flutters: your jokes about the vending machines and working on your dissertation had me laughing out loud. and the way you draw mr. le Fay is so cute. there were a couple times I couldn't follow who was talking, like the part where his suit case appears out of nowhere. but this is old so you probably already know TuT Footini: I like how you always let the other character be the main part of the story and how nice Saal is. You had a succinct plot and a cute art style to go with it. can't wait to get my shit together and battle you some day! X,D

Flutter: I really love the spot colors you used, and oddly enough the thorns especially are gorgeous. It was really interesting getting a bit more of a look into what happened at the school, but I feel like it might have paid off a bit better if we'd gotten even a bit closer to knowing fully what happened. At first I thought maybe Ben's wish to be swallowed up was the cause of it, but then afterwards we have Saal questioning Ben on what he did to cause this. That and I think what people mean when they say it reads a bit wordy, is not because of the exposition but because there are a lot of superfluous words; one of the biggest examples of this was on page 10 panel 3; Ben's dialogue could be condensed to something along the lines of "Turns out there was an environmental disaster inside me that could only be stopped by a wizard like you" or something. Not gonna lie though, the expressions you gave the Parrys were probably my favorite parts lol. Footini: I friggin love the story/setup for your comic. It is, admittedly, a little tropey--but that's not necessarily a bad thing! It combines some really good tropes, and it does them very well. The biggest problem I have is on page 3 (4 if you count the title page), where there's some weird gravity stuff going on, I think? It's not overly clear what's going on and I feel like too many panels are spent on that gag. That said, you have plenty of other gags which got a lot of good chuckles out of me, so thumbs up in that regard! :P

Flutter: Your line art is great in this . Writting wise i do really like the theme and I'm fine with the wordyness, while i glossed over a lot of it i think the purpose of it is to show Ben is having a meltdown and it works by making it really wordy. Both characters also seem like they would be wordy in general. However one way you can check to see if a page is wordy is when scripting look at the word count of the dialouge for a page, once it gets around 130 spoken words on a page that's when it will start to get overly wordy, which can work in some situations like Ben's breakdown. It's a good number to have in mind while scripting stuff out. I also really like the line "turned and innocent for profit school.." that's just a cheeky little bit of humor I enjoyed. I don't really have any crits to add. Footini: Your humor is great and I like the over story and easily you were able to explain abstract concepts. I wish that the time spent on the cover page was instead spent on the actual pages to get them be a bit more complete. Covers should only be done once you have all the pages to a certain stage of completion, like if there was already a full grayscale for the comic then doing a color cover could work. However that aside this was a fun comic and good job on it.

FLUTTER: I am LIVING for this horror landscape you’ve been giving us with your Ben comics. IT IS DELICIOUS. I feel like Ben serves as a vessel to explore some deeper/abstract thoughts and ideas that also really plays well with the horror aspect. As others have stated, your line art is so crisp and clean!! I do feel like that beautiful line art would have been amazing to illustrate some more of this world- I feel like we get the bare minimum to show that there is some substance. As it’s been stated, it’s easy to get lost. Person wise- yes, I do hope Saal was able to release Ben. As a who I am, man oh man I hope we get more horror and explore more themes because I love it! And Ben’s commentary definitely gives us something to chew on! FOOTINI: Eeeeee thank you for the little Satari cameo! She looks so unimpressed haha! I absolute love your writing. You can grasp character personalities while adding humor all in pretty hairy situations that doesn’t feel shoved in for comedic relief- it integrates really well. Also I really like all the different angles and little details. I do feel like the line art was rushed and because of that, there isn’t much separation from foreground and background elements which erases any form of depth. I’m excited to see potential adventures with these two, especially if Saal employs Ben! Ben and Saal 5ever <3

The previous comments have wonderfully summed up my feelings in terms of crit- I just wanted to comment that I enjoyed both of these comics a lot! Flutter your art is just lovely, I can't praise your line art enough, the subtle hints of colour to emphasis things was a great choice. Footini, you style is so full of life and character its great, you also handled the complex themes and powers in this story, really well.

This has been really fun to read on all accounts! These two are a match made in heaven it's not even funny (but it is lol) Flutter - I did get lost a bit on Ben's wordy-ness (if that is even a word) but I attribute that to my somewhat limited vocabulary and also I think it is part of his character so I really can't fault you for that. Your art and expressions are so crisp and clear. I really love it. And that pizza scene is so memorable lol Footini - Your humor is top notch. You really know how to make laugh out loud situations. I do think the comic needs some sort of shading or value variations to give it more depth. Maybe something to play around with next time :) Again, great job from both of you. Keep up the good work!

Good work to both of you! I don't really have any critics to add, just wanted you to know that i really enjoyed both comics equally <3

Okay I was honestly blown away by both of your comics. I was ready for high emotions but this was... whoo. What a trip. I've enjoyed re-reading both of them several times. Flutter - I agree with Pyras in that the writing seems a little meandering at times but as I've said, that just feels like a Ben thing? And it also makes sense considering he's clearly going through a major breakdown. People don't tend to be coherent during those and I personally like how he goes on weird tangents, only to reveal he's just repressing very strong emotions, like when the pink mist starts coming out of his mouth. The pizza scene was a little drawn out imo, but I did like how the ding brought him out of his spiral and kinda grounded him. I've had similar moments myself. Moving on though, the expressions you did in this comic are top notch, pages 3 and 7 really tugged at my heart strings in particular. You also manage to be funny in between all the emotions - I love how you portrayed Saal. Their dramatic posing, extra af business card and "shit's broken" comment absolutely sent me. Crit-wise, like I said earlier the pizza scene did feel drawn out to me. I don't think six panels of eating was really necessary and I don't understand why Ben's rant had to include that part about technology. There's also this weird quality with the hands I noticed where everyone seems to be wearing gloves even if they aren't? They look awkwardly big sometimes and too smooth except in very close shots, and I guess the lack of colour doesn't help. Overall though I thought it was great, and good job for pulling through on this. I know you were going through stuff yourself and I'm proud of you for completing this. Footini - First off, I also agree with Pyras here in that you managed to keep everything coherent even with extradimensional wackiness and no colours so, kudos! Your comic was also funny as hell. I'm gonna be honest, when I first saw Saal I liked them well enough but I wasn't super excited, and now I freaking love them :D Getting to see them interact with someone else and go full ham without the formalities of being in a ritual was GREAT. Page 9 was my favourite. My biggest gripe is the lack of any colour, even a few spots here and there besides the front page, and the lineart looks pretty rushed. And this is unimportant and probably a nitpick but... LSD usually comes in tabs that look like tiny postage stamps ^^" not sugar cubes or a liquid. Imo, go wild with made-up drugs, but considerin you've outright named a real world one and it seems Saal has a thing for it (or at least visuals meant to convey a trip), you might wanna look into it a little more.

Flutters: There's an element of the writing in this comic that is a little abstruse, sometimes I felt like I'm missing something from a prior comic that is important to quickly understand the dimensional situation, other times it felt like you're saying things with many more words than necessary which slows the pacing down in a way that I had trouble determining when the characters were in danger or not (part of this is also that the thorns being ever-present also made it confusing for when a scene is going to be treacherous vs not). I was able to piece it all together with a second readthrough but I think finding ways to make these stories a little less esoteric will help make them even more engaging interestingly by contrast, Footini: I'm kind of enamored with how easily this comic explains abstract scenarios! I never got lost no matter what crazy metaphysical thing you threw next and I think you should be really commended for that. It's a shame you couldn't finish the visuals further

Magical Squad Go !! i can't wait to see what you two got planned