Oculama

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.

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!

@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.

@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 :)

@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.