MAGIC MAYHEEEEEM! Now that I got that out of my system- WOW you guys. I know for one this is their first tourney and the other is swamped with school , but the two of you brought some seriously fantastic comics for all of us to enjoy. What a match up! BADGER- You did it! You're in a tourney! :D Uber flattered your first happened to be mine and you are BRINGING IT. For such a tight deadline seeing fully lined and colored pages is definitely a shocker. Nothing looks rushed or slapped on. You either work well under panic conditions or really managed your time well. Looking at the thumbs for your battle and Radji's side by side, its funny you both kind of kept to the same color palette- neat! I will agree that throughout, Talon's emotions, despite the action going on are tepid at best. It leaves me reading the events in a tepid fashion. Maybe Talon isn't very expressive? I don't know if you're establishing his persona in this, but if not, I'd love to see your expressions pushed more to really drive home some of the intense elements of the story. RADJI- Yoooo, I freakin loved that intense magical blowout. Page five had to be my favorite with the use of color and magic. What a way to lose your powers! I will admit, I may have to backread some of Marie's battles because I really don't know what the deal is with the spikes growing out of her. Is she half rock? Do the runes just manifest in weird growths? Is she half monster? You do have some great angles and variety in panels for this battle and a nice chemistry going between them, albeit brief. I personally loved the panels that didn't have either characters in them at all and gave us more context to the environment they were in. I will agree that style wise, you do make Talon look pretty old. Like am an in his late 30's or so when he's supposed to be this fresh faced teen. Something to consider.

I said basically the same thing for Kars vs. Cadenza, but it's very nice to see these fully colored and developed comics! Great jobs! For some quick notes beyond that, though: Radji: I'm very interested in the story here, but I wished just a bit more was explained about the mechanics of what's actually happening here. It feels like it goes "let's magic together, the magic is happening, oh no the magic is now happening on you, now it's exploded" without any reason to it. But you know, I guess I just love hard magic too much. Badger: For what it's worth, I definitely saw the pile of bones and understood pretty instantly Talon had reanimated them. That's a critique for the readers, actually: You guys gotta look at panels more, don't simply gloss over details like "this man has a pile of bones in his study." But for you, I think I've made this critique several times but I keep feeling it (or maybe this is just a synthesis that I hadn't realized): The action in this really lacks impact. I think that's ultimately because you don't really mix things up much effects- or color-wise. The composition you've got is good for the most part, although you could probably pull out or zoom in some more, but at a glance there's not much that separates it from the low-intensity stuff.

Both of these comics look great for the two week deadline, full colors? Sheeeeiiiit. The scenario presented in Radji's side is alright, but feels like your typical one-off encounter. I would have liked to see one page establishing how Marie caught Talon. Badger did something great by introducing this rogue Lich that Talon now has to chase down. It makes me want to see what happens next, and establishes an ongoing thread for his part of the tournament. I really want to see how Talon's going to try, and inevitably fail, to stop this foe from collecting the powers of his subsequent opponents.

Radji- great effects! I loved how you did all the magic! You do make Talon look really really old- i know hes a crotchety 400 year old man in a teenager's body, basically, but hes still a teenager XD at the beginning she promises to help get his case dropped, a small amount of follow up on that would have been nice since it looks like hes just straight-up going to jail. But fun art, good backgrounds, simple but interesting story, i liked it! badger- lmaoooooo i see that red magic gem from gregly's comic in the background XD very fun and colourful! Poor talon never has an easy time! i think theres a bit of an issue with staging. On page 2 it took me 2 reads to see the bag of bones in his room half hidden because a text bubble, so when he goes to resurrect it, it looks like he just fucking VAPORIZED Marie. That may have worked better if you pulled the camera back to show where the corpse had come from, and maybe Marie in the shot as well. The camera might also have been too close when talon jumped out the window as it takes a second to register that its a window. Page 4 has a lot of empty space... perhaps instead of Marie climbing out the window and Talon on the roof in 2 panels it could have been combined into one. I think the pattern Im seeing here is in your comics, youre thinking a lot like an animator! XD you tend to sort of storyboard it when you should be treating the page composition like its own element. (I have trouble with this too: i know i tend to draw in boxes.) Pull the camera back more sometimes, vary the shots a bit more. But your gesture and expression are top notch and i LOVE the colour experiments youre doing! I just adore Talon i hope he gets out of this okay~

radji- i love the colors and the clear setting in this. the brushy feel of the colors when the action begins makes everything feel really exciting- good work! badger- i'm not sure why talon resurrects that skeleton in the context of the story, but if it's there to make us think he just vaporized marie that's a good idea (that's what i thought had happened at first) the colors on this are good but i agree that you could have pushed talon's expressions more. keep it up!

TALON DIDNT GET A HAPPY ENDING IN EITHER OF THESE!!! POOR BOY! dang tho. Radji, your continuing the plot for marie really grabbed me in farther than i expected. Good job dude! Badger, Talon is so calm in his facial expressions! It kinda threw me off a bit, but the price of the deal and the arc for the tournament has got me interested. So he has plans to help restore things? I love it!

Confirming this is a retribution battle!

NOTE FOR PEEPS THIS IS A RETRIBUTION BATTLE. badger and I agreed on it yall

Talon is just really bad at hiding from cops LOL Good luck you guys!!

I hoped for this match up but didn't expect it the first round. YEEEEEES!!

OH NO poor talon! XD

Dis goin' be good!

why does this boy keep having run-ins with the police, someone shelter him