Mountains of Dusk
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Two tribes live in the mountains: the K´Tahi and the Elgyk. In the past the K´Thahi ruled. They were cruel and ruthless hunters who showed no mercy whatsoever. Some even say they were canibals. But one day the Ghost Blood King led the Elgyk in a violent and desperate battle and defeated the K´Tahi. Exiling them to the upper mountains, much colder and lacking game. For countless moons the situation remained this way. One day a K´Tahi sorcerer manages to create a warrior made of dead bodies, a powerful and invincible man-shaped being who would travel to Elgyk land to kill the Ghost Blood King. But the King finds out the plan by capturing and torturing a K´Tahi spy. He decides to call for help of a retired wizard who lives isolated in the mountains. A race against time begins, with the retired wizard preparing himself to face the creature, while it inexorably approaches the Elgyk village. The story reaches its climax when the wizard, using powers he did not know he possessed, finds out how to destroy the creature. He will have to send warriors to the cave where the monster was and they will have to destroy the altar with the bodies of the people who were sacrifised there. The warriors reach the cave, to find out that it is guarded by K´Tahi warriors and their wolves. There is a great fight, when it seems all hope is gone and the wizard runs out of spells to stop the creature, the warriors manage to destroy the cave by provoking an avalanche, thus saving the King.
Dark, gritty. The stark nature of the art reflects the story nicely. Would like to see more somewhere.
The first two pages were really long, a character should be shown upfront or anything relating with the character, made the comic to drag. Work on the dialogue more and have theme ready so it can get a good pace.
I agree with the comments. Nice art. The introduction looked promising but the last pages didn't seem to click well. Like you needed more than the 8 pages to tell just the introduction. it's not like wanting more of the story but more of was the introduction finished yet.
Hi everybody!
I´m here to apologise for not replying your comments properly. Been very busy all this time, and thank God things are cooking quite well.
Thanks for all the criticism, positive and negative, mainly all the talk about the story´s intro... maybe some of you are right, this deserves a graphic novel (in fact, I plan to do it some day!). But thanks for all the great words about my art. I really appreciate that. And the competition is not over yet!!:)
It's really too bad that this is sitting in 10th. It's beautifully rendered, Manoel.
I want to read more and wish you had more then 8 pages. But I think the way you paced this didn't work to well for the competition. Loved the artwork especially in black and white, with all the snow it would be predominantly white anyways.
Kinda lost me. Interesting intro...but, like I said, kinda lost me near the end.
I like the art but i need to read more to tell whats really going on in the story.
This is the opposite of where I grew up with all the snow, but the story is like the one my grandmother told me about Pele.
You really should engage the plot in your eight pages - it's no good giving all this set-up only to give us 2 pages of dialogue.
Nice artwork - I'm sure if you had 22 pages this would be outstanding
Lovely artwork and concept -- script could use some work though. Could benefit from less exposition.
Very epic! Very beautiful!
mythic and beautiful... this definitely needs to be ranked higher.
This is really a beautiful comic. I was impressed with it from the beginning. I will agree that the pace is a little slow, but I enjoyed it. I keep looking back at it for the art.
Have to agree with Red Robot and a couple of others. Love the stark B/W artwork and the wordy prose - very real. Intrigued to know where it goes first. I also have the same reservation - this is clearly the start of a much bigger story - just a taster really - does it stand up to the brief webcomic format? Not sure it does it justice really... Interested to see more.
This looks great ... very nice artwork flowing from panel to panel ... nice steady story development ... my only criticism is that this may be too big a story for the webformat ... which may work against it.
Pacing is a bit slow. I also agree with the editor thing. Although I only saw 2 miss spellings. The dialogue flows well enough to me. I didn't have to reread anything like others did. I was also impressed with the vocabulary. Most "normal" comics stay away from big words like that, which is something I loath. If it weren't for people like Chris Claremont using big words I might not know any. I applaud you for your vocabulary. I'd like to see more whether here or not. Also possibly color but your probably against that considering the cold, wintery feel a stark white provides. So I guess screw the color.
Epic Alex Toth type look. I like it!
I really like the art, I want to read more of the story. Good job!
Really Nice, I love the art, Seems like you need a lot of more pages, the pace is good and we can see that something big, a big war is coming.
The artwork was better than Prince Val... and nobody had that lame as page boy haircut. I liked it! I tended to think the language quirks were interesting. They gave it an otherworldly tone... kind of Conan-y. (...and yes "Conan-y" is a valid description).
Oh my God, soooo boooring! Reminded me of one of those terrible Prince Valiant strips that taint the Sunday funnies. Nice Joe Kubert-esque art, though.
very cool b/w art and style
It doesn't deserve to be in last...but it doesn't deserve to win either.
Felixvida, are three!
Me too!
Falexvidal! You´re brazilian too! That´s great, man! Good luck to you! Guess we all deserve some room in comics industry! Really like your work!
This has graphic novel written all over it. Sam is correct, the text could be edited tighter.
Hey man, I guess we have two brazilians in this competition. I got surprised while checking your profile. Good luck my friend!!
The art here is absolutely gorgeous and I think there's an interesting story in there as well. The writing seemed a bit too awkward though. I suppose it could be translation issues. I do think this has the makings of being a good grand epic, in the tradition of Conan, but the writer could use the help of a good editor.
Good luck, guys!
Hi, guy! I liked its, good art and writen, a diferent visual of other historys!
Continue doing it and good luck for you!
I didn't like it. Please, before someone labels me a troll, understand that I'm not criticizing for the sake of it. I think this could be a good comic strip if you had an English editor who really knew the language and grammar. But the fact that I had to re-read every word balloon to understand what was being said or narrated made the reading experience a tedious one. Not a good thing - readers who have to work hard to understand the story won't stay readers for long. I wish you luck and future success.
From this one I get the feeling that there is a massive, epic world you've created. But I don't think that transitions well to the 8 page submission, as we only get to see a fraction of it, and even less of the characters and plot (which, going by the synopsis, is also quite epic). Don't get me wrong, I loved it. The art and writing were very fitting. I want to see more. I however think that the lack of plot in the actual 8 pages may harm it in the rankings. *May* harm it, as in general submissions that don't focus on plot don't do well, but SuperTron took gold last month with little emphasis on plot.
I think this is very interesting. I like the use of the tones and the very nice blacks gives it a very cold atmosphere that really works. It does feel very epic but as an introduction it felt like the reader was brought in at the wrong time - like we walked in on the story after it already started.
Thanks a lot, HairballOne! You´re absolutely right, this was supposed to be a graphic novel or something like that, but the chance in Zuda showed up and I took it. Who knows if I can publish it in the future?
First impressions:
I think that there are storytelling issues in play. When I'm ready to get involved in a new narrative I want to see:
1. Setting
2. Protagonist
3. Conflict
(not necessarily in that order)
In this case I feel that setting has been amply addressed, but protagonist and conflict have not. I think it was a mistake to split attention between the running man and the talking men. I was starting to relate to the running man a little bit, but then he got bit by a wolf. Doh!
Conflict has been suggested in one sense of the word, but I'm left feeling cold. So there's a war between the tribes, but I don't understand why. The 'why' would've been more interesting I think.
The art is very pretty. I have a lot of respect for a guy who's willing to put that much effort into his backgrounds. Bravo.
I think this story deserves a great big graphic novel. Whatever you've got brewing, it's epic and needs space to unfold. Great style, love the atmosphere and pacing. Hope you get to tell your tale!
thought I had it ... and this is that last thing I read. exclusive.
I like the black and white.....reminds me of classic Savage Sword of Conan, Ernie Chan, John Buscema, etc [Kwanza, Ron....Sorry to name a title and artists from "the other guys"] Your pacing is what hurts this in my eyes....tooo slow..The art will only grab a person initially, it the story that will move the art along and give a work the completeness that it needs and I am just not seeing/feeling it here.
Uh-oh... thanks for showing it, RKB! It came unnoticed... hey, mpd57, drawing rocks is the real fun to me! Thanks!
You sure can draw rocks! Among other things. Not a story that has me gripped, but you sure can draw rocks!
In the synopsis it's ghost blood king in the comic it's ghost red king, I'm guessing this is a translation mistake. is it sangre or rojo? I was critical of road for being in black and white, but I think mono-tone really suits this comic, and the older style I think you were going for. The synopsis pretty much tells everyone (not just the editors) what is going to happen, but i wouldn't mind reading on to fine out how it happens. Screen 2 where you go from talking about the elgyk to the k'tahi to the elgyk was hard to understand which tribe you where talking about. Very interesting story though, nice to see something different on Zuda. Wizards, ancients tribes, and a great name for the comic, to go along with the art. Very cool job.
The cold atmosphere definitely comes across. In fact you've done a very good job at setting the atmosphere, but I feel like I only got a teaser of the story to come. We haven't seen the ghost blood king or any other main character yet.
Hi, people! First of all thanks for the comments! Please do not pay attention to my english... as for the style, I´ve always loved classic artists like All Williamson, Joe Kubert and Eisner. Tried to build a cold and wild atmosphere for the story. Wish I had the time to use more colors in it, but guess the result wasn´t bad!
Dig the monotone, old-school look.
Any reason why you chose to do this in black and white?
A legend about an Indian Tribe or Far Eastern people or Inuits... nice. I like the choice of using just one color. I hope you end up using color somewhere in the future, and I'm excited to see it really pop.