Oculama

Had to start writing this review on the first panel. Cause the fact that y'alls Ouroboros station is legit just a snake eating itself while wearing pit viper sunglasses is fucking hilarious.

This is a really great really strong comic, I really love the colouring you got going on in this, it works really well with the lineart which is impressive cause I see that it wasnt just one person doing both. You've got really good horror and body fuckery which I would say is strengthened through your paneling which is very tense and cramped together. Some pages go by really quickly and everything feels like its crushing in on itself, which can be a problem in some comics but I would say works very well in this one. You do sacrifice a bit of background work the longer the comic goes on, which doesnt hurt it too much but I think would be a nice extra so when they get to that fight moment it's not just background of space every time. Your space is very nice but a little change in scenery would help break it up and add a little bit extra to the comic. But like this is a great comic, Y'all did fantastic I really love this!

I gotta say, I do really love me a good ole fashion Wolke opening. Which sets the tone from the get go, and boy what a tone do we go through. While your opponent had a very fast passed comic yall got a slow horror going on. It works very very well. I figured the alien was going to be Owens at the start but even while I knew the twist the work that yall put in leading up to the twist was great. Once Ana's death hits the entire comic goes from good to great. Rowan's freak out and the change to blacks whites and reds is a phenomenal choice, page 12 might be my favourite page in the tournament. There's honestly not much for me to nitpick. My only real downside was that I figured out the twist but yall wrote and drew this comic so well that it didn't matter. I was in for the ride if I knew the ending or not. Fantastic comic you two. Great job to the lot of you!

Really enjoyed this!!! Not entirely sure why I wasn't feeling the impact of some of the panels and emotions as much as I wanted... maybe because of the size of the panels per page? You put so many panels on one page and I did love the creativity of the compositions and layouts but I think having so much and so crowded doesn't give a lot of space to breathe maybe...
I loved the transformation and body horror though !! VERY COOL

Loved all the reveals loved the expressions and the backgrounds and the colours and everything TRULY STELLAR WORK!!!!! every reveal got me frfr LMAO ugh the tension and the fighting was so so good if I make it to the next round I gotta integrate the teams more like this ....the storytelling and char interactions felt so round and full and good :) loved it!!!!!!! Trying so hard to reach the 75 word count help

I really dig the strong characterization your comic has, we get a very good feel for everyone before the horror starts and that's an important thing to nail down. I find imperceivable sounds in horror to be especially striking of a hook, to build that dread

Understanding that there are limits due to deadline restrictions and I absolutely recognize that, there's two points of focus you will want to look at for future comics:

With lettering/word balloon design whenever you have tails you want them to be clear about where they go/who they belong to, and that gets difficult if the tail is either not there or gets lost in the background because it is in the same shade range as the background (black line tails work well enough when the background is light but in a situation like this comic it gets harder to read). When you are able I would say it's always preferable to handwrite your sound effects or greatly modify ones you made with font. Treat your letters as part of the art as well, make them complement your compositions and add some polish to them, and they will elevate the rest of your work in unexpected ways

Secondly the texture background for space needed a little more to it, as it took a second read to fully grasp that it was indeed space and not walls. You can make very appealing starscapes with airbrushes that emulate droplets like paint splatter, that will give you varied star sizes quickly.

Keep it up, there's so much great sauce with the characters themselves and it's clear you love that part of the process; with time and effort put into the rest of the elements you'll produce even stronger works down the line

There's a lot this comic does right to set a compelling space horror story, from opening lines, the palindromic camera work of the first and last panels, the paranoia and the sinking feeling in the end from the revelation that the horror is not only not over, it is there with you.. really expert writing with this

knowing at least one of the artists on the team as an accomplished comicker makes it unsurprising that so much of the comic is well packaged, with effective lettering and pacing, varied compositions etc. If there's anything to take to consideration for future comics I would say it's to reassess how much texturing you add to pages; it definitely works in some places but in others it's a bit oppressive to the eyes

Great first round entry!

This was a fun read! I feel as though each of the characters from both teams got a chance to demonstrate their unique traits and personalities and the dynamic feels very natural between everyone. I also enjoy that you've managed to write a compelling full circle narrative including your opponents. 19 pages is also certainly impressive!
On the critique side, I felt like some of the natural flow of the pages got jumbled for me. It was a shame as there were some crucial moments where I felt a little lost, however you dared to push for some very interesting layouts which kept me motivated reading throughout!

I really love the moody atmosphere and the use of color to create a feeling of this artifical claustrophobic environment, I felt really immersed in the tense inescapable atmosphere. I think the detailed gore really stands out in defiance of the comic's style expectations which adds to the shock. I also really enjoy as the dread creeps in after the death things get really distorted. Great job to you too on a just-as-admirably long comic! I'd really like to see more of Rowan as a character!

That fierce feral attack by Owens and subsequent monstrous transformation was a great sequence of panels. Down to slumping the character so we couldn't see their face until it was too late. The monster design itself harkens back to the space horror movies, which goes hand in hand with being sucked out to space. I also dug your pacing- especially in the floating in space scene starting on page 13. Many would've just wrapped it up, but I think there was something important in letting the panic of the moment sit as the characters scrambled for a means to anchor themselves.
Will note that while I think lettering your own comic should always be lauded the song lyrics were a bit of a hard read due to legibility. Its tough work but plugging in your own font may be worth investing.

It's not often I read a comic and don't figure out who the real culprit is, but you definitely took me by surprise. Katabsis really had me going, and the resulting collateral damage with Anna was grisly. You did not need to go that hard with a showcase panel and that detailing, but you did and I loved it. It really drove home that shock factor where the horror of everything slows down- no doubt all Rowan was able to think about so it was nice to reflect it onto the reader. You also mingled the relationships between you and the opponents, which is something new I haven't seen before in tournaments like this. More often than not its an 'us VS them' script and conflict, but this subversion really helped confound your reader and leave you wondering whodunit which is uniquely smart. I could go on about the varying angles and compositions of your paneling (which is great) but the standout to me was your pacing and storytelling was superb. I can't get over how neatly your thematic bow was tied off for the end reflecting the number of surviving crewmates left with the shape of the ship itself. Just all around great introduction into round 1. Way to come in swinging you two.

Firstly, I've got to congratulate you on making a full colour 19 page comic in 3-ish weeks. I can't imagine the amount of work and dedication that must have taken, and it's really impressive. I do like the choice of the simple backgrounds, as while also saving you time, allowed the reader to focus on what is important.
I think the biggest critique I have is that you could've paid a little more attention to the composition of your panels. There were a couple of spots where I got confused which to read first (to be fair, I also just might be bad at reading comics, haha). I think most notable point where I got kinda confused was on page 14 at the end, I personally feel like the missing the grabbing of the hand could be more clear. I did notice the last few pages were clearly rushed, but also you likely were experiencing a time crunch then so I am not faulting you for that.
I really like the inclusion of body horror in the alien transformation sequence, and how you depicted the design for Rowan/Owens. I also really like the composition for the 5th panel on page 16. Overall, nice job!

I loved the art style used for your comic, the crosshatching details for shading/texture made your comic stand out and very unique. On top of your usage of colour, the panels getting more and more red as the tension and horror builds, it's just *chefs kiss*.
I wanna preface saying that overall I think this comic is really strong, and you clearly know your strengths and weakness and used that knowledge to influence your framing, composition, and storytelling. I did notice (when I did pay closer attention) is that your backgrounds are weaker compared to your character art. Which hey, backgrounds are the weakness of most artists, it is normal. And having taken 2 years of animation school, I understand it is a pain to learn. But I think if you put time into studying perspective and how to use it, it will push your art to the next level.
Once again, you have a pretty strong comic (especially considering you made this in 3 weeks). You have very strong visual storytelling skills, and you also utilized the horror elements from the theme very well (especially with the gore, as well as the ending cliffhanger with realizing the cat is the alien lifeform). Good job.

I really liked the art in this one. The atmosphere felt very lost in space and I love the design of the space station though I can't put my finger on why. The art is sketchy in places but I hardly notice since the art is so pleasant to look at regardless, I especially love the way you drew Owens he is adorable even when he's giving people space rabies.

The one big crit I have for this is that we don't really get a chance to process what happened to cause the conflict. If you want it to be a mystery then instead you should have us asking "why this happened" alongside our protagonists but the comic doesn't bring enough importance to that question for me to feel like I should be asking about it.

Moving on to stuff I thought was really cool the action in this was great. I loved all the angles and twists that made the comic's fight flow so well. The colors are another highlight to me I can't stress enough how much I love the art in this it's really fantastic to look at it hits a lot of the things I love about a particular art style!

Y'all really nailed the atmosphere of how horrible the situation of being trapped in space would look. You got some unique angles I really liked (one that comes to mind especially is the final panel of page 5. I'm surprised how quickly Anna went from 0 to 100 on poor Kata but I was even more surprised at how quickly Rowan went from 0 to 100 on poor Kata! I'm interested in Rowan as a character specifically it makes me wanna know what his deal is more than the mysterious people eating cat (though I can't technically prove Owens ate anything). I really liked how this comic ended, it felt like a standalone one shot!

man this is a really strong entry and I cant decide which parts I like more but a strong contender is the space madness whispers and the transformation from your opponent was crazy cool! the bright color through out the comic and easy upbeat opening works wonders for the whiplash of how quickly everything turns sinister and brutal with how much hands(pun intended) that Owens gives to Katabasis! I will say a little bit more characterization to Owens could have been given just a smidge but I think the lack of that is covered by how good the conflict was! bravo for a first round!

THIS COMIC GOT GRUESOME OH MAN! you guys really wrote a gritty bloody comic and I love it! I think Anna's character felt a bit different for how I read her from her info but was really a great performance! and I really loved Katabasis' friendly nature being drowned out by the hysteria/paranoia of growing between the cast(which was masterfully done! the absolute OH NO for poor Ana's death and Rowen's crashout on kata was really strong writing! all without Owens dangerous nature being played with until the end for suspense was fantastic!