Snager: I fun little comic! It feels like a saturday morning cartoon that I would've watched growing up :] The concept of a kaiju school sounds very fun, lol.

Snowy: I know that it can be difficult to make something more personal like this. It came out fantastic and like a proper glimpse into a life. The usage of textured brushes here is interesting - it brings to mind stained glass for me.

Pizza: Great work! You managed to get that old comic PSA look down pat. The switch to a more modern setting was an interesting choice, and it all feels like a setup to an episode of a show.

Dr. Salt: Such an interesting and gut wrenching comic, especially for one this short. I was honestly expecting a horror comic at first, so having it be something so bittersweet instead caught me off guard. The heavy texture added so much to the atmosphere as well.

Fowlie: I absolutely ADORE your work here! The way that you manage to combine such a simple and cute character design so smoothly with such detailed backgrounds absolutely blows me away. It makes this an absolute visual treat to flip through!

So, thanks again for setting this all up for us, Dr. Salt. Sorry I missed the mark on the theme, esp. since everyone else's vibes match so well. My original idea was also going to deal with suicide, but I realized I wasn't skilled enough to pull it off. I'm still learning how to cut out ideas that aren't working so the original script had ballooned into 8 pages (the alternate reality where I forgot the 5 page limit). so, instead of fixing what I had, I tossed the whole thing. Then I just developed a doodle comic I had come up with between penciling the original idea. I like it a lot better. And even though I dead-ass forgot the theme of the tournament, I think if my goals are to work on developing these characters more, then I'm just gonna have to live with it. then I had some health problems come up and by the time I was feeling better, this also became the reality where I forgot the page limit. I had it at 5 pages, then realized it would hit better if I added one to the front (JK dr. salt was confused by that page anyway). on the positive side, This is the first time I think most people are ignoring my art and just engaging with the story and characters more, which is the dream. I'll take this as a learning experience and recognize that I don't know how to do anything heavy or serious and need to work on that. or I choked because I was scared of my opponents. or maybe I just need to go to the doctor.

to all y'all: Hey, OP. are you ok?

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone! I'm glad it resonated with people so much.

For those curious on how I made the tones, I first coloured the page in greyscale, then randomly distributed dots using geometry nodes in Blender, with more dots distributed on darker areas of the image. The dots themselves have some variations in shape to make them look a tiny bit more organic.

Thanks for the battle!

I really enjoyed some of the cartooning on this one (great expressions!) but I had trouble following what was happening, particularly on page one.

I enjoyed reading this one a lot. The way you draw expressions is so fun and expressive they are always great to see! Great job!

Fowlie - This is so cool! I love how you stylize your pages! Your knowledge of panel composition is something I aspire to have someday. The only crit I can think of is that page three is a little overwhelming. I think it has to do with the speech bubble tails not leading the eye down the page but it’s still a fantastic page to look at once I got my bearings. My favorite page is the fourth one. It’s so sudden and bizarre I wonder if it was inspired by an art piece in real life.

Dr. Salt - That's a really awesome effect! I have some guesses but I'd love to know how you did it. It does feel like there's something missing about it but I can't for the life of me figure it out. I do wonder what this comic would look like with color, muted, mono or otherwise. There's a good chance it wouldn't make any positive difference but it could be worth experimenting. The story was gripping and somber, a perfect representation of a good fever dream which are incredibly rare.

Snowy: I like the personification of 3 AM being a set of hands that slowly suffocates the page that was a neat touch! I definitely get a similar feeling at 3AM when I'm drawing for a morning deadline or a 24 hour battle. The only thing that’s worked for me is going to bed before 3AM or telling myself that I don’t think this way 90% of the day and I should see how I feel about it in the morning. It IS weird that the feeling usually goes away after 4AM hits at least for me.

snager: Glad to finally see this comic pilot from you! I'm sorry I didn't see the Ed Edd n Eddy inspiration right away. It took me a little bit to understand this word was created with both humans and kaiju in mind. Really crack down on the world building of your story in the backgrounds it'll give your story a big boost! As it is I still love the concept and it was fun seeing the monster designs and expressive characters.

I know you’re not 100% set on the main character you have currently (who really reminds me of Ada now that I’m seeing it) I’d recommend trying changing around the gender, race, height and hair color first and seeing if it makes you feel any different. Maybe give them an outfit that makes them stand out more since they’re a normal guy in a monster school. You could make them a real monster nerd and have them gush over each monster they see regardless of if the monster wants to beat them up or not. Or you could go the opposite and make them originally afraid of monsters and have them slowly learn that most kaiju don’t intend to destroy property, they just emerged in a world that was too small for them. Either way, establishing your character's opinions on kaiju will also really give your story’s world a huge boost!

Wow, I needed that. I’m working on a pilot myself with a missing protagonist and I think I just answered some questions about it for myself lmao

The horror mystery is cool!

The idea of a Kaiju High is pretty cute NGL

And I like the expressions you pulled off with your main character!

Y'all did amazing work here! these were such a joy to read and I really like all the different stories that were told here

This one was the most far removed from the theme for me, so it threw me off quite a bit

Cooper Gator must have been really hungry to hear random words replaced with food XD. Great story. Reminded me of some Saturday morning cartoons.

Dang, what a treat from all of you. This was really difficult to vote on because each of you had some great work.

I liked how loose the inking was, and the monster design was pretty cool too

I liked the design of the monsters! Very cool.

This one seems a little out of theme compared to the other.

Some very ededd and eddy esc expressions on page 5

HOLY SHIT???