Your story was my favourite! I think you did an excellent job giving every character some time to shine, the whole thing felt very balanced and was woven together well. I liked your portrayal of Egg Dealer as almost a cult leader charming people to his side, but also genuinely caring about them and his customers. I loved/hated page 6 because I was like oh my god... this actually makes sense. The shell does protect and the yolk does sustain god damn it XD Great meta stufd with the toons too, Chica covering KJQ’s swears and KJQ’s ink dripping into the panels below was top notch.

Ruckus’ constantly changing shirt was a great gag, and I loved all the references you packed in like “Hiemie says Relax” and “I went to Void City and all I got was bred by Louise”. “slapsticking without a license” is also an excellent new crime.

Story-wise I wasn’t really sure what was going on. Why was Ruckus making up stories? At first I thought he was trying to hype up KJQ but then he seemed more worried about entertainingly Antares and Itami, and I have no idea why. It also felt like Ruckus was the main character of the comic, which is odd considering he wasn’t one of the competitors and isn’t even on the site. Most of the characters felt barely present throughout the comic since they’re kind of just there to listen to him talk, and then to listen to KJQ talk. Iain especially got a bum deal imo. I did enjoy the ending though. Really clever banter between KJQ and Chica, the Charming turnip bomb was a good way to wrap everything up. I noticed the comic was kinda bookended by his appearance which was pretty cool.

Really sorry to hear about your wrist rest up, hope the damage isn’t too bad. I’d also like to see what you had so far if you ever feel up to uploading!

...was Egg Dealer in the Olympeggs because the Olympics were happening during this battle irl? Or was that just a coincidence XD Anyway, I feel like there’s not much point critting the story when I’ve come to expect absurd and nonsensical shenanigans for Egg Dealer, so I won’t. But I do have some art crits! Your line width varies a lot in a way that looks quite messy and often distracting. You can see this pretty clearly with the speech bubbles, but you see it with characters occasionally too. For example panel 1 on page 21, the lines for Viro’s cloak are really thick, with chunky spot blacks, while her claws and face are lined thinly and mainly have cross hatching for shading. The fact that some pages were coloured and some weren’t seemingly at random added to this inconsistency. When you DID use colour it was lovely though! I loved the panels of Antares opening her eyes on page 23, and liked seeing the experimenting with screentones on page 28.

This was a really fun idea! I was thinking it kind of felt like video game levels so when it was revealed as a movie, that made perfect sense to me. A few of the characters felt out of character for me, particularly Chica’s bubbliness and KJQ working for Antares, but this WAS a movie so it also makes sense if they don’t feel themselves. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. On the one hand it’s a clever move to avoid potential OOC moments, on the other it could read as a bit of a copout so you don’t have to consider their personalities. I think maybe, the characters should have been hammed up and even MORE OOC so that the punchline of it all being a shitty movie hits harder. Something like the treatment of Avatar characters in the Ember Island Players comes to mind.

On the other hand, the other characters fit together pretty well; I liked Iain’s connection to Antares because they’re both fey (something I’m surprised nobody else did), and I can definitely see a deal being struck with Viro to get her home. I also noticed and appreciated Egg Dealer’s egg-shaped speech bubbles!

Dude, I don’t know why you were feeling bad about this because you did an amazing job. It’s really difficult to write a cohesive, complete story with 7 other characters, you should be proud of yourself! This is also your longest comic yet, and makes the most sense as a canon story after Gregly, so well done.

Other little things I liked: the photos vs artist rendition of Iain as a model was a good joke, the deflated egg dealer also looked really good and grotesque, and seemed really out of your comfort zone so good on you.

As for crits, the overall layout of the comic was a bit funky with a lot of empty gutter space, awkwardly placed bubbles, and floating boxes. You can see this very obviously on pages 4 and 8. The panels are out of alignment, but the speech bubbles aren’t even utilised to fill the empty space. I’ve noticed Cab does this in his comics too, and I know you two are good friends, but my advice is to not emulate this kind of panelling. It may work sometimes for webscroll comics, but it results in very choppy flow for traditional sized pages like the ones you use. I also noticed in the story, characters felt a bit... diluted? I didn’t get a clear sense of personality from most of them, and I feel like you kind of forgot KJQ completely. He suddenly appears on pg 23 after not being present with the group, and there’s no clear reason for why he’s so chill with sticking around with the others. Still, I’ll reiterate, you should be proud of what you’ve achieved and you’ve improved in leaps and bounds since joining Void!

I think you should probably take a break. I know I’m a terrible influence asking you to fight me but, seriously, rest I think you had the right idea easing back in with a 24 hour battle because it seems like you’re kind of overwhelming yourself joining all these events recently.

This is 100% a nitpick and I apologise in advance, but I need to get this out of my brain so here goes lmao. I could have excused this as a stylistic choice from one or two artists, but every single one of you did this which either reflects lack of reference or simply grabbing the first image you saw. All of you drew Viro’s crest as webbing stretched between several spikes, like a kind of sturdy flesh umbrella. Triceratops crests are solid bone, almost a shield coming out of the back of their heads. I know there’s a lot of outdated, crappy dinosaur reconstructions floating around but their skeletons are right there to reference ;-;

 I feel like egg dealer's benevolence gets over-shadowed by his gross out fetish humor a lot in every comic he's in, so it was kind of you to have him as a good guy. and the characterization of Itami being so jealous and goal oriented is on point in a way I've never seen articulated, if that makes sense. Mechanically, this is way more panels and text than you usually used, both you, personally, and 'you' in the general sense. I loved the call-back gag of Viro getting misgendered, I guess showing Regi is a good guy. IMO, your story is the most solid of submissions. It's straightforward and linear and makes very few concessions to each fighter's characterization in order to get them all to fit.

 
I am fucked up about your hand being hurt on a very personal level. You don't have to/shouldn't 'finish' what ever her battle was, but i would have liked to see what ever you had completed, rough sketches, pencils of note, here. Remember that I will always be available to collab, if you wanna pencil something left-handed and have me ink it ect. later.

 The inclusion of Ruckus (the NPC from the RP discord) is as welcome as it is baffling. his ever-rotating shirts and one-liners are the glue that holds his funky collage of elements together. 'See him and see the shape of the world within me!' is such a raw fucking line and yet a google search turns back nothing on it. love to see it. and yet it seems like an odd choice to give the spotloight to a soid charactah,. I get that he's the narAtah, but was this a gift to Jade? very sweet ov yous if so.
but very strange, Footini. Very strange. You could have just focused on the main plot, Jack wanting Chicka to be his Nemesis. I don't know how I missed the memo, but the other stories all seemed to explore this potential, as well, with varying degrees of applause from me, the reader.

once again, you have made me have to look away when my stomach involuntarily turned, a year of exposure to egg-dealer works doing little to buff my system's tolerance. I am left to assume this is intentional, at this point.
Your story elements are almost as disjointed as footini's, relying on the Egg Brand layer of surrealism to try and hold it all together, but I fully lost track of what happened on the last page. Perhaps I will scroll down and learn the story was left unfinished. If so, I commend you for submitting what you had, which was still many many pages of egg.

 It's a shame your art looks so unfinished, but seeing so many poor showings this past year from so many artists, I'm personally happy with what you got. I hope you liked the way people wrote your Itami in their comics, because the flaws they gave her made her so interesting and compelling, there. I hope you consider using some of that characterization as you go forward with her. You were the only one who took the classic Void route where everyone just fights each other for unexamined reasons. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it's as fair a route as anything else used in this Royale!

 like.. Disproportionately well..

Anyway, it was a bold move to put everyone in Viro's world for a fun little adventure, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles style. At first, I thought it was strange to make so much of the story spotlight your fighter, but literally almost everyone else did that, too. I think you had the most effective idea for how to get everyone to mesh, and I do love a good political intrigue story. It's so satisfying also to see how quickly you've grown as a comic artist since you first joined that pre-arma collab a year ago. keep up the good work!

 almost all your opponents spent their comics trying to look for and find you and help you and i think it's pertinent and 4th-wall-breaking for you to have sat this one out. yet I really wonder what story you were considering? all this love and attention should show you that you're missed and wanted, so take your time recovering but we're always going to welcome anything you create in the future. esp. eager to know if Iian accepts Anteres' ? marriage proposal? dude, you have to say yes.

I was grading so generously to everyone, not knowing the best wine was reserved until the end of the party. I'm going to have to adjust my scores on a curve to accommodate. this may be the strongest comic I've ever read on void. feats of amazement: 1. made egg dealer's egg religion make sense. 2.made toon logic fit in with every explanation other artists have ever given, comparing them to both robots/ai and also to fae. 3. a compelling hetero sex scene, to me, the snager. 4.  Booted my favorite void character from the top of the list. stan-ship ended with saal. Antares is most cunty now. 5. Possibly come close to beating gregly at telling a story??? impossible; until now.

I've always suspected people were doing some kind of dream work or magic with their comics and characters on this site, but you've confirmed it. the plot point of Antares coming into being, her origin story and her also being summoned by the wizards; i'd never heard of her before this event. from my perspective, it WOULD appear she just rose from the foam as venus, fully formed. you did every single character so much justice. I believe I will remember all of them with much more clarity from now on.

Your artwork is dead ass some of the best comic art I’ve ever seen, period. You drew the hell out of that smut scene. You rendered the fuck out of those dream sequences. And you casually just are also good at drawing both KJQ AND Chica, in their respective toon styles while still making them suit your own ink work. My god, do you know how impressive that is? You out-drew Radji. You detected what Footini’s clown man is supposed to look like and out-did him at it, without solid reference for what to go for. AND, you made Chica more powerful than Jack, which is highly correct and something the other stories, objectively, got wrong. In Armageddon, Chica out-willed a mind-control machine and killed Gray, who was one of the oldest and most developed characters in void and who fought as a defender herself. To show Chica without her agency is faaaaaaaaaaaaaalse.

Like Gregly, you pumped up all the character’s writing so well. You do what I find most intimidating about void: trying to make different writing styles fit within one narrative. Others in this royale really phoned it in on this objective, but you struck a happy balance for everyone. You were kind to Itami, who shouldn’t be able to tell what any of the wizards are talking about, but showed that she at least knows about acupuncture, which is a more basic kind of every day grocery store variety urban magic.

All that said, there were some places I got lost and will have to re-visit after a sleep. Antares’ union with Iain seemed to be a metaphor for the previous destruction of the universe, as shown by Gwen walking in on them. Isn’t that a BAD thing? Also got a little lost when Antares came upon the altar to Gray’s heart: thought the flashback/vision was Gray coming back to life for a minute. Also, never did I understand what the ‘index’ was and was glad to see it leave so I never had to learn. X,D

Your writing was so lofty: is this what they call ‘flowery’ ? It would be harder to understand to any reader who had never researched -  world mythology, astrology, astronomy, chemistry, dream logic, sci fi alternate realities, and like 8 different magic disciplines ON TOP of a good knowledge of Void City History. This was A LOT. I appreciate the eclectic nature of things and the way it reflects the broad styling of characters in this heavyweight and also the storied past of Void as it exists in our collective consciousness. But the overall effect might make the whole thing a little inaccessible.

But yet I really loved it. Usually when people get long-winded and wordy, they’re info dumping. This here though is poetry; simple singular ideas given a long explanation to capture the mood (I think we should fuck. I got born.) Found this engaging, myself. And of course, you don't have to understand ALL the nuance to get the gist of things: Antares has freed Iain in a way that feels like it matters and should stick, and meanwhile, she’s coming back to void, this being her big re-devue. I’m excited to see more from her!

Right from the beginning I knew I was in for a good time. I'm never going to get over Itami being in love with Egg Dealer XD. I think you did a great job of tying all the characters together and giving them reasons to be involved in each other's stories, which is always super hard with battle royales! As a major Egg Dealer stan, I'm in love with the general plot line of people falling in love with him and his principles. You did such a great job with this comic. I love the blend of existing character lore and adapting everyone to fit a fun narrative. All of the fourth wall breaking you did with Jack was beautiful. Love to see stuff like that. The only thing I think this comic was missing was color, honestly, but your time was limited so I wouldn't expect something like that here. If you do have time in the future and want some tips for really quick and easy coloring, hit me up. It's surprising how much of a difference you can make with just like 3–4 shades of gray and a color filter over them XD. Awesome comic, I enjoyed it all the way through, and I'm so excited for more comics from you, as always!

I can't help but be biased when you've included my character as a focal point AND introduced plot points I didn't have the energy to create comics for in Ancelin's storyline XD. I had such a blast reading this! Art-wise, it felt pretty rushed, and I'd like to see you take more time to really focus on anatomy studies and getting proportions consistent. Admittedly, that's something I struggle with a lot, so I'm not going to pretend everything has to be perfect to be good XD. Of course, it's always a balance between polish and amount of story told, so do what makes you happiest! Storywise I really had fun with this. I love how you gave Gwen, Regi, and Chica motivations based on past events in their stories to be involved in this (and it's totally not just because I was directly involved in setting up those potential motivations XD), and Antares as the straight man to a zany comedy like this was a perfect choice. I also love how well you captured the spirit of Itami's character, just always down to make friends and kick butt. Iain could have used a bit more focus, but honestly that's always a casualty of battle royales; you can't give everyone equal screen time. I believe you did the best you could, and the story was fun! I was laughing all the way through, both because of Ruckus' silly t-shirts and just everything going on. The epic fight between Jack and Chica was a beautiful touch, and I'd honestly love to see more of Chica's relationship with the toon community in general. That was a really cool aspect of her character that I just hadn't really thought about before, so good on you for highlighting that! Thanks for all the cameos, all the laughs, and the great character writing! 😄

You never disappoint in doing something uneggspected in your comics, and I love it! It looks like you may have run out of time to finish this comic, which is unfortunate, but it's always fun to see everything the Egg Dealer gets up to. I also love that even though Egg Dealer is like the supreme lord, he's still not ready for some of the highest power and secrets his beauteggs have to offer. We're still waiting for Reveleggion, and now there's Magegg to look forward to. Will Egg Dealer ever be ready? I can't wait to find out!

Brownie points for the reference to Ancelin XD. I don't have a ton to say about this one; you did a pretty straightforward action movie gauntlet, which made sense at the end when the whole thing was revealed to just be another action B movie that Itami got hired for. It looks like you may have bitten off more than you could chew by joining this event, but hey, you got the full story in there even if it was short. It would have been nice to see more character development and plot motivations for everyone to be there. It would have made the twist ending make less sense, but I'd rather have a solid story than a quick gag at the end of a somewhat plain comic, if that makes sense. Give me more of what drives Itami, let me see more of how she builds relationships with others, both through friendship and through conflict (and, most interestingly, both!). I love itami and just want you to dig deeper into her character!

Props to you for throwing your hat in the ring! I definitely have some things to say about where you could improve, but I love seeing you put yourself out there and continuing to make comics and take on big challenges like joining Heavyweight. That kind of determination and perseverance is a key attribute to success, so keep ahold of that!

In terms of critique, I want to focus mainly on your storytelling. I'm getting a lot of telling instead of showing from this comic; a lot of exposition and explanation rather than experiencing things firsthand. You could have included a scene where Brutus stormed in to dethrone the king while Vito was in council with him and shown her begging him to stop, or shown her being caught off guard and helpless to prevent the king's death and then being in fear of the man she loved as he came to her, sword dripping with blood, asking her to be his queen. We got glimpses of that scene, but it was all behind narration from Vito, and I think that took away from the impact of the scene. I also feel like a lot of plot points were introduced conveniently right as they became relevant instead of having some sort of setup earlier that could come back around later. A prime example is the Egg Dealer being used as an experiment for the power-suppressing collars. Unless I missed some sort of early foreshadowing, that just came out of nowhere and felt like a way to force Egg Dealer into the story late rather than being a big reveal that was set up earlier. Just having people discuss the experiment and how the collars seem to be working as expected or something early on would have elevated that plot point.

I also want to see you focus more on creating character motivation and letting that guide the story. You gave us this whole backstory about how Vito's former love betrayed the king and became a tyrant, but that really didn't come into play much aside from Vito being in danger. You could have replaced that with a variety of other dangers and other than the flashback, the comic would have been largely the same. Your opponents' characters also felt largely interchangeable. I liked seeing some unique language usage with Chica and Iain, and Chica being an expert at breaking out of jail was a nice touch, but other than that they didn't really do a lot that was unique to them. Gwen got the best representation imo because of how she was able to use her alchemical knowledge to move the plot forward. Vito or Iain might have also been able to do that, but Gwen felt very fitting. Jack didn't really do anything unique to him except for making everyone leave Toon Town at the end (which I thought was a nice little spot of humor for sure). I just want to see more focus on what makes each character unique, what drives them, and seeing more setup for that. How would being connected to a traitor affect Vito's sense of trust for the people she cares for? Would she be traumatized by the violence? Would she feel responsible somehow? ADMITTEDLY, a battle royale is probably the worst place to practice character motivations. It's hard as balls to give everyone a really good spotlight when you have so many characters to pay attention to, and someone always gets the short end of the stick. I'd like to see more of your one-on-one battles take the time to really delve into what makes characters tick and see them take action based off of that rather than taking action based on what story you think would be fun to tell. Obviously it's ultimately a combination of both that you need, but I just really want to feel each character's struggle, their wants and desires, etc.

Sorry for being so long-winded, I just really love that you're pushing yourself and want to see you grow and flourish as a comic creator!

What just happened? I um... my brain feels tired XD

First off, your art is just delicious. I love your linework so much, and you do such an amazing job with your compositions of drawing attention where it needs to be even when there are a lot of details to look at. I'm in love with how you drew every character. Everything just looks so NICE.

Story wise, I think enough of this went over my head that it wrapped back around from being super interesting and high brow to just being confusing. There's so much jargon to parse, and such abstract concepts that it feels like there's a language barrier between me and your comic. I feel like I understood the majority of it, but there were a few parts that just went completely over my head. I guess I'm just not the target demographic 😅 Still enjoyed everything I could follow though, I just got really lost, especially towards the end. Maybe I'll have to reread it later.

I knew to expect something off the rails from you, and you certainly delivered. Your interpretation of each character was spectacular; I especially love what you did with Egg Dealer. He can be such a tricky character to fit into any genre that isn't inherently goofy, but he's so fun to work with and adapt. Would have been cool to see Itami do something, but that's just how battle royales go haha. Awesome work, keep kicking ass!