Oculama

As I understand it, you learned a lot with this particular tournament. That in itself is an excellent skill to have, so be proud of yourself there. From what you submitted, I can see you had the seeds of a big idea and I love how you draw your own character. Angelica has a great look and I'd love to battle her if I get a chance.
I hope that this whole experience doesn't discourage you! Looking at what you're capable of doing and the fact you did around 22 pages really shows you have a passion for this. You should regroup and submit a new character to the site to participate in other parts of the site. That passion is really appreciated and valued immensely! Good work!

I feel like I got an education in something very specific to your interests - a world I know nothing about at all! All of that made for a super interesting read and I'm excited to see more of this world in the coming rounds. The blue pen coloration is a really great choice visually, but I would appreciate some more solid colors to help break it up a bit, making your action a bit clearer to read. This was an awesome return to form and I hope we get a lot more Tofu action soon! Great work!

WOO! You're really putting the "game" in "death game" with this comic. I like the TV game show quality of this setup, and it injects a liveliness into your round one comic that shines among the other entries.

The game setup is quite interesting - I had to give it a second read-though to fully get the rules, but I like that the cooperative/ competitive angle gets played up, and it's interesting to put the deaths of any given character both in their hands and their opponent's hands - that's not so unusual for any type of tournament story, but the autonomy of the OCs feels nicely emphasized here.

(Speaking of I am enthralled with both Wave and Angelica's faces on page 4 - I can't quite tell if Wave has comprehended the stakes of the game by this point in the round, and Angelica looks some...wonderfully placid as the blood splatters. Placid but not quite at peace. GREAT expression work here).

And on the topic of expressions, actually, I really like the switch Angelica makes from showing a rather blase face while clapping across from wave, to the absolutely intense game face she shows when Wave slips up.

Nice prose work throughout as well - the final line of narrated text - "fucking simple song" - is an incredibly powerful punctuation on an otherwise light-hearted feeling comic, and the sudden seriousness of the tone kicking in at the end is quite powerful.

I got a real kick out of this comic - one of the best juxtapositions of a sunny/ upbeat setting against the stark horror of the murders taking place.

First-off, I like the intergalactic criminal angle going on with Angelica; it's very fun inof itself, and feels like it promises some enjoyable context-enrichment to the death game theme of this tournament.

You do a good job setting up an enticing bit of intrigue into Angelica's backstory. Her character profile already hints at something from her past that she's desperate to flee from, and the exchange with the warden(?) only deepens my desire to learn more about her. That the action fades right from that talk to the death game is itself intriguing too, and I'm curious about how her troublemaking in the prisons might have led to her being caught in the game.

Equally intriguing are the cast of contestants (or cannon fodder, as the case may be) that you put in the room with Angelica and Wave to kick things off; between the neat designs and the stated professions of each, I find myself very intrigued how a death match between all these folks might play out.

Overall really good job establishing personalities just within the confines of the comic itself. We feel Angelica's anger and fear acutely in the intro pages, and Wave comes across as good-hearted but hapless without ever saying a single word - not an easy thing to pull off, put decidedly accomplished here in a mere two panels!

Art-wise, a terrific job with the facial expressions - it's mostly rage, disappointment, or fear going on here, but you fill your characters' faces with so much of each that the reader really fells it in the gut.

Very compelling comic overall - you've accomplished making the reader hungry for more information on Angelica, and set the stage for what promises to be an interesting first round of death.

Augh if only you had that 1 more day to finish off that ending panel. Really good work here. I'm impressed with the route that you went with this one, I feel like youre hitting more of that squid games shit more than anyone else, which works perfectly for Wave. Although I think that with such a focus on what the game is we lose a bit of interaction between the two characters. We get to see alot of Wave and learn more about their personality but I feel like Angelica takes a back seat. Just something to look out for in the future. I also really love the hatching you do for everyones hair, it's a little thing but when i was reading the comic i was just like yeah thats some nice hair. Great Job wonderful comic

Damn Grove you were really trying for something big here, I know you said in death games chat that you had like 20+ pages to go, which is god damn thats alot. You already know, gotta pace yourself and take on a smaller challenge next time. So for what youve got here I'll talk on. Something for the long run, I'd suggest doing all your text online, you'd save some time from writing it all out physically and will be easier to read overall, it was good here but for the future if you get something a bit more talky some digital font will be great. you've got some good lineart going on, I would have enjoyed seeing some more backgrounds but time gets in the way of that. All in all if you had given yourself a more attainable target this wouldve been a scary round. All a learning curve anyways, im sure next time you'll hit someone real hard.

Tofu - Way to go including more than your opponent! I thought that was commendable. I also thought that the host had a pretty cool design. I kinda wanted to see more of them lol.

This is a unique premise for a Death Game tournament, quite unexpected in a good way. Though admittedly, I was very confused by the rules of the game at first. Took me a second read to finally grasp it. Your art is pretty solid and your style is cute but the quality noticeably dipped towards the end from what I can only surmise is due to the time constraints (understandably so!). Overall a pretty solid entry!

00Groove - I love the intro that gave us a glimpse of Angelica's situation and how exactly she got herself into the clutches of this Death Tournament. Not too much exposition but enough to keep me intrigued! I love the grayscale shading that you did. I wish you were able to do it on all the pages. I felt that the comic was too short and it seemed incomplete as we did not get to see Wave's demise in the story. It left me wanting so I am definitely looking forward to seeing more from you!

Very playful and charming comic! I liked the Pop-idol game show becomes Death Games, really fun twist with that!
I thought you had some strong paneling and layouts for your first few pages! Though as the comic went on, it became a little harder to follow what was happening.
I'd really like to find out what happens beyond page 7! I understand the time constraints can be a challenge, but what you had going was really fun.
I hope after voting ends you submit more of the comic.
Thank you for sharing!

Your first two pages of this comic really got me interested into what you were leading up to! A nice start! Good use of Page transitions between the conversation and the start of the death game.

The characters are a little floaty in the last page without a background in the page at some point to anchor them in.
I do hope after voting you submit a finished comic, I'd like to see where you were going with everything!
Thank you for sharing what you had though!

I was a little surprised to not see a death occur. I get setting up is important and that you only had enough time to ink 4 pages but I think you should've added the other pages anyway. I would've loved to have seen where this was going even if it looks messy. I'm confused by your choice to include a bunch of npcs alongside Wave and Angelica. In a week long death tourney it just feels like a strange decision to divide your character's page time with a bunch of characters that weren't required, but I also don't know where you were going with this so I do hope you finish this battle later cuz it looks like you were cooking something interesting.

I love how this starts with the revelation that Wave is an inmate, an inmate with big dreams! That piqued my curiosity quite a bit and it made me truly invested in your character and what his deal is. The game itself seemed to be a little overcomplicated. I'm not sure I really understand it still, but keeping it a simple rhythm/balance game with the loser falling to their death would've probably served you better. I also would've loved to have seen you put in more interaction between Wave and Angelica, but that might just be me being greedy.

Excellent work on this comic. It's a shame the quality peters out at the final two pages, but thankfully there's enough there to still clearly see what's going on. While I really liked the general concept of the game, I'll admit that even after a few reads I get a bit lost by page 5 as to why exactly Angelica has the upper hand, and also why she suddenly doesn't. Maybe something was lost on the final pages after all... The callbacks to Wave's past training as an idol were done really well and hit at some great character stuff to dig into deeper in future rounds.

It seems like your idea was far too ambitious for the time you were given, and unfortunately this comic doesn't function very well in it's current state. If it were me, i would have prioritized more of the pages that focused on Angelica and Wave interacting rather than polishing up a prologue sequence with a random goblin character, when it became clear time would be an issue. I saw on discord that you had heaps of penciled pages that were probably just as legible as these digital ones. Perhaps in future you could just upload those instead of drawing every page twice.

I really liked your story concept! Your paneling is okay but I feel it could be polished up a bit with a ruler (if you’re doing this traditionally for the most part). It got a little bit confusing at the end since the sketches weren’t as clear, but I think I got the main gist of it. I’d love to see what you do with a little more time under your belt. Keep up the good work!

Right off the bat, I’d say try to experiment with fonts next time, see if you can find a style you like. The freehanded text is a bit uneven, with varying line weights, so it’s not very uniform. I’m unsure what program you create in, but I suggest practicing the smoothness of your text bubbles if you want to do them by hand, otherwise a beveled or a very rounded rectangle would work. You can experiment! Also I’m guessing you ran out of time since your opponent isn’t shown dying in your comic, and things happen so don’t worry too much, but that’s kind of important for a death tourney. Try to work on adding a few background details here and there, it can do wonders when setting up a scene.

This is the first comic i think i have ever seen of yours! And i am excited to say it was more than an enjoyable experience!! Your page layouts have a fun and lively energy to them, flowing well with these very dynamic page compositions that still maintain readability and that is always an impressive feat to capture in any comic! Its a shame some of the pages are so sketched, this comic would have looked spectacular if it at least didn't have the sketch lines still showing, but for what its worth i still believe this comic maintained more than enough strengths to secure my vote!

its a shame you could not have got ten your comic done before the dead line, since this is such a small part of the over all story i am not certain in my ability to judge it accurately and assess its strengths properly but from what is here i think the pages could be better composed. Theres often large empty spaces where the subject/ characters take up such little space, or only exist in one corner of a larger panel.

Wave is such a charmer. Once they wake up there's such a warmth to him that feels very disarming for a death game tourney XD It's interesting to see how gregarious and even sympathetic he is trying to save other contestants once the pit of spikes rears its ugly head.
I'll admit the game as depicted as is a tough follow ^^; and considering it was rhythm and audio based, getting that across via a comic form where you can't quite get rhythm across and can't use audio makes for a tough concept. I think its great you're pushing the readers past western boundaries and introducing new games, gimmicks and ideas. Heck, Squid Games gained notoriety for very much the same, but the explanation for their games were simplified and straight forward.

Happy round 1 of the Death Games! I hope the experience lights a fire to do more comics :D I can see you had ambitious plans but the breakneck deadline got the better of you.
With the tight deadline and the plethora of characters introduced in this tournament alone, I'm puzzled as to why there are new characters being introduced. This round 1 felt like an ideal time to introduce your character and let us know who she is as Angelica (and opponent) are the people we care about, but I feel by the time I got to the last page I knew less about her than when I came in because time was given to this new supporting cast.
Establishing, pacing and narrative are really tough aspects to pin down in comics, but its great you had lofty aspirations going in. I'll be doubly curious to see what you can attain given enough time to make any future sequential opus come to life.

I absolutely adore the novel setup of this death game as an idol competition and then using really unassuming tests and competition for eliminating people. While I followed the premise of the singing game, I had a bit of trouble with the portion about the safe and unsafe rounds, so I wasn't sure how Angelica accidentally got herself out.

The art feels understandably rushed given the one week deadline, but some of the panels are really great like Angelica reaching for the buzzer. You're really ambitious with action and shots, like the one of Marybelle hitting the buzzer in the foreground, which shines through even in sketches. I like your tall narration boxes, though be careful with how you break up the text (like on the last dialogue box) since it can be hard to fit that much English text vertically.

Fun comic! I'm eager to see how the idol game aspect carries forward. The undercurrent of the brutality of the industry is a great backdrop for a death game.

I love your lead-in for this. Starting off after everything already happened and then flashing back to the death tourney is fantastic. Though if you'd had time to finish, introducing so many named side characters could be difficult to juggle (though I do love a dramatic set of character introductions, it's always really fun). Handwriting your text can be difficult, especially digitally, but I recommend making extensive use of guidelines if you're going to hand letter so it remains easy to read. That or making a font with your own handwriting for the regular text and then doing the different stuff by hand. Though that's more of a future planning thing.

Running out of time happens to everyone, especially in this short of a time frame, so don't sweat it.