Review Swap (Comics Only)

powerplantanimations 2025-08-17 02:40:22 UTC #1

Willing to do a review swap!!!!

Comics only because I don't really have time for novels without illustrations sorry lol

Summary: IN THE DREAM WORLD, SHE’S A GODDESS! IN REALITY, SHE’S YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE! Every night, professional brat, Coco Doe, watches over a dream universe inhabited by creatures that represent pivotal moments of her life. One of these characters being a professional (albeit biased) teddy bear priest named Yu’Chri, who’s been tasked to write her BIBLE!

Journey with us as we see these two perspectives clash in this farcical comedy.

EDIT: I'LL ONLY GO THROUGH YOURS IF I SEE A REVIEW FOR MINE!! Also no comments for sub-4-subs!!!!

justincarbunkle 2025-08-17 03:11:04 UTC #2

Fiiine. I'll read your comic.

Read mine too please.

justincarbunkle 2025-08-17 05:31:32 UTC #3

Read it. I like it. It really captures the writing style of a lonely, nerdy, anime raised 14 year old making up stories to escape reality. So far you’ve done a good job slowly revealing details of their real life and getting me to speculate what’s really going on with them. I like the lighthearted, quirky tone of their journal entries, the little details (blood, tear drops) on the journal pages, and the cute simple sketch drawings. Only real complaint I have is I wish every episode had drawings.

Enjoyable. I’d love to read more when more episodes are released.

sophialyn 2025-08-17 14:45:30 UTC #4

LOVE this art style! Excited to read! Here’s mine:

kyupol 2025-08-17 14:49:04 UTC #5

OK just read this...

My first impression? Looks like a blur with fantasy vs reality. It definitely captures the narrator's head space. I'm guessing if it's all fictional or real events or real events interspersed with fiction.

Can somewhat relate. The whole thing about building an incredibly complex fantasy world with its own history, culture, politics, etc. But so far, looks like this fantasy world being built is still a work in progress. If it goes on, it might end up like star wars, Naruto, etc. In complexity.

kyupol 2025-08-17 14:49:55 UTC #6

Anyway here's my stuff..

Leonotis 2025-08-17 14:57:09 UTC #7

Name: Leonotis

Synopsis:

Sadia returns to find her husband, Leander, corrupted by Oko Egan, a vengeful Dryad she'd imprisoned. The Dryad escapes, mortally wounding Sadia and Leonotis, then abducts Leander. Sadia's dying magic saves her child. Orphaned Leonotis, with allies Jacqueline, Low, and Zombiel, must now uncover the kingdom's corruption, evade a relentless king seeking his power, and confront his family's grim fate in a world teetering on war.

Red_Dog 2025-08-17 15:06:04 UTC #8

My review: This kinda reminds me of the stuff I would do in class where I would come up with my own weird little stories and spend most of my time in said classroom doodling characters or writing my own (very bad) lore. So by that personal metric I find this pretty charming. It was kinda fun trying to spot what is reality and the main character's own little fantasy land. Not to mention I unironically had a vendetta against ants as a child. I'm chill with them now, but I didn't like how'd they get into places I didn't want them to be so much.
I do wish every chapter had drawings along with it because I find them to be the most charming part of the series.
Also I subscribed to your comic, but you don't need to do that for my comic when you review it unless you enjoy it enough.

Red_Dog 2025-08-17 15:07:35 UTC #9

Now here's my comic Knife Teeth:

Set in the town of Murk Water, Sadie Lurker is a sharp toothed monster woman living in plain sight who was discovered as a baby by Trudy Lurker.

But creepy stuff happens in Murk Water and Sadie must protect her home from all manner of trouble and horror.

A horror comic with an offbeat sense of humor following a sharp toothed monster girl with anxiety and a lack of social skills.

Also: Content warning for monster related violence and some nudity incase that's not up your alley.

powerplantanimations 2025-08-17 19:19:54 UTC #10

Aight so, didn't expect to get a lot! But @justincarbunkle @kyupol @Red_Dog
I'm currently reading y'alls. You guys get top priority since you actually gave a review.

I'll be doing something where I'll give live updates after finishing an arc since I have a lot of my plate (I have to finish YouTube and Webcomic scripts before Surge Tech/Radiology starts... believe it or not there's a webcomic tie-in called "GL Stick Figure Isekai")

But also you can see how my opinions change over time throughout each story. I'll be posting frequently here.

But just to show I ain't going to half-ass y'all:

@justincarbunkle But I read through your first 10 episodes (the We're All Going to the Fried Twinkle Fair) and this project of yours fascinates me! You know at first, it starts off as your typical edgy 2000's comic, but then I noticed details like the demon thing pulling me in. Six of them are the "Carbunkle" (which is clearly you). It's how all the madness stops just to focus on this one detail and then other stuff like how the older people wind up dying at the fair, with the younger people taking charge. Also how things loop around with that blonde girl (I suck at names when reading comics for the first time so forgive me) but her crashing out and attempting to get the life she wants but can't achieve. Someone who deals with people with OCD I appreciate your depiction of this, and it manages to be shockingly accurate.

I'm wondering if the older generation is from your original comic??? Like they grew up and now you're focusing on a newer generation. The theme park potentially being representative of you burning down an older belief to explore newer beliefs. Hopefully I got that right.

This is clear that this is a passion project where you're telling a story where you can only tell your story and there's something neat going on; but I will give you marketing tips if you plan on doing more projects.

So okay... not totally digestible for a modern audience . You most likely know that, but a lot of the professional writers that I know that're either now gone from this site to pursue bigger things or work with Disney or Marvel are just going to stick their nose up at you and not give you a chance. Also if you're thinking of going into the indie field, same with a lot of indie people. People BLAME executives for giving us safer works, but the truth is when these people break off they continue to make safe works... just on their own time.

People don't put stuff on their resumes for a safer job. If you try looking for a writing job, just keep in mind that you can say everything about themes and YOU HAVE REALLY SMART THEMES; but people will shrug you off regardless.

Tapas has this thing where they will market artstyles that co-exist with their bigger projects. It's why my project TSFI got over a 100,000 views and the site has a clear GL bias. You put a GL on the corner of your comic and you're SET FOR LIFE. No advertising nothing.

But if you drop a lot of slurs, moderators will be like "Yeah I ain't touching that shit" and you'd have a harder time with your future projects because they'll be like "OH IT'S THAT SLUR GUY".

Apparently mature doesn't do well either? I think maybe Newgrounds or ComicFury will be a more suitable platform for you?

My question was how big was this comic back then? :0

Anyway, YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH so funny thing about the art! We had pages that were decorated for the Yu'Chri segments, but stupid Tapas didn't do them justice when porting them.

The entire point of the Yu'Chri segments was to give us time to draw up quality pictures. Think of it as a buffer. It's the same mentality with That Stick Figure Isekai where panels are just outright stick figures with the anime art being more rewarding.

It's more of a business decision to pump stuff out while not comprimising on quality; still though this is something that can be dealt with in future books if we find an angle but again, an angle will need to be found to address this concern.

I appreciated that you liked it though!! My co-writer, PANDA WHITE helped make the teenage girl stuff more realistic (since she once was a teenage girl :v)

@kyupol Anyway expect something like this for you tomorrow. Imma rotate if you guys don't mind!!!

justincarbunkle 2025-08-17 20:52:01 UTC #11

The “Carbunkle” part was something Sheri fabricated because she wanted real life to be more like anime + has the magical powers to alter reality. The main 6 don’t know why they’re immortal. I partly wanted to poke fun at cartoon series that have magical chosen one origins + a secret society that the main story builds toward/takes seriously. Not sure yet if I’ll bring these points back.

I didn’t think at all about that generational aspect. The adults are pretty minor characters, the focus is almost always on the 6 immortal teenagers. They’re physically 15, but mentally 38. I was more writing about my own experience with going to the fair every year. I loved it as a child, but now I’m pretty bored of it, having seen every attraction, and the fair having less stuff per year. Also fits with the comics general theme of apathy towards the repetitiveness of everyday life, which these perpetually high school characters constantly feel.

Her name is Destiny. I go more into that in other chapters. Destinys life was “rebooted” to being a teenager after she got married/had a child. She tries to enjoy being a teenager, but is still constantly haunted about the family life she lost and will never have. I’m happy her perfectionist mentality was able to get across.

Lol no. The comic started in 2022, and has always focused on the teenagers. I do really like your interpretation tho.

My plan atm is actually to make a television pilot, and try selling this as a tv series.

I do go pretty far with my subject matter. I’m willing to tone some of it down + work with people if money ever gets involved, but not if it means creating a less funny/impactful creation in my eyes. I’m looking to make something along the lines of South Park/Hazbin Hotel in terms of content.

I’ve debated releasing “censored” versions of my pages on Tapas (and keep the uncensored ones on my website), because the few episodes I have that aren’t M rated have much better views than the others. But even crossing out slurs like you did, I still often focus on sexual, violent, uncomfortable topics that’d be hard to censor completely.

Oh shit I didn’t know you had other series. Yeah I noticed! All the big name comics are GL/BL, or isekai, and they all have the same anime artstyle and layouts (I recently did a chapter mocking all this). “Stick Figure” looks like a fun take on those kinds of comics.

I’m not familiar with ComicFury, or NG’s comic scene. I’ll have to check those out.

It was never big. I’ve gotten maybe 10 views total on my website, and the other 1.2k are from here. I need to advertise more. I didn’t before because I was self conscious my comic “wasn’t good enough” but now I do wanna get any views and feedback I can, positive or not. I just don’t really know where to do so.

Aw you did? Yeah, Tapas picture resolution limit is disappointing. I hate how blurry/compressed my pages look after compressing them for upload. I wish you’d still post them. If they look anything like the anime sections in “Stick Figure”, they’d be great, and make those sections much more engrossing.

Thank you for your feedback. : )

powerplantanimations 2025-08-17 21:36:31 UTC #12

Np bud! And when pitching keep in mind that companies will OWN your idea. Like read the contracts VERY carefully. This is my indie pilot btw:

I'm the lead writer but I do work with a lot of industry vets which is neat.

But yeah just play it smart with your story!!!

You know, even the best indies are struggling; but Newgrounds you can get away with edge and a lot of the stuff there is up your alley. Here's a video:

I think with what you said, probably clear all those aspects up a bit? But other than that, your story is engaging! Can't wait to see the second arc after I read the others!!!

Also it isn't as impressive. Just decorated pages they're on the Webtoon version (I'm not linking since I could possible be in trouble).

Also just for fun here's a page for GL:

^ Fufie's the protag. She's going to be the protag of Book 2 of Dream Goddess Chronicles.

justincarbunkle 2025-08-17 23:49:07 UTC #13

That’s really cool you get to work with professionals! That pilot looks really nice.

Oh yeah, if I ever get to that stage, absolutely I’d get a lawyer. Right now I’m just focusing on getting the pilot finished. I only made one other animation in my life:

Which...for something made in 2 weeks isn’t too bad, but the Pilot will definitely need to be better.

Oh I’m very aware of Newgrounds videos + games, just not their webcomics. I’ll try posting there!

Yeah probably the worst thing about my series is my premise not being immediately clear. I’m glad you seemed to enjoy it! I’ll read your stick figure comic later, that actually looked cool.

Eh, still better than no pictures. Lol.

jwabeasley 2025-08-18 00:04:54 UTC #14

I can do a review swap with you, if you like. I haven't had any reviews in a while and would be interested in how you like the more recent chapters.

It will take me a bit to go through it properly, though, please be patient.

powerplantanimations 2025-08-18 01:02:53 UTC #15

Sure!!! Also honestly same with all the others

So me being patient should give me enough time!!! Thanks so much!!!

powerplantanimations 2025-08-18 01:09:34 UTC #16

YEAH THIS IS PERFECT NEWGROUNDS MATERIAL!!!

I'll put this on in the background while I do homework .

Btw as someone who's written for HBO Max, maybe try pitching this to Adult Swim? When pitching you have to match the aesthetic of whatever, so this is like... Adult Swim material if looking for a major network lol

justincarbunkle 2025-08-18 01:15:53 UTC #17

Really?! Can you say what shows you wrote for? That's fucking awesome.

Lemme know what you think )

Oh absolutely. I wish they still did those development/pitch meeting streams. I really wanted to do that with one of my friends web series. I'll try everyone I can get a hold of.

powerplantanimations 2025-08-18 01:18:03 UTC #18

YEAH BUT LIKE BE CAREFUL since the stuff you pitch there they own which suuuuuuuuuucks.

Kent Hammer.

I didn't write it entirely, Dominick Green did calls and we'd submit ideas. I helped shape it a bit, but one of the shorts he animated for me was the HBO executive's favorite which I'm proud of

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mkcAh5BxRMI

jwabeasley 2025-08-18 03:49:41 UTC #19

Alright, I ended up going through it faster than I expected.

I think it's well done. The setup reminds me of Twelve Forever crossed with Dear Mr. Henshaw. I can relate to being a weird kid often off in my own imagination, as can most of the writers on this site, I think. There are many webnovels on Tapas that amount to people publishing their imaginary fantasy worlds. I like that this wasn't that and instead focused on the interaction between real life and fantasy (which is something I explored in my TapasxKickstarter contest comic "Distractions," so it's close to my heart and the top of my mind just now). I did worry, going into this, that it was going to be mostly an exercise in worldbuilding without substance, and the intro with the map gave that vibe. I'm glad that that initial impression proved false.

I like Coco's journal pages, which have a lot of humor in them and remind me of my sketchbooks from that age. I would've liked the bear's entries to be also illustrated, perhaps in some faux-medieval style to keep production easy. I found the typed text to be unnecessary, it was easy enough to read.

Generally speaking, you do a great job communicating in Coco's voice. I only took issue with her use of the term "spawn" in the first page, since she's not otherwise into video games it felt weird to use that video-game-specific jargon. Coco's clearly neurodivergent, although these days I think nearly everyone is. Certainly nearly everyone on the internet. It also seems to be trending towards a GL, which is not my thing, but it is popular on this site.

Most of the time, I feel like Coco is very boyish. She has boyish interests and boyish reactions, dresses on the masc side and draws in a boyish way. That's fine although I feel like some more time could be spent on showing her as a girl rather than as a boy with female pronouns, if you catch my drift. I'm a parent to girls, a tomboy, and boys, and can tell you that there is a lot of difference under the hood! If Coco was named Carlos, you wouldn't have to change much.

Coco's response to bullying and the behavior of her bullies is very masculine as well. Girl bullies usually are a lot more indirect and diffuse, with behavior that is much more difficult to detect or fight against. That type of bullying would probably be much more difficult for Coco to deal with, so you might consider using some of that type of subtle aggression.

The humor and energy in the little cartoons was great, and I'd like to see more of those going forward. That does seem to be the general trend as well, so keep it up!

I like the subtle implications that some of her fantasy abilities and traits are bleeding over into the real world, which is interesting. I appreciate that you've kept this side subtle and deniable thanks to our unreliable narrator. I hope you keep that lack of clear distinction going!

Overall, my reaction to this story was a lot more positive than I thought it was going to be, and I appreciate you sharing the story with us!

powerplantanimations 2025-08-19 00:04:42 UTC #20

OHHHHHHHHHHHH THE MEDIEVIL ART!!! CAN YOU SHARE ME EXAMPLES PLEASE?!? Because you and Carbunkle mentioned art and my brain was like "Oh how are we going to do that" and then you did something REALLY BRILLIANT with medievil art. .... We might actually end up doing those pages after this book finishes lol. Because the thing is we wanna sorta keep the ball rolling on releasing the pages without a hiatus. But... hmm.. we might make it sooner.

But yeah, if you can give references that'd be awesome.

It's probably going to have to be on the germanic side since Coco's half-german (hence the elf) (and without getting into spoilers, Fufie is the protagonist of the second book so hers is obviously going to be Japanese.

I need to see your comic Distractions btw. We were going to do a kid's book for Coco called "If I Were Goddess..." for the competition; but we ran out of time.

The artist still wants to finish it for the kids at her Church; so we could be getting a sub-series based around Coco's childhood.

The thing with the typed text is that I get shit from other platforms for not including them so they'd have to stay

Coco does reference video games down the line in a disturbing scene, but I do REALLY appreciate your comments. The neurodivegent bit I'm ACTUALLY REALLY HAPPY YOU THINK SHE IS. She's not lmaoooo but like she's something else entirely that adds to the metaphor of people an outcast and it's more like she's an obvious metaphor for something. Fufie seems to think that Coco's neurodivergent.

PANDA White and I are both autistic, but she thought that it was for the best that Coco wasn't for what's about to come up.

The boyish thing though is fascinating. PANDA White worried about that, because like I was writing like "What I would say if I was a girl" but then also my brain ended up pivoting towards making Coco like my sister later on.

Like for reference, my sister once twisted this buff guy's jerk's nipples telling him to delete a video calling her a bitch, bringing him to his knees. And then she was like "DELETE THAT VIDEO IN YOUR TRASH", making sure that his girlfriend was watching. At soccer, she was so advanced that she was playing with dudes to the point where they were like "ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE BIOLOGICAL?!" and she took that as a badge of honor. And then she says the most unhinged shit.

There was a Jiu Justsu girl also that kicked my ass and was punking me while doing it. Like the most aggressive one out of the entire class.

You're right about the feminine thing, and luckily that is a thing that gets explored later on.

But yeah I REALLY appreciated your review and will be checking yours out once I get through @kyupol's

Also this isn't a GL. Coco's asexual, but doesn't have any feelings towards Fufie. Fufie sees Coco as a "big brother" which is like... yeah lmaoooo.

MAN THOUGH my brain is really lingering on those medievil pages. Because like either I could wait until the book is finished and then people can re-read them with me updating so they wait for that (kinda like a New Game +) ORRRR I could do it now with another artist. We'll see though we def have a lot on our plate because we finished Book 1.