RADJI- Right off the bat, there are some hiccups with language. I know its not your first, but with the intensity and high stakes you got goin' in this battle, those hiccups take me out of the moment. Though, after listening to VCast, I find myself chuckling at "Well, come to my carnival!". I will say I love your action pages. You definitely have a strength with page layout and overlapping panels or figures to lead the eye around while you tell your story. It's killing me that you didn't get to fully realize the climax pages for us to get the full degree of the moment, but deadlines- especially for tournaments are super rough!
I'd be super curious to know what set up you use to digitally work since varied line-width would really make your work fantastic. As it stands, it all reads rather flat, which is a shame.
I do like the bit of cliffhanger you left us with. Zita is pissed! lol

MRPR1993- I'll have to echo my previous crit since both you and Radji got a thing with the line widths. It leaves your work looking pretty flat, which is a shame because the Carnival Master is SUCH a spooky and rad antagonist. To be fair though, apart from your rigid lines is the stiffness in your characters. I don't know how you work, but I'd personally love to see you loosen up. Get kinda sloppy with your comics as being so clean precise and rigid is leaving the end result very static and wooden.
I do dig you getting heavy on the black. I certainly wish that was apparent throughout the comic as opposed to just the last page. You give us suuuch a great sense of dread with C.M in the shadows giving us his last line, that I think casting the enviorment and circus in shadow would've really added to the atmosphere you were trying to attain
I do like that you finally showed us Cruz' insides though. Candy!

ROFLQU- This is a new type of coloring for you. Definitely interesting. I'm so used to you being so clean its kinda neat to see a messier side. You've taken Cruz in a way I definitely didn't expect, but certainly found familiar. I wish he was more whimsical- if only on account of the fact he's a Piñata.  Personal tragedies aside, it  just seems a crime he's so serious. Speaking of serious- while I had fun turning the pages, I couldn't shake the feeling I've seen this before. The inner monologue, the stern equine character, the brutal past, and the determined mission for vengeance. When you push the candy aside, Cruz iseems to be brushing the borders of Clydesdale-ness.
I'll admit, I leaned in once we went to day-glo. What a super neat effect! I wish the whole comic had been like this. Muting the world around Cruz was totally the right choice. Anything other than him would've made the scene way too cluttered.

@Radji *Fuck*. That was a lot more hard-hitting than I expected it to be, and I give you major props for that. It was super nicely paced and your shots of the Carnival Master really nailed the creepy vibe. It's an absolute shame that Life Got In The Way and ya couldn't finish, cause goddamn, this had some winning potential. But overall, I definitely dig the direction your black-and-white stuff is going, and wholeheartedly encourage that.

@MrPr Not bad! Everyone worked together and had a good reason to be at-odds. I think the big thing here was mostly the Style vs Story. Your style's very clean and cartoony, while this seemed to become a darker story. In the beginning, when Carnival Master was looking for Zita, it was appropriately goofy. But when Cruz came in, it sorta gave off the vibe of a missed chance. Or like, it wasn't as dark or gorey that the scene called for. But this just leaves room for more experimentation with some rough stuff, rather than keepin it all clean and pixel-perfect.

@Roflqu Oh doddammit you fuckin rocked it. The Nito-callback threw me for a loop cause I haven't previously read the Ragnarok comics, but I feel I got the jist of it. Overall, radically radical.

I loooved all of these! They had really great stories, and connected the characters really well!

Radji: I actually have to disagree with Pyras about adding pages to break up the larger speech balloons. I agree that some of the dialogue was a little tightly-packed into those balloons, but I thought the comic was really well paced visually. I think the better solution would be to try to edit the dialogue down into fewer and/or shorter sentences rather rather than adding unnecessary pages/panels. I especially loved the final moments of the story. I really sympathized with Zita as she struggled to save Cruz the only way she knew how.

MrPr: I really liked the twisted horror-creations you had Zita make. It really put into the spotlight just how horrific she can get despite her cuteness. Some of your action sequences get a little confusing, and I think it could be improved by zooming the camera out to show us more visual information when characters are hitting each other and things like that. Like in page 7, when Cruz is attacking some of the carnival abominations, the action would have been clearer if we could actually see a picture or two of Cruz swinging his bat at the creatures, rather than the super zoomed-in shots you gave us. I thought the writing was good, and you weaved together the characters' plotlines into a very fun-to-read story.

Roflqu: You did a pretty good job of helping me understand the epic god-battle part even though I hadn't read the Ragnarok comics - which I did end up reading so I could understand your story better. Something still doesn't feel right to me about the dialogue between Nito and Quetzalcoatl, though. I think it's the order in which you presented information to us: You wait until the end of Nito and Quetzal's exchange to tell us their motivation. If I understand correctly, Nito's motivation is to kill Cruz before he becomes a god, while Quetzalcoatl's motivation is to watch over Cruz until said god-powers awaken. Until you gave me that information, I didn't really understand the narrative reason that these god-creatures showed up, and so their presence felt out-of-place. I think I would have been more invested in their conversation if you had begun the exchange with their immediate motivations and focused on why they are in this specific place at this specific time before moving to the more general discussion of Ragnarok. I still had a lot of fun reading the story, though, and your art is top-notch and beautiful to look at.

All participants turned in good stories this round (great job) so I'll focus on art:

Radji: Looks like time got away from you with this one but good effort trying to make the sketch renders still look nice. This could've used a few more pages to break down the word balloons

MrPr: I think action is something you want to try improving on, there's some points in this comic where I'm not sure what is happening visually and could only guess from the story's clues. I saw some of this in your last comics as well, you need to be more sensitive to the space between your panels and how one panel connects with the previous and the next, basically your sequencing. We get lost because what's happening in one panel doesn't seem to coincide as well with what happened in the previous or the next. Check out the book Understanding Comics to learn about how to control sequence in your stories

RoflQu: Solid work all around and please message me what brushes you used

I have to say MrPr1993 this is my favorite character of yours .3.

DONE! It's a big mess, but I gave my all.

Can't wait to read your entries!!!

Time for an exciting semi-finals!