Oculama

What a surreal comic, the mix of epic plotting with casual character work is fantastic. There's a ton of great gags in this, "the bus is becoming conceptual" especially standing out, but it still has a great ability to shift to real hard drama whenever it wants. Special Friend acting as a mentor without forgetting hard work is especially interesting. As a critique, there's a lot of lines in this comic with confusing or incorrect grammar. This makes the heady concepts and fantastical imagery sometimes very hard to parse, which unfortunately blunts the impact a bit. Still, it all works in the end! Lovely!

This introduction is so strong! I love the focus on the travel itself, the commitment to staying outside of the bus makes the trip feel grand. The characters are really well established, in just these little glimpses you get a ton of their personalities. Their dialog is snappy and their posing is perfectly dynamic, it's great. Although this comic may be unfinished, it's a great little beginning and certainly would lead to something wonderful. As a critique, the little spotblacks in this add just enough depth that the comic always looks interesting and never flat, but some hatching or tones might still be appreciated.

This is some CLEAN linework! I like how you've played a bit with the line work for the wider-shot panels, and the crisp legibility of your illustrations overall. Your backgrounds especially, of the desert and sky, look really nice. Character expressions look great, and I like how breezy you've made your opponent OCs look.

Art-wise my only qualm with the comic is that it feels a bit odd to show the Abberas speaking standing up while they are ostensibly inside the bus - the pose creates a bit of a disconnect, and showing yet another exterior bus shot, leading to four consecutive panels of exterior-only shots, does feel a bit repetitive in a way that doesn't lend much to the story.

I'm intrigued by the setup of having Special Friend be the one leading the roadtrip - it's a fun space within the theme that honestly hadn't occurred to me. It's a cool choice though, and of the OCs in this tournament, SF feels best equipped to take on the role. This is overall a very tidy setup - you've established the personalities of all the OCs involved quickly and clearly, and you keep ramping up excitement for what's going to happen all throughout.

Solid pages, and it's great to see Special Friend back in action!

(The Mondo Chili billboard and and mascot are so cute; makes me hungry for a good spicy bowl~)

Writing-wise, you are really shining with this R1 - the set-up of SF as Mehira's hero partner (then revealed to be stealth-mentor) is really intriguing, and the brainstorm is a really creative way to incorporate the round rules and add a (meta) physical dimension to the discussion of Mehira's goals. Your take on Special Friend is hammy, but appropriately so, and it makes the shift from hyping Mehira up to questioning/ testing her a bit more aggressively an unexpected and enjoyable twist without seeming implausible.

(I also like the bus driver's professional consternation with the brainstorm and with SF & Mehira not following the rules)

Story-wise, I would only recommend maybe taking another pass at the last two pages for clarity. I think without the context of who the characters are it might be a bit challenging for a reader to determine exactly what is going on in that conversation re: who exactly SF is speaking to.

Your compositions have always been striking, and this comic is no exception. The brainstorm sequence puts your sensibilities for layout on full display, and as illustrations of the conversation at hand, they are spot-on. Special love for the first page of brainstorm abstraction, and the shift from the high-angle shot of the wall on page 5 to the low-angle POV on page 6.

AWESOME stuff overall - you've really made the OCs shine :)

Ahh, the "Are we there yet", an immutable part of the road trip experience. While short, the comic was still fun to read, watching as the bored passengers traveled to their next destination. The art, while simple and colorless, still manages to be expressive and flow interestingly and also catch the appearance of each of the characters. My only real complaint is the lack of any actual interaction between the two characters, and that the comic seems to end just as it should be starting, as special friend hops off the bus and only looks at the big pepper sign.

The artwork for this gave me life! The lineart was very fun and bouncy, with an interesting overlay of panels throughout the comic. A lot of them flowed straight into one another, like on the second page where Special Friend looks around his shoulder, segueing into the panel with Mehira impatiently looking out the back window. Their interactions were also very fun! The World's Largest Brainstorm especially was a fun way to interpret the prompt for this round, and allowed for a fun psychedelic flow of panels. My only critique is that the lineart quality fluctuates throughout the comic, with some of them being crude sketches but others being more polished and easy to read. Great comic overall!

A solid beginning, but a beginning does not a story make. I have no idea where this is headed from this beginning. The artwork is not particularly exceptional and of course the requirement of reaching the bus is not reached. They barely even get off of it.
Iraja and Mehira are quite well characterized, though, for how little time we get to spend with them. I would likely have given it a much higher writing score if, again, it were finished.
But it is not.
I am sure you could have decreased the scope rather than leaving it unfinished. It is only four pages out of however many it would have been.

This is a truly exceptionally well written round. Mehira's optimism and journey to overcome her doubt are well executed, as is the dramatic nature and therapeutic expertise of Special Friend. The Brainstorm is a very good device to facilitate Special Friend forcing Mehira to face the challenges that lie ahead, and overcome them.
The art on the other hand, leaves a bit to be desired. It's hardly distracting, and you do seem to have a pretty good grasp of perspective, or at least a lot of ambition in that area, but your consistency of form leaves something to be desired.
Overall good round, can't wait to see where our heroine's journey next takes her.

his went from 0 to 100 so fucking fast its unreal, i love your paneling and exaggeration of environments, its very visually striking and makes the pivot to dark realization even more devastating and confusing. i love the way that special friend pivots from a perfect bestie to a grim bearer of truth, and the way that Mehira overcomes all that doubt is super wholesome and heartwarming, i love both of them so much, and this was a great exploration of what it means to actually be a good friend, telling people what they need to hear and not just what they want. loved this, excellent work <3

I dont have much to say in terms of critique, save that some pages (3 and 4 in particular) become a little more difficult to read without flat colors, but i understand this was most likely a symptom of time constraints <3

Very solid linework and extra special bonus points for "are we there yet!" lots of fun easter eggs,(loved badyear tires and oculama tours)
This seems like a wonderful start for an amazing comic, but i feel like its incomplete. I dont know the process, or real life obligations you may have faced while writing this comic, but stuff does come up, and its okay to scale back your expectations of yourself. I can tell that there were some great ideas at the backbone of this comic, and the pages that are here (assuming this work is incomplete) look great. Your backgrounds in particular really impressed me! great work <3

This is adorable. The lineart has this spontaneous energy while still managing to stay clean and readable, it's really visually satisfying. Even with just the first few pages here the characterization is strong, with Special Friend and Mehira both bringing in so much enthusiasm, I would have loved to see them interact in the rest of the comic. I also really like the idea of using Special Friend as the tour guide, it feels so right for the character and a great match for his cartoonishly positive energy. Also also appreciate how excited everyone is for the Big Pepper, it's exactly the kind of goofy concept I was hoping to see this round.

God this is such an ambitious comic, it dives straight into heavy drama but keeps a really bouncy pace and strong momentum. I love the way you used Special Friend as such an aggressively supportive mentor figure, it feels perfect for the relationship between the two. The art has so much going on and the overall concept leans into that nicely, enabling you to exaggerate everything to a surreal degree. At some points it can be hard to parse what's happening, but overall I think the raw energy makes up for that.and the rollercoaster pace keeps everything moving forward effectively. This builds up a really strong start to an ongoing story for Mehira.

Mondo Chili, Dude....

everything here is very clear and readable so for what we got there isnt much to say! wish there was more cause your comic style is interesting with how little panels per page there are on the pages present, i am not familiar enough with your other work to know if that would change, but! Still enjoyed what was there, and i do like the Mondo Chili, if it wasn obvious enough. It gives me Pizza Tower vibes, so its fun! More goats, more comic, more special friend! thats all i could ask for :-] hope you make more stuff!

good stuff, Xeno! glad to see more comics from you and good to see more of the Abbera family!

Just as a tip, as i am sure you were plenty strapped for time while you were making this, but i would still turn off the blue sketch layers or just turning them to black for the comic before you submit. Simply because you know that the end product will be either unfinished and / or incomplete theres just small levels of polish that still go appreciated, other than that i dont have much else to say! i really love the extreme angles you go for and how much you comit to using them to up the drama of your story

As always your inks never fail to disappoint. Clean crisp and the styling lends itself to showcasing your opponents in the best light. I especially love that you didn't bother with an interior scene of Iraja and Mehira chatting seated on the bus which would've been dull- you went all out with a superimposed full bodied page two. I'm also impressed with your environment and what's gotta be the best rendered bus I've seen so far in the tournament. For what we got, you left me bummed there wasn't more- I wanna see this Mondo chili! The signage hyped it up so much XD

Mehira you brave girl- and with a special friend besides! This was a charming read. I don't know if the dream or Mehira on her own inspired your experimenting with whimsical paneling and page composition but definitely keep at it! I loved the swooping panels and vertical use of your page. I think my favorite bit was the winding roadway interspersed with the lettering on the bottom of page two. It all really allowed for a flow of the narrative that felt as surrealist as the story.
I'm sorry to see the deadline got the better of you, because I felt you had a real flow going, but all in all nice work

Brother, I love your work. It's always a visual treat and regardless of whether finished or not, you have such a terrific sense of style. It's been a while and I forgot how much I've been craving some work from you lately. I'm sure life got in the way as usual - but I really do hope you can put out some more Special Friend comics in the future. I get the impression you've always had a soft-spot for him and I want to see you do more with him as well. Hopefully with a little more time to do that awesome work I know you can do. Next time!

This was super good. World's Largest Brainstorm is a really esoteric idea and it made for super intriguing visuals. I loved watching just how strange everything got with literal metaphors. I hope the next rounds of the tournament you can get as interesting as that, because it was just such a cool concept to play around with. The unfinished art is a bit of a bummer, but even with the sketches a lot of it comes across strongly and I really liked what you put forth. The story also worked perfectly for making a little bildungsroman. On the whole, good job!