Oculama

I've come to enjoy that your work has a signature style to it with its sepia tone pages and almost photobashed background environments. Which I know isn't the case cuz I see you drawin em! You couldn't of known your opponents would have a bit of trouble during this first round, but it almost seems like the planets aligned because we as readers really got to get an introduction and unique take on One-Seven and Vinzent through your own comic lens. Their banter and relationship as they hunt the island? facility on a chunk of earth? Not to mention a really awesome showcase of their abilities and what they can do. I especially enjoyed One- Seven's shadow powers, but if there was one critique I have its that Vinzents flashbang feels like it bled into the background as it was the same tone. as your base white. For a pair of dudes just shootin the breeze while they searched, the dialogue between these two, down to the conflict was really compelling. Definitely be proud over that fascist soldier line.

I'll be honest, this is a tough one to crit as behind and before the curtain I'm aware of things that make for a tough position for you AND the folks giving this comic a looksee. You had to bow out due to real life obligations, you had three weeks to work something in which I'm thrilled that there is a comic to critique with something of a cheeky message of 'I don't think I will." I'll be the first to say this definitely beats a default and I am fully bummed such a compelling character is resolved to keep us from delving in deeper into who they are and what they're made of. I certainly hope you do find the time to dive into another tournament or battle with another artist because I'm itching to see more of your work.

I am so curious to know what art program you're using to make your comics. At this point I worry your 'medium' is hamstringing you from making your comics. There is such a rigid, 'constrained by the tools' feel to your drawing and framework think you'd be better served working traditionally as there is more of a freeflow working with something as reliable as a pencil to paper. I WISH your comic looked like your third panel on page 2 throughout. That has such a clean graphic look. There are more promising elements here. You begin with an ambitious establishing shot, but based off the following page I'm uncertain if we're moving the camera to the interior of the train or on top of it. Because the figures on the train are little more than dots, I think a secondary panel within your establishing shot leading to where you want would help with some clarity.

Bummer you couldn't get a whole comic in, especially because that first page looked so promising! I did like the idea of the using the Edgerunners visual language for the time slowdown, it's unfortunate that I can't tell what's happening after. I know it can be a lot of work finishing one of these by deadline and life can get in the way. Hopefully for your next battle you're able to give it your all!

Knowing the time crunch you had within our deadline, this is CRAZY work! Every comic of yours I read, it's easy to tell just how many comics you must work on. Storytelling seems to come naturally to you, your comics always have a good grounding to whatever sometimes silly things are happening. Their dialogue sounds like people actually having a conversation. You're really good at... I guess you'd call it the acting? The way you pose your characters, the way they move, the expressions they make, it all helps to display their personalities. It's also super clear you have a good sense of where to put the work and details in and where to be more spare so you can tell your whole story in the time you have. It's a sense of focus and time management I envy! I'm excited to see what kind of terrifying anime monster King will be next ♥

Bummer you couldn't do a comic for this! It's nice you had something to submit, a bit of a sendoff for your character if nothing else, I suppose. Life happens, and I know how hard it is to get a project like this done in the deadline. It's just unfortunate because the few panels we do have look like they could have been part of a cool story! It almost gives me Saturday morning cartoon assassin vibes, like these are stills from a show. Hopefully your next battle you're able to give it your all!

Johann - I gotta say , your comic has left me wanting more. The first page started off okay, but I had a hard time following what was going on in the second page just by judging by the visuals. Thankfully the script kind of gave me the gist of what's going on. I assume you've ran out of time hence the lack of polish. It was a shame as I would've loved to see a train heist comic between these three!

Eric - the degree of polish you have with each of your comic never ceases to amaze me. I know I kept on repeating myself but I truly can't believe you haven't published your own comic at this point. You've drawn the characters beautifully. I am impressed by the amount of care and detail you put into each of them. The story is captivating as always, full of tense moments between the combatants. I did wish we got a bit more of what happened with Sirius. though it can be safely assumed that he perished. Amazing job as always.

Spartanart - I got mixed feelings on this one. The obvious one would be me wishing that we saw One-Seven fight for survival. I've always been intrigued by him and I love his design/concept. I thought he's such a cool character. I would've loved to see more of him. The comic has definitely left me wanting more, but I did like the delivery of what you are trying to convey, even though I didn't like the message/outcome lol.

Ahhh my greatest weakness, proper nouns. Fully on me as the reader and who I am, but a silly observation that when names start getting dropped I get lost FAST and gotta re-read a couple times baha. SO! Understanding it all now I can say with confidence this is REALLY FECKIN' GOOD!!! I don't tire of your artwork, the wonderful use of blackspots, line weight and width being on point and especially your interpretations of opponents. My favourite part of OCTs is the interpretations and you always do that phenomenally, especially here with Sirius and Nicky, AND the conduit blade as well. You commented on my lack of backgrounds before I can see why 'cause yours both look beautiful and really add to the vibes your conjuring in this comic, looking DESOLATE and ABANDONED as hell. At the same time you also understand when to hold off, Page 5 being void of any real background still feels so solidly grounded in the room.

The action with those foreshortened angles and striking posing/imagery (Page 6 final panel a highlight for me) are super nice, though I don't know whether it's my monitor or eyes but the crosshatching and uhhh I forget the specific word for the patterns used to simulate colour in black and white ANYWAYS that at somepoint made the lineart hard to make out, leading to a fair bit of noise where clarity was lost. Some of the panels with Sirius' face for instance. Dialogue flowed pretty dang good! These two really feel like storied mercenaries/assassins, with banter back and forth that was joyus to read. I'd say a tad too much dialogue felt like it was spent on exposition, but it still flowed naturally and was not a bore to read. I also get a kick out of "I can stomach the taste of leather to go home again", one of those character encapsulating lines.

This. Is. Tonnes. Of. Fun. Full and Stop. A... FAT fuckin treat put at the end that has me real REAL curious to see where this story goes. Woot woot!!!

I'm hesitant to write but I must to vote, I fear something may have gone wrong with the upload? I see only three panels. Strick this review from the record if something's gone wrong I suppose. Still, with what's here I'm reminded of your great artistic talent, blackspots and colour used very well and uhh... well that's all I can see so uh I gotta fill up the rest of this thing hope you get it fixed if it's borken otherwise ignore meeeeeee!!!

An unfinished comic I presume, the great horror that faces all us OCT-ers, I sympathize. Still, with what's here I see a good deal of creativity and understanding of colours, how you've represented the Acceleration Mode, that looks very nice with the shifting array of tones. Narratively I unfortunately found myself lost, had to re-read the comic a few times to understand (I believe I do now). With that, rather than having the character explain verbally how they might've tricked Veil, paid ahead of times and so on, you could have a page or two before and after, showing the deal itself beforehand and Veil's survivors reporting to their supervisor or such as they shake their fist for paying before the job and so on. Just a bit of context to support the tale being weaved. A shame it couldn't be completed in full, but I see potential within this entry, and if you continue I'd hope to see a fully realized comic! Keep making things!!

This has promise as an action setpiece, but it is catastrophically incomplete. Your art is not particularly good on the best of days, but it would be nice to have a polished piece for once. The writing has more promise, but it's hard to track what's happening at any given time, and the story being compressed as it is only makes things more confounding.
You do have one extremely cool panel, though. the acceleration mode panel is badass.

The dynamics are fun and realistic. I have to wonder what the job your opponents were on was.
The design reinterpretations are on point, as they were in Double Black Diamond. The only gripe is that your character didn't really get in on the action.
King's deal was unclear in Double Black Diamond, and I was hoping to have it elucidated in this round.
I was disappointed, but even with that disappointment, this is a near-exemplary round. Congratulations!

This is clearly the beginning of something else, but on it's own merits it barely qualifies as a round.
Every aspect of it is finished, polished even.
There's just not much of it.
There's no story, and there's no inclusion of your opponents.
The quietness of the scene is atmospheric, and would likely provide a good base for a dramatic or action filled story to follow, a nice calm to prelude a storm, but on it's own it is nothing but doldrums.

I would've liked to have seen more but life happens. The art makes this comic a little hard to follow and I think it takes away from the jokes a little bit as well. It looks like you did backgrounds first and while they are important for establishing panels it's paramount to get the characters fully drawn first as they're what we'll be focusing on most alongside dialogue. While I could tell who was saying what I had to stop and stunt the flow of the comic to decipher it at some points especially in the last panel.

I'm a bit torn, I want to rate this higher under the circumstances you had with doing this in a week, I still feel the need to judge this as a three week comic and even then this is an impressive showing. The way you implemented your opponents was spectacular, using elements from both their backgrounds and making it feel natural in the setting you provided, it's what I love to see from original character tournaments in general. One small critique was that lore dump at the beginning while necessary, was a bit much. That much exposition at the beginning of anything lowers my hype a bit but the ending more than made up for it.

Honestly this one got me a bit. I was genuinely confused and thought there was more to it but the comic's description says it all. Once the confusion wore off I was able to enjoy the comic as it was. I know you were doing double time on this so I was anticipating one of the comics to suffer I half waited in curiosity to see if you'd be crazy enough to do both as I do believe you are indeed insane and skilled enough to pump out two full comics in three weeks. I can say from experience that working on two comics at once rarely pans out, but I'm glad you put out something for this.

Bit of the pot calling the kettle black here coming from me, but I think honestly hitting your comics in strict phases would help you alot to improve. as I think honestly youve got the ability to write good dialogue down pact and that panel of kings slowing ability is how atleast to me I see you wanting your comic style to look so I think just tryin to hit the whole page like that instead of some of the figures being draw in full and the rest being wire frames just sacrifice the fully done body parts and try to get them all to a recognizable point. the old first try then dropping the opacity and going again and then trying for a final pass did loads for me when I was starting out back in W4R. always happy to see your comics though :D

honestly I didnt have spy movie style, backstab face off, featuring a shadow hitman and cat space rebel fighter on my bingo card but im here for it lol! I got a little lost in the sauce of the prologue but after I read it I was able to follow whats going on and my prior knowledge of jhawks character helped as well. I think 17 is my only headscratcher just because of how he went out from his fight in the contract to being back changed is a bit strange( kinda the same for Sirius but only cause he got his head ripped off and I woulda loved to see that handled lol ) the face off and the fight are both intense and short which works really well for the noir feeling your comics has which is done wonderfully. I know we all got slapped by time but i think you left off on a really good point for part 2 and im interested to see how the story progresses

maaann im so sad didnt get more of 17 cause your first entry was so badass. cool choice to keep with the lore of his defeat and I totally vibe with the killer tired of killing. Im just sad we didnt get to see a return of that really great action from the previous or a little interaction with the opponents ( which I assume is cause of time) but hopefully in the future well get to see more of 17 dealing with trying to come back to life! cool artstyle as always!