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Comic completed on April 9th 2025

Prometheus

Good god. Having the dark horse Dan enter with their character work and narrative framing vs Myeth's Titanic compositional skills and story telling efficiency. This one was not an easy end result to come to for many reasons, Dan had so much built up coming into this, bringing along characters that they fought from every round and actually balancing the dynamic so that they didn't hog the spotlight. That in an of itself is an impressive feat. That and they had a great setup with the "Falling Forever" segments opening up and closing the round, making this a lovely round capped off in a satisfying way, it really does stand on its own in that regard. Full usage of the scrolling format as well!! Then having Myeth's comic, no time wasted, full FRONTAL character dynamic from frame one. Bumrush being a machine of a man, forever continuing forward without even a word spoken, seeing them framed as a freak within the caves is so fucking fun and seeing how each character sees Bumrush is so FUCKING COMPELLING. All to that ending bit, with the juice on the loose, free from the shackles of their speedo, AAA. That was an ending for the ages, that was a setup and payoff I never would have expected myeth to have ever gone for, and they went for it. Thats going to stick in my mind foreeeverrr and I think these, topped off with the gradient maps that double down on the tone, such efficient use of the lighting that perfectly composes each shot to maximize the emotions of each moment? it was so fucking GOOD, I think one of the only things that I could have even considered as a downside for either comic was that with Dan's comic, there was so much dialogue that it could kill the pacing of the story at times, reading felt like it would take longer than most of the scenes should and while I enjoyed every bit of Bumrush's new backstory, some moments werent allowed to read as fast as they should have been because of how much characters would be speaking during said moments.

MarcheTowersArt

Myeth, it was such an honor to go up against your big boy. I had an absolute blast coming up with a mysterious and meaninful story for Bumrush! i hope i did him justice by you and i hope you enjoy the story i crafted with him in mind.

i absolutely adore your entry so much i had to make one of the little ingas my new discord icon as well! incorparating my story with selby leading up to the bumrush encounter with one another brings such a smile to my face and i think you perfectly capture inga's desire to provide a witty and smarty pants explaination to bumrush's behavior! i think its so in character of them!

thank you so much for your round i look forward to both our futures as part of Oculama!

Piñata

@MYETh- Maaan, I do not envy the judge who has to flag a winner for this one. You two brought SUCH different energies and story to your comics, I find myself really unable to compare them to make a determination of my own. Really also enjoyed you minimal take on backgrounds. It's a fine line between creatively giving the air of a cavern chasm and just being avoidant of backgrounds altogether, but you managed a great balance that feels like it bookends the characters in the middle quite neatly. Your values and use of shadows do you credit- I especially loved the ominous look of Bumrushes back as he lumbers off into the cavern pit.

@MARSCHE- I'll be real, if all we saw was just your first long scroll page with your "where did they pull that out of??" lore dump on who Bumrush was before the sticky tendrils of the infinity chasm got him, I would've been happy. I LOVE when opponents take someone's character concept and just run with it. What a flex of creative storytelling muscles to whip up such a descent into...madness? fixation? simplicity? returning to monke? whatever the case, you took what could've just easily been portrayed as a gimmick character and really put some compelling meat on them bones. The fact there are MORE pages after this one is just an added treat.

Wolkemesser

@Marche - It's nothing to sneeze at, growing the party every round the way you've been doing it - juggling multiple main character OCs is both an illustration and writing challenge, but you're absolutely knocking it out of the park so far.

I'm loving what you've done with Bumrush in this comic - it's a lean-in to both the comedic and surreal aspects of the character, but with a tragic undercurrent now providing an extra dimension of flavor to both. The scholar Birmingham becomes, here, almost a bruce-banner-esque persona, either trapped by the Bumrush persona or, depending on how you look at it, protected from the harshness and loneliness of the chasm by the Bumrush persona.

Your bookend narration pages were treat! In addition to liking the story you wove for Bumrush, I found it very entertaining to enjoy the illustrations you embedded in the rocks (nice illustration work there, btw), showing his descent (hehe) into madness and bumrush.

I really dig Selby and Inga's growing dynamic in these comics - they play off each other's pressure points in an entertaining way while still feeling genuine in their efforts to help ne another, even if genuine intention doesn't always translate into actual assistance.

Finally, excellent job working with the tunnel space - the loop drop was very clever conceptually, and a terrific foreshadowing to Bumrush's revelation, and you executed the travel and fight in the horizontal fight really well, letting us sink our teeth into the space with a pretty economical level of detail.

Overall, smashing job! It's been a genuine thrill to watch Inga's party grow as their adventure unfolds! Thanks as always for sharing them with us :)

Wolkemesser

@Myeth - This whole comic really highlighted your skill with layout and splitting up panels - all the work you've put into comic-crafting shines through from top to bottom. It's the sort of panel partitioning that's so deftly done that you might not even realize how intricate it is while reading.

I love the stalagcite partitions up top, and the use of Inga's magic to insert an exposition illustration, but the cake has to go to the tunneling panels, both for how well you convey descent with largely horizontal divots in the negative space, and with how eerie that make Bumrush feel (I'm put in mind of the web horror "My Father's Long, Long Legs")

You capture some really great aspects of Bumrush in this round. He's a character that feels critically defined by both 1) how amusing he is, in action and concept, but also by 2) how unsettling he is, both in concept and action. The meat of the comic captures the former handily, Bumrush feels like a true cryptid, or uncommon natural phenomenon, which is neatly lampshaded by the salmon discussion that happens between Selby and Inga. Fascinating, but unsettling as well, which does a lot for the comic.

And then of course, the ending reminds us that, for all that, he really is an enjoyably ludicrous OC.

I got a HUGE laugh out of the ending - Inga's look of utter disgust/ bewilderment followed immediately by the panel of the pitch darkness of the chasm with Bumrush's skivvies hanging nobly on the branch were a real one-two gutbuster hit combo.

Great work on a brisk and truly entertaining comic; Bumrush's story has been rock-solid so far.

Voting is closed.

Prometheus

(ive got a more in depth review of the comics im going to be making in the Comments/Oculama Disc. so im going to be using this section to gush about each respective comic for a bit)

DUDE<>..AAA OKAY so THE ADAPTATION TO THE NEW SCROLL FORMAT TO MATCH THE OPPONENT WAS DONE SO WELL, THE WAY THIS ENTIRE COMIC IS FORMATTED TO SCROLL FUCKING PERFGECTLY IS GENUINELY BAFFLING, HOW DO YOU DO IT?>??

AND NOT JUST THAT BUT THE FACT THAT YOU CAN SO EFFORTLESSLY HAVE PERFECT READABILITY **AND** THESE MOMENTS OF JUST BEING THE FUNNIEST FUCKING COMIC MAN AAAA DUDE THAT ENDING DROVE ME IN S A N E. I COULD NOT GET OVER THAT MOMENT THAT IS GOING TO STICK IN MY MIND FOREVER WHEN I THINK OF THIS TOURNEY.

The fact that BUMRUSH is not just moving toward something but seems to have some kind of freaking goal in mind for what they're gonna do at the bottom of the cave SCARES ME, and the fact that you sell the unease through that awesome gradient mapping and colors is fantastic, perfect for bouncing back and forth between the mystery of what Bumrush is doing and build up of Tension and the comedy of Inga and Selby just following them? God. It really pulls it all together into looking like a comic i could print out and post on a wall

I cannot imagine a better round out of these two and i am so happy i got the comics out of it that i do i truly take my hat off to both of you for having such great, dynamic comics

Prometheus

(ive got a more in depth review of the comics im going to be making in the Comments/Oculama Disc. so im going to be using this section to gush about each respective comic for a bit)

THE CYCLICAL WAY YOU START OFF THE COMIC INTO THE ENDING EIT THEM FALLING FOREVER DOWN I FUCKING LOOOVE THAT FRAMING ITS SO FUN AND IT WRAPS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL BOW ON A ROUND.

ITS SO GOOD AND HAVING EVERYONE YOU FOUGHT PLAY A PART IN THIS IS SO COOL AND YOU BALANCE IT WELL AS TO NOT MAKE THE CAMEOS FEEL SUFFOCATING AAAA

I really do love that a great part of the round is focused almost entirely on establishing WHO BUMRUSH IS as a character, as a person-- Giving them an entire fucking backstory that shows them going more and more insane and becoming the man they are today is so fucking sweet i really do love it, balancing that with the LOVELY SELBY INGA DYNAMIC??

The comic even looks different from the other ones and i notice the way the small changes really help it in my view, i love the way this comic reads and as usual you really work with the scrolling format of your pages to have a lot of room for great character moments AAA.

DAN COMICS ARE SO FUCKING COOL THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME SUCH A HARD FUCKING MATCHUP TO JUDGE ITS ONE OF THE GREATEST FEELINGS AS A JUDGE!!! I really had no idea what to expect from you coming in but giving me such charming character moments and action.