Oculama

I think this is a huge step up re: how complete the story feels. You've also absolutely nailed the interaction between the characters here; it feels easy and natural, and I enjoy having a soft conversation between the parties. I*do* still wish there was just a touch more content here, either re: how the meeting occurs or what they have planned. What's here suffices, but it does still feel a bit like an excerpt. The sketchy style is a little rough in places, but it works, and it's impressively communicative of the action and the emotions of the characters. Great work!

This might be my favorite set-up for the entire round. The crypto-bro villain feels timely but not too try-hard, and is really, really funny to boot. Bouba is tremendously cute as well; and I like how you both captured their essence, and had them gel with your own characters. Artistically I did find Bouba to be a bit inconsistent panel to panel. Not egregiously so, but enough that I noticed on the read-through. Similarly, I think the villain-bro could have stood out a bit more visually; his look was a bit forgettable. His whole bit, however,i s great, and I was smiling ear-to-ear the whole time I was reading this.

this is a real cool little story! i feel like generally, making fun of nfts can be too easy, so it often comes off as a little trite or forced, but i think you really avoid that here by making the antagonist even more evil! besides that, it's very well structured as a nice self-contained encounter, like a monster of the week boiled down to its essentials. shots with backgrounds are rare but i appreciate how well you do fill out the space to make it feel inhabited. you could probably serve to push further some of your impact shots, like pg2pn1, but i think all that would really take is some thicker, pointier lines to really drive the force? but at the same time i gotta give props to panels like pn2pg5, i love the way the border's fraying. good comic, good comic!!

this is a cute little interaction, and certainly works to fill out a comic! bouba is, of course, depicted super cute in this, and evelyn & wendy's reactions to her are great. this does feel messy to a point where it often stops feeling like a stylistic choice and more that it's unfinished, like pg1pn3, where i assume from context this is evelyn petting bouba but i still can't really parse that, and on my first read, i thought she was squeezing her face like a tomato and pushing it into the ground. it's a shame, because your construction's really nice, and i wish i could get a better grasp on it! besides that though, this is a very cozy and appetite-whetting comic!

I really enjoyed this comic, I was apprehensive about the tech bro villain at first because it felt like an easy punching-bag strawman but every single joke landed! The writing in general is super well done in this, with every character having a unique voice that shines through. I love the little narrative hook you put in with Wendy finding a potential lead to getting out of her deal with Evelyn, it feels like a really natural scene and for such a short comic, effectively splitting your comic into an A plot and a B plot is pretty damn impressive haha. The backgrounds you do have in this comic are really great, but I would like to see more of them - even just hints of them - on the smaller panels. Sometimes the stark white works, and sometimes it feels quite noticeable, like on page 3. All in all, really high quality, polished, and entertaining work!

I enjoy how ambitious the art is in this comic. You haven't shied away from keeping your characters entrenched in 3d space and providing the viewer a really interesting scene to latch onto, though there's a few times the very loosely defined characters risk blending into it - mostly on closeups. I would also avoid transparent speech bubbles in the future as I can't really see a good reason for them. The writing in this comic is quite good, though it does suffer from not really being *about* much. It's true what you said that this comic is basically all setup, though I'm not sure it was the right direction to go. Grammar is something that definitely needs attention; there's some irony in having a semicolon in your comic, but not a single comma. All in all though, I thought it was a nice little entry!

Joe - Oh man..I was fully engaged by your comic at all times. LOOOVEEEE the Puss N Boots gag on the second page. Your art looks good and consistent throughout and I think that's one of the main reasons I wasn't distracted from the story (not to mention the exciting premise you laid out for us). Wendy conspiring to be 'freed' from Evelyn was a good plot hook from here on out. Bouba is 100000% adorable. I just can't with her. She's so cute in your style! The villain of the story is also well thought out and that final kill move was absolutely great! Really great showing from you this round!

Jelly - I gotta say, this was indeed a good set up! The art could definitely be most polished though but it's understandable given the time crunch and other life dealings. Also watch out for the balloon tail next time, I thought it was Evelyn who was saying that dialogue at first ^_^" I am really tickled by this prospect of Evelyn and Wendy adopting Bouba as a 'pet' not knowing the incredible power they got in their hands. Bouba is so precious and deserves the best in the world. I really hope she finds her mommy one day. But I am all for more Bouba adventures from here on out!

I cannot believe it's only been 2 rounds and already we have Oculamas BIGGEST VILLAIN. Minting Bouba on the blockchain, absolutely horrid stuff. Really good job on this Spiral. This is a really fun comic and I think it shows that you had a lot of fun while making it. There's not a lot of things I can say negatively about this, maybe change up a few panels composition wise but it's not like the composition is hurting the comic, just a suggestion as to elevate it to the next level. I love the writing here, it is filled with so much like beautiful 80s camp and cheekiness that I just immediately fell in love with it. It's so fun just an all around really good time, Great job Spiral

Jelly, you have a very charming little story here, Bouba is very cute in this and while their dialogue is stylized in the very cutesy way I was still able to understand what they were trying to say which is good. My biggest problem with the comic is how hard it is to read. There's a bunch of dialogue that gets crossed out by lines in the background and it makes readability incredibly hard. I don't know why you switched to a semi transparent background for all the word bubbles but it does not work and really hurts your comic. Apart from that good job, there's a bunch of real charming character moments in here. You did very well on that, I enjoyed everyone here. Good job Jelly

What a great read! Great work getting this much done in just the week we had. The initial couple panels and then reveal that it's a nefarious NFT bro kidnapping magical creatures to add them to the blockchain was hilarious and well done! Your pacing and flow was very good, this was a super easy to read and follow story! I think the only issue for me was when Wendy introduced herself to Bouba, I read it slightly out of order. The "Need some help?" was higher certainly, but the way my eyes traveled was from Bouba wiggling right over to "Wendy." Other than that though, I didn't have any issues following the dialogue throughout! Your drew Bouba SO CUTE, and I loved the pairing of her and Wendy. Your backgrounds were a little simple, but effective, and the rendering you managed to do really added some impact to your panels! Great work, all in just the week!

It seems like you didn't have enough time to really polish up your pages (we all only had a week, totally understandable!), but even still, you managed to do a good job of establishing a good atmosphere for your comic. I like the windy, foggy city skyline you have as a setting for this conversation. Both Wendy and Bouba have some v cute panels! Those first two on page 3 are adorable. I think some of your dialogue could use a little bit of work. There were some errors in a few (missing punctuation, a few words not capitalized, Bouba seems to repeat herself once), and in a few places it was a little hard to tell immediately who was talking. Also, I think it really helps to make your word bubbles opaque, I understand the urge to let your art show through (I used to do the same thing), but it helps keep things easy to read with a blank space for your words. I'm excited to see more comics from you, though! I love Bouba and can't wait to read more.

I appreciate a good comedy comic. The writing here is what I find especially enjoyable, with a good story about the dangers of NFTs. It's a simple plot of course for the 5 page limit but it works well with a direction that I would have never expected a comic in this tournament to take. The unconventional panel layout lends itself well to the action and while there are many panels to a page, none of them feel cluttered. There aren't that many backgrounds and honestly I didn't even notice it until reading it a second time. The main action really keeps you capitvated for when the power of friendship kills crypto.

I appreciate all of the background work that can really be felt even on the first page. However, one thing that stands out to me are the speech bubbles. They're a slight bit awkward to read when put across panels with no opaque background to them. That said, I love the cat poses here, it really seems like you went out and stared at a cat for hours doing cat things and then drew this. Really the value work here hits me in that it's very nice and subtle and makes everything look more natural than it would with more vibrant shifts. Overall, I really like the watercolory look and the soft tone of the comic.

SPIRAL- Nooo, not the shutter shades! XD

You do a great job establishing characters, conflict and resolution rather well. You know the formula and execute it in a dynamic way. I certainly didn't expect hi-tech vs magic this time around. A nice common enemy to see our vs pair come together to tussle with together.

I'll admit Wendy's mini rant left me intrigued. Did we get a peek at some character background? Is this lil demon soul bonded to Evelyn? Is the relationship between Evelyn and Wendy not as on the up and up as we initially thought? Not gonna like seeing a littol enmity or lack of autonomy between these two is an angle I didn't expect and certainly hope is the case so we can see it further explored.

M. JELLY- Nice response to the crits you received last round. It's always great to see an artist applying them and giving the insatiable mob a bit more.

If there's something I'd look out for, I'd try making your word bubbles solid instead of see through next time around. Your sketch work and grayscaling run a bit busy, so having all those elements compete with the typeface of your font just makes for a bit of a jumble. There's also composition to factor. You have some nice paneling, but all your elements don't really fit and tend to bleed, which I don't think really need to. Widening your shots or trying different angles may help with negotiating the space to get your story across.

Yesss this looks great. Lots of good action, love the expressions, and we got a cool robot! Evelyn gets lots of stylish poses while saying one liners! I really like how clean everything feels and how easy it is to follow the action.
I don't think you leaned too hard on the NFT jokes, but be careful with 'topical' humor, it can be tricky.
This is a really funny comic! Lots of jokes and fun stuff happening on every page. I think your pacing felt really good, too. This is a really creative setup for a battle. I also like how you give Bouba a big hero moment at the end. Very cute!

The soft greys and the clouds work together to create a dreamy feel that's interesting. I like the misty city as a backdrop. The use of perspective and different camera angles looks good to me.
The story feels kind of meandering? Like not much happens or is decided on, and it's a bit confusing what's happening? The sketchiness also makes it kind of unclear. It seems weird that Bouba comes up to Evelyn and Wendy when they're the ones following her?
I like the end shot, it feels like a cool and unique framing. I like the use of your opponent's gimmick to drive the story.

A funny premise and comic. I quite liked the humor in the setup and was a big fan of how you handled the rest of this. I wish we got to see more of the off-screen action, but I also can appreciate you pushing Evelyn out of the way to give Bouba more of a story beat with Wendy. It was a solid choice in the service of the story and the resolution was quite good. I like your use of grayscale in this comic but I will say on page 3, suddenly breaking out the gradient isn't a great look since you only have utilized solid tones throughout the comic. Sudden shifts like that aren't a great thing and I would be careful about that in the future. All in all, a very fun comic!

You have some very expressive characters in this comic and I like the story setup well enough. Nothing wrong with jumping right to the meat of the interaction and then finding out what will happen later on.
That being said, this comic suffers due to haste. In some spots, I can't parse what I'm supposed to be looking at in the 3rd panel of page one for example. I'm not really sure what vibe I am supposed to get from the backgrounds, either. The details get lost in the soft grey tones without more connected and solid line art to help break it up. I hope in the future you slow down and spend some more time on these comic or take a deadline that is more favorable for you down the road. Still, nice work!