Orion - cute, but yeah we gotta see you step it up next round!!

Cro - Damn, you seriously impressed me with your inks. I really really think you've leveled up, even on the first page I was like WOW. Can't wait to see more.

ORION- this was a tad hard to read as im sure you know ^^;;; but i LOVE supportive Merge and that little date they went on lol. Poor David! He looks like hes suffering! Hopefully these rounds will cheer him up!

CRO holy heck what a cool story you fit into this!! You have an incredible sense of timing- not just in your comedy but in your drama as well. The pacing of that first page combined with that sort of vouyeristic shot had me on edge right away. Incredible backgrounds, incredible inks, sir you are FORMIDABLE.

Orion - sorry time got caught up with you but I am glad you're able to submit something nonetheless!

Reecer  -  I dont know if this is a good or bad thing but damn, your nice crisp art was so mesmerizing that I find myself staring at it more than reading the comic haha. I love this style so much. Noir is something that I have been wanting to pull off for awhile too and you do it so well. Even the unfinished stuff looks readable and clean. Impressive.

Orion- I have straight up helped a friend build Ikea furniture after a breakup, so that detail gave me a chuckle. I liked your sketches, even if I did have to zoom write out to read them XD MEGRE and David had great friend-chemistry.

Reecer - Those first few pages set the tone so wonderfully, you're really fantastic at creating a certain atmosphere in your comics. I really like the story and set-up here, I'm very eager to read your next round.

Great job to both of you!

Orion: Though these were sketchy, they were still clear enough to tell what was going on most of the time. It was really cute seeing David and MEGRE just have a cute little day together. The panel where they're assembling IKEA furniture is probably my favorite tbh. Like, what an unexpected yet kinda cute idea for a hangout sesh. The true way to see if you're compatible: can you assemble an IKEA chair without murdering each other. XD I was lowkey wondering the whole comic why MEGRE, a detective, wouldn't help find a missing person, but then you lampshaded it at the end in a way that just made me giggle, so, y'know. In the end it didn't feel like a plot hole

Reecer: I really loved that first page, weirdly? It was a really smart use of resources, and it set up a good bit of intrigue and anticipation building as we watch MEGRE set this thing up and wait to see how it pays off. The whole setup of this was really good tbh--their dialogue felt awkward, but like, in a natural way. Like it felt more like an awkward conversation than awkwardly-written, if that makes sense? But despite that, there were some really touching moments. I really liked the bit with MEGRE complimenting David's photography, about the beauty in the mundane, and the way he's never seen it intentionally depicted because no one's ever photographed with that part of the spectrum visible. I also really liked the end--the whole time I was kind of thinking that this had to be a "set-up" of some kind, with MEGRE using this as a way to get information, and that last page confirmed it--but also served to characterize MEGRE as kind of a softie. love it.
I think I'm a little torn between the spot blacks; in some places I think they may have been a bit too much, especially on David's face because they give him a bit of an overly sinister feel... but on the other hand, you're going for a Detective Noir feel, so it makes sense to have such heavy shadows.
as a side note I gotta say I absolutely love that you're setting these in Idaho because that's where I grew up and I'm so not used to seeing people depict it in any way other than "hehe this is where potatoes grow" that I'm just. Delighted.

SUPER looking forward to fighting both of you!! big eyes emoji

Hey guys! I liked these, can't wait to see what y'all come up with in the next round!

So Orion. I'm sure real life just did things to you, but i can suspend my disbelief and pretend that the hand made restaurant napkin comics are a reflection of the depression David is going through. I had some troubies downloading the lexicon for your hand writing style from the hive-mind, so i had to learn it from scratch, but i still managed to catch the drift of the story. two guys being dudes. what's better than that?

reecer: I've never really read a MEGRE comic before! it was cool to see you import David and the character cameos into this neat 1920s noir world. or was it 1960s futurism ? some combination of both aesthetics and vibes? it was cool to catch the drift of the special world building here and see how well David fit in to it. the idea of him building a 'cannie' because he's a tinkerer and then having it confiscated was such a dark touch. the comicing style and art aesthetic really fit the world building, too.

Orion: It was a really cute friend date! It seems like David got a lot he needed out of that, MEGRE was a great sport. It's a shame the pages were so big, so it was kind of hard to read since we don't really get to see everything together, but the bits I picked up on were really pleasant.

Reecer: You really blew me away with this one, no word of a lie, it's up there as one of my faves in the whole round. This noir style works so well, the clean panels are *so* tightly done, even where you couldn't finish the pages, they're really clear and clean for a sketch. It was really bittersweet towards the end and even without knowing anything about MEGRE going into this I wanna go back and figure it out.

These are awesome comics you guys!!!!!! 😊

Orion - Aw, that was sweet of MEGRE. And does David have a beard??

Cro - The spot blacks on this were killer, especially the first page. I really liked that the comic started by peering into MEGRE’s life as if the reader is in the bushes. The interaction with David also flowed very organically; it makes total sense for an engineer to geek out over a robot, and for a robot to appreciate humans building machines with greater capabilities than their own. It was a cool way to tie things back into the mystery too. Uncle Murphy felt a bit of nowhere, and he seemed weirdly aggressive about the hat? Apart from that though, very smooth story.