17 Comments
Chapter 6 Feedback!
I cannot fully express how helpful your feedback was at the end of chapter five. I completely re-wrote the ending to chapter six (so if you found it suspenseful, you’ve nobody to blame but yourself! Okay, also me, but still! You’re a collaborator! 
) and made lots of little improvements in my process! Since it was such a valuable experience, I’d like to make it a regular tradition.
Any and all feedback, whether positive or negative, is very much appreciated! Especially if it is specific! I’ve listed my goals for this chapter above, but if there’s something else you’d like to discuss, by all means, please do so!
If you haven’t commented before, now is a great time to introduce yourself! Or, if you’d prefer a more private discussion, you can always
Thank you for your help! I hope that I can keep providing you with a better and better story with every chapter!
(PS – If you want to be featured on the site during the break with guest art, comics, or short-stories, please email me those by this Sunday! Alternate Universe, Canon, Non-canon, cross-overs, and anything else you can think of are all welcome!)
17 Comments
Well I’ve gotta say one thing I like best about your stuff is the detail you put into your world building. Everything is very detailed and makes a real impact, aesthetically.
One thing you might work on is portraying the passage of time differently, if that makes sense. It’s like… sometimes the progression of events seem a little choppy, like things are going more quickly in my head than they really are in the story. Maybe lengthening character interactions and making them a tad more fluid could help.
Was there a particular moment that you felt was too choppy? If there’s a specific moment or page-to-page transition it would be easier for me to study.
Get the owl off your head?
I can’t think of any feedback at the moment. I’ve been a bit busy with the layoffs and stuff. Funny i’ve been doing more work due to that than I have in a long time!
If I do think of something, i’ll be sure to mention it to you; but I do want to say that I very much continue to enjoy this comic and I really do appreciate all of the work you put into the comic and it’s minutiae. It inspired me to start worldbuilding on my own for a D&D game that I am running.
That’s fantastic to hear! What have you been doing with your D&D game? It sounds exciting!
Let’s see, I’ll go down the line.
1. I’ll have to reread to find this, but I do remember at one point realizing the same theme was happening for two storylines, but I can’t remember what it was now.
2. This was good for me! I like the character dynamics between Tama and Kali.
3. Complete sucess. I think you mentioned before that you worried this would be boring? I think anyone who reads this already likes worldbuilding, or you are converting them to like worldbuilding.
I am happy.
Thank you for the feedback, Mariah! It sounds like I’m mostly on track with my goals this time around. I was very worried that the portions with the village would be viewed as boring, so I’m glad this was not the case for you!
Kali and Tama’s line made the most impact on me this chapter, I think. I’m usually not one who appreciates world-building for its own sake, but the art of the canyon and the dancing of the tribe was clearly done with so much love that it was hard not to like them. The climax of her calling the storm (and Tama shortly finding out she was a half-breed) was probably the most compelling part of the chapter for me. I appreciated their “getting to know you” conversations, and I thought they effectively communicated a forming of a new friendship.
I’ve never quite connected with MizhaMomGhost; she’s been singing the same song all story and I’m not a huge fan of characters in fiction whose only role is to drag other people down. Seeing Mizha cut through her more quickly this chapter and take an active role in getting herself out was extremely gratifying, even if it later ended in mouth-to-mouth desuscitation (good curiosity-inspiring story pivot, even if it makes me whimper a little inside!)
I think the only thing that disoriented me was how fast Mizha and Zhiro ended up on the cliff with Tama and Kali at the end. Felt like there should have been some transition before that to tie their two lines together, even if it was just some quick simple page of seeing the rain and lightning outside the cave as Mizha opened her eyes.
But in summary, it was a chapter well-executed, and I can’t wait to see what happens next, which is the important thing. Your head owl (muse?) serves you well!
Thanks Delphina!
Mizha’s ghost mother is a difficult entity to write, because she’s not really a character. She’s a pattern, and those don’t really change. I have wondered about including more of Mizha’s mother as she actually was in flash backs, or perhaps side stories, but am worried it would be confusing. What do you think?
How does feedback? I have approved of everything! I, personally, really liked the way you left a fair amount of mystery surrounding what happened with Mizha and Zhiro. Their faces and body language on the last page say so much on their own, and knowing you, whatever went on back there is going to come out eventually and make at least one person’s head explode when it does. You’re really good at holding just enough back that I am not frustrated– just driven absolutely insane (in a good way).
Let’s see, what else? Great dynamic with Kali and Tama– as a way of showing a side of both of them that we hadn’t seen yet, it was very effective. Gorgeous art, as always, and GOD, it was good to see Mizha stand up to Naiome. Emotional manipulation = not okay.
DFTBA.
Thanks Rage! It seems like the ending either really worked or really didn’t work at all for people, which is interesting. I’m hoping to find a balance in there somewhere. It may just be the matter of a panel or two that would make the difference. I just have to figure out why, and what goes into those panels that is important…
DFTBA right back at ya.
I… don’t know why you have an owl on your head. But it’s fantastic.
In general, I thought this chapter was really great.
God, that mother-thing is so creepy. Especially when she silences Mizha at the beginning of the dream sequence.
I really liked having a Tama-focused chapter. It was nice to see him by himself–you can really glimpse his merits when he’s alone, whereas when he’s with his siblings he tends to make an ass of himself. And you can see what his father doesn’t.
I thought Kali and the hidden village were really effective.
I think, in terms of story, the only thing I *didn’t* like was that little excerpt from Kali’s POV. Not that I thought it wasn’t interesting. It was just sort of jarring, since all the establishing shots were obviously from Tama’s POV. (Kind of like reading a book, when it starts out third-person singular and suddenly goes into another character’s head.)
Although the scene directly after that was so ridiculously effective that it kind of cancels out. I think that scene was different just because the establishing shots needed to be from Tama’s POV, while we needed Kali’s perspective on what was happening when Tama discovers her.
I didn’t really get the connected-themes part, though. The stories were all kickass, but they felt really unique to each character. Which is what made them so strong, but still. I suppose trust and understanding did tie them all together, though.
And Tama and Kali were perfect, although you should expect that opinion from me.
Hmm…I can see your point. We’d had a little bit of Kali’s POV before that while she was dancing but it’s not nearly as stark as when Tama discovers her secret. Would this transition have been more graceful for you if those previous flashbacks had been more significant?
The dancing part was what I was referring to. It would have been nice if the shift into her head had been more obvious, because that’s kind of where it stays for the rest of the chapter. Maybe if one of the interstitial scenes with Mizha or Zhiro had been placed between the “OMG ruins” page and Kali’s dancing, things would have been less jarring. It just seems weird to be following over Tama’s shoulder while getting Kali’s thoughts.
But when Tama saw her eyes, that was a perfect scene. The page sort of led you down into her head.
Ok, now that I’m done with revisions on a certain short story, I had a chance to read through Chapter Six in one go. I think it worked really well, especially the transitions from one set of characters to another (example: pages 30 to 31). Very smooth weaving of multiple threads. The only page that slowed me down in the whole chapter is Page 14. I think the goal was to show Kali preparing without showing her face, to save the reveal for page 20, but it was confusing to me and here’s why. Panels 1 and 2 are close-ups of someone putting on tribal paint. Panel 3 shows someone (Nikel?) standing in front of a person in a blue cape. And then the focus is on the blue-caped person in the final panel. Looking back, I get what is going on, but when I first read it, I thought the first two panels were of Nikel, and I was confused as to why the last panel switched to another character. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, that’s just my two cents.
Thanks for the specificity on pages! I can see what you mean…and looking back, I messed up the 180 rule on that page as well, which would add to the disorientation. If I’d put more of an angle on the face, and kept the sides of the page that each character was on consistent (Kali always on the right, Nikel always on the left) I might have been able to indicate direction a little better.
Thank you for pointing this out! Definitely helps me keep some important things in mind for visuals.
Hello, and my apologies for being so late with this.
To answer your questions:
1. If I’ve understood the underlying theme correctly, it seems to revolve around the concept of self vs. other. Does one put others first, or their own needs or wants? We certainly see different answers to this question. Kali’s responsibility to her village outweighs her own desire to seek out her father. Mizha’s decision (realization?) that her late mother’s happiness was never her responsibility. Tama’s own moral paralysis with regards to having responsibility for others – added to the fact he feels useless in helping his siblings. Finally, Zhiro’s complete disregard for his own well-being as he makes a deal with the Dreameater. One theme or question, four different responses. If this was the theme you wanted to explore, then I think you’ve given us a good survey of the possibilities. Well done.
2. I’d have to agree with the others who’ve commented so far: the dynamic between Tama and Kali works. I’m not sure if they’re friends per se – neither person strikes me as the kind to make instant friends, but their relationship is on friendly terms, and depending on what role Kali will have in the story going forward, that will mean a lot. They’ve certainly come a long way from the start of the chapter, with Kali holding Tama at gunpoint.
3. On the Raviki culture. The thing that catches my attention is the interaction between the different cultures and their gods. The Raviki use dance to communicate, while conversations with the Dreameater use words. Both are dramatically different from the relationship with gods we’ve seen in Tama and Mizha’s home culture (Itsuri?) where gods are talked *about* but not communicated with, as far as I can see (the High Sage’s conversation with the Dreameater, using Zhiro as a surrogate in Chapter 1 seems to be a rare thing). The Itsuri seem to be out of touch even with their own magic, as they know how to weave illusions but have forgotten what to do if and when something goes wrong. We haven’t seen enough of the Raviki to know if they’ve had a similar loss of knowledge, though I personally suspect not.
This is the best I can do, and I hope it helps. Here’s to a relaxing Christmas break, and good luck with Chapter 7.
Andrew
Hi Andrew! Thank you very much for your comments. The theme you pointed out is exactly the one I was aiming for, so it’s very encouraging that the message came through.
I really like your perspective on the key difference between the cultures being their knowledge of their gods. That is very true, and while not the focus when I was building them, is a major point that I may need to emphasize in other cultures later!