I won't touch on what I feel needs to be done in terms of visual presentation.  You two know where to go from here based on the feedback from fellow artists, and your own resolve.

There's been a lot of talk about the theme.  So you can only assume that you're going to hear more from me--not my own opinions and my analyzation of the symbols and characters used, but more or less a general perspective.

Jack, I feel that you went along with the perpetrator's perspective of the trust/betrayal spectrum.  Uncle, you did the victim's perspective.  In the end, though, each ended up being their own demise, I feel; damned from the beginning.  Not quite sure if this was a mutual intention between the two of you, or not.

I'd like to see artist battles really get off the ground here.  I think this is a very interesting way to do comics without having to check, recheck, double-check that the point, plot, or anything like that, spelled out so that everyone gets the same idea.  I honestly don't think that a single person can agree on what "the point" of these two were, and that's the fun thing about exploring art--that it's up to each individual's interpretation.

Needless to say, I feel you two succeeded in doing this, and you have my love and thanks for putting up like you did.

Wooow These were great.

Wolfboy: I really really loved your comic the most. I loved your choices for boarders and how it all flowed so wonderfully and oddly. I'm not familiar with the character used here but I definitely want to go root about for more.

Uncle: Man, reading your comic was like a crazy hallucinogenic trip. I loved it. I have no idea what happened, exactly, but I loved it.

I'm having trouble coming up with good constructive comments for these two, so just enjoy this mindless praise.

i liked both of these.

jack, i dug the wall thing, but i think it'd read more like a wall, if it read horizontally. with lightbox & formatting, it'd be harder, but it'd be more apparent. i did like the frames, but angie makes a good point about hand drawing them. next time don't be a pussy & draw them haha overall i did really like this though. i hope this is kind of shit you bring for the 'psychic exploitation' match.

sex, hate to keep the broken record going but picking a set scheme would've really knocked this shit outta the park. i mean it was good & while the fauvist colors might have been an intention, you could keep some colors as bright with a limited palette & it'd look amazing. that's more suggestion than critique though. real nice. i liked it.

Jack: i was suprised! This was a really nice read and I love how you made it go into a loop like that. The dialouge ran smoothly and felt real. It's funny 'cause I didn't even notice the picture frame borders until I read some of the comments. It just made it feel more from that time period, but once I looked at them, yeah they seemed kind of off. Funny how that worked, but that's ok. I love your style man, something about their faces draws me in. I assume you did some research for the clothes because those seemed really natural. This was so good, why don't you do more? D:

uncle sex: I love how smoothed those lines looked! the colors were kinda too saturated for me, but it looked neat. I liked that sort of dark feeling you gave to this. I THINK i can tell what's going on, but I'm not so sure about the ending. It might just be me though. Everything else was pretty clear and it was good that you could do that. Mmmm, i can't really say much more, but I can say that this was a pretty solid entry with no major problems. You do more too pleeeeease.

Jack-I think this was the strongest work I've seen from you on the site and I'm very glad you were able to finish. Like others, I wasn't a fan of the borders and thought they could have been awesome had they been hand drawn, but as you said time got in the way. There were some areas where the inking could have been a little tighter and you could have refined some of the blacks but the lineart was mostly solid for the mostpart. I really enjoyed the story, I think you did a great job with the characters in this. The dialogue came off as surprisingly natural for the time period you went with. I hope you keep doing more artist battles, I think you work a lot better when you're not tied to a character.

unclesex-I like to see you experimenting with color, you had some really cool things going on with the patterning and such. Making it a little more subtle like on that second page first panel could have made it look a little less cluttered. I think going with a more set color scheme like just working with a few colors that go well together could have helped make everything seem more unified. (if that makes sense, I'm totally out of it) It took me a few reads to understand the story, but once I got it I appreciated it a lot more.

Jack, I liked the picture frame idea.. I didn't think about it being a giant wall until Helf pointed it out, but that's cool too. The first panel had a sort of engraving quality. It didn't seem like it was carried out to the rest of the comic, so I dunno if it was your intention or not. Still, your style is a lot of fun to look at. I didn't care for the story very much, though. Too much philosophy, not enough fun, maybe.

uncle_sex- I didn't like the colors... you've already said that you rushed them, so I don't want to say too much, but I thought that the dark colors tended to cover up your linework, which has always been the best part of your artwork, for me. It looked better where there was a dark color but you colored the lines a lighter color, if that makes sense... I thought panel 3 of page 1 looked especially cool with all the detail on the door of the church and stuff. And I agree with Zsa about having more of a theme with your colors.
I didn't even try to interpret the story, but it's all good...

Thanks for the crits guys.

About the frames, I wish I'd had more time to work with them so I could've put way more variety and overall effort into them, and potentially jacked the contrast on them, but I personally like the really dingy effect I got with them, and any changes would have been done with that in mind.

I totally screwed up out of fear on this and didn't do curves until after I'd resized, the image was too huge to save right and I was kind of crushed for time when doing the editing, and there's some panels where I actually like where it roughed them up and others that I'm pretty pissed about, but it's all a learning experience so whatevs.

I totally intended for it to look like a giant wall but the execution on that one fell apart when I started running short on time. Another day or two to experiment with things would have made a huge difference in this comic.

Also as far as the theme, I think Sex and I both went with the betrayal end of the trust theme. I changed my ending from what I had originally intended, and the original one had a better sense of betrayal of trust but wasn't as good an ending. Dishonesty was sort of my overall thing though, and a look at trust as a necessary social function.

Jack, I like this a lot, it was kind of weird to have the clean linework and then the crappy frames, also I think better contrast was needed. I didn't really get "trust " out of this either

Uncle, I like the art and the color of this too, but I can't get the second page to load, so I kinda had to piece this together. It seems more like "betrayal" rather than "trust" but I liked it a lot.

Liked both of these alot. The patterns and colors Unc Sex used were crazy, but I thought they fit the theme and story(?!?!).

jack
many of the panels where a bit too small
amazing line width and loved the sex scene,Somehow
i felt like it would have came better out if you had made the
entire thing like a wall turning into a background in the botton where he
stood by his portrait.It kinda kills the idea of having em in frames by then end.
like you did turn it into a wall but it was not ehm fully executed aswell as the final letters
where a bit sloppy combared to the rest.But that aside it was your best comic sofar
in my head really loved the detailing on the clothing and the dialog amazing work.
sex + depression & talking dick is good stuff yes


uncle
the lack of text worked really well.I think somehow you drew failed to point out where
you where going like in the second panel the demon or evil spirit leaves the child and
he is dropped off at a cloister.then inside the cloister his shadows shows him as dead
normally this would symbolize that he is a nonbeliever or that he lost his faith so i will
take that the spirit is his faith that he lost at birth.then he realises that the non is a total
slut like his mom and leaves the church which by the veins kinda makes me think it is
a sumbol of him growing up so he is grown up still without faith.then he is about to get
married i would had liked something in beetween this part to explain this a bit more.
he is now being pummeled with a snake somehow symbolising impurity so he is regaining his
faith or? anywhom then he kills himself and the faith he lost at birth leaves him as he dies.
dont know if you gave the sumbolism thought but it seems kinda ehm. Random i really digged
it thou but compared to your normal stuff this did not do as much for me.but it haves alot to work
on.

oh and both of you and you other people if my english or grammer dont make sense to you
burn in hell i dont give a rats arse.enjoyed both of them good stuff i hope soon artists battles
will be implemented

Dude Sex, I read yours twice through, once while on 48 hours of sleep deprivation and again now. When you're not in your right mind this comic is seriously Jodorowsky weird and intimidating. The textures you used were fucking hardcore, the high lights being the sky full of lightning and the convent with heavily lit crosses. You got the theme perfectly, and I think the whole thing makes a lot more sense when you approach it knowing the theme already.

Honestly the colour thing is a tough call, since the incredible overuse of colours was absolutely one of my favourite things about this. I think the biggest issue is just the length of the comic, El Topo was over 2 hours long, Holy Mountain was some long shit too. Not saying that you're directly going off that but something like this needs to give its reader more time to settle in, which I know was a total impossibility in this case with time constraints and all. This would be a really really great style to take on a longer project with, so the reader has time to sit there and adjust to what's happening here. Great work though dude.



Oh and everybody, the theme was Trust.

Very wonderful work!

Jack, I am amazed. I saw one page and I kind of tilted my head, then I saw it was tiled. Anyways, the details you put into this is stunning. The line art could've used some cleaning up. It seemed a bit too crisp. The only thing I think the inking could've used was thicker lines to separate the figures from the background. Every so often my eyes strained from that. (Something color would fix)
The only thing that truely bothered me was the panel boxes. Maybe if they were spaced out a bit more and not an actual frame. (Maybe a flatter shape rather than a 3D looking one). The way they are now becomes distracting.

Storywise.. The flow was PERFECT! I find it was a deep story and the pacing flowed very smoothly. I honestly have nothing bad to say about the story.

Uncle Sex: It took me a while to figure out just where you were going with this. I felt it went too fast and that ruined the pacing.
Storywise...? It's a bit too dark for me and I did find any entertainment at all. Perhaps it's just me, but I just could not understand the entire thing. Oh well.

Art-wise, very colorful and again, dark. Perhaps TOO colorful. A lot of the colors clashed. Perhaps if you had just used a selected color palette, it would've worked better. Either way, with these colors, this is probably something I'd want to read while I'm high.

Overall, I think Jack caught my attention the most. This is prob one of his best pieces I've seen from him.

Good work to you both.

I agree about the colors, I'm not happy with them but I'd be lying if I said I hadnt rushed and just through in whatever to get it done haha. oh well practice is practice.

Wow, just...WOW! Excelent morning read!

Jack: I looooved the amazing detailing you've put on this, specially on clothings and such. I noticed you tried detailing every face as well, and in this case, maybe it was some scanning problm you had, and sometimes the ink would get a bit fuzzy, but still pretty understandable.
The whole panel border thing bothered me a bit, but I supposed you had to cut it in pieces in order to fit in any size you'd need.. but maybe there could be a way around it.
The story now is another point of interest, you've made quite a chronicle about a man and his sexual fantasies, and it's like reading those novel books, I really liked it, and sounds very belieavable, and very creative. The panel shots convey the plot pretty much well.

I confess I was worried when I only saw one page, ha.

Uncle sex: After reading your battle, I take the theme was about one's sexual desires, or perhaps, they sexual manicing? I really liked this was a textless comic, to make the person think a bit, though soon the plot is clear, even though the motvie of suicide is not explicit, but very open ended, which I like.
The art part is very interesting too, quite psychaedelic, which always give me the "oh fuck, I wont get this story, I can tell" feel at first, but since you conveyed it so well, that problem was solved.
I'm not sure about the colors though, while refined, I feel that maybe there are just too many colors, like all kinds of colors, and perhaps you could have gone to some palette, or multiple palletes, one to be when he's imaginating and one for the real life, which could make thing (perhaps unecessarily) clearer, but still a worthy trying resource.

I'm really loving this artist battle thing. Keep on rocking, guys!

secret battle mode.

Something odd happened with the link, I'll let Toast know, but the battle itself seems to be working okay.

FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION VENEREAL DISEASE.

100%COMPLETED COMIC. 2ND TIME EVER, BOOYAH

uploaded, turned out ok i suppose.

THIS IS A MIX BAG OF VENEREAL DISEASE !!

so Artistic Battle can be anything... but I hope it will be something goog XD Good luck

What the fuck?!

Wait... what's the theme?
Fuckin', better not be 'psychic exploitation.' Cause shit.

The REAL Artist Battle!

hahahah oh snap, if Sex becomes a little more entertaining his scores could be 6.6,6.6,6.6, and that would be awesome

whoa sweet

this will be quite tanzalizing and titillating.

Oh shit, this better be awesome you guys

looking forward to this .

OH OH
blood and thunder

Oh yeah~

best of luck!