Round 2: Jon Reed

[Reed]

[Click on image for larger version]

Page one,
http://brainiac.boilingpoint.com/~cbi3/jonreed/1.jpg (http://brainiac.boilingpoint.com/~cbi3/jonreed/1-1.jpg)

Page two,
http://brainiac.boilingpoint.com/~cbi3/jonreed/2.jpg (http://brainiac.boilingpoint.com/~cbi3/jonreed/2-1.jpg)

Page three,
http://brainiac.boilingpoint.com/~cbi3/jonreed/3.jpg (http://brainiac.boilingpoint.com/~cbi3/jonreed/3-1.jpg)

[jameslucasoni]

Jon, I think your my sleeper in this competition. I had somehow missed your stuff in the pre-Round 1 submissions but I think you've brought a ton of enthusiasm and work to the these two batches of samples. I think what could hurt you in this round is that your style is not what I would immediately associate with this kind of story. I think, with the exception of panel 1 and a couple others, all your people look too old or misplaced into the story and its hurting your ability to sell these events as high school nostalgia. The expression on page 1, panel 4 doesn't have the charisma that the script demands and it kind of sets the tone for the rest of your pages. We need to see the character as charming or it's going to be hard to keep the reader engaged in this type of tale. I like the efforts on all the pages to keep the camera moving and not let the shots get too static, but I think sometimes you're trying too hard and going to far outside the box for this type of material. You have to capture the feelings of the characters be it through facial expressions or body language and I think you often pick shots that hinder rather than help that communication.

I think you're a talented guy, Jon, and I hope that if you do make it to the next round that you'll be given a script better suited to your style.

[C.B. Cebulski]

I'll admit to having seen your work before CBI, Jon, and have always thought you have a very distinct and unique style. And I think that style served you well in staging each of the scenes and establishing the world in which I walk through this comic. But I also feel it deterred a bit from the looks and facial expressions of the characters.

For example, on page one, the football game, the prom and the scene with the stoner chicks are so well established. You took a great amount of time to really nail the feel of each of those panels. But then I think the cool vibe you set up fades a bit starting in the inset panel as the line work makes my face seem so non-chalant, not drawing the reader further into what you have just established. I think this carries through by your use of the shadowing and darker line work on my face in the next panel. This generally follows though in pages two and three as well, where even in the more light and laughing scenes, I almost always seemed angry or upset or sad.

But also on pages two and three, you continued to excel as bringing the script to life in the way you staged the characters in each detailed scene. Nice work. A couple specific storytelling comments... in panel two of page two, I think you have the main characters set too far into the background and the foreground characters detract from the focus of the panel. Nice use of the birds-eye view in panel four of page two. And I love the way the you have the girl posed in the next to last panel of page three, her body language is very natural and really moving.

But I like what I see here from you, bud, and seeing what else you do here in CBI in the coming weeks.

Take care,
C.B.

[Ryall_IDW]

(I apologize for the wait on comments. The fire situation in San Diego threw my week into whack. All is fine, but I’m playing catch-up on everything.)

Page One
Your slightly distorted style is a lot of fun, even if there are things I’d like to see you work on. The placement of the figures in panel one don’t really offer much sense of depth in the scene—it’s like you’ve drawn different-sized figures but not really given any of them proper weight. I think inking would bring that out, though. Your prom queen seems a bit frumpy for my tastes, but it’s a small panel and nothing to nitpick because I don’t like her hairstyle… I do like what you did with panel three, even if that boombox on the ground looks like it’s from the era of transistor radios, not the ‘80s. The inset panel needed to feel more inset, and give C.B. his wink instead of making it look like he’d spent too much time with the stoners in panel three. I also would’ve liked to see a bit more weight to the next “reveal” panel, and the final two, and overall a bit better planning for captions, too. Which sounds like a lot of complaints, but really, I do like your style, even if those comments might not sound that way.

Page Two
This page works much better for me than page one. I like how full your panels feel without seeming crowded, and the blacks on this page—namely in panel four—will really look great when inked up. Smaller images of the figures, like in the final panel, don’t seem quite so properly proportioned, but overall, nice stuff.

Page Three
I like the wide shot—the vista opens things up nicely. The clustering of stars doesn’t quite feel right, though, but again, some of the negatives I see in your pencils would be rectified in the inks, I know that. The slapping scene could’ve been positioned a bit better (and she seems to have man-hands), but I like the next panel. In panel five, C.B.’s, uh, butt and legs seem improperly proportioned, as does her right breast and leg. They seem either improperly shaped or too thin (which is maybe realistic, I dunno. I’ve never checked out C.B.’s posterior before. And I would’ve liked the final panel to put more of an exclamation on the story. But again, I think I like the style more than my comments got across. Just pay a bit more attention to even the small things and keep on drawing, because I know you’re gonna do some even nicer things in the future.