Kilcra - This is a phenomenal battle. In void battles I think it's often a very smart call to let your opponents character carry your comic, as it's more in keeping with the spirit of comic battling, and this comic is a exemplary in that regard. What I'm most impressed by is not just your great art but the amount of thought and care you put into your panel placements and the general composition of your pages; you use a lot of complex, out-of-the-box panel layouts but I don't feel like i'm being overwhelmed. The penultimate page of this comic is just stellar, no wonder it was the featured panel on the Void homepage - especially that final artstyle change on Kurdis in the last panel. Killer stuff here, excited to see more.

snager - Your art and writing are so gonzo and chaotic, i love it. I laughed quite a bit at the "piranha" line. Your watercolors still continue to look pleasant, although I really would recommend adding more value in the background, sometimes it looks like the foreground characters are hovering on the foreground plane rather than being situated in the background plane

Thanks so much Cy, Shen, Rockman, Bobert and Snager!! I'm really happy you liked the comic! And not to worry, there will be plenty more Cowbell comics to learn him

Snager! I kept getting distracted and forgetting to write about that TV in the galaxy panel on page 3! I love this panel because it tells me a lot about Kurdis and how he looks at his past. The TV is in the middle of the panel, which adds tension and makes me uncomfortable, like that TV is dangerous or very important. It's also alone, floating in a void, with only distant stars in the background. This tells me that Kurdis sees his past stardom (represented by the TV) as the only happiness that was ever attainable in his life, and that all the other ways that people can be happy (the stars in the void) are too far away for him to reach. This echoes in his intro comic, where he fauns over his past, looking at recordings of himself on the TV, sad and lonely on his couch. He feels like his best life is behind him, contained only in the TV recordings he has.

Ultimately, it is "kind of a long story" that gets told through little hints in this image. I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, but I found it really beautiful.

I liked the humour in both your comics and the more heartfelt story told by Kilcra. Snager, everyone who uses watercolours is a demon beast and you'll climb the beastly ranks with each thing you do.

Im glad it's been like 5 days and people are still finding hidden jokes lol. Cy, the bit about light speed date night was literally added in as I was putting the text layer on. i thought it was brilliant because LSDT was going up at the same time. very meta of me.

Also: ok so how i write is like this:

I let my brain rattle off this long train of thought about  characters and how'd they'd interact. this goes on and on and on and i go back over it and add more and trim it and rp it out with friends or what ever.  maybe even doodle it on post it notes. takes a few days, maybe even weeks. then, i take the part that was the most interesting, the thesis of what im trying to communicate , the part that completes the assignment: or the part that just sounds easiest to draw. and THAT is what i write down and turn into a script. so if it feels like it ends abruptly, it IS because this was a snippet of brain fart. ALL my comics are. they're like little vignettes and instead of a classic story arch, story circle, hero's journey ect. the story i'm telling is like this: showing character through how those characters react to situations and the world and each other. there doesn't always have to be an objective or conflict.

however, I am interested in learning how to do these 'character reveal' things while something interesting is happening. maybe not stakes as high as saving the world, but i'd like to learn.

if you want to hear the full train of thought, that could have easily become 100 pages:

all this got ditched because
a. too much kurdis
b. not enough cowbell
c. don't want to draw all that and make it canon for no reason

Okay Snager, I felt like I didn't tell you very much at all about Cowbell and yet you managed to get the character down PERFECTLY. The opening scene with the butter is so good, and it says so much about Kurdis and Cowbell. Kurdis is delicately cutting the butter with his tongue, in what has to be the weirdest opening to a comic I've seen, and yet Cowbell manages to up the anty and just massacre the whole stick of butter with his mouth XD They're both weird guys, but Kurdis is more fragile and delicate while Cowbell is this rude brute who's really excited about condiments! It's perfect!

I love that Kurdis is trying so hard to talk to Cowbell too, like it's a challenge for him to sit at the table with him. The fact that Kurdis gets so emotional at being rejected at a speed dating event also speaks volumes of his character, and I love that Cowbell doesn't even know where he is. You wrote two completely different types of kooky characters, and the way you made them contrast is brilliant. Every joke hit for me, and I treasure this representation of Cowbell <3

The last thing I want to point out is the details. Holy shit, every square inch of this comic is thought out, and every time I showed someone your comic they laughed at something I didn't even notice at first. The booster seat at the end, the 20 minute timer showing how fast Kurdis lost it, Cowbell eating the gum under the table, Cowbell's arm bothering the patron behind him. Like goddamn Snager, this is ridiculous. I love this comic, thank you so much for putting all of this work and thought into it. I worry about Cowbell being hard to write, but he works so perfectly in your head. Amazing job, this blew me away!

Wow. I loved both of these in completely different ways, this battle is going straight on my recommendations list

Kilcra - The colours are *chefs kiss*, the harsh lighting with the spotblacks when Kurdis is “performing” is SO tasty. Also I know this is a small detail but the light falling on Kurdis’ bed on the 5th page was top notch, it’s something really difficult to get right in my experience (or maybe it’s just me lmao). And the story, wow. I can tell you put a lot of effort into learning this character and it’s a treat to see. I actually think what you did with Cowbell was great because even though he doesn’t visibly show up much, his presence is felt throughout the comic and has a significant impact on Kurdis by the end. Seeing the “beautiful voice” sign get bolder as Kurdis shifts back into his performance getup was lovely. Fantastic comic!

Snager - Even though Kurdis and Cowbell are behaving like absolute gremlins here, you made their awkward interaction strangely charming. I loved page 3 because not only did we get that reaction to Cowbell being oblivious, but a gorgeous galaxy panel. Kurdis cutting and spreading the butter with his tongue was also painted beautifully, and I loved your use of thick line weights in this comic. I enjoyed the meta joke of light speed DATE tournament and the callback to Blustivex too.

I personally didn’t find the ending abrupt, it seems to fit the whole awkward atmosphere of the conversation, but I do have some Thoughts on the speech bubbles and SFX. The text is often super close to the edges, and the SFX were just the same font without even being bold or italic to set them apart. I suggests you either use a different font or draw the SFX traditionally with the rest of the comic.

these were both really creative and an excellent matchup. kilcra, theres some excellent characterization in yours of Kurdis as someone incredibly lonely, but so terrified of judgement he'll push people away The way you interwove the lyrics into the scenery was gorgeous. I still have only a rough sense of Cowbell but this was a super first battle and im excited to see more of him. Snager, again i applaud your watercolours. the colours are appealing, which makes a fascinating contrast from the grotesque close-up of the tongues on the first page. I agree the story ends sort of suddenly, a joke is fine but theres no conclusion to the story.
great job, cant wait to see more from you both!

man, Kilcra, where do i even begin?

No one's ever made anything like this for me before ? all I can say is thankyou. I've gone a whole year wishing I knew how to convey this character to other people and being told over and over that it's not making sense. that I should just put it in a comic. and yeah I need to do that. but seeing what you pulled together has given me a better since of? what is this feeling. legitimacy? respect? uhh?

plus, you did all the work for me. NOW people will get it ! the way you can't tell if he's just imagining something or remembering it, the way you can't tell if he's actually transforming or it's all in his head cause Cowbell didn't see it happen: love that ambiguity. I don't even know which it was, and I LIKE it like that. I'm going back through our convos trying to remember/figure out how you picked up on stuff about Kurdis that I hadn't put anywhere, I THOUGHT? :squint: have you been talking to footini about us? did you really glean all this just from the playlist ? thank god, kom susser todd wasn't in - oh wait i re-added it. ok, it might not kill me to put some happier songs on this MF.

like, all the little tags about having people's babies. and the one where the crowd calls him fat. :l we don't talk about kurdis' weight. 8l

I will second what rockman said though: I gotta have more Cowbell.
the way you show the pizza has a clear pizza cut taken out of it, and rather than pick up a slice, Cowbell munches it off the ground. I ..
I gotta know more about this deuchebag . what an intriguing creature.

anyway, I had a lot of fear that my ability to make my ideas known was just way too weak  but now im like. This Dude Gets It, Maybe others will, too. Better Cry About It.

Like, you did a lot of tell and not show, but I think maybe that's what the people want. you're just showing your work on everything I was saying; but louder, for the people in the back.

Kilcra - I like a lot your style and detail, specially how you draw masses of people (first and second page) that's a lot of dedication.
I would've liked for Cowbell to appear in more pages tho, since I feel that we saw lot of Kurdis but so little of him.

Snager - I love your watercolors, you have no idea. Your comics are eye candy to me (for example the first panel of page 3 *chef kiss*).
It was interesting seeing the two interact, but the story went on until it kinda just sorta ended, feels like we are missing a final page with the conclusion.

Good job both of you.

I didn't know that I wanted this , but now that it is going to exists, I'm super HYPED!!!!!

Clash of the big haired horned lads