Oculama

Wonderful compositions on the action pages here; I adore the parallel layouts over pages 2-4 setting both your opponents in opposition to each other. all these pages are absolutely gorgeous. The quality of the art remains rock-solid, and boosts the quality of the comic nicely. The story is a bit scant here, but easy enough to follow, and the interplay between the characters, while simple, feels completely organic, and hits a good balance of amusing and tense. On a more subjective note, I feel like the *scale* of what happens in this comic isn't quite worthy of a finale. The outcome, with everyone ending up in a new parallel world, makes for an impactful outcome, but the actual climax of action here, the two characters having a tiff where they toss their powers at each other, doesn't quite feel like final round-level action. The use of the junction multiverse structure works really well, all said, and this is a really fun addition to Valaric's saga.

Not every comic-writer could pull off such a random convergence of characters as well as you have here. You've taken a pretty straightforward slapstick chase and made it feel genuinely, wonderfully epic. The slapdash alliance of the characters is completely convincing, and they all gel with each other in this crisis scenario. The flow of the story comes a little close here to getting away from you, I think, and the ending gets a bit tough to parse; a second read of the final two pages clears up most of what's going on to me - Wendy takes the different magical objects to do a bit of a level up - and then goes evil? I fiollow, but don't completely understand. And then Geepy undergoes metamorphosis and neutralizes all the chaos? Again, I *think* I follow, but I don't fully understand why it happens that way. The comic remains extremely fun regardless, and I am absolutely awed by how many elements and characters (tremendous work slotting all your past opponents in so organically) you worked into this final story. Great work, and good job harnessing so much chaos in the inaugural!

What impresses me most about this comic is how you weave a pretty complex web of motivations and agreements between the main characters in only five pages. There's team-ups, betrayals, and conflicting interests harnessed both for drama and humor. If there's one big thing lacking here, I think it's a really good build-up of pathos for the magical beast at the center of it all. Evelyn's interest in it is well-defined, by her nature and what we've seen in past comics, but I feel a bit disconnected from it emotionally, and maybe a bit more investment in it would make the last 1-2 pages hit a bit harder. The crystal bit, in particular, felt like it was narrative space that could have been better used on other elements. That's ultimately pretty small potatoes compared to the positives here, though. You demonstrate some of the best economy of storytelling I've seen in an OCT, and you should be very proud of Evelyn's inaugural journey!

Arkeis - what a wonderful end to this chapter of Valaric's adventures. The colors are gorgeous as usual, especially that tree panel on page 2. What a clever way to depict parallel events too and set up Elly and Evelyn's characters. Easily one of my favorite pages in the tournament. My jaw dropped further when I saw Page 3 - that magic circle scene. WOWZA!! Love how you established conflict between Elly and Evelyn as well and used their clashing personalities as a point of climax. The consequences of which, I SURE did not see coming. That reveal got me even more excited and now I am sad this tournament has ended because I WANT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!!

Seeing you do all these beautiful comics throughout the tournament was so inspiring to me as someone who likes to paint as well. I haven't been brave enough to join tournaments because I felt so slow but seeing you pull this off and make it to the finals is impressive to me beyond belief. I hope you continue to make comics in Oculama. Getting to know Valaric is also so much fun! What a great character!

Ledgem - Wowowow. Your quality hasn't faltered in this tourney at all. Again, very impressive amount of detail in every panel that is always a delight to see. It's not always easy to depict a comic with no dialogue but you've mastered storytelling just from mere images. To be able to plan your composition and put in the details/easter eggs you do while telling a cohesive story is such a skill and balancing act not many are able to do successfully but you do it so well.

Love that the story picked up from where each character left their last comic in. 'Skipeth not leg's day' had me chuckle. And OMG having Wendy use Valaric's artifacts to transform herself was GENIUS. I love the way you drew her true form. Albeit short-lived, it's nice to see that but we are instead treated with witnessing another metamorphosis: GEEPY!!! What an unexpected development! So excited to see what's next! I hope you continue to grace us with comics even after this tournament! Love love LOVE your work! Your style (both art and storytelling) is so unique I cannot get enough of it.

Joe - I think out of all the entries here, yours has the best setup for the most conflict. Everyone has their stake and they are at odds with each other. I really loved that. That's not an easy feat for a three-way battle! The Mothman was such a nice surprise and that panel with its entrance was pretty epic. The choice of giving us a worm's eye view on that panel really gave it the threatening vibe as it put us in Valaric's shoes/PoV. The last panel is super adorable and hilarious. Elly's face really said it all LOL. And that "Stop" by Evelyn really hammered in the hilarity of the whole thing haha. Will Evelyn get a new wolf mount after this? A pet?

Evelyn and Wendy are such fun characters and they never fail to bring a smile to my face. I hope we get to see more of them in the future. I know I said this in all the entries and I sincerely mean it for each and every one of you. What a way to cap this tournament with such great characters and comics! Well done!!!! <3

ARKEIS- The final beard gags! Also the color story on this has gotta be the best way to close the chapter on our good buff wizard. The play of warm and cool shades was really fun to kind of color code your opponent on the first page. Also the fantastical environments you've been playing with reach a nice fantasy culmination in this comic with the floating stone platform And Elly Cure and Evelyn to do their respective fantastical brews and invocations. The composition between each character ability really does a greta job of framing the page and you managed a great flow with the paneling.

Aaa way to get us with the "whats it? That cant be it!" moment at the end. A Valaric doppelganger?? What's next? XD

LEDGEM- I think if you had to decide for any comic to go ham, on the finale is definitely it. Wow.. WOW. The details of the first page alone of that space station control room is just wild. THE DETAILS! The cameos! also the fact you took the time out tocolor everything is a serious undertaking. Definitely an applause for the work you put into this! The way you tell such a visual story without words has only gotten stronger with each round. and considering the eclectic differences of your opponents, its wild to see how well you translated them into the madcap hijinks in order to 'fit' in Elly's world. I especially love the acidtrip of Valaric's expressions on page 2 XD
You got me at 'Skippeth not leg's day.

And what a sweet ending with our mascot grub turning into a big kid. What a sweet closing of this tale. hank you, Elly cure and co!

SPPIRAL JOE- Your inkwork from the get does not fail to impress. SO CLEAN. You definitely have a a good style that lends itself to crisp composition and pages. I think of the three entries, its the most 'comic sound' presentation. The speed lines, the throwdown in the city. This is what traditional comic battles are made of.
It's great to see Evelyn not only contend with her opponents turned Avengers, but doing so to battle another cool big bad you've conjured up for her to fell. Your cryptids and beasties throughout have definitely been creatures I've never seen before and I've enjoyed all their designs from round to round. I honestly don't think you needed the color, but I did enjoy that you lended 'trademark' colors that corresponded to each character :D

On point humor and cute story, also freakin Elly with the giant Syringe at the end freakin slayed me XD loved this!

This was a great conclusion. A great way to wrap all the stories up with a nice bow and a way to jump start new stories with Valaric. The story itself was very fun. Your characterization of the others in the battle were really nice and I love how you combined everyone together. If I can say anything about the adventure getting here, its that I still don't feel anything particularly for Valaric. I want to but he's just a bit at arm's length currently. I would really like to see more of him down the line and to see his character expanded upon. Great work!

What a lovely finale! I love that Geepy finally grew up and made into a proper Warp-person. I think you've had an extremely fun collection of comics this entire time and your silent storytelling has been really great. It's come across nice this entire tournament. I think this one was definitely pushing yourself a bit to bring it together, but it worked together in the end. You should be very pleased with yourself for this comic and I can't wait to see what you end up doing next with them. I hope in the future, we see you work with some more dialogue options as well. Great work!

This is another very nice comic from you. I like how you adopted the general story that Valaric was going on and made it work for Evelyn. This definitely looks like it stretched your storytelling a bit, but I was pleased. I think the main thing I would suggest regarding some of the comic is that I'd suggest using more tones to fill out your space. Overall, this has been a great collection of comics from you and I am very excited to see just where you end up taking Evelyn's story next in the future. Again, you did excellent work!