TWENTY-FOURTH UPDATE! (Replies 308-314)
Galaxies, Magical Girls, and Chaos @hanielmea
-Starting off the big, dramatic inciting incident by not even letting us see the character emote...is not a great idea. =/
-Also, adding ‘hell’ to dialogue doesn’t automatically make the conversation sound more intense or mature. :T It’s really jarring to have these honestly dry scenes and dry statements immediately followed up by characters asking ‘what the hell?’ It feels aggressively un-stylish, like you’re trying desperately to inject some energy into the story with (mild) cursing alone.
=Very bland, unfortunately. I can tell what you’re trying to do, treating magical girl-hood as something mundane and not all that noteworthy in this world (despite opening the story with the character discovering a mysterious object and screaming once their magical dress appears…). But the way you blatantly skip over any sort of worldbuilding or establishment of character or stakes makes the story feel hollow. We skip over any discussion of what a magical girl is to watch the characters blandly state ‘looks like you’re a magical girl now’. We skip over any discussion of what a monster is or why magical girls fight them to watch the mascot companion introduce its ability to speak through painfully obvious exposition.
For all these dull interactions, we’re skipping the chance to actually learn about this world.
I don’t know who these characters are or why I should care that they’re doing magical girl shenanigans. And if you’re going to insist that these magical girl shenanigans are so mundane that they’re not worth establishing or explaining...what is the story actually about, then?? If it’s not about exploring wondrous supernatural powers, and it’s not about interesting characters, then it seems like it’s not about anything.
Souls&Fangs @KAOS
-...Why is the second page called ‘Page 4’
-You need better establishing shots...having enemies that turn into dust is nothing new, but drawing a big dark room with two little splotches in the middle of it is not the way to portray this. Not well, anyway.
Make the piles of dust bigger and more person-shaped. Or, cover the room in TONS of dust so that the reader immediately sees something wrong with the scene and wants to know what it is. Or, zoom in on the piles of dust as the character makes his final remarks, to show the reader who he’s addressing. Basically, EMPHASIZE something.
-‘Sir’ is not normally used as an unattached noun by English speakers, just FYI. You might try ‘gentleman’ instead.
=Overall, it’s...fine. Definitely above average from what I’ve seen in this thread (especially the art). And I think the dog is a great way to help endear the reader to the stoic character we’re first introduced to. ^^
My only gripe would be the wooden, unnatural dialogue...I could see it easily dragging the story down; none of the characters feel like they have a consistent voice of their own so far. If you could improve that, though, I could see the story being really entertaining.
Solitary @CloverWrites
-Please don’t tell me that’s AI art on the cover. T_T
-This character says they’re both excited and bored in the same instant…which is it
-“How much boring can this get?” → “How much more boring can this get?” Or maybe, “How boring can this get??”
=Feels like I’m watching anime...unfortunately, I don’t mean that in a good way. =/ Knowledge of anime makes me recognize the conceits, and tells me what to visualize in my head...it helps me understand what you’re trying to do, even with the typos and unnatural dialogue in the way. Without taking that knowledge into account, however, it just looks like a rushed, poorly-formatted string of events featuring an MC who wildly swings between different emotions and moods without any rhyme or reason.
Why does he react so acutely to eating a delicious snack? Because anime characters do that. Why does he immediately rush into a gory death scene three short paragraphs later? Because in anime there are visuals to smooth out those transitions, you’re not supposed to have to ‘write’ them...
Nevertheless, this is not anime; this is a novel. Prose. You have to work within the conventions of the medium you actually have, otherwise you end up with stuff like this: a story that’s maybe cute, but difficult to invest in and impossible to take seriously.
Fine China and Glass Walls @phantasmalart
-I LOVE the synopsis. ^^ I think it’s the best one I’ve read in this whole thread...
-The sideways sections are super annoying...I don’t really know why you do that; is it just because you want to do double-page spreads within Tapas’ size restrictions? Because tbh I’d rather you didn’t bother...even if I were reading on a phone, I don’t think I would enjoy having to flip it around at random intervals. And to be even more honest, I don’t see anything in those panels that needs that much space. =/
=I don’t have anything to say about the story; there’s just not enough happening. What I will say is that it feels like this comic has a heavy emphasis on visuals for that active, ‘adventurous’ feel (as expected from a story about borrowers), BUT...the visuals themselves are unfortunately not strong enough to make it work. The establishing shots are poor, and there’s no sense of 3D perspective, which makes it difficult to tell how big or small anything is-- a very unfortunate weakness for this kind of setting. Like, kind of a death blow, actually. =(
Also, when it comes to tiny people living in a big world, one thing you have to keep in mind is that the props the tiny people use ALSO need to look like they are from a big world. Have them make grappling hooks out of paperclips, have them drink out of thimbles; all that good stuff.
To give a specific example: if they are wearing doll clothes, show the little velcro straps and oversized buttons that doll clothes actually have (because they’re designed to be manipulated by big people). Otherwise, show the oversized, gaping stitches that would result from tiny people trying to use big thread to sew their tiny clothes. It feels immersion-breaking to watch a borrower sneak around trying to take things while seemingly wearing a perfectly miniaturized contemporary T-shirt and jeans.
...Also, I highly doubt a miniature dollhouse plate (even if it was actually real china) would shatter upon being dropped from the inch or two that makes up this borrower’s standing height. And even if it did, it would probably break into just 2 or 3 relatively large pieces...remember, it’s from a big world.
