Since I had no previous experience with your comic and plowed through the whole thing in one sitting, I guess I'll do a hot take. I certainly don't have the experience of Darth mongoose, but an opinion is still an opinion. I'll get right to the critiques, since the art is fantastic, and I don't feel the need to repeat what's already been said on that front. I'll try to be methodical about this and address your specific areas of interest one by one:
- As for engagement with the story, I'm a bit flummoxed. There are tons of interesting pieces of lore, ideas, and characters thrown at the reader at a rapid clip, but it became a bit exhausting (if that makes sense). For example, the introduction of a talking monkey with a laser eye gets dampened when the story shifts focus away from it almost immediately. It seems like the introduction of Geoffrey, Good Kid Animus, and Mallory's maternal Grandmother would all warrant their own episode, with an episodic plot (within the scope of the over-arching narrative) that resolves before moving on to the next thing. As it stands, the story changes lanes so many times that I never got to fully appreciate all the threads you've introduced. I enjoy the fact that there are a lot of different storylines, but they're too compressed time-wise for me to invest too much energy in any one story thread.
In regards to the pacing, the weirdness of the forest hits one like a ton of bricks. In the first season of the comic, the forest doesn't come up at all. During the light-hearted introduction to the characters, there should have been at least some hints that there is something strange going on in the woods (nothing too major, a bit of foreshadowing, perhaps?).
- I'm relatively interested in the problems of the characters, but there's something that's keeping me from full investment. A lot of the character struggles (especially with Ava) regard past events of which the audience is unaware. This kind of thing is good for making everything seem mysterious, but I felt too great a portion of the dialogue up to this point revolves around mysteries yet be revealed. It's not that the mysteries aren't interesting, it's just that I rarely got a foothold on anything well-defined and relatable to act as a counterpoint to all the fantasy and mystery. It is the contrast between the fantastic and the mundane that makes for a great supernatural mystery cartoon (at least in my opinion). There weren't enough mundane aspects to balance out all the fantasy and ground the characters. Without any familiar ground to fall back on, the constant introduction of fantasy concepts gives the reader a bit of lore whiplash.
On a more positive note, I really liked Isaac's desire to be weird to rebel against his societal norm- pushing father. Mallory's quest, like most of the ideas you've introduced, is interesting, but I can't quite make out where the major source of antagonism is going to be. Good Kid Animus and the Milk Carton Kids seem antagonistic, but their desire to find the dreaming tree doesn't seem to conflict with Mallory's quest. Their goals align more than anything. I didn't get the impression that the Dreaming Tree is a Macguffin that could only be obtained or utilized by a single person, so the basis for antagonism between the antagonists and main character is unclear. The conflict between Ava and Animus is much more clear, but a story generally needs to be framed in the terms of the main protagonist.
The main problem with gaining interest revolves around topics I've already touched on: too many ideas too fast. You have enough unique ideas to fill a season of television smashed into a continuous stream with very little resolution to be found.
As for the characters, some are more memorable than others. The dynamic between Isaac and Ava highlights those two characters very well, but Mallory seems like a toned down version of Ava. Mallory is weird, but not as weird as Ava. Mallory has a tragic family history, but not as immediately tragic as Ava's. The main difference between Ava and Mallory to me was Mallory's quickness to anger and punching things. I'm not sure. Mallory didn't connect with me as the other characters in the story. I'd be hard pressed to explain exactly why this is the case, but I guess some things have to come down to gut feelings. On the plus side, all the character designs are unique and imaginative enough that I would be able to recognize the designs on sight for years to come.
From all the maps you drew, I can tell you put a great deal of time and effort into the world building. However, jumping into the forest so quickly didn't give the town of Moonblush to feel real in any solid way. The cartoons that make a fictional town feel real and deep generally have a large cast of "townsfolk" to populate the fictional world and act as side characters. A town is nothing more than the people who live in it, so for the moment the town is big question mark that was briefly flown over in an impressive drawing. The nature of the city our character inhabits should be a bit more fleshed out before the main quest begins. Journeying into the unknown is less impactful when the audience doesn't know much about the initial setting that's being left behind. From the city map, I got the impression that this was a small, quaint town, but there haven't really been any details in the story to back up this impression.
On a completely different tangent, the Dream Tree reaching out to Mallory in her dreams (in a mysterious and creepy way) might be an interesting way to provide impetus from her quest. It certainly leans into the whole "chosen one" trope, but I think it'd be kind of cool.
Final points: I'm not sure who you're pitching to, but the cable cartoon channels might balk at things like stealing people's ashes and kicking old ladies in the face. Aging up some characters might not be amiss (as several others have suggested), but I'd recommend to keep Ava and the Milk Carton kids the age the are now. Spooky children in the mysterious forest is a lot more compelling than teenagers in the forest. Teenagers aren't spooky.
Sorry if this is really long and not particularly focused. Despite all these critiques, I really enjoyed the comic, and would love to see the story reach its full potential on television.