I vote for... ... This is a hard one. But I think I will vote for Small Miracles by Darkhorse, and Love by Dora. They moved me most in a combination of art and story. However, I want to say I was astonished by not only the volume, but the QUALITY of the entries this time. They were gorgeous and well-told, great pacing and great stories, and many I could see evidence of time spent in the pieces, unlike some past entries. I think this has been a great month for MOM! I may not have time to participate in the future, so I am really proud to have been a part of such an astonishing month at the Monthly Online Manga. It's been great fun, thank you Tang for this awesome site.
Piece by piece commentary:
2. Courtly Love- Julie Bihn- As always, a good read. Yours is now one of the first pieces on MOM that I open up, knowing it'll be a good solid story. I'd still be interested in seeing more distinction between panels, and some different panelling, but I'm also getting used to the regular pacing. The actual temporal pacing (action in each panel and the time lapsed between) seems great. One nitpick with the coloring, you seem to make a "shine" on almost everything- I'd reserve it to shiny things, and maybe the highlights on the face which seem more like highlights rather than shines. Good job again :)
3. Flight - Alexe - Very cool, VERY gorgeous!! Love the light, pencil (?) lines. What a twisted, great story. The handwritten text works very well with this piece. I love it. ^_^
4. Winged Creatures - Alex - Very cute! This story was well written and effective, made me feel sentimental. I like the simplicity of the people, almost SD. And you use the computer effects nicely. ^_^ hope to see more of your works!
5. Jingles - Ameko - Another cute one, though this is good old fashioned cutesy cute! Love the conclusion, very funny.
6. Taking Flight- Aziza- The first page sequence sorta reminds me of a scene from the issue of Wolverine that followed him losing his adamantium to Magneto... Very interesting, wrigging style, I like the activity, though I think it could be cleaned up a little to look superb. The handwritten text was hard to read, so I couldn't really follow the story well...
7. Freebird - Bowen - Nice strong clean lines and blacks- really reminds me of something that should be printed in some underground newsprint zine! Great first entry. My only suggestion, careful of your figures- they get a little distorted at times.
8. Small Miracles - Darkhorse - What a nice, elegant piece! And absolutely no words! This is a gorgeous piece of linework, even with the greys. reminds me of childrens books ^_^. I like it very much! Hope to see more by you.
9. Great Escape - Divine Chan- The first non-wings entry (i think...?) Ahhh, the scans weren't so bad- if you scan them at higher resolution and then shrink them, it may turn out better. ^_^ A more "human" look at cutting one's self up, I suppose...
10. Love - Dora - having already gushed about this to you, I have to just repeat how much I love this story and how it made me get all teary. You have a storytelling gift! The art is quite unique, in it's more realistic/almost hong-kong comic feel, and stands out. But the story-- you really do have a touch there!
11. A Conversation - D_Art - ROFLMAO! This is just plain hilarious. And you broke the semi-shoujo feel that almost all the other pieces have had. I like. Very simple, nice detailed artwork, really funny. Nuf said.
12. Wings - Emma Guerard - I like the story! very nice. Very simple, cartoonish art. I DO wish that there were less panels to a page, and that they were bigger! It's sort of discouraging at first to look at, with so much crammed into one space ^_^;
13. GEA - JMO Maxwell - Interesting story! I would love to see more. Nice strong darks and good flow in places. Would like to see more expressions of people's faces, and some neater lettering but otherweise looks good!
14. Metal Angel Rhapsody - Jo - already gave you a nitpicky critique and gush, so I'll just summarize it here: this is really strong work girl! You have some really awesome grey/black/white balances and some brilliant panel/pacing work. I think you'd benefit from having more time to do it more slowly, and strengthening your structure in places, but other than that... great stuff and as always... a wonderful story.
15. The Star Caste -Kaice- Cute ^_^ . I'd love to see this inked... I bet it would look wonderful. Nice sort of "big eye" style.
16. Seven Jewels 2 - Kasumiko - Eep, watch some of the english/typos in this. ^_^ They shake up what is a perfectly lovely piece. The cover especially, is gorgeous, though I am not sure if I like the fonts used..
17. Winged Things - Kitchenman - Really nice, dark art! I like your style.
18. Escape - Steph Levy - Very cool framing concept. I would love to see this in watercolors as you said... do you plan to redo it?
19. WITH: - Renie Benie - Fun... I think I said this before, but the title reminds me of GTO. The mixing of english and japanese bugs me a little, but it's a personal peeve. waah, sorry for not commenting more... there's so many entries this month... @_@
20. Away - Saki- Mmm, pretty, strong inks, nice shading. I like the style, it reminds me of ... something I saw in BexBoy... Urh, anyways- looks good, but watch the tops of people's heads, they get a little low- of course that may just be your stylization of it- personal taste ^_^;;;
21. Great Escape- Sami - Hahaha! I like, very cute. That would be what happens to me, of course ^_~ were I ever to try such a thing.
22. Devil Elf & Sand Witch - Van Nguyen - I like the style of the elves! And I love that boy with the horns *_* (the one who stops all the crows)... *glomps him* Fun stuff. Colored with a wacom right? I'm just learning to use my new one... *_*... only question would be why the arbitrary coloring... and watch some of the structure of the people, at times they get a bit awkward.
23. Spam - Spam- *Grins* cute ^_^ ... but I like your sense of humor.
24. Poison - Wetheril - Very gorgeous... I want some time to go through it in more detail for you privately, but that'll have to wait... I'm so backed up right now ;_;. I can really tell you put a bit of time into this and I'm glad yu submitted it to the MOM. You really hae a wonderful grasp of flowing, light lines and that airy (grr, for lack of better word) sort of shoujo style.
25. Cammy Self Defense - Tang - *GRINS* you have a delightfully wicked sense of humor, Tang. ^_^ and I love your color sense.
26. Remembrance - Myew - Another one I already commented privately on ^_^ ... I do think you do a perfect CLAMP style, with maybe a touch of Yami No Matsuei thrown in (as my friend Tina pointed out) ... Very lovely and detailed, although the black text boxes with the blue realllly doesn't work for me. Hard to tell what was going on though- I never realized this was YYH til late! Good job on the whole . ^_^
27 Dream Catcher - Fie - (erk- there's nothing there when i go there!! anyone know what happened??) ========================================================================= * P L U T O * http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lizcheng/