Oculama

telling an online story visually like this is always fun and really stretches the creative muscles, and i think you do it well! but while i love your style, there definitely could be more of it here, as the sparse few illustrations there are often a little too small and scrinkly for my comfort. that especially manifests on page 3, which is so dispersed, and cuts off so suddenly when art does happen, that i was left wondering if this was meant to be an infinite scrolling format comic that got cut up in the uploading! using luke's fundamentalism like this is super fun, but dropping rule 3 was a little disappointing because i feel like him sitting in the theater covered in lamps works super well as a one-off visual gag, but calling attention to it kind of undermines its cleverness. that's made up in spades by the final punchline though. now his timeline has become immaculate. great work!!

this is a fun story! clyde's poster got me, though i do gotta say, frontloading the comic with all of these background details and visual gags and then ceasing with them after that does make the rest of the comic feel a little empty. i think your cartoony style looks good, but not being colored, it does lack a lot of visual interest. even though most panels are pretty well and packed with foreground content to look at, it still reads as pretty austere, without any patterns or that grayscale for the most part. and it definitely doesn't do your more abstract panels, like on the bottom of page 3, any favors; switching up the style a little would really make them pop! and to be far more nitpicky, i think pg2pn2 is a little clunky with "meanwhile, in the past," as funny as that phrase inherently is, just for a short cutaway gag. even if without it, it's not 100% clear this is the past instead of his imagination, i think it would work anyway. but besides all that, this comic definitely works, and it's written well! exploiting claymore's fish-out-of-water status (hey look a thematically appropriate pun) making him an easy target for a cult is very clever.

Excellent humor here, Pepper; the shout-outs are cute and amusing, and the cult is amusingly, unnervingly earnest about horrible, horrible stuff. I don't know what it is exactly, but Luke Peters is the perfect uncanny valley of clean-cut mania. My big note is just some minor stuff re: art consistency. Claymore trips in the grass at the end, but then is on the blacktop? The gag still lands, but I do lose a bit of focus. I feel like too many of the panels on page 3 have blank backgrounds as well; not a huge issue, but might make it a bit more visually engaging. You've made Claymore REALLY endearing here, so bravo on the use of your opponent as well. All around solid comic.

This is such an interesting conceit for a showdown! I love the formatting on the online argument, and Luke's just completely off the walls logic. Claymore is really sweet too; so earnest TT ^ TT I felt genuinely bad for him for having to get so riled up at the end!

One area that I found a bit distracting was the eraser tool/paintbrush used to make space for Luke's text over the colored patches of the panels; maybe a more uniform/cleaner backdrop for those words?

The layouts were otherwise really good; the flow on the huge splash panels looked really nice, and captured the chaos of chat battle.

Really like the opening showcasing some of the other contestants through direct cameos and little nods. The church trying to convert Claymore also works really well as both the point of conflict and a way to further flesh out the organization. I've been really interested in seeing where you decided to go with the Church of Lux in the long run. Nothing visually really stuck out as a problem except the fact the basement is a little featureless (would have been great to see some more church propaganda or something). I've gotta say though, the colour page at the end was really the highlight for me and does a great job of using a long page to kind of "unroll" the final joke.

I absolutely love using conflicting online reviews as the "fight" here. Claymore continues to be wonderful in these little slice of life stories. The idea the Luke literally brings lights into the theatre absolutely got me and Claymore reacted perfectly. Working in Lux's commandments worked great an really sold the feeling of two people arguing past each other in the meaningless comments section of some random reviewing website. Ending it all with Claymore getting high roaded and blocked felt so jarringly realistic. The only thing better was Claymore's realization that they were getting heated over just a simple movie review.

Excellent work on this comic! The story feels very sleek and polished, with some great establishing shots, some good grey tones and very clean readable lines. The early pages are absolutely packed with sight gags and tournament in-jokes, which is really great to see and very healthy for the OCT on a broad level so I hope more people (myself included) can follow your lead.

This story went way harder than I expected way quicker! Luke has always been very overtly dogmatic in his belief, but the cheerful destruction of a totem, and by extension a reality was shockingly genocidal! I don't think it's a bad direction for the character to go by any stretch, though i guess it serves as a point of contrast between comic religions and real world religions. Religions are full of raptures and events of mass death and destruction, but as I understand it, mormons, christians, catholics, et cetera, get around it with an idea that living in the physical world on some level, just plain doesn't matter. It's all a big 'test' to prep you for the REAL existence in the kingdom of heaven or what have you. A diehard convert can look at the deaths of millions and be happy that God is simply testing their faith, while in this conversation, it feels like there's more of an implication that Luke understands dying on "earth" DOES matter, he just doesn't care about THOSE people. This is extremely minor and also may be completely redundant, as real world religion analogies already fall apart when Mother Lux very demonstrably DOES exist in a very easily-pointable way, so I'll try and shift the topic...

I'm a big fan of the KER-CHEKOV gag: A very good example of the sarcastic meta humour I've come to expect from your comics. The pacing is really good, the characters all get some great moments to shine and Claymore feels really well explored in this quick foray.

If there's one point to make from an art perspective, I'd love to see some more ambitious perspectives and panels employed. For example, the establishing panel of Claymore at the Lux group meeting would benefit from a more high angle shot showing more of the ring of chairs and surrounding environment than what we have. The comic employs a lot of chest and knee cut-offs, which are effective, but can become samey once you notice.

A highly inventive "conflict" on display here! The gag of Luke with the huge fluro light in the cinema immediately hooked me. I think more could have been done to strengthen the fakeout of the grubzilla attack being a movie by sizing up the first two panels. In fact, I would say a lot of the panels could be squeezed a tad closer together as they feel very s p a c e d at times.

While i said the conflict was inventive before, there are some drawbacks to just a text heavy form of argument in a comic medium! Maybe if it was styled a bit more as the characters "speaking" their reviews to the reader in a kind of fourth-wall-breaky way (only after the initial internet comment format is firmly cemented in) it could be more engaging? I liked the loss of panels in the later pages. Sometimes comps like that are hard to pull off, but you've done really well here. Feels like I have much less to say here, but I had one runaway paragraph above... All in all, excellent work!

PEPPER- You are utterly blowing me away with your unexpected comics. Just when I think I have your formula pegged, you come into round two of this tournament with some Looney Tunes caliber hijinks. You had me at 'woop woop woop'. The fact poor Claymore loses the fish anyway by the end was the last well earned snort, XD

I also especially dug your tie in's to the previous round and other character like Didi and Clyde. It's stuff like this I personally enjoy because your comic isn't living in a vacuum. The events are alive and well mingling with everyone else battling it out. I notice all those peppered in details wane by the end of your comics, which I can only assume is attributed to the deadline- its a tight one to pack it all in, in a week! but even so your efforts should be praised. Great work.

LUVAM- I'm so amused Claymore not only had a wholeass internet argument on a movie review site, but that it culminates in utter and abject frustration XD Mood, Clay, mood. What a neat tearaway from the usual meet cute formula! We're so accustomed in tournaments like these for the character to meet in some way in order to have conflict, but you took it in a creative side road I was happy to follow along with.

The balance of showcasing your opponent while also giving us more of your own character is such a tightrope walk, but I'll admit by the end of it, I feel I got to know Luke more than Claymore. I was itching for more content and expansion on the character after Clay gets blocked!

Pepper - OMG this was great! I love the Brothers Grimm cameo at the beginning as a nod to Claymore's previous match as well as all those posters in the wall with various references to other Oculama characters! It's always neat to see how artists interpret the Junction/Apotheos/Null Space/Totem lore of the site and how the multidimensional denizens deal with it. I laughed so hard at that last panel on page 4. Gawd...what an ending. Backgrounds seem mostly absent on page 3 but that really feels like I am nitpicking at this point. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks for the laughs!

Luvam - Well you two are really making it hard to vote for this match. Again..what a hilarious premise and story. The all too familiar internet argument/disagreement being blown out of proportion. This was a unique take on an actual battle and is super creative in my opinion. Also, Luke bringing a big ass fluorescent light to the theater was so frikkin funny I am surprised no one kicked him out on the spot lol. I think some borders on those IMs by Claymore on page 5 would've separated each message better. Again, what a great and hilarious comic! Well done!

Ugh what a fun comic! I love how you continued Claymore's story right from the end of his comic last round. You even had a few fun cameos in there! You did a great job establishing your scenes and had some really fun visual gags. You did a super job of giving Claymore really fun expressions and made him easy to ready, even without your typical humanoid face. (His surprise in page 1 panel 3 is v cute, for example) That last panel on page 4 of Claymore running away is also hilarious. I think maybe a few of your panels seemed a bit sparse (pages 3 and 4 barely had any bgs), but I'm guessing that's more due to time crunch than anything else.

I love getting more and more hints about the Luxite religion and Mother Lux's inevitably horrific ideals and deeds. And that ker-chekov gag! So funny! Your writing is great, this comic was a real treat to read, this was one of my favorite matches of this round!

What a fun and goofy way to introduce conflict between two characters that are- by Junction's standards anyways- more "just normal dudes." And hot damn, full color on these deadlines is nothing to sneeze at! I love the way you illustrated their fight in the comment section, it's a smart way to get that across (and saved on having to do a lot of detailed backgrounds, GENIUS). I think some of your pages were a bit sparse, but that comes with the territory of these small deadlines.

The idea of Luke bringing a ton of bright lights into a movie theater is very funny, and so is his proselytizing in a comment fight, and then deciding to just block Claymore. I think we've all been Claymore at the end of a fight with some random jerk on the internet. SPeaking of, Claymore is just so cute and expressive! I love how you illustrate his different moods, from the end of page 1 where he's loving the movie, to the bottom of page 4 where he discovers who he's arguing with. Great job on this, this was one of my favorite matches this round!

This is a really fun comic Pepper. I was so worried that you gave Claymore a gun at the start haha I'm glad to see it wasn't for anything bad. There's not much bad I can say about this comic I really enjoyed all of it, would've been fun to have seen the entire comic in colour but honestly thats not a big deal at all, what you got here is really good. You fully killed the comedy in this, the WOOP WOOP WOOP panel just sent me only for Claymore to trip right after and kill the fish. RIP Fish btw they didnt need to die, but it was funnier that they did. Great job Pepper.

This is easily the wildest comic on oculama right now. Like I would just love to know what popped into your head that made you think yes this fight will take place entirely on twitter and both characters are going to argue over Grubzilla. Such a wacky insane plot that works so well considering the setting and how silly everything is. While the twitter argument is really fun it leaves something wanting though, twitter is sorta boring like that you know. I see you tried to combat that and show off what Luke Peters was doing, I think having a bit more of that would've helped the comic out in some areas where there wasnt as much going on. Or seeing how angry Claymore was getting alongside Luke Peters sillyness. Overall really good comic, you also nailed the humour in this, and fully captured the joy of arguing with people over the internet. (I almost feel called out with the last couple of panels) Really good job Luvam!

Cops, no sense of right or wrong.

So many cute little details and jokes everywhere! Aaah! And the faces! The wiggle face of confusion on page 3...

More cult lore... The activities are heinous! What a great little story about the horrors of organized religion.

Aesthetically, that first page is jam-packed full of fun details and references to the rest of the tourney and I always love that. The rest are lighter but boy do I know how much work it takes to put in all the details, and it fits the pace of the story to give it the attention when its not focusing on setup and establishing shots and the linework is so smooth anyway. Once again enjoying the use of colour to add to the final page, even if it isn't quite as enthralling as last time. Punchline is still great!

Overall, fun comic once more pepper I continue to be a fan of yours and have giggles reading your work!

MOTHER LUX SPOTTED

Tasty colours and fuzzy lines... I am a fan.

The abstract presentation of an internet argument is a unique premise!

The sheer absurdity of our boy going into a theater despite the lux commandments... Exploring the world blindly and finding only sin... I enjoy cute silly comics a lot and this was a fun little gag.

Aesthetically we've got some fun faces and pretty colours. I think I would have liked a little more detail on the establishing theater shot but it conveys what it needs to, and the later scenes are abstract enough in plot to get away with things and I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like comics that emulate online conversations.

Overall, cute comic.

Another very funny comic from you. I really enjoyed seeing the 'youth organization' group that Luke was a part of and I'd kind of love to see more of that down the line. The Didi Cop was really amusing and I love connecting the previous comic of Claymore's with your story, that's the kind of continuity I love seeing. Claymore falling over and killing the fish at the end made for a really solid gag. I think I'm really excited to see what you end up doing with Luke down the line because he continues to be really funny to me. We gotta fight some time! Great work!

This was a very funny gag. I love the argument between the two of them over the movie as a setup and you followed through very well. You had some lovely warm colors and I loved the chunk simple designs you used for Luke. Felt very much like a slice of life comic you'd purchase at from a zine convention. Even the tone of the content was very off-beat and a lot of fun. Your layouts suffered a little bit but you also had some very creative usage of them (such as the blocking panel on the last page) and I think it may be the content of the story to blame for getting it that way since the plot didn't really require much movement from typing on the computer, but I still really did enjoy it. An excellent job!