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Election Royale 2021
5 Weeks
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Regular Match
Comics
Election Royale 2021
By Heathen
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46

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The Smile
Final Score: 5.02
Election Royale 2021
By Fred
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46

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Casino Reasoning
Final Score: 6.33
Election Royale 2021
By Rose
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46

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Queen Void
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WINNER
Final Score: 8.04
Election Royale 2021
By Hellis
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46

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Akira Matzugi
Final Score: 6.33
Election Royale 2021
By BoogidiBzdo
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46

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ChickenMannUltra
Final Score: 6.93
Comments (46)
Heathen
Hm, I’m on the fence about this gritty inking style. At first I really dug it, being seeing your pencil sketches later on in the comic, I thought you really lost something during the inking stage. The setting here was an interesting but confusing one. I honestly thought the Sky Falls comic was a setup to elections, but then your actual comic seemed to be veering off hard in a different direction. I’ll have to see the final result to make a proper crit, I think.Don
That Egg Dealer was fucking horrific, 10/10 best interpretation here. I think you portrayed the Smile cleverly too - dead, but still a massive influence. And ofc what’s not to love about a skeleton embedded with rapiers? Loved the sequences where Naialah was compared to the Smile, I honestly never would have made the connection but it would worked out so well. And her illuminated scars mimicking the eyes of the Smile mask on page 35 and 46? Hell yeah. And lil detail here, but I loved the eggy sound effects on page 4. I actually didn’t think any of the shots were cheap, on the contrary you went for some pretty interesting layouts in this comic. I liked pages like 23 - the convo with Naialah overlaying the sex, plus Elijah’s back tattoo and the spider web silhouette was pretty damn striking - and 25, but other pages didn’t quite work. Pages like 6, 16, 18 and 22, I wasn’t sure what the reading order was. Onto the writing. I was... kinda confused on the first read and I’m still equally as confused on the second. I know parts were cut, but reading the script didn’t clarify things. For instance, why did Elijah and Naialah immediately decide to kill Egg Dealer after seeing him? I know later on Ancelin mentions his death speeds up the trip, but I didn’t get any indication that that was the pairs’ plan. Was it out of plain disgust? If so, how was that strong enough for them to plan a distraction and not stop to consider they might starve from it? Why does Naialah transform into a monster form? Was the Smile’s influence so powerful it physically changed her? Why is she willing to rule now? Why did Elijah choose sex with Buster as a distraction when he’d reveal something that seemed to be a secret? Or did I read wrongly, and it wasn’t a distraction to kill Egg Dealer, just plain sex? I have so many questions, I feel like the story is just out of my reach. I know you joke about making them so long, but I think that’s genuinely something to look into. Longer isn’t always better, and condensing a script often improves it, becuse you’re forced to identify the really important/necessary bits, and cut away any confounding excess. A piece of advice I once came across was to cut 10% of your draft** - while I think that’s a bit drastic, it’s still a good tip to keep in mind. If that’s difficult, you might need some harsher editors for your scripts instead. There’s another thing which isn’t a problem specific to this comic, but something I noticed while reading it. You should probably practice establishing different character voices. Most of your characters have a vaguely southern accent*, from Wynne to Niles to Elijah. It’s fair enough if that’s your taste with your own characters, but then Ancelin speaks with that same accent (e.g. page 7), when she’s supposed to be French. I thiiiink I noticed you doing this with Luci as well back in Great Escalations? So that’s something to keep an eye on. *Or at least, the same kind of accent/dialect. The speech uses “ain’t”, “yer”, and shortened words like ‘n or th’. **Oh also this won’t be the case for EVERY script. Idk how to explain it well without making this super long RIP. Obviously if you’re going for something more chill, you’re not gonna cut a silent panel for not having important info. That still moment IS important, but for the pacing!Fred
I’d love to know what you were going for here because I couldn’t make head or tail of it. Every page felt like it’s own separate story, disconnected, and most of them for me didn’t stand on their own imo. I know you experimented with the style for the first page when Buster fought Anvil, but it still doesn’t feel intentionally simple to me. The figures are flat coloured while the walls have smudges of shadow on them for instance, and the palette isn’t very cohesive. I think if you’d had more consistency within the style and picked a good palette, it would be more clear that this was a choice on your part rather than low effort. It’s difficult to shake that feeling when I’ve seen what you can do in the past. Especially with the low page count for such a long draw time, from an outsider’s perspective it looks phoned in. There’s also the last page, which is a copied scene that doesn’t fit in with anything else, except for the fact that the Smile is in hospital I guess? And page 3, which I enjoyed, still has glaring typos in the very first word balloon and is drawn rather messily.Jade
LOVED your comic. Damn. There were so many creative sequences here, my favourites were the attempted mind control and the Smile literally trying to get back into the comic from the edges. Really clever. Your art has also definitely levelled up, especially in terms of linework and posing. I loved how you used colour to aid in the storytelling, like that mind control again and when Buster flipped the coin. The monotone itself for each different colour was also very good, and I liked the chapter covers. I can’t believe you bought all those spiders and smiley balls XD In terms of writing, yours felt the most solid to me, with every event clearly connecting to the next. You wrote everyone very well and in character too imo. Also, for me it was obvious that this Naialah was a young one! She lacks her scars and most of her piercings, as well as having hair. Between that, her stature and being called by a different name, I think you did all you could to portray that difference. So her actions make sense to me and I didn’t find it jarring with her current self. If I had to critique anything, it would be the toy hammer that the Smile was bonked with. I don’t know what its significance is as the weapon of choice, or where it came from. I’m guessing it had something to do with Buster’s wager, but the link wasn’t clear to me. But yeah anyway, you still did an amazing job. Ancelin deserves that crown!Hella
Love the references to Ye Olde Void. Tbph despite being a fairly recent Voider who wasn’t aware of Toast being a janitor and all that, the way you wrote it still made perfect sense to me. Of course the creator of the Void website would have the deed to the city hanging about in his property, the bar. It was also really interesting to see Akira this way. I honestly had no idea he was this power hungry - I thought he was content to controlling individuals or charming club crowds. Crit-wise, I had trouble following this because most of the characters didn’t feel quite right to me. For instance, why did Egg Deaaler agree to fight the Smile? I know Akira has mind control abilities, but do they work when he’s so far away? Why is Naialah trying to help Ancelin? So far she’s appeared to be a mind your own business-type, if not actively antagonistic. She seems too heroic and talkative here. I wonder why Ancelin would be out of her mall and in a position to be chased by Smile in the first place, or why she was targeted when she wasn’t a meta. On a final note, in terms of overall writing things felt a little too convenient. Akira just happens to pair up with Saal, who happens across Toast’s bar, which has access to what is effectively one of the most powerful documents in Void, all offscreen. The deed is just sitting there and nobody else has taken it yet but him, even though other people are present in the bar (as opposed to it being a lost place only recently being rediscovered but Akira). Also, simply picking up the deed transfers power to him, so much power that he can now control the Smile. Does simply touching the deed grant you power? Do you need to have intent to rule Void? Shouldn’t there be a signature involved or something? Idk it just didn’t gel for me.Boogi
This was honestly really fun, probably my favourite comic of yours so far :) I loved this parody version of the Smile and his goons, basically everything he said on page 19 was super funny. The animations at the end were very cool, and a great way to wind down the comic. It was also an interesting route for the election to literally be an election.... but won by voter fraud on Egg Dealer’s part XD On the crit side, apart from the forests Naialah emerged in, most of the environment felt like an empty cityscape. There was a far off building here and there, and the floor was grey which makes me think of cement, but that was it. The shadows were also vague smudges for the environment, which clashed with the hard edged spotblacks and hatching for character shading. I’d recommend picking one style of shading and sticking to it, and of corse filling in the environment more.Heathen
I don't care how unfinished this is, you made my girl a badass and I love her right from the introduction. I'm enjoying your meta approach towards the sections you couldn't finish. You made up for it by making me laugh. I really hope you do finish this, because it sounds like an absolute masterpiece. Even just reading the description made me so happy.Don
GOD DAMN WHAT THE FUCK DON FUCK YOU WHAT. Okay, something I love about all of your comics is how dark you make things, including your opponents. You're not afraid to turn other characters into villains, and I dig that. All the relationships between the characters Eli and Naialah meet at the beginning are so fucked up in such a great way. I love this route you took with Naialah, showing this dual nature within her, and ultimately giving into her beliefs despite conflicting feelings throughout most of the comic. You've left us a promise of finding out more about Naialah and who she is and I am SO ON BOARD for this!Fred
YOU DELIVERED JUST WHAT I NEEDED BUT NEVER KNEW I WANTED. Thank you for making my day and my night and my life. Every page was a new surprise and a new joy.Hella
We goin' DEEP with that lore! I appreciate that you dug into aspects of VOID's comic history that go beyond the recent stuff with the Retribution BB and such. And Akira looks like such a bad bitch in this comic. I didn't know what to expect from you at all, and I'm super digging how hard you went on this. Way to blow the election out of the water in a world-shattering way! And congrats on getting a fucking complete, fully colored comic done despite all the setbacks!Boogi
I've always been intrigued by your comics, and reading through Egg Dealer's archive in preparation for this match made me a diehard fan. You haven't let me down with this comic in the slightest. Egg Dealer's mayoral outfit is FABULOUS. Ancelin approves. Your comic was a wild ride. It has everything in it that makes me love your comics. I can't wait to see what you do next!!!