Round 8
The Ripple Effect
I was first struck by the magnitude of the stakes--saving the world across all timestreams. That's intense as hell. It's also potentially a big trap. Such huge stakes are often very difficult to approach and resolve in a satisfying way. I'm eager to see if you will figure that out.
Art:
You have a solid foundation, here. I'm not able to divine whether you trace or use reference, which is a good threshold. What's even more impressive is that you have a rock solid understanding of anatomy most of the time. There's always room to improve, but I would definitely say that you know what you're doing. The hands, especially, took me off guard with how generally correct they were. I just checked again--can't find any weird looking hands other than some suspicious ones on Page 4. That's huge on its own. Good stuff.
To reiterate, the anatomy is solid. Is it perfect? Definitely not. And truth be told, the proportions for many panels are less than convincing, namely the bodies and lengths of arms. The biggest offender is Page 4 again. The fat man looks awful, but I have no doubt you recognize that--it's such a red herring in what is otherwise a comfortably convincing work. And even there, all of the facial expressions are great. You certainly nail expressiveness when you want to--which is not enough. Every time your characters pull a face, they come alive, and when they don't, they look cheap. Take a look at Pages 6-8 and see the difference it makes for Enzo in particular. He looks badass and interesting when he grimaces, grits his teeth, glares, etc, and when his face is at rest, he looks like his gimp expression is straight out of an Elder Scrolls game.
What really exaggerates the flaws in the art is your lighting. Is it correct? Probably close enough, but the contrast is disorientingly high.Faces get chopped up and skewed, bodies look misshapen and glitchy... whatever you're doing, it's not working. I'd dial it down a few degrees because it masks your awesome work and it aggravates your lesser work. Page 3 and 8 are the best examples of this. Let some of the detail below the shadow show through. I'm willing to bet it will look better.
Character design is decent. The only big stand out is Enzo, who looks cool as hell. The rest are middling.
Writing:
It's always a struggle to feel confident in my reviews of writing when there's less to go on. I assume competence, and I have faith in you, so you certainly get the benefit of the doubt. I saw no overt problems. It's solid. No dialogue felt awkward, forced, or out of place. There weren't any lines that stuck out as beautiful or compelling, but it is quite early for that. "More like every night" is the best candidate for wit, and it is effective, for sure. Other than that, no stand outs.
It has happened again--the story about Connor has been eclipsed by Enzo. Now, the excuse here is that it's only been 10 pages, so this isn't much of an issue--but it could be a red flag. Connor isn't interesting. I find myself asking only one question about Connor, and that's: "Why is he so nonchalant about the fact that he abruptly decided to wager his life for a strange job on an unknown crew of an unknown ship of an unknown industry in an unknown world"--all unknown to the reader, mind you. I have no context for why this guy pulled the move he did. That will be explained--is what you might say, and that's certainly fair, but in these crucial beginning pages, I find myself more emotionally invested in Enzo's financial problems and frayed relationship with the mysterious, punishing Captain. Those are immediately interesting. I hope Connor will have his share of intrigue. Big Bald Boy is cool. Classic silent giant archetype always works.
The plot has yet to unfold, but I have so far been unable to forge a connection between your premise and these first ten pages. No clue where it is headed--or, rather, I have a lot of trouble seeing the graceful connections to the intense cross-time peril. I have faith that you do.
Summation:
Taken as a whole, you have an admirable foundation to work with in both art and writing. With little to go on, I had comparatively less to say, but even so you should be excited with what you have. it's going to be a long journey for you, with such high ambition. I can certainly relate to that with my own comic--I feel a kinship with you in that regard. If you stick with it, I can see this comic becoming exceptional with practice and time. I see only upward trajectory so long as you are watching your contrasts and your MC's ability to intrigue the audience.
