Oculama

I really like the use of color in this comic. I think the reflection in the sunglasses on page two is a really cool shot! However, I feel like there's kind of a lot of extreme closeups, which makes things feel a little claustrophobic and makes it harder to follow the action. Backgrounds can also be helpful in action scenes, since they give the audience a good idea of where the characters are, which helps with imagining the motion. I really like how you gave Rangga a lot of expression even though so little of his face is visible.
I think you did a great job of efficiently setting up an interesting reason for conflict between the two characters and dropping a few bits of lore! I'd like to see more hints about the Cerberex Incident in future comics. One writing criticism I have is that it can be really hard to make a very strong, invulnerable character interesting. You want the audience to be in suspense about what's going to happen next. So it might be helpful to think about ways to have plot stakes in other ways, like one character trying to upload secret documents about Moreau Biomedical before getting caught. We know the Messenger will easily physically overpower them, but will he recover the USB stick in time???? Also I think your dialogue was pretty good, you really captured the cold corporate vibe.

What a start to the tourney for the messenger! He is a character with a very interesting concept.

I really appreciated your panel layout on page 3, I think you used that format effectively there.
The story itself started a but abruptly and ended just as abruptly, which kinda left me unsure with what exactly the characters involved were dealing with.
I think a little more set up to help give the readers context would be useful going forward.
I hope to see more comics from you and see how things progress for the messenger!

Making this a corporate dispute was undoubtedly inspired. It did a lot to actually characterize The Messenger, and provided a really fun reason as to why Solo Striker would be caught completely unawares and the final line of "I'm glad they didn't" works well to sell the Messenger's dispassionate and downright cruel attitude. He doesn't care. This is a failure and will be treated as such. Quickly disposed of.

Now that said this felt like an excerpt of a longer story. The thing is very VERY compressed, a short four pages to explore a story of corporate intrigue and bad deals. It deserves more space to breathe, but I also understand that with the time crunch it's very difficult to actually give the comic the space to breathe. But I'm hardly going to complain about someone reaching for corporate politics in an OCT comic.

A very nice showing of your arts improving and evolving to match your storytelling improvement as well. the setup for the two as a simple conversation helps to hammer home TM's main purpose of being a mouthpiece for the organization that he works for and gives him an intimidating presence from how professionally he is in comparison to SS. the context of the conversation are a little bit harder to follow just from the setup of it having already happened and the conversation at hand not having text available to elaborate with how cleanly the dialogue and story need to flow. I think the only thing Id have recommended would have just been a panel or two of the incident and how if effect SS to be so enraged by settlement deal. the fight is great and the cut down from TM is delivered to great effect before the neck snap which works great for a professional quick fight between two trained killers.

It's easy to say this is the best comic you've done on the site so far. The action and follow-through is very clear and so is the story. With four pages, there wasn't an expectation of anything huge or grandiose, but there's a lot of room to grow towards in the future. Example being the background, which isn't there to speak of - in the future, try adding some scratches or other details to the ground or wall. Even an empty room can be given some touch-ups in small ways to help it feel like a place. Given that you'll be moving on, you have an opportunity to try even harder and make something that surprises everyone! Good work!

So glad to see you tightening up your work for this recent tourney. I know you work traditional so seeing your pages rendered and cleaned up is a welcome sight before you went to town with digital colors. I even see a bit of shading here and there which really makes certain scenes pop- most notably Solo Strikers eye.
The reasoning and ensuing conflict was a good enough hook, but I feel we entered right in the middle of a conversation and context I wish we'd gotten some establishing content for.

Nothing too much to note on the art front; your anatomy is improving, I liked your implementation of backgrounds, and the lines of Striker's face were well-done.

As for the writing, though, the actual fight left a lot to be desired. Striker is noted as "always being ready to fight against any opponent" but is chided for being unprepared. We're told he would have had a chance against The Messenger but he deals zero damage and forces The Messenger to expend zero effort.

The lack of choreography between what are implied to be elite hand-to-hand combatants is disappointing, as is the lack of any real characterization on Messenger's side besides stoicism. There's just not much to build off of here for the ensuing rounds.

This was a pretty good intro to your character dialogue wise, I get a good idea of his personality and powers from it. The messenger's design is an interesting take on the secret agent archetype I'm curious how you'll utilize it. On the art side of things the composition of the panels was a bit distracting. Maybe it would've worked better in a scroll format but as it is my eye is drawn to the negative space left by missing panels. It would've been nice to see a little more build up to this confrontation that could've also fleshed out the opponent though there is enough there for the Messenger to get the story rolling.