Pyras: So GPS and Thren already laid down most of my thoughts on this, but I'll lay down my 2 cents too. You really like to tell stories of Gods, or God-like beings, characters that are beyond human strength and capacity, and that's super cool, I enjoy seeing characters like that too. GIGARA, and this arc, is no exception. I do believe however, they you get a little too excited or overambitious in the creative department, and the story's balance and pacing suffers for it. You have a habit of shoving as much info as possible into one comic. We don't need to know the extra details, how evil the antagonist sounds (the guy talks a lot, bro.) , we don't need Miller summarizing the threat in one go. Actions speak louder than words. Even then, this comic should BE about him. It shouldn't focus or revolve around him. This is Gigara and Wizzie's moment, they should be in the spotlight. Instead so much is happening, that all focus is lost. You kind of have to break down arcs like these for tournaments, make a general outline of the arc, and draw it out as the tournament progresses depending on who you fight. If that makes sense. Hats: Inking and pacing are solid stuff girl. You put a lot of details on those backgrounds which really helps establish the setting. I do feel that there were some weird plot points, like how Park Kim is telling her point of view of the events happening but it's in Wizzies point of view in the flashback. I also feel like the ending was kind of abrupt, like what happened after? Either way, traditional inks worked well for you here! I love Park Kim's attitude here haha

Hats: I dig this. You've got a really good use of greys to balance attention between fore/mid/background. And your environments are given just enough detail to feel like they're really in the setting, but not so much that it clutters panel space. And your panel layout is really nice too. Especially fond of page 8. Like Mortooncian said, I think the perspective switch in the flashback is a little off with Park knowing Wizzie's thoughts, but writing wise that's the only gripe I have. Tho, something abuot page 10 feels, off? I understand the morose feeling you were going for with the intense blacks and darker greys, but I feel like your hatching doesn't do a service to it. The focus of the panels gets a little muddy on that last page, my eyes wanting to go to the highlights of Jiko in Wizzie's panel since you use a more intense white there, and the car itself is hard to spot in the final panel. All that aside, great comic! Pyras: I feel like you went for quantity over quality here man. Both in writing, and page count. The Wizzie/Jiko/Park friendship montage feels really unnecessary and honestly the dialogue is Not Great. They feel like they're talking in memes instead of like real people. The monster dying the next page looks, and feels, very Copy Paste. I can see you're going for a Haha Funny, kinda tag with it, but the lack of physical change in the monsters face or body posture loses the impact the joke would have. A big problem I have throughout the entire comic is, the backgrounds feel incredibly rushed. They're all just grey with quick, sloppy lines all over. It doesn't give a sense of depth to anything, and honestly kinda makes it feel like they're fighting in front of a cardboard cutout. I feel like what you've chosen to emphasize in this comic is all over the place. There's a lot of really unnecessary things happening. The banter between the two monsters about Pokemon takes up half a page. When your villains are elder gods trying to take over and destroy the world for the power and the fuck of it, you don't need to humanize them. Nobody's gonna sympathize with a Lovecraftian creature, and in essence, we're not supposed to be able to relate and understand them by the sheer virtue of the Lovecraftian nature. The two seperate pages of showing everything and everyone is a little excessive. I feel like one of them would have sufficed. And then you've got Miller summarizing what seems to be one of the most critical plot points of the comic in a single speech bubble. Show, don't tell, man. And Park flying off in a the ice rock to land in the ocean, well. I mean, you know the baseball thing, "There's the windup, and the pitch!" Well there's no windup, or pitch. She's just in the air. So it becomes really unclear as to what's going on in that segment, and I had to do a bit of a double take to figure it out. All in all, a good effort, but it feels like it could have used some more time in the refinement and planning stages.

mortooncian: I'm really sorry that this comic didn't work for you. I respect your thoughts and understand where you're coming from with how much I've filled in this comic. There's a few things I want to clarify, to hopefully illuminate my train of thought: "But far, far, far, FAR too much happens. Park fights the first monster! Tentacles! Ponbiki? All the previous HW contenders! Their fears! That one priest-like monster? His bff who plays Pokemon, for some reason? Also, Miller, Nyasuu, and an incidence of Wizzie and Jiko." I was intentionally trying to make an overwhelming disaster that occurs within the span of 20-30 minutes, something that rocks all the humor and levity of the past comics off its feet, like how one minute you're just messing around with friends and then suddenly an earthquake starts to tear through the city, including the building you're in. It's a disaster that is affecting everyone, not just you and your friends. I wanted to bring about that sort of dread, of death happening so fast, but in order for it to even matter for Void citizens who deal with Armageddons every other year, I decided to raise the stakes off out of the house and ruin the world with it, not a "city almost destroyed" or "city destroyed then brought back with plot", just "city destroyed". It's why I had Narlath hilighted how jaded Void City is to disaster that it made it easy to plan the kind they can't just bounce back from. Jurothoth has been working on Pokemon Blue since Round 2. It was just a bit of levity for the front half of the comic before I took things to a more serious direction. "That's a major problem I have with this story: Wizzie is wholly irrelevant. For a round 1, more about introducing an arc, that'd be more excusable, but this is semifinals. Wizzie does, what? Tries to protect Jiko and dies trying to help Park? Other than that, she's unimportant, because 'Park knows what to do'." Park does NOT know what to do, though, in fact she is the first one of the two who fails. The point of the comic was to reject the assumption that Park can take care of everything every time. But I tried to make this a bit about Wiz getting thrown out of her comfort zone by a great disaster as well, it's one of the reasons I ended the comic with her. "I know Park is the 'sun child', but why is she the ONLY person in all of void-- which again, has fought multiple Arma threats-- who can fight these Lovecraftian monsters? Wizzie fights kaiju a lot, but she gets decapitated? NOBODY else can fight them but Park? In the WHOLE CITY?" It's only because this is what everyone believed; because Park is immune to the madness emitted by outer gods, because she has so much strength and power and can go kaiju, the's the best defense against them. This comic was meant to show that that is not the case, even as everyone up to page 8 is thinking "everything will be okay, Park will fix it", the opposite is what happens. She also isn't the only one who can fight the monsters, I have several panels of other characters battling them and holding their own, even after the global psychic attack. "How did Park see Jiko being taken, amongst the chaos?" I'm sorry for the confusion, no she doesn't see that; she is seeing out at the chaos happening around the city. "How did Wizzie find Park on page 10? How did Jiko get taken out of the car by the tentacles?" I felt that in order to save pages some things did not need panels to illustrate exactly, I had tentacles grabbing people all over the city beforehand, I felt that was enough to transition to how this attack was affecting Jiko and Wiz. "Why was the scene with Jiko even needed (if Wizzie just dies, and everyone is taken anyways?)" I wanted to show how Jiko helps ground Wizzie with pragmatism. Wizzie sometimes lets her feelings run wild and Jiko cools her down and course corrects her to go look for Park. "Park being friends with Jiko and Wizzie is extremely forced? And came out of nowhere? You didn't really ask..." I'm sorry, I thought I had spoken about this with you.. I had with Hats, who thought it worked, I really could have sworn I had the conversation with you, and you made clarifications about some events. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear about this with you. "Jiko is established to not get along with people who are impulsive, destructive and highly volatile (like Gregory Howling)" But if Park is alot like Wizzie, I don't understand why she is exempt... I don't really see Park as Gregory Howling at all... All the malice and abuse she inflicts is on evil deities and assholes like Fibrin. Outside of her mouth, Park isn't an uncontrollable ball of destructive rage, I've tried to portray her more as "controlled demolition", express through the comics that she can be a thinker, even in her kaiju form she is in control of herself (something I worked on with Hats and she portrayed as well), and lets loose only on those who wholly deserve it (she's antagonistic with Fibrin because of everything he's done to her, she doesn't let her temper get to her or fall for Kuriande's tactics in round 2) "Wizzie, on the other hand, is so stubborn and loud, why would she get along with someone so much like her (ESPECIALLY someone allied with VCPD, when she hates law enforcement)?" Park works for Edge, not VCPD (whom she's no big fan of either), in fact Wizzie is often contracted by VCPD via Danger Rangers to fight battles more than Park ever is.. And it's because they're so similar that I felt they have a working friendship, they agree on a lot and will often be on the same side of an opinion. They get each other, even if sometimes they're at each other's throats. My thought process was that the times they fought, Jiko was there to mitigate. Again, I am really sorry that you didn't enjoy this comic, I don't try to be one to sneak things in for my own agendas and I'm sorry that it seems like that's what happened here. As you know I've spoken to you a few times over the weeks regarding this story, asking questions, I should have asked about more than it seems I did. If anything I wrote above seems snappy or defensive I apologize as that isn't my intention either

Hats: UGH these pages are so good, especially the intro with Park rising dramatically from the sea and the outro of them driving. The major problem with your story is that the framing-- that is, Park Kim recalling what had happened, doesn't exactly match up with the events in question, as Park wouldn't know what Wizzie was thinking. This sort of accidental point of view switch is a common mistake when writing flashback or 'alternate perspective' storylines, so it's more an issue of the story versus a recurring problem. Pyras: ...speaking of recurring problems... you really didn't listen to my round one critique. Now, I won't say there's an issue with being ambitious-- after all, the Lovecraftian Night was something you built up to and I'll respect that. But far, far, far, FAR too much happens. Park fights the first monster! Tentacles! Ponbiki? All the previous HW contenders! Their fears! That one priest-like monster? His bff who plays Pokémon, for some reason? Also, Miller, Nyasuu, and an incidence of Wizzie and Jiko. That's a major problem I have with this story: Wizzie is wholly irrelevant. For a round 1, more about introducing an arc, that'd be more excusable, but this is semifinals. Wizzie does, what? Tries to protect Jiko and dies trying to help Park? Other than that, she's unimportant, because 'Park knows what to do'. I know Park is the 'sun child', but why is she the ONLY person in all of void-- which again, has fought multiple Arma threats-- who can fight these Lovecraftian monsters? Wizzie fights kaiju a lot, but she gets decapitated? NOBODY else can fight them but Park? In the WHOLE CITY? How did Park see Jiko being taken, amongst the chaos? How did Wizzie find Park on page 10? How did Jiko get taken out of the car by the tentacles? Why was the scene with Jiko even needed (if Wizzie just dies, and everyone is taken anyways?). Just, too many questions, most of which aren't the 'suspenseful', 'answered in the finals' kind. There's like, at least TEN major characters, in 17 pages. And so much dialogue! It's like there's a bunch of wild events, all at once, and tons of talking, but no smooth progression or transition. It's also kind of upsetting, the potential: instead of the aliens talking about it, you could've shown them actually iinfiltrating the city more; you could've shown Wizzie and Park working together, instead if Wizzie being Worf'd and decapitated to show how strong the enemy is. And lastly-- maybe I'm selfish-- but Jiko being kidnapped is, like she says, 'every tuesday'. What if WIZZIE had been kidnapped, so Jiko and Park had to work together against even MORE improbable odds ?? It's a shame it's just... Park is the Only One who can defeat them, Wizzie is Worf Effect'd, Jiko is kidnapped. And on a final, personal point: Park being friends with Jiko and Wizzie is extremely forced? And came out of nowhere? You didn't really ask... Though I encourage alternate character interpretations, Jiko is established to not get along with people who are impulsive, destructive and highly volatile (like Gregory Howling); Wizzie, on the other hand, is so stubborn and loud, why would she get along with someone so much like her (ESPECIALLY someone allied with VCPD, when she hates law enforcement)? If you had only asked before doing all of that, I could have clarified how mismatched it feels : (;;

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WANT MORE FROM BOTH!!! lol

Hats: Pfff Wiz, gurl, wazzafuck don't aggress Kaijus, it's rude Pyrras: Daaaaammmnnnn shit hit the fan. And another person lost an arm you could say she's been... DISARMED.... ...oh god i hate myself

shading isn't finished @_@ so the quality may be less like round 2 and more like round 1 sorry in advance ):

Uploaded last night. Let the anxiety inducing wait begin! Also funnily enough my inking pen ran out of ink literally on the last panel of the last page (fortunately I had back up fine liners).

So much swearing

YOOOOOOOO SOME BADASS BITCHES UP IN HERE

SUN STAR SLAM

YAAAAAAAAAAAS