Gordon Ramsay Treatment (refreshed)

frixelkind 2018-01-07 23:19:39 UTC #81

I must applaud you good sir! I can feel the Ramsey emanating from your words!

Haha, I get what you mean about the framing, I'll try to make the transitions more interesting so there isn't a ton of empty space!

I definitely have more plans concerning the boys parentage, but I hadn't planned to delve into it until I finished this first section of the story, but if the pacing's too slow then It'd probably be better to pick up the pace!

Thank you for the criticism! I'll definitely take it into consideration when I plan out stories like this in the future!

Zaboem 2018-01-08 21:09:14 UTC #82

Just in case you didn't know, Loyal For a Price is featured on New & Noteworthy today.

Agent1Alaska 2018-01-09 00:01:55 UTC #83

Yeah, it's been featured for a few days now. I've been waiting until I'm not sick so I can work on editing and improving description (particularly in that first chapter).

Kyazi 2018-01-09 00:22:14 UTC #84

Please give me honesty First comic I wanna fix as much as possible <3

ScribbleJay 2018-01-12 04:56:25 UTC #85

What an interesting concept! I'm not a romance fan myself, but I have to admire how willing you are to experiment with the comics form, especially since this is your first.
...I mean, uh, anger anger. Snarl. (Flip table)
Seriously, though, while I love the experimentation, I found it difficult to immerse myself and I found myself getting lost a little too easily. It might be the jumping viewpoints, or it might be the interruptions from the reading guides, or maybe I'm just dense, I don't know. I can't think of any suggestions besides colour-coding the characters, which you've already done. The simple art style helps keep things clear too, though maybe just a little more texture and light/dark contrast wouldn't hurt.

ScribbleJay 2018-01-12 05:00:56 UTC #86

Well, here goes. I need to grow a thicker skin, so if you have the time, feel free to rip into whatever story you choose.

Kyazi 2018-01-12 16:44:53 UTC #87

I am gonna include a legend on future updates so no one has to jump back and forth to the reading guide for who's who. This way they will know Pink is Ari, Blue Ethan, Green Reece, Julian Orange. Also I try to transition between view points by using a color coded fade as it leads into the next viewpoint. I think its more obvious on my later episodes than in the beginning sadly.

Wumbl 2018-01-12 16:48:50 UTC #88

Yo. I've undergone some drastic improvements but I'm especially all for roasting my older chapter bc of it lol... it was pretty bad

gh0stcr33p 2018-01-13 06:01:03 UTC #89

I'll probably agree with the criticism tbh

EntropicalForest 2018-01-13 12:10:49 UTC #90

Your comic so far is serviceable, but While reading it i felt like your potential was not really being displayed properly. I mean you have a wide appeal art style with only really a few glaring weaknesses (will touch on that towards the end) , you have good solid character designs and a fun imagination.

But the focus and pacing of the plot needs work.And ill explain what i mean.

The focus and pacing suffers mainly due to irrelevant scenes and odd choices from the MC. For example when she wakes up and she sees the mirror and you can see in her face that she recognizes it from the dream she just had. And then she just says "whatever" and uses the restroom, which sort of seems like a odd choice. You did a great job expressing the sort of shock /confusion and possible fear in her face to just kind of toss it a side for a quick potty break. I feel like you could of used that scene to really kick start the theme for the rest of the story.

And then we have her encounter with the Robot, and instead of it being kind of a meaningful experience (since it's a talking robot) it's more of a underwhelming one since Josie honestly doesnt seem surprised by it. Which weakens the weirdness of the event since if Josie isn't really feeling any strong emotions about this why should I?

And sort of the most confusing part for me is the fact that after she accidentally teleports the robot away, she suddenly wants to teleport herself? when did she decided this? why did she decide this? what does she hope to achieve by doing it? If its just pure curiosity I would argue that you didn't really show that side of Josie's personality well.

And even though we are 4 chapters in all we really know is that "E" wants the mirror that Josie has , we dont really know why Josie wants to even keep it from her. Now I understand if you wish to keep certain plot points secret (obviously) but you still have to give things a reason for their actions and so far Josie doesnt seem like she has any. Those are really my main gripes with the story and i think they can easily be fixed with just a little more patience and thought on your part.

And I said that I would Bring up the few flaws I saw with the art but I kind of made this longer than it has to be already so ill make this short and sweet. its honestly just the hands and sometimes the legs, but mainly the hands. i think it would do the comic good if you worked on drawing hands in a more dynamic and most importantly coherent way.

With that said I really think this has potential to be a cool and fun comic and I really hope anything I said can help down the line.

gh0stcr33p 2018-01-13 23:10:27 UTC #91

oh thanks! that was really helpful

liquidlilium 2018-01-14 00:06:49 UTC #92

I love some honest critique on my comics They're pretty different genres so please feel free to roast whichever you'll have most fun with!

I'll look over the thread for pieces that look fun to tear apart as soon as I have some free time
(I don't like to rush while writing critiques)

Rochrok 2018-01-14 00:29:58 UTC #93

Whelp jumping in head first. Rip me to shreds, I know I deserve it!
I'll look for others to do the same with.

Rochrok 2018-01-14 00:58:12 UTC #94

Read Tia Cocrcilli.

I have no idea what the heck is even going on. Why is the MC thanking Merlin? Is this some sort of future where Merlin has become God? Why not say "Thank goodness" or something? You provide no context for that.

Then the blue-haired lady tells her she is comparing their leading roboticists to wizards....how? she just said "Thank Merlin you're still open..." I'm not getting how that is a comparison.

And I'm hardly a prude but wth is going on in the next page? Suddenly the little robot dog is pulling down her shirt exposing her bra and she's getting the hots for the blue haired lady.

Also, if you're gonna put special terms that exist within your story's world like "Canidriod", maybe put some sort of small text explanation of what it means, I had to read it over twice to get that she was talking about the robot dog.

And how did the robot lady know the blond haired girl's name? The scene kinda of reminds me of that scene in "The Room" when Tommy Wiseau goes to the flower shop to buy roses and the cashier just hands him a bouquet of roses and he pays for it while they are both having a very disjointed exchange of dialogue. I half expected the blue-haired lady to say "You're my favorite customer." while the blonde was leaving. It just didn't come across as a real shop visit or in this case, a visit to a robo vet.

Error on chapter 1 Part 4. I think you meant 12:00 not 12.00. 12:00 is time while 12.00 is money.

Other than that, Good to see some GL comics on this site. I know someone who has been searching for some to read. I'll pass it along!

liquidlilium 2018-01-14 20:47:12 UTC #95

Thanks for the critique! Really, it helped me decide how to move forward with the comic

I'm aware that the storytelling in the first (10 or so) pages are overly compressed and I have to be careful when introducing new vocabubary (since I prefer context over info boxes both as a reader and writer)
I've been thinking about wether I should edit the first pages and add a few panels for clarity or focus on the newer pages to finish the chapter. After seeing all the confusing part spelled out like that I decided it's probably better to edit though,before inking and coloring the upcoming pages.

Good catch on 12.00 both I and 2 of my teachers missed that xD (or maybe both are correct in Swedish? I'm gonna have to google that now)

yeah I'm looking for good GL comics as well, feels like there's 50 BL per 1 GL on this site when browsing .-.

ashleymaywrites 2018-01-16 04:00:52 UTC #96

Second novel I've ever finished, first to publish. Lemme have it. Do your worst, it'll just make me better.

joe_galindez 2018-01-16 05:47:03 UTC #97

Opening with a glossary is not good for immersion.
Why set it in Japan when you've never set foot in Japan? It's an urban fantasy, so why not set it in the local urban environment?
There's not enough "show, not tell". For example, when Hideki looks up at a "well-maintained older home", we don't know what he sees. Is it a traditional Japanese house? A western-style Victorian-era house? A postwar residential unit? What does "well-maintained" mean? Is the house painted? Are the windows clean? Is the front yard swept? Is there even a front yard?

ashleymaywrites 2018-01-16 16:05:35 UTC #98

Yeah, I had concerns about this when I did it, but I also didn't want to break immersion by readers having to literally leave Tapas to go and look up something. I also figured it was skipable if people simply didn't want to see it, or already knew these things. I won't lie, I also did it to some extent to have something on the page in order to try to circulate the link for the week or two before I began publishing. Do you think it's something I should remove? My concern is that readers who are unfamiliar with Japanese naming conventions and titles might be confused...

A Japanese setting was the basis under which a lot of the characters were created in my mind, and while I could technically pick it up and move it to the US, a lot of the social issues that are going to come up later in the book will be harder to work out. Things that would be difficult to deal with in Japan might be no problem in the US. Without spoiling too much, I will say that in the US, there's a lot of emphasis on kids and teenagers being special, being unique, etc. In Japan, there is the old phrase, "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down", and it discourages students from sticking out too much and being disruptive to the unity of the classroom. For example, LGBT teens in the US face many difficulties, and with the proliferation of yaoi and yuri manga and anime, it might be hard to realize, but LGBT teens in Japan have it far worse.

Furthermore, at the risk of sounding like an unabashed weeaboo, I love Japanese culture, modern and traditional.

Thanks for pointing this out! I know I really have to watch this, and improve on it. I have a hard time writing in short format, I can't tell you how the chicken crossed the road in less than 2000 words, so trying to convey all the info and content I want without pushing the character limit is challenging for me. Still, I need to focus more on the "showing" aspect of things. This is probably gonna go on a sticky note on my monitor bezel.

Thanks so much for the critiques!

joe_galindez 2018-01-16 16:10:20 UTC #99

Given all that, it already flows pretty easily. Keep going!

liquidlilium 2018-01-16 23:57:41 UTC #100

Okay this is a bit harsh but considering the thread I guess it's okay to be a bit of a bitch.

Joe has already commented on the more technical stuff better than I could, so I'm just gonna write my more subjective criticism.

The story had such a strong vibe of being of being written by an outsider that it honestly made me uncomfortable.
more bulky than the average Japanese man.
The girl seated in front of Hideki was rather pudgy. By Japanese standards, she was actually quite large.
Did Hideki spend most of his life abroad? or is there some other reason Japanese standards aren't simply default standards to him?

Once Japanese language, math, English, and biology had passed
国語 translates to "national language" or just "language". Japanese language class is what I had at uni in Sweden.

He returned to his desk with a small pile of various things from the hallway vending machine; two rice balls, a variety of croquettes, and a couple of pieces of fruit.
Is this a science fiction story? Japanese vending machines are pretty great but they're not even close to that amazing.

At the corner of the school yard near the back gate, stood an old-fashioned Japanese building.
Japanese people does sometimes refer to things as 和風 which can be loosely translated into Japanese-style. Did you mean "old-fashioned Japanese-style building"? That's superfluous, if you want to add information, add actual information such as, is it Edo-period? Showa-period?. Or did you just need to remind us that the building is in Japan and so Japanese desuu? We already know the building is in Japan.

They dialogue have a real uncanny feeling. I guess I can be nice and say it creates an atmosphere.

Over-all the writing is okay for a hobby-writer, but it's for very good reason writers advice against setting stories in real-life countries you haven't lived in. At the very least read some books by Japanese authors.

Also are you LGBT and have lived in Japan and talked to actual gay and trans people there? If not kindly f*** o** and do your research instead of grossly generalising people you don't know. Sorry but ppl constantly exaggerating and spreading misinformation about LGBT in different countries, whether is overly positive or negative, pisses me off!