Great job you two! :D

yes the bb will be done... sadly pushed back, but if it's not up by the 7th, then anyone that would like to has permission to scream at me :3 and yes, a round two will happen, so everyone better be looking for it. this was a wakeup call for monday and me... the next round will be for real >:3 believe it. *ducks* (sorry, couldn't resist. :p

Yeah, I realize that black's style being the \"self contained\" episodical arcs was better suited when my battles were 3-4 weeks long (been looking at my previous battle record). Even vacation filled 2-weekers yielded plenty of results. It seems my theory of getting substantial work done in a tight time frame would have been better tested if I hadn't chosen a spur of the moment battle in the middle of moving to art college no less . Hahaha, no I'm not making excuses, this was definitely a rusty effort on my part. So much so that it doesn't make up for the bad habits that I wanted to cater to. But the great part was, despite having all these obstacles in the way- I now know where my upper limit is set at. And I take comfort in the fact that my new life adjusting here wont take away from my time doing comix :d. Slade will definitely see a round two from me, and like always- I'm gonna use whatever I can to give you guys an amazing set of battles this year. Even a three week deadline >: ) SLade, I dont think you need much more words from me, as we've contacted often planning all this- but on the record I look forward to seeing your story pull through- and more importantly your efforts multiplying now that we gave a good shock to our systems. Dont you have a Beyond Battle to finish ?

I really wish you guys had given yourselves a longer deadline :< Monday-I know it's your style and all, but I would really love to see you slow down for once. Cleaning up your work would also help a lot, the stray pencil lines and hand writing make it pretty difficult to follow. Some kind of little intro page describing what happened prior to the battle would have maybe made the story easier to follow. I didn't figure out until I reread your battle a few times what exactly had happened and why Black was in this situation. I did like the layouts of your pages and I always love how you do blood. Slade-I would really like to see you be a bit better about planning your battles. Like don't take on a week battle unless you know for a fact your schedule is going to allow it. Anyways, I really liked your choice of shots and your expressions are very nice. I would however like to see you clean up your work more and do something about your very empty backgrounds. I didn't have any problems telling what was going on and I did get why she was shaking her tail in that one panel.

thanks, that does mean something to me actually :3 i was worried that it didn't come acrossed that way. thanks for putting that fear to rest.

If it means anything, *I* read the the twitching tail as \"cat-ready-to-pounce.\" It must be a cat-owner thing. ^^;

i was trying for a 'twitching tail'... which cat do. they don't ever really 'wag' their tail, even when they are happy. they are quite opposite to dogs this way. cats aspecially move their tail about like that when they are ready to pounce, which was the feeling i was trying to go for... but obviously failed T.T oh well. as far as the last page is concerned, i was going to actually add some digi shading through out the entire comic, but ran out of time, hence a lot of the lost shading. i tried to make up for it where i could. and yes, i agree about the first panel on that page, i didn't really notice that i had his head squished until the page was already done... ^_^; oh well, thanks for the crit :3 most of what you said confirms what i was already thinking about my comic.

Monday - great work as always, your trads are definitely looking cleaner and sharper, although there are some spots that could be touched up here and there. the big empty corner on page 8 bothers me a bit, and i think the last panel of that page could stand to hit a little harder. maybe instead of a dead-pan shot use a closer angle? the top of page 9 has negative space too, but i think it works a bit better than page 8, although it does feel a bit unbalanced by those panels in the upper right. You shouldn't have to label your characters for us to know who they are; try going for more definitive faces and features. Vespa + glasses + knowing Black was enough for me to get it, and I'm sure others got it as well. the jenny concept is WONDERFUL and I hope to be seeing more of her. ...the old man is Rank, isn't he? Slade - Nice piece, definitely some of your best work in places. using traditional bubbles and boxes with digital text always seems a bit off to me, like it never lines up or centers as well as it should. could be a preference thing. the apartment complexes on page 2 are stunning, more like that please. i'm not sure if it's because of the missin page, but is page 3 supposed to represent a time montage? from the lead-in you gave us, it seems like she's sitting down for the first time in the diner, but then she talks like she's a regular. Nice action scene, I think some sort of dark background on page 4 panel 2 would help convey a sense of foreboding or impending danger, rather than just him standing behind her. The last panel on page 5 is great, i love the face he's got, incredibly creepy. the panel before it, however, while good, loses impact with the moving tail. No creature i'm familiar with wags the tail when scared or agitated, and this particular one bears a striking resemblance to another bodily organ (the shading doesn't help). I'm assuming the next page wasn't quite finished, but it reads easily enough. Black's face on the page 7 panel 1 looks really short all of a sudden, and a lot more boy-ish. Also, I think shading the pictures in the last panel would probably give it a darker feel, and you'd convey the symbol of the page a lot better. 2 white, 1 black, rather than 2 white, 1 mottled. All in all, nice comeback, I'm looking forward to what comes next.

I has all ready to storm in here and throw some humble opinions down, but all I thought of has already been said. I agree with Monday' s word bubble problem, and Slade13 not pacing the detail work, getting it jammed up in the first 2 pages. On Monday's story I totally lost track of what was happening on page 5, and well Slade you admitted to the missing page in yours. I definitely considered the pages equal, so when I voted I (uncharacteristically) ignored who would win when picking grades.

nice work monday. i think i'll do a special retcon after i get my bb. both sides of the story would work well together i think :3 on a side note: for the record, the mark II was made by kale. it's the yet to be revealed mark I that was made by john. kale is still trying to get her mark two up to par with the original. you'll all see the fate of mark II when i get the bb up. :3 till next...

Just thought I should mention, at Mondays' comic I didn't mean the art itself was messy as that seems to be the style, but I meant more of the visible pencil lines, the folds in the paper on the first page or so, etc. Throwing it in photoshop and messing with the levels could have easily fixed that up and made the comic look better.

Hhuh what ? no Im just rather embarassed that you took all this work when like 7 pages of this was me rushing on the 24 hour countdown. But point taken, these are mistakes that could be watched out for even if I was rushing or not. As for the scene hopping ? Yeah, that was me grabbing for straws trying to see which pages could have done with out. This week has been rather choppy since I spent most of it moving in to college and stuff but hey - I wanted to see if I could still make the cut. Glad you liked it.

I wasn't TOO nitpicky with this fight now, was I monday? *Is asking honestly no venom attached*

haha thanks Phil I'll pay more attention to readability since that seems to be the next step on the speed hurdle

I really didn't find it too much of a problem with monday's messy pages, but I still have some gripes Monday: Welcome back man, as for your pages while messy like your style always is, I really think you should work on making things a bit more clear, especially your text and storytellin'. Text, well we've got those classic odd habits of yours that almost nobody seems to comment on anymore. Your classic crossed out word at the very top with the correct word at the bottom which to me just looks messy, and this: Page 4: ====... Even things like this End up breakin -g around here... We've also got times where you just seem to run out of space for your text and words just get smaller and smaller, take page 4 second panel, after she said \"There was only a metric ton left\" you could of just left it at that and kept a consistent size for your text. Don't just keep cramming in word after word. You know there's a really really REALLY simple way to prevent simple mistakes like such: write out a script of what characters say. Helps you figure out the size of word balloons, makes it so that you don't have to cross out mistakes. Cause otherwise, you're just going to have something that looks amazingly sloppy and unreadable in the end like what you've got in this comic here. Storywise, like squid mentioned, you just hopped around from one scene to another way too quickly in the first few 4 pages and settled down around page 5. But despite all of that it was still a good read nonetheless and like Kozi I really didn't have a problem with the messy pages, you're able to make it work, but some touching up wouldn't hurt. Slade13: Dude, give yourself more time to work with, seriously, you had some great stuff when you were working on longer deadlines and fewer pages, seriously don't try to pull a monday with short deadlines, you'll just end up with a mess. Anywho, I liked the quality of the first two pages, but I really wish you could of finished, storywise this was a step up and easiest read of the two fights, however the sudden drop in quality really hurt the overall score of this comic I'm afraid. Overall.... I really couldn't chose between the two. Monday's was nice but he's still got those bad habits that really hurt the overall look of his fight, and Slade's has a strong story but he needs more time to finish this stuff up and give himself more time. Even vote from me.

I guess I' be the voice of dissention :I I personally had no problem with the 'messy' pages- if anything I kinda dug the raw quality it gave to the illustrations. More so Slade's story as opposed to Mondays. Monday, I love ya, but your ink work tends to bleed into this rough abstract form that there are times I gotta really look to realize what I'm looking at ^^; I personally preferred Slade's story- I've been reading the above comments and while I agree there was no epic explosions, the story flowed and it made for an interesting read. :)

ug.. Monday how do you manage to make a ten page comic in a week, seriously... The inks look messy as mentioned... I didn't care for the uniformly thick, black outlines that were in some places, either.. I think it tends to have the effect of flattening drawings... I think story-wise the comic might have benefitted if the pace had been slowed a bit.. take time to set up scenes rather than jumping quickly from one scene to the next. Those are the only complaints I have, otherwise it was a pretty nice show... I am looking foreward to more Black heh Deathstro--um Slade: While the art was fairly clean and correct, it seemed pretty rushed.. and after page 2 (which looks really nice), backgrounds are sparse. In terms of story I guess I wasn't very impressed... even with the fight scene, it felt kind of bland to me. I think the problem may have been that everything was told in past tense...? Perhaps if you had switched to a more active voice it would have heightened the excitement?

@Monday: The art in yours was very beautiful, though it was somewhat messy. I think it would have increased the quality if you had cleaned it up a bit. The story and action were also a little difficult for me to follow and left me confused at some points. But overall I thought you did a good job. @Slade13: Yours was more easy to follow, and what little action it had was very well done. Though there was a lot of empty space later on that could have gone well with some kind of background, and the story was also a little mundane - but you communicated it very well.

Well I had to rush/cut a few pages in order to get a decent amount of sleep in today (4 hours) so I think we're on the same boat once matchups start >:)

i uploaded eariler yesterday... sadly, page three was shot... also i had to rush to work, so i'm not sure about the state of the text.... oh welll

The answer is a make it or break it yes.

omagahd 23 more minutes from whence I started typing this post!! Is anyone gonna upload!

c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon...

awesome!

More like AY SEE DEE SEE

*Aerosmith guitar chords*

Black is back! :o

oh my God oh my God oh my God! 0_0

But they're scrappy, so you have to put em in a headlock and slowly - uh, I mean....Monday! Slade! Battle! Yay!

yeah they can't aim worth crap :/

Ha! Be thankful you're not trying to battle with a nursing newborn!

THEN START WORKING FUCKER.

I have .... 4 days to work on this.

holy shit! here i am, trying to get back into the swing of things, drops some lines... and i gots me a battle... WITH MONDAY! that's how to start a new year :3 thanks bro. (yes, the bb for 'both' will be up in the next two weeks. scanner is working, but i'm still finishing the new pages. thinking about adding some color too, which if i do, will add another week to the count. also, failed on the pulpo... thanksgiving and christmas time was a drag in many ways. well, thanksgiving day and christmas day were a blast, but the rest of the time sucked.) but i'm back, and it's time to kick ass. :3 ring in the new year with bullets flying! (yeah, i know, the new year is already in it's second week :p )