Round 1
Survivors: The Fallen Kingdom
There are quite a few submissions that are rather brief, this time around. That said. I'm fairly confident I will still have plenty to say.
Goals and Intentions:
I can sympathize with having a franchise frame of mind. You say this is meant to be a long running series--I wonder how much you have planned. The trouble with at least 80% of all longform stories in this medium is that they wither and die before their time. Burnout is a treacherous, insidious element to long form story telling. From what I can tell, you don't see it coming until you one day look at your page in progress and wish you were doing anything else. This will test your intentions, because in order for any "lovable and long-running series" to flourish, it needs to feel like a labor of love. That love can be tested, but it is immediately apparent to any reader when it breaks.
This is not to say that I see any indication of such things so early on. On the contrary, it seems a lively, saturated story at the outset. That isn't so much a judgement as it is an observation--you seem to have a fair amount of material to work with, if the intro is any suggestion.
Art:
It's not a style I particularly like or seek out. Bear that in mind as I go through my thoughts, as my palate is not refined enough in the manga style to make any clear and objective observations about aesthetic conventions. What i can say with some confidence is that although you have not posted many pages of art, I am not struck by any unique, personal touch. To my eye, the style is merely a pantomime of the vaguely manga-esque approach. Going back briefly to what you mentioned about your desire to spark affection from your audience, I have to believe that style is a big part of that. From what I have gathered, people almost uniformly seem to prioritize the visuals of a comic over any narrative. Aesthetic appeal is going to come from a unique personal approach or a compellingly loyal recreation of the beloved established styles.
As it stands, I cannot say you are achieving either. I think the problem is some conflict between what you want to draw and what you feel you should due to the conventions of the style you've chosen. I can tell you have ideas, but they're being strangled by the cookie cutter aesthetics. The best example of this problem is your character design. I know, it's early, but Alex and Marco are functionally identical except for colors. Their features are otherwise the same: nose shape, eye shape, facial structure are all pretty much identical. Their character, the character in your head, in your mind's eye, is completely smothered by manga conventions.
Like always, I'm going to only briefly mention that you have work to do, as we all do. You say that one of the purposes of the comic is to refine your skills, and so I will leave that to you. The fundamentals are always important to hammer again and again, and everyone needs to work on them (myself included), so I don't feel the need to go into too much detail. I can point out strange faces that look glaringly wrong (Alex on Page 2), and I can say your limb-torso length ratios are whack. Other than that, it's the same trials we all have--hand anatomy, perspective, foreshortening. These are ever present struggles.
As a final note, I'll say that I'm ashamed to see that pretty much everyone in the world seems to know how to color things properly, or at least properly enough to fool color brainlets like myself.
Writing:
Let's begin with something that I am sure you have heard before a million times from other sources--the lore dump as your opener is a big barrier to entry. Even as a person who enjoys world building and whimsical introductions, I have found few comics who have ever been able to pull of a front loaded intro. It's too much information about a world with which I have no emotional connection. I know it may seem like a pittance to you--as my own infodumping mistakes seemed to me--but I can assure you of the harsh reality: nobody other than you really cares about the world in your head at the beginning.
There are big potential issues buried in the intro, all related to that first problem. You have four types of magic, all with custom names. Not only do I not know how magic works at all in your setting, and not only do they all look like light magic (photomancy), but there seems to be 0 connection between the magic system and the establishing backdrop of the kingdom conflict. Yes, you have a segue stating that the existence of magic retards the advancement of technology, and that this dynamic has led to the existence of kingdoms. This is a statement without proper context, and even with context, it is unnecessary and awkward.
The kingdoms themselves, and their respective bride and groom, have no character--and I recognize that there is no obligation to establish their character so early. What I'm saying, however, is that there is no thematic spine to their existence, and no distinguishing aspect beyond their flags. NOW. If this is, say, an anti-war story, where the narrative bite lies in the eerie distance between the people and the kingdoms who are warring, then this could work, but as it stands, THAT effort is sabotaged by the nature of the intro, which brings me to my final word on the introduction:
An introduction/prologue is powerful when it sets the mood, establishes thematic expectations, and/or when it introduces "the gun" so to speak. Your intro does not have any of this. It is a Guide to My Comic. It functions as a pamphlet distributed to your readers as a reference, and when a reader feels like they're being given a reference guide to a work they have no prior interest in, they will turn of IMMEDIATELY. It won't be worth the effort for them, and it has nothing to do with your storytelling skill or intentions. It has everything to do with the fleeting whimsy of readers, who have virtually countless comics from which to choose.
You mention your concern about dialogue, but it is far too early to make any meaningful claims other than that the exchange between Alex and Marco does establish character and sets some expectation of the group dynamic. I can say no more than this. The dialogue seems sufficient, which is good enough, but it is informative, which is a big plus. As a final note for this section, I have to point out some very awkward English structure in the intro. Read through it. You'll see some incomplete sentences, but more importantly a total lack of grace and poetic lilt. It is rigid and clinical, which only serves to reinforce the intro as a manual rather than as a narrative tool.
Summation:
Your comic suffers from a lack of flair and a lack of character. This could be just because it is early, but I bet it is due to more pressing problems. It is rote and mechanical, when, given your intentions, I expect a more vivacious, passionate flow. Your own creative intent is smothered by unremarkable visuals and clinical story telling. It is formulaic, not in that it is predictable, but in that I can parse it perfectly into pieces. You have a much better following than I do, in much less time, so feel free to pass me by, but I would wager you could capture more attention by letting the creative font flow more freely. If this is meant to be a lovable, long form epic, then show me.
