In the hintsight I should have copy Gigara's universe Awesome's costume and don't show what happened, so people would assume our stories were connected and both were cannon in a way XD

Very sorry :( I'm done.

Please stop, I get messages everytime you post here - move this to private messages or leave it :P

And from where I stand it's that I've agreed and thanked for most points in the critiques save a minute portion, yet because I do not agree 110%, I am being criticized as being defensive. I feel a similarity to what happened with carlito and angieness some time back. I also believe that you are twisting my words, probably by honest mistake. I did not say that the negative critiques are invalid because a majority of people liked the comic, as you are saying I said. Copy/paste: "..Whatever I write down doesn't invalidate what you or anyone else says." "..how I wrote the story didn't work for you and a handful of others, but it sure as hell worked even just fine for the greater majority of the community, by a truckload. Are you saying they're all wrong in their beliefs just because you went into more detail? It doesn't make you wrong.." "..Almost everything said in the critiques was right on the money, and because I may disagree with one point does not invalidate everything else, and I know that." I do read every word and take it to heart, just as you are saying I should. That doesn't mean that I have to agree with every word as well. Disagreeing doesn't mean that I ignored it. Half a nation has a different idea on how a nation should be run, I can disagree without ignoring what they say. And what I wrote about my reasons for slow pacing were never intended as an excuse against those who felt it was badly done. It was commentary for anyone who did enjoy the story and wanted to learn a little more about it. I even stated "I know that explaining my conscious choice of slow pacing isn't going to change the opinions of whoever did not enjoy it." You can accuse me til the cows come home, the fact is that I really was trying to slow down the pace of the story. And for some of you, obviously, it backfired. I didn't take offense or try to dismiss to any 'negative' critique thrown at me, I even thanked Jax for his review(and apologized when I mistook his intentions). Maybe I should have explicitly said in every reply "I agree with everything you say, though I'm not sure about this ONE point", because if I don't then people assume that I'm ignoring the entire critique. But maybe it's better to say nothing at all than to say anything that can be taken the wrong way, and a friend confirmed this. If that will prevent future disputes on this topic then I'll gladly just shut up now.

Critique is critique, and you need to take it in, and ultimately evaluate what you're gonna take from it. Just because, using what you say, a truckload more people enjoyed it than didn't, that in no damn way makes the critique of those who didn't enjoy it invalid in any way possible. It's still damn well valid. You gotta keep in mind you can't please everyone. Critique given was mostly on your pacing, and I see a LOT of critique on that. If I were you, I would look into it, for my own benefit. Back when I first started void, yes, there were people who did like my comics, and found them funny. And honestly, there were probably even more who hated them and thought they were shit. While hearing good things about them was amazing and felt good, if I hadn't listened to the critiques, no matter how harsh, I wouldn't had have improved. From where I look at things with you, and from what I've heard others say, is you seem to really take in all the compliments people say, and kinda ignore the critique, or defend yourself. And your reply kinda backs that up. Using the fact that some people didn't say anything bad about it as an excuse to why my critique, or the critiques of others may be invalid. Just because we give the critique obviously doesn't mean you have to follow it's advice exactly as we say, but do keep it in mind always, and judge for yourself. And I am pretty chill. I'm being a goddamn douche, but I am trying to be of some help.

Getting that out of my system, I apologize again for the negative things I come off as. I don't intend to scare away critiques and I do appreciate every one of them take them seriously. I believe that I can be proud of something I do and listen to critiques at the same time. Almost everything said in the critiques was right on the money, and because I may disagree with one point does not invalidate everything else, and I know that. In the future I will take in critiques fully to avoid these conflicts. This kind of argument won't happen again.

Wolcik you don't really need to apologize for anything. You did great really considering you also had the Heavyweight comics to juggle.

Jeez and you're calling ME pretentious? Whatever I write down doesn't invalidate what you or anyone else says. But me explaining how I worked on this to those who DID enjoy it doesn't mean I'm coming up with excuses for those who did not. Yeah, how I wrote the story didn't work for you and a handful of others, but it sure as hell worked even just fine for the greater majority of the community, by a truckload. Are you saying they're all wrong in their beliefs just because you went into more detail? It doesn't make you wrong and it doesn't make them wrong either. If you feel how I wrote the story is actually objectively bad rather than just not your cup of tea, then fine. Great. But for christ's sake, I show some contentment and pride for what I did and suddenly I'm the ass-king of assland just because it happens to contradict with what you say? And you're saying I'm the pretentious one? I'm not comparing this comic to anyone else's on the site but MY OWN. I KNOW that you and countless others are leagues ahead of me and I'm not so much an idiot as to try and compare my work to the greater artists on this site. I swear it's like it's illegal to disagree with anyone's critique sometimes, even indirectly. PLEASE chill out.

HONKHONKHONK: Pretentious much? Don't make excuses or try to explain yourself. If a person didn't like it or had a problem with it, just accept the critique and move on and get better. The fact that they're giving critique on it shows that what you tried didn't really work the way you wanted. Just because you did something for a certain reason doesn't mean you did it right, or that the reason was the right one. Like me using an extra page to show all the story I didn't draw - it was better than not doing anything, but it's worse than showing actual thing happen and it feels like an excuse page. I learnt my lesson ;)

Pretentious much? Don't make excuses or try to explain yourself. If a person didn't like it or had a problem with it, just accept the critique and move on and get better. The fact that they're giving critique on it shows that what you tried didn't really work the way you wanted. Just because you did something for a certain reason doesn't mean you did it right, or that the reason was the right one.

With the voting over it's time for my reflections: Working on this comic has been one of the most satisfying projects I've done here in Void, even though I was very frustrated with how much time I had to sacrifice to work on it. I poured alot into trying to make a good story and an interesting world and I'm glad that for the most part it paid off. I say this because this comic is now my highest rated on the site, which reflects my personal feelings on it as well, so I'm quite happy that it turned out this way :) I feel like I've set a high bar on myself, and I'm not sure if my next comic or the comic after will be as good as this one, but I'll definitely be trying (at least for Gigara comics, which I've set as my 'serious work' series while arena is my 'whatever i want' series). I know that explaining my conscious choice of slow pacing isn't going to change the opinions of whoever did not enjoy it, so this is for those who did: Recently I have become enamored with parental stories, especially father & son ones. What hits me is that all too often these stories have themes of regret and failure even though parent and child are doing as much as they know how to to be good people. No matter how good-hearted a parent may be, it may not or ever be enough to do right by their child. This story is very much about various kinds of parents and various kinds of failure. How Hsiao had failed the city. How Dr. Rossomack had failed Bob, and how Bob had failed Steven. Yet each is trying to make up for it in their own way, regardless of the right or wrong perceived by those around them. I wouldn't even call Hsiao an antagonist as some have; is he not still trying to protect the city the best way he knows? I used alot of pages with little but surreal imagery and mostly words because I wanted the reader to not be distracted by the images in front of them for a brief moment and simply take in the words. If you close your eyes, words spoken to you resonate more strongly than if you're looking about, and I tried to emulate this effect with some of the pages. There were then some pages that were more paintings than comic pages and these were once again moments for the reader to take a pause and reflect, maybe even relate if possible(I have a little brother whom I've raised like a son, so any tragic paternal situation hits me hard). If you bothered reading this, thanks for taking the time :) I enjoyed expressing it, and I hope my next Gigara comic is enjoyable as well.

lol I'm not trying to rip anything XD

PyrasTerran: That was actually a question I had: did he end up hitting Park from both dimensions? Because at the end he's back in his world but Park's there beaten up on the ground as well You expect me to explain the vague ending that used two dimensions? You really want to rip the last bits of my storybuilding, don't you XD

That was actually a question I had: did he end up hitting Park from both dimensions? Because at the end he's back in his world but Park's there beaten up on the ground as well

Thanks Pyras. The blood thing I acutally decided to do that way, for no practical reason - it wasn't hard, so I guess I was thinkning that awesome would clean himself up between shots :/ Since you told me that her dragon form is an extra exosceleton over herself, I believed that her clothes wouldn't rip - but then again it would make sense when the sceleton comes from inside her skin. I feel stupid for using her basic clothes though. I could give an excuse that she changes from dragon while dimension shifting, but that'd be lame XD

Wolcik: Thanks for the page-by-page XD very thorough The colors are indeed sloppy with the backgrounds. I've literally been working from day one to the last day on this comic, it's the longest process I've ever done for a comic. Perhaps it was the background lineart. I wasn't trying to copy another style this time; I do actually draw older people with more detailed and defined features ^^; I can see how that comes off as jarring when the younger folks have less details on them, but one of my biggest peeves is when folks who draw in the anime/manga style are unable to draw characters outside of children, teens and young adults, and try using the same bone/body structures on much older people. I guess I then go overboard with older people or different ethnicities, like African (I actually love drawing older folks, and enjoyed myself everytime I was getting to the Rossomacks' faces). I'll keep mind of this in the future to see if a middle ground might work better. There actually is alot more forehead space on Steven's head but it's being blocked by hair that I had combed over it. I couldn't quite remember if all the hair is combed upwards or not on his forehead and I don't remember seeing a good enough reference while I was looking around so more than likely I got that way wrong. EDIT: And I just now realize you're referring to the older Steven XD You're right, my bad. I feel like sound effects is one of my biggest weaknesses or at least something that I am not happy with; I never know how to effectively place them and I've never been satisfied with any sound effects I added to any of my comics. They always felt like a distraction. This time I decided to completely forgo it to see if it's better to have no sound effects than poorly placed ones. Regardless my perfect comic would have definitely had the right sound effects on the right placement. It's only fair that I give you a critique as well: There's an inconsistency with the blood on Awesome's body in the first bits; He lands on his back but gets blood on his torso, and the very next panel all that blood save for his hands is gone. Keeping continuity will help with the overall narrative. And on that subject.. When Park transforms and grows, her clothing rips away. I'm not saying to have her naughty bits out for all to see when she turns back into Park, but the clothes aren't even ripped or bloodied from before. Regardless of what character you're drawing, you should try your best to be aware of continuity of events. I think the overall conclusion would have been far more effective/satisfying if you had put the recap images right after Awesome asks "What exactly just happened? I dozed off for a moment there". That way it would feel more like an intentional element of the story and less like an excuse page, which is what I feel it comes off as when you make it the last page.

pyras, you could have told a better story in way less pages. the splashy pages with little happening ate up most of this. And they're fine when you're using them for an effect, but there's an onslaught of them here & it's murder. it dulls the impact every time it happens & you're not getting the same bang for your buck. If anything, it's more annoying because it gets to the point that makes the reader just go 'ugh.' meanwhile the level of pretension you're trying to add to what essentially boils down to a giant henshin fight feels really awkward & forced. It all felt serious for serious's sake rather than an actual story. With these crazy page counts you keep throwing about, you're spreading your art thinner & thinner. While this wasn't as bad as the 5 way, this stuff is nowhere near as strong as the first things you were doing on the site. like you're taking giant steps back. It's all rushed & compositionally basic. quality over quantity. wolcik, your art was looking pretty good here. nice considering you had this & the tourney going on. think of your tangents though, & the way the eye flows across the page. initially, a lot of bob's stuff is right to left & working against the way the reader's eye. think about your angles & how to get things to flow from one panel to the next using things in the panel to trick the eye in moving the way you want it, when you want it. besides that, a lot of the compositions felt basic. It felt almost as if you were reusing shots at times just because the point of view is always the same distance & generally always facing the same way. the colors were ok, but I really want to see you trying to vary up your palette more. Everything's real basic colors & vibrant & all over the place. Like the sky's not sky blue every day, you know? Give it a little more thought & try sticking with some colors that compliment each other.

PyrasTerran: To make your backgrounds and colors input look less sloppy you should focus so your shading sticks with lines, unlike in your first page e.g. where window's color and lines are completly two diffrent shapes. You still use other artist's character trying to copy their style and it shows when Hsiao and old lady are on the same page - you should rather use the same style you use to draw Arena or Gigara instead (animeish and western noses right next to each other doesn't look nice). On 6th page I already told you to move the text so it wouldn't connect to edges of the page - you only did that for the lower texts though. Page 8th - Steven... you completly forgot to leave some space for his forehead - I know that his glasses suppose to cover it, but it looks as if his hair are connected to his eyebrowns XD Page 12th could use some sfx/ sound effects. Gigara could growl and roar, and Awesome's transformation could blur downwards as if his body were moving durring the size change. 13th sound effects again, and all buildings on right side of panel looks as flat and 2 dimensional - you should draw at least few of them showing two walls at the same time. Both final explosions could be on the same page.

Just so you know - the last page wasn't made as an excuse - it was an idea for a joke... maybe I rahter should draw it as a one or two page Awesome talking to himself about it :P I've got this idea while reading Pyra's 5-way battle - I was expecting Awesome to lose interest in last moment making this battle anticlimaxing. Next Tourney Battle will have everything I learnt in all my 3 battles XD I might also rise the pagecount since I'm not spliting myself into many battles :) More lines thickness variations, backgrounds at least as good as in first page - I'll use the ruler instead of digital lines ;) I also learnt how to color more efficiently and I might even try to use 3 color layers or something for better depth. I try to choose colors more viesly for backgrounds as Qyzex suggested. Thanks for the critique.

[quote]Your faces are still a little derpy Please clarify? What does that mean?

PyrasTerran: This blew me away. The story is the strongest element here, and the dialogue was very believable. I really got a sense that this Bob was a very troubled soul, and his sacrifice at the end had a real emotional impact. As for the art, you are getting better be leaps and bounds! Your faces are still a little derpy, and some of the lines you use are too think, but those are some of the only gripes I have with this comic. Just work on your faces and line weight a little more and you will be unstoppable. Also, I couldn't resist: http://tinyurl.com/5rbq3rh Wolcik: The story here felt very weak. Not to say that it was bad, but if would have been better if you had actually made all those events into a comic, rather than just showing snapshots of them and blaming it on Mr. Awesome's mental state. I also think you need better backgrounds.

oh.. i actually like those breaks.. :(

PyrasTerran: [quote]And your linework looks very uncertain and wavy. Please clarify? That's a bit vague; You can see the breaks in the lines where you stopped and then started again. There's a lot of wavy lines too. It's really super apparent it was done quickly digitally, or at least, if it wasn't done quickly, it gives the appearance of rushed digital linework.

[quote]And your linework looks very uncertain and wavy. Please clarify? That's a bit vague;

Wolcik: You had something fun going on, glad you at least explained what was planned on the last page, so it didn't feel terribly incomplete. Woulda been great, but what we got was pretty fun still. There's still this problem I see in each of your comics, and that's to do with either your inks or colors (or both) where they don't differentiate between the foreground and background very well, and it flattens out your art. I think a big part of it is all your colors are so saturated. Don't be afraid to use less saturated colors, especially in the background. It'll help you a lot I think. Pyras: I have to agree with a few others here, the pacing was terribly slow. You're not utilizing your pages well. We're getting single panel pages with little significance here, and it really breaks the pacing going on. And a few other pages (like the first few) could be told in much less panels. What you're posting there at the beginning is much more suited for storyboards for animation, but the same doesn't work in comics. Seeing every little bit of the movement for characters and such just slows down pacing. Besides pacing, which I feel is one of your largest issues, the anatomy was a bit wonky. WAY better than your 5-way, but still in need of work. And your linework looks very uncertain and wavy.

I am not trying to start anything either, I'm just explaining my critique a bit better.

I'm sorry, I didnt mean to start anything.

First off, you have it all wrong man. I do not have a gripe with your pacing because my pacing is different at all. My plots move fast because I have grown into a bad habit of doing weekly battles since I have started doing comic battles (since 09) and trying to condense a whole lot of ideas down to a comic I can manage to do in one week. It is not a good habit and pacing is definitely something I need to work on, as well as writing as a whole. But no, my own personal way of doing my comics has nothing to do with the way that I feel you're handling yours. So please, do not play that card because it is inaccurate. What I am talking about is the fact that you have so many single pages with only a couple lines of dialogue. Save those single pages for something artistically intense, you wanna showcase something amazing - then put it on a single page. But make sure that page means something. EXCLUDING the first two little title pages (nothing wrong with a title page) you have 8 whole pages that consist solely of one panel/drawing and text. That sort of then takes away the significance of even having a single page like that in the first place, and not many comics that I read do that. You wanna do a full page, make it count. Make it really really count. Your 27 page comic could have easily been 19 or 20 because of this and the pacing would have been all the better for it. I felt like instead of it coming off as dramatic, it came off as a gimmick and dragged things out to artificially enhance the life of the comic and subtracted from my enjoyment of it rather than add to it.

OH I did use a referencial pic on one Mr. Awesome pose. Gold star to whoever can find it!

Jax: I intentionally made Awesome less bulky/muscular in this comic and a bit lankier. Being older and not working out for years and all. I have definitely had my share of long comics for now and plan to shorten them significantly later, though I can't help but feel that some of your gripe to it is connected to how lightning fast your own comics' plots move XD which works most of the time but sometimes feels detaching to me. Thanks very much for the full critique :)

Wolcik - Dude, what you have here is off to a good start but I mean with the tourney at the same time etc I can understand what happened to the comic haha. still, your stuff as of late has been getting more solid! Pyras - Dude, heaps better than your five way. Way better. I still have a few issues but I'll present what I did like first. It looked like you took your time and slowed down with the drawings this time as well as had more shots where there were background elements present. Everything just felt more full compared to your last comic and I think its a step in the right direction. However again I think its a case of being stretched out over too many pages, especially since you have a -lot- of pages that are just whole pages with a few lines of text on them. I personally think that that is a bit of a copout when used as many times as you used it. I know it was for trying to set a certain mood but it actually began to annoy me a bit haha. So again, I think cutting down the page count will help keep the story from feeling like it is really dragging on. Your people also need a bit of work though too since there were panels where they feel really elongated in the torso etc. However, there were a few panels where I assume you were using reference of some kind because there were some decent panels of Awesome in there! Also you draw some neat monsters. One other minor nitpick is that Awesome should be much bulkier looking, he didn't really look super powerful or muscular. His muscles should have really been showing in a suit like that! All in all though I thought this was better than your 8 weeker by far.

Wolcik and Pyras, your two comics are the best that i have seen from you untill now! Congrats, and keep it up raising the high stakes bros. Wolcik- the last page showing what happenned...man, i guess i would prefer seeing the whole action from beginning to the end... Good colors, no anatomy issues too, as i said before, one of your best comics till now. About perspective, nice improvement, just put it more detail on the near buildings bro. It's cool to know that Mr Awesome is still around to kick some butt, i hope someday kojiro could fight him. Pyras- Man...i'm speechless...Damn impressive comic bro!My corneas are still in denial mode ah ah! Reading your pages was so amusing as seeing a good good good Anime, for sure! You used Mr Awesome very well in the plot, and the change of pacing in the narrative...too cool bro. Love those Mr Awesome and Gigara loose ends, 'cause i love loose ends :D Pyras, you're a step closer to Epicness man!

AMAZING!!! Pyras the story blew me away.... enough said.

I enjoyed both sides! Wolcik, your colors and lines look very complete here - the third page is my favorite page I've seen you do, based on body language. Pyras - I loved that you had a giant Awesome and the angles you used in that fight were great - nice set-up ending, as well. Both Awesome and Gigara's stories are really coming along in interesting ways.

did awesome just die? Woah!

The more critiques the better~

Awesome story - it mgiht be even better than the one with Awesome Armageddon. Loved it very much - it's an honor to lose to you ;D

Beautiful?? XD

Man , I love both versions pof Awesome's new costume ( for some reason I thought the blood stains on W's costumes made it sweeter than without). Pyras, that was beautiful...

finally up! :D

Anxious Pyras is anxious Wolcik: no need to apologize, I'm living proof that pagecount isn't everything XP

Uploaded final version - I'm done fixing this one. Sorry I don't have as many pages as PyrasTerran, but I did 2 battles and one BB instead XD

100% done, and extra pages sent to Toast/Angie.

75% done working like a maniac on the biggest (not longest) comic I've ever drawn UPDATE: 85%

OY. My computers got overheating issues. Better fix this asap EDIT: Problem fixed. back to work :D

it's gonna be great guys, :D we got some awesome stuff i think

PyrasTerran extended this battle so we both can have finished products :)

thank you :) and best of luck to you too Wolcik.

Hey, best of luck you guys!

Another dimension here I come XD Good Luck Pyras!!