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Pengogo
This comic is so efficient from the very start, establishing the characters perfectly in panel 1. Everything feels so heightened and mundane at the same time, where things like forum arguments and horse dreams feel like the most important things in the world. The establishing shot of the large rest stop too has a great atmosphere to it, a good setup. For critique, the horse is a good punchline, but doesn't quite have enough setup to feel like a payoff of what comes before. The 2nd and 3rd page are great on their own, they just need a little more connective tissue. Even so, the absurd ending still works quite well. Wonderful!
Pengogo
I love the color in this so much, it's such a lively comic. The text treatment too is so well characterized, the size changing and the repetition through the second page is super funny. Every character has a lot of unique personality in their expressions, and it's such an efficient little story. The paneling is good at controlling the time, but for critique, the second page's composition gets hard to read with how much it jumps around left to right. The sunset is a lovely little way to end things, it's a good mood for such a lighthearted story. Excellent!
A VERY colorful and fun comic here, first off. You've done a clean job with the color selection, from the character outfits to adjusting the background to show the time of day (I like the time jump to later in the day in the last panel showing just how long Shougyou is pondering the jar). Visually, my only issue with the comic was the Jellybean jar itself. I appreciate the uniqueness of the paint-splatter/ grafitti style of the jelly bean jar, but it just didn't quite parse as jelly beans to me, which was minorly distracting (but not enough that it really impacted the reading experience overall. There's so much else to like about this comic visually anyways, so I'd lover to dig into that. Shougyou's beautiful-mind-esque wall of text and calculations is a solid bit, and the image of the math going on while everyone else boards and heads off is QUITE funny. Your expressions are also great - Shougyou's smug thinkin' face and Charlie's pondering are delightful.
A nice tight story here - I genuinely didn't see Charlie's solution to the jar problem coming, and it's a satisfying resolution to the conundrum. The car bit with the cameos was a really clever way to wind down from the climax, and a slick way to incorporate your fellow passengers :)
Great entry for R1!
You're illustrations are doing a nice job at establishing the setting and panel content very clearly with a minimal amount of lines/ detail. It's very efficient layout work that shows you know what you're about as far as stage-setting. You've integrated Charlie and Shougyou into a similar style with similar efficiency, and it makes for a visually smooth read.
As far as the story goes, it's nicely brisk, and made me laugh genuinely at least once a page. My only real beef with the story is that I get very little impression of Shougyou, and it feels like another OC could be swapped out and not change the actual comic meaningfully. (That said, the fujoshi moderator bit was solid and got the biggest laugh out of me during my read-through). Charlie's horse trauma and roadside breakdown are QUITE funny, so kudos there.
I was a bit on the fence about the pacing of the ending on my first read-through of the comic, but the abruptness of Charlie's breakdown and the bus leaving her is actually kind of funny overall. Maybe an additonal few panels of pacing might have served well, but I think the way you've done it you maximize the punchiness of the bit, so well executed overall. (The lurking horse on page one is SUCH a funny easter egg on subsequent read-throughs)
Great work overall - really fun roadstop!
love this comic, i love the twist with the bean jar solution even though i LOVED Shougyou's approach (Triple-elite INTJ killed meee). The cameos were super fun and i loved seeing everyone in your artstyle! that last page was very pretty too, and I love color shift in the beans as night fell <3
while the writing was very entertaining, I felt like the artwork lacked a little detail when it came to the characters, many shared the same basic head shape, and general silhouette, but I really enjoyed the vibrant use of color and lively, engaging backgrounds! Great work overall!
Right off the bat, I loved the meme format of the first panel and the ominous looming of the horse in the background
shougyou's expressions were super expressive and I love their aspirations, they'd make a great forum mod haha
I love how expressive your characters are, and the body language reads very clearly. In terms of form, some panels are difficult to digest at first due to a lack or light and dark values; flat colors and/or shading would really help improve this! Additionally, it took me a couple of reads to realize that the horse in the background is what sets off Charlie's ptsd, perhaps highlighting with some shading (or a dark ominous aura) might draw the eye a little bit more. Overall though, excellent work, and a truly entertaining comic! <3
This is such a charming and fun idea for something big, and VERY traditional! I can totally see a the biggest jar of jelly beans along the side of the road. The gag of Shougyou being so far into their brain palace they miss the bus as their means of getting left behind was pretty clever. Not to mention the nice nods to the progression of the day with your color change to sunset. You've come quite a ways from the last comics we've seen from you and I'm excited to see your chops put to use in this Road Trip tournament. Looking forward to more!
Starting off with a meme opening image was cheeky and I like it XD I'm sorry to see the deadline got the better of you as I know based on your character profile you have a fun handle on color. Your elements and characters looked promising, but I was puzzled as to why your components kept bleeding out of their respective panels. There doesn't seem to be a narrative reason and on the face it seems you didn't factor your pane composition in order to fit all your elements within. Definitely something to keep in mind.
That said, its amusing both you and your opponent opted for psychic damage of your opponents. Clever angle!
A fairly sketchy round, though I don't mind that as much as some people seem to. Unlike your opponent, whose beginner level art is overcome by a well told story, your writing here is actually your biggest failing. The conceit of Charlie's fear of horses being intense enough to cause her to break down and set the gas station ablaze is not particularly well told or convincingly executed.
In fact, I couldn't quite tell that she set the station alight at first, it took a couple read throughs to get that.
I understand if you were strapped for ideas on such a tight deadline, but the win still goes to Charlie.
You definitely need to work on your art skills, but everything else is remarkably well executed. It's a simple little joke, but it's told quite well. Shougyou's in depth explanation of the math involved in figuring out precisely the amount of Jellybeans in the jar vs. Charlie's simple understanding of the ruse at play is excellent, as is the gag of no one there being able to drive and so the car being forfeit. Shougyou being so caught up in their calculations and explanations that they don't realize when they have lost, or indeed when the bus has left is quite excellent.
In terms of specific art improvements, I would say you have a lot of work to do on form, anatomy and perspective. All of your characters are constantly shown only from the front angle.
The well executed story overcomes the flawed artwork, but I wouldn't count on that to save you every time.
I would suggest practicing, working with reference and tutorials, and perhaps asking for critique.
furlitz
This is such a thoroughly wholesome comic, it's really sweet and charming. The art compliments that tone really well with bright candy colors and bouncy, expressive body language. The page composition packs a lot into a short space, it's impressive how many beats you were able to fit without the pace feeling crowded. I've got one nitpick in that the text is kind of small, and I think in most of the panels there's enough space to bump up the font size without crowding the art. Again though, it's really impressive how much you do with the space as is, between Shougyou's rant, all the cameos, the jokes in between, the whole third character of the bean man, and it all manages to come together into a neat whole.
furlitz
The character contrast in this is great, the first panel pulls a good job being both a funny joke reference while also setting up the dynamic between Charlie and Shougyou really efficiently. Their actual interaction feels a little short but it's still effective, contrasting Charlie's upbeat optimism with Shougyou just going off like a freak about something that Charlie has absolutely no context for. I also appreciate the beat right after where Shougyou seems genuinely concerned about Charlie, it's a nice little moment that adds a bit more depth to her. "Biggest Horse Gas Station" is also great, it's such a randomly specific concept but it's the kind of thing I can totally imagine passing by on this kind of roadtrip.
Genius level Rizz with the Jelly Bean bit i love counting jelly bean bits! I like that as the main through line for this comic and how it becomes the main bit and sticks out in me head as the fun story / punch line for the comic as a whole. Its good to have Hidoi's character flaws be the reason that they are left off the bus and the cameo's were all really cute. I loved the little top hat pringle man jelly bean master too, a solid entry in Road Trip's comic rounds! good stuff, keep it up
i hate that i now am in a position to be a moderator in enough places to sympathize with Shougyou's struggles. Terminally online discord mod-hood aside tho, i appreciate this comic and by extension, the other road trips for being as short as they are, and for the gags within, like starting with the age-old Looking-Out-Window meme, i love it and i relate. i relate and i love it. The "The Horrors--" panel on the last page with Charlotte's simple little face was a great page turn, the Horse-Person bit feels like a reference to something or feels like a joke i dont get tho lol
Cute gags, cute comic. Your style is also cute, but you need to spend sometime working at it. Maybe studying your influences more and some more life-drawings would assist on that, because your writing is doing just fine as it stands currently. You've got some cute gags and everything else going for you. I made sure to look at your comic full-sized as well... it's a little large. I'd be curious what medium you're drawing with. It makes it so when it's resized for general use, some of the text suffered a bit in size. I would consider resizing to a more manageable size and then making your text in the future. Besides that, as mentioned, the comic is cute and I hope to see you do more soon. Good work!
I can appreciate working under tight timing. Something that's sketchy but done and a full story is always welcome, so good work on that front. I'm not sure totally sure to understand the horse joke, whether that's something of an in-joke or anything, it wasn't translating with me. Page 2 showcased a lot of your expressions and your style shines through strongest there. I'm hopeful to see more from you in the future, because your general skill comes through. Hopefully next time, the time or situation works better for you to go harder on your comic. Even still, nice work!
a fun short and sweet comic that showed excellent use of knowledge of how your opponent's character thinks and acts. The clever usage of your World's biggest X prompt resulted in a very funny and engaging first stop on the big road trip and I applaud you for great play on words and charlie catching on while hidoi is just doing quantum physics two try to make the math work.. the full color of the comic is also something I think should get extra attention since definetly helped the jelly bean gag come out smoother with color lol. great comic excited to see more!
a good setup and start for the comic but I think it could have used a few more panels of what they were doing there or a sign post saying what the "worlds largest x" is that they are visiting. from the comic I assume the worlds largest X is the pony/horse but I think I little more setup of charlie ptsd about the pony nightmares would have helped a little bit more with the punch line. the scenes with the pony nightmares made me giggle especially the knife death match at the end and I would have loved to see a little more of that explored further since I do think it was really a cute nightmare lol. still a solid entry for the first stop but hopefully we get a little interaction between hidoi and the next matchup
Oculama
Round One's Theme
WORLD'S BIGGEST X: A pizza, twine, a pumpkin, a swine. Whatever it is, we have the largest, and people flock from miles around to see it.
Comment posted: June 23rd, 2024 at 2:07 AM