed before looking at this comic. I was wondering how we should proceed forward in the next round. I was thinking maybe just each of us doing individual pages on our rather than than the dividing the work into phases. any advice on this would be good to hear.

Radart: I got a good laugh out of the cigarette bit, and laughed way more than I should of over them being smoked backwards. Overall, this started really strong and got a little weaker as it went on, as if you all were running out of steam. If you aren't already, I'd recommend not doing pages in order. I don't know if I can add much else, in terms of critique, as I think everyone has nailed everything. So, I'll just say I like both of these characters and the team up, and think there's a ton of potential to be explored in terms of the dynamic between them. I hope that happens!

Ooh I love the idea of Catador and Chica together! However I,,, was kinda.... confused by the whole thing. WW and Other Guy appeared out of nowhere and their presence was kinda.... unimportant. Catador taking a regular Cab would have changed nothing in the story (however, I did love the character inside of the car being so used to that brutal way of transportation lmaoo) but other than a good chuckle, the story remains the same. While I loved how abrupt Other Guy's explosion was, it kinda feels a little disrespectful to have the character just literally "pop" out of existence. And I kinda noticed how... carefully Catador is drawn, while every single Chica appearance looks rushed, her poses look kinda stiff. The shading and coloring is a kind of hit or miss in this, too. Like some panels look very beautiful with the ambience and shading, and others look kinda dull and uninspiring. If there was a bigger ominous buildup to it, I think the joke would have landed better without seeming a bit rude. And lastly, the 4th panel in the last page left a lot to be desired, I can see the horizon line above everything and the buildings kinda look like play-doh (i struggle with backgorunds a lot too, so I understand the suffering behind it) the panel does look lazy and kinda...cheap (?) I LOVED how Chica was trying to push the dialogue bubble away, it's a very very neat way to make it explicitly clear how she doesn't want any part of the hero title thing. And Catador's face with his hair messed up after landing made me chuckle. I legitimately think Catador and Chica look adorable together, and I'm definitely looking forward to more interactions between these two. You both working together is clearly a good idea, you both are great artists and I've seen what you can do, so this kinda felt lacking, I would suggest maybe slowing down a little bit to plan the plot better! This might not be your best work, and I hope my critique didn't come out as rude or too harsh, I really want to see more of your stuff and I know you both will deliver something better next round, so I'm excited! Looking forward to what you'll cook up next round!

Monday: Alas the most powerful team has been given the gift of free time U _U Nah, we got comics to make!

Nice work Radji and Arts! I have big hopes for your team. This comic has buckets of potential, but it seems like you could do with editing down and planning out a little better before you put pen to paper. There are typos (letters missing from words!), words aren't centalised in balloons, issues with read order of balloons (page 2 panel 4), some pages you've not switched off the sketch layer, some frames you've not finished erasing the joints. Attention to this detail is what will help you stand apart from the crowd. Give yourself time to give these things attention. I'd rather see a solid few pages pages of top notch quality that showcases your teams many strengths, and I know you two can deliver that. It's extremely hard to deliver a page a day for two weeks, so please be gentle with yourselves in future. Play to your individual strengths and stay focused and you'll be unstoppable. I love Chicana and Catador as a thing, I want to see where they go next. :)

Alas the most powerful team has been given the gift of free time U _U

Heathen/Underwood - God, that really sucks, I’m so sorry :( Looking forward to seeing your side as a B.B. though. Arts/Radji - This comic had a strong start with the lovely purple colour scheme and an honestly unexpected direction for Chica. It makes sense that she wouldn’t trust people due to both their prior hatred of toons, and fear of her specifically, and it’s cool to see her deal with that. I enjoyed the jokes too, the ok hands and seeing Chica get more toony were really fun! Gonna have to echo the other comments on the thin inks, textures, and abrupt ending though. The comic definitely ended up trickling off for me after the beginning. The Other Guy plot worked well on paper but in practice, it’s kind of weird that there would be this dramatic, dark scene on page 8 with people saying “you need to help us” and Chica losing it when he’s just... floating there. The people even say “he sounds dangerous”, not “he IS dangerous”. The memes were funny but there definitely needed to be a greater sense of threat for that moment to have an impact. Though Chica just adding more and more cigarettes did get a snort out of me.

don't let your memes be dreams. Radji and Goodies Pretty much what Bobo said with the inks. There's still some of that energetic expressiveness of Radji's pencils there but I feel that the inks where to thin and kinda loose in places (especially in the latter half of the comic) where it weakened the look of both styles. It looks like you mostly just traced the sketches and didn't do much in terms of line weight and detail beyond what was penciled out. Colors, again, where pretty good early on but got less so later. The palette was alright, things looked vibrant and interesting but once the lighting started dropping off things started to look much flatter. Also Arts, this might just be a preference thing, but I'm feeling that you rely on digital filters and effects too much. Like with the smokey texture on the last page it just looks like it was put there to just add noise without much though beyond it. It mostly looks like you're covering up the bare backgrounds. It works on page 3 since that's like a dramatic effect that helps with the mood. Stuff like that needs to have a reason other than just to fill space. I remember you saying that the welcome party was one of the few teams you had a good idea for but seeing this they felt underutilized. Granted, ancient godlike beings that exist to greet around new voiders through combat is tricky to adapt for many stories, The dynamic of Chica and Catador is cool. I've been privy to their relationship through what you guys worked out in discord but it does feel this comic needed just a bit more conversation between them rather than just cutting off. Also the encounter with Other Guy really needed more than just three panels to resolve itself. Like maybe you could have had it wrecking the city through filthy memeing other than just floating menacingly. Mostly feels like the set up was there but the ending was really rushed.

Bobo made some good points on the technical side, so I’ll just focus on the plot. With Radji’s penchant for body horror and the occult, and having previously enjoyed Arts’ mind-bending story experimentations, I had very high hopes for this comic, so it was a bummer to see your opponents sidelined for a generic shipping plot between your two characters. I’d really like to see your opponents better involved in the plot in your next round. In fact, I’d like to see a plot in your next round.Utilizing Uwu was a funny twist I didn’t expect, and I like the translation of his one-word dialog (although he suddenly speaks English at one point), but the other guy was completely inconsequential and literally popped out of existence in possibly the most “Poochie returned to his home planet and died on the way” cop-out I’ve seen on the site. It just seems like neither of you really knew what to do with WW and the other guy. Clearly the deadline got the better of you, and I would have preferred a complete comic in black and white to a colored comic that ends abruptly and without consequence. All that said, I look forward to seeing what you guys bring to round 2, because there’s a powerhouse dynamic between you guys, you just have to hone in on it and play to your strengths.

That default was criminally tragic, but I'll leave the crit for Heathen/Underwood on their BB. Radji/Arts, I love the direction you took with Chica facing the fallout of Arma, and the way you turned your opponents into gags is a really fun twist on the meta narrative they embody. I love how The Other Guy really just wanted someone to respond to his memeing and Welcome Wagon just needs employment. I'm not sure if the OC is part of WW now or if they're just working with him, but either way I was entertained by that twist. Art-wise, I feel like some of Radji's sketches were lost in translation during the inking phase. I'm not sure if that was because the pencils were unclear (I know mine often are, and I worry about letting people ink my pencils for that exact reason) or if you just had a hard time following them, but I feel like I've seen you do better inks in the past, so maybe it's just an anomaly. I thought the colors were fine, but I would have liked to see more shading and highlights so things didn't look as flat. It kind of looks like you just didn't have enough time or energy to really polish this, but that's totally valid and something you just have to balance with the length of the comic you want to make. Overall, I did enjoy this comic, and I want to see what happens next. We were sort of just introduced to the concept of Chica saving El Catador, which makes this comic a bit underwhelming in terms of telling a complete story, but really has me interested in whatever you guys do next. I'm looking forward to round 2!

Heathen and Underwood aaaah what a bummer. got a headscratcher moment there but well shit happens. glad you guys are ok though. looking forward to being able to read your entries side by side. I am waiting for now to enjoy the full package.

A storm knocked Underwood's power out, and my iPad died while resizing the pages for upload. Se la vie. Congrats on the win, Radji and Arts, I’ll have real comments for you guys, and our side posted as a BB, tomorrow. Till then.

I refuse to give anything away with a lengthy crit so early, but this gave me such a goof I had to expend my willpower to not laugh and wake this household up. I dab on thee with my scoring.

Submitted. I did the writing, inks and colors and Radji did the Sketches and lettering.