Pretty cool. Again, I love comics that tap folklore and legend. History provides such a rich background to pull fascinating stories from, even if the stories are original, just carrying the flavor and texture of different cultures and their mythos. Nice art, nice design. Hope to see more somewhere.

Hey stev shot me an e-mail- juanfelipesalcedo@gmail.com

Well in the end you get my vote Steve. Even though i did fan art for BH, i really enjoyed your comic the most and could not do (art wise) justice for your comic. I like that it is original and i am a sucker for everything with a Asian vibe to it. I really enjoyed this comic. I do want to see what is next.

This month was so hard to vote for.

Well I doubt this will come even close to RKB’s “we-aint-stoppin-till-our-eyes-bleed” post…but here’s my take…( I preface this by saying that this is one of my 3 favourites this month.)
____________________________________________________

Art: Love the style. When I saw page one I groaned at first. The white outline around subjects bugged me and made it hard for me to read spatial relationships, but as I wove through the comic I saw that it enhanced foreground elements pulling them out from the flatter background pieces. The colour choices were soft a bit too soft for my tastes, but the style is something that you’ve established and carried through all 8 pages. The character positions and transitions from panel to panel and the little glyph/symbols on the borders add to the ‘legendary’ feel of the comic as a whole.
___________________________________________________

Lettering: nice and simple. One of my crits on a few other comics I’ve seen here, is that the love that has been put on some of the text, overshadows instead of compliments the artwork. Not the case here- the gradient backdrops over narration and the simple word ballons are nice.
___________________________________________________

Story: Decent and well developed – though 5 pages of backstory lead-in with only 3 pages left to get in and set the tease for “what happens next”…I personally would have inverted this. It does flow well though and the more times I read through the more I liked it.
_____________________________________________

After page 6 I really had this “Conan the Barbarian” vibe going on…”Let me tell you of the days of HIGH adventure!”
_____________________________________________

Really good job on the comic.

Nice that you attempted something a bit different but i think there was too much to take in at the opening. Too many alien words.
Anyhow, i liked some of the layouts using tribal art.

Excellent character design and color choices. I like how you're thinking outside of the box on your layouts and page designs. Good luck!

That's for the in-depth critique RKB. I'll take a comparison to Frank Miller any day. And no, actually Janggar's face isn't always obscured. I just didn't want to undercut his main reveal later in the story, so I figured I'd hold back a little. I was hoping maybe people would vote for it because they wanted to see the story continue, but that strategy doesn't seem to have worked very well.

SCREEN ! -er I mean SCREEN 1First things first I know a little about what went down in Mongolia and the ta-tars, and the great Kahn from the history channel special on barbarians, but if I hadn't I would have been completely lost without this screen. You did a very good job of setting up the where and when with this panel, it was something you needed to do and you did it. That being said a history lesson shouldn't go on for more than 2 or 3 panels tops then it's time to make with the story.
************************************************************
The mythology of central Asia is something I knew nothing about, this gave your comic a nice twist to set it apart from more well known western myths another version of Thor or Hercules no interest, Janggar it's a familiar genre, but it's got a touch of the unknown/ something just a little bit different that pulls me in.
************************************************************
The colors fit really well, font on the letters a little small for small screen. The synopsis was excellent!!!! I always read those things so they always count with me. One thing I'm not a big fan of the built in weakness. You know what I'm talking about Green Lantern and the color yellow, Superman and kryptonite etc; I get why writers do it, otherwise a character would be too powerful so this helps increase the villain pool, I'm guessing there is a time limit to this stuff as well? I get why you did it everyone needs a weakness (that's probably why it was in the early myths) it still doesn't thrill me. I enjoyed your art for the same reason I liked Rudy's I can tell you got your own style, and your comfortable with it. The fact your so good at drawing what you want to draw, makes it a better read for everyone.
*************************************************************
Panel 2 the camel reminded me of that scene (you know the one if you have read it) of the camel in the infinite canvas comic When I am King. AAARRRGGHH!!!!! I'll never look at camel's in comics the same way again really (and the sheik used to be one of my fav batman villains), it scarred my mind.
*************************************************************
Panel 3 very good layout I liked the sun in the background, and the placement of the various figures.
***********************************************************
SCREEN 2 I enjoyed your use of borders it reminded me of fables, and again helped set the mood you were looking for.
************************************************************
Panel 1 loved the flying head in the background, also showing use what kind of world these people are in.
***********************************************************
Panel 2 very good art here, channeling frank miller at his best for the lighting of the shaman. Great panel composition as well.
*************************************************************
You do realize I haven't said anything about the text boxes yet right??? They are not thought balloons in drag, and they do serve a purpose of showing us the history of this place. I think your trying to go for this being the real world of the past just with supernatural elements, by screen 2 you have pretty much established that. Let's see some characters start talking soon maybe??? Who knows shock the reader by having Janggar show up before the last screen???
***********************************************************
SCREEN 3 AAARRGGHHH!!!!! I know the way you set the story up you need the text boxes. I actually welcome them to a point the history is interesting and I don't want to fill lost in the story. Besides my personal dislike for them though, you do realize you reader is just reading along, instead of following the story on the edge of his chair right??? If you don't get what I mean let me try again If J was having a fight with someone, or evil spirits were attacking someone, I would be on the edge of my chair reading along as fast as I could because I wanted to know what happened next. It's a WHO WILL LIVE WHO WILL DIE kind of deal. With this so far I was just reading the text boxes, enjoying the history, and thinking it was just the quiet before the storm. Now that were at screen 3 you got me worried it's just the quiet.
***********************************************************
Panel 1 Really enjoyed the art work here and the panel layout. Learning about the demons was cool (almost but not yet went overkill on the history/culture lesson), the demon spirits gathering around was good.
*********************************************************
Panel 2 YES!!! A title character sighting in silhouette. At least that's what I hope it is. The next screen would be the perfect time to met the hero of heroes. Him being part monster tied in nice to the synopsis, and even if you didn't read it, it sets up the mystery of his past. Neat!!!
**********************************************************
I don't mind a lot of panels on the page, I don't mind not having a lot of panels on the page, I think you made the right call for this comic -fewer, bigger panels, more detail more of an epic feel to it.
************************************************************
SCREEN 4 YES!!! we have our full page shot of J, looking like a bad arse demon fighter should. I like the fact you can't see his face here (will we ever see his face, or always hidden in warrior form???) I really enjoyed the borders here as well.
************************************************************
SCREEN 5 Okay, so this is a turning point in the story, were moving past the introduction, and into the main heart of it.
**********************************************************
More text boxes????
**********************************************************
Panel 1 I really enjoyed the landscape in winter drawing here, you did a fine job showing use this world, so fine you could tell us about it less and cut back a little on the text.
************************************************************
Panel 2 The horse snorting was pretty funny. kudos on putting a little humor in there.
***********************************************************
Panel 3 we started the history lesson with the image of the wheel, and as we move into the story proper we see the image of a wheel again. I dig (got tired of writing like) the symmetry of repeated images. Good story-telling skills. Nice use of worlds to get us to click to the next screen, we should be seeing a action scene soon.
***********************************************************
SCREEN 6 Okay good panel layout on both, the get my son away from the demon talk is building my interest, and characters are talking to each other. We do need to get to some action scenes soon though.
******************************************************
SCREEN 7 I enjoyed the symbol in the eye way you showed the old man's powers, but it seems to make your starting out with j as he is still a kid, and his grandfather is trying to keep him safe from demons??? Couldn't these scenes have been a flashback later on in the comic if you win, so we could get a true introduction to our lead character, with those much wanted by me action scenes????
***********************************************************
SCREEN 8 A cliff-hanger I'm not surprised to see, what did let me down was no real J fighting action. Like the gun on the mantel in act 1 of a play, I expect to see more of the title character. It could be some other baby in trouble and J is coming to the rescue, but it read like a origin story.
***********************************************************
This isn't really a story I want you to start at the beginning of, that worked okay for Breed by jim starlin, but not in the 8 screens you have to grab the readers here on Zuda.
**********************************************************
Good art, the story dragged on a little too much, and was slightly text box heavy and action-lite. On the plus side I loved the introduction to new myths I had never heard of.3/5 stars from me.

Excellent entry... good luck on the competition!

It really depresses me that this isn't higher. This could totally be the next hellboy or usagi. It's completely original and it's one of the few strips that doesn't try to be clever, and I include myself in that dig, and it's at number 7. Depressing.

This is a really nice entry. Like the coolness of the art and the colors.

This is great, I wish you all the luck in the world.

Great artist and story..Thumbs up

Thanks Dash. It's not over yet!

And thanks Chicago:1968's Len Kody! Along with Kingofsnake, Lucky639 and Mizzpa.

JFx - is Khan coming out soon? I remember hearing about it and seeing your art--great stuff!

Well, this was definitely worth reading. Congratulations on your work. You are very talented indeed. Thanks for sending me here

I loved it!!!
Your very talented

Amazing man I love it.
.
I'm one of the artist of the comic "KHAN the perfect warrior" comming from Arcana studios, I'm with you :D
.
Amazing Art, Amazing History + Investigation + Fantasy + Adventure.
.
Congratulations.

The envorinments are very pretty and the story is solid. There hasn't been anything sucessful with this far east motif, but I think this has the best chance of anything so far.

Damn, this is pretty! I didn't find the info-packed pages at the beginning to be a problem, except for one bit that seemed like you were just quoting out of an encyclopedia... Like I said, the artwork is PERFECT, and I totally respect the hell out you for not rushing the story by trying to cram in a bunch of extra panels... at the same time, it could be a pretty big gamble, considering that you're in a contest. There sure was a lot of "filler" on most of the pages (the decorative borders, etc.). By the way, the design work here is incredibly intricate, even if you're cribbing it from history books/internet. Very nice work.

Great artwork. I am not familiar with Mongolian legend so the extensive set-up was probably a good idea. It's a shame that the story didn't go anywhere really in this short amount of space but looking forward to more chapters.

Thanks again guys.

The Q - yeah I see what you mean. This was written as a longer-form work, so the prologue seemed short in that context. But in the context of an 8 page webcomic it does seem long. I figured it's a world many people aren't familiar with, so I'd set the table a little.

Nice work. Art is pretty good. Story premise is pretty engaging as well.

I do think there was a bit too much backstory here & not enough Janggar. Perhaps you should have compressed the backstory a little, drawn out the final scene and had Janggar make an appearance?

I think this has promise to go somewhere nice though. Good job..

I really like this. My favorite so far. Love the decorative panel breaks/transitions. Good luck!

I absolutely love mythology. It's very cool how your building your story around it. Very different to see a fantasy setting in Mongolia. Refreshing. And, good story-telling, albeit, a little bit abrupt at the "end". But, everyone only gets 8 pages, so... 4 outta 5! Good luck, guys!

Very good use of the 8 pages. Just as I was getting a little tired of all the back story, you jump in to the forward narrative which really swept me along, with a great place to leave us hanging. Very nice design and art too. :o)