Paths of Time

[Avenue]

Edit: Btw, the link to page 15 in your latest post doesn't work. The one at the top of the thread does.

I didn't know Mew was saving Corrin in page 14 until I read the post you updated it with. It looked like he caught Mew by the tail, which really confused me since in page 13 it looked like he just fell down onto the ground.

Actually, the "I see this now. There really is a light..." line in page 14 and whatever was happening in page 15 had me stumped; I figured it out after thinking about it long enough, but it should have been easy to understand at first glance. And am I getting the story in the recent pages right?

1) Corrin fell down a hole after being shocked at seeing Hyxa
2) Theo reaches out his hand to help his brother but it goes through Hyxa
3) Theo's head hurt/he's reacting to the touch somehow
4) Corrin is pulled up by Mew (you could have had a scene showing Mew offering it's help to make this clear)
5) Theo, er... is suddenly able to 'see'? (the "I see this now. There really is a light..." dialogue was confusing because it doesn't really properly express his surprise for his new found vision... gah, I can't explain why I think there's something wrong with this...)
6) We switch to Theo's POV for one panel to find that he's seeing in green
7) Corrin immediately understands that his brother can see and he glomps him (Er...sure... But what's with the "You can see 'im too" line? What's "'im"?)
8) Theo, who was blind since he was a baby, knows without a doubt that he's not seeing with his own eyes.

...and that's all I've understood so far. As for the last three panels on page 15, I have no idea who's saying the "Who are you?" line or who/what is the question directed to. The meaning of the two last panels with Hyxa and then the sound effects would probably be made clear in the next page, but for now I'm clueless as to what's happening in them.

One thing about the comic that bothers me is: besides Mew and Hyxa (Edit 2: Whoops, forgot the Spearow) where are the other Pokemon? I've seen a rat, crabs, sea-creature things... Is this actually an AU world? And was that a blue bird in page 8? (It looked like it was supposed to be surprising/important, but it's really hard to tell. I'm assuming it's not for the moment.)

If you don't mind, rearranging the page order in your photobucket account (if that's possible) would be nice. It's easier to read your comic in sequence that way. And maybe label them with their chapter titles too. Adding a link to the whole album in your top post could be pretty useful.

To be honest, I find this comic mediocre and kind of confusing, but I don't think it's doing too bad. I hope you'll do better in later pages.

 

[mysterious~fossil~HP~10]

A critique? Oh my...

Edit: Btw, the link to page 15 in your latest post doesn't work. The one at the top of the thread does.

Thank you for the notice, I take care of that immediately.

I didn't know Mew was saving Corrin in page 14 until I read the post you updated it with. It looked like he caught Mew by the tail, which really confused me since in page 13 it looked like he just fell down onto the ground.

Actually, the "I see this now. There really is a light..." line in page 14 and whatever was happening in page 15 had me stumped; I figured it out after thinking about it long enough, but it should have been easy to understand at first glance. And am I getting the story in the recent pages right?

The events are just as you summarized, which means I must've improved a little bit as far as conveying actions is concerned. You are quite right though that the transition from page 14 to page 15 needs to be seamlessly comprehended, and I shall pay more attention to that in the future.

To make a long story short, this is my third ever comic, and I'll admit I am struggling to effectively convey the very abstract concept of blindness in a visual medium. It's my very, very lame inside joke that on the third try at comic creation I decided to perform miracles, and well... ...you can see the solutions I settled upon.

But I can tell a lot of confusion must be tied to the character Cor, so I should probably clarify.
He's 5, hyperactive, learning to read, very cute, has a bit of a lisp and is disinclined to the use of proper English grammar. He speaks expressively, but as a five year-old lacks the muscle coordination for exact pronunciation, hence the words like Du'ya (Do you), 'im (him), bruther, etc.

Note to self: write a dictionary of Cor...

...and that's all I've understood so far. As for the last three panels on page 15, I have no idea who's saying the "Who are you?" line or who/what is the question directed to. The meaning of the two last panels with Hyxa and then the sound effects would probably be made clear in the next page, but for now I'm clueless as to what's happening in them.

This will be explained with the next page in about a week.

One thing about the comic that bothers me is: besides Mew and Hyxa (Edit 2: Whoops, forgot the Spearow) where are the other Pokemon? I've seen a rat, crabs, sea-creature things... Is this actually an AU world? And was that a blue bird in page 8? (It looked like it was supposed to be surprising/important, but it's really hard to tell. I'm assuming it's not for the moment.)

...and the Weedle that is about to Poison Sting the unsuspecting Spearow. It's hiding behind the fence and is very hard to see, but quirky things like that allow me to verify that this is my work in case of theft.
In fact, a fair bit of the backgrounds involve some bizarre event like the blue bird on page 8 (my all-time favorite page), which is actually a griffin that contributes no more to the story than his feathers. That will make more sense at the end of this chapter. And I happen to adore the living fossils that are Horseshoe crabs, I threw them in there too. They were easy to draw and live in tidepools (Cor's ocean ponds), that's all.

Thank you for your concerns, there will be more Pokemon in future chapters, I promise. It just happens that this chapter takes place in a very small area and focuses on more abstract things to start the story.

By the way, where's the rat? I don't remember drawing one in...

If you don't mind, rearranging the page order in your photobucket account (if that's possible) would be nice. It's easier to read your comic in sequence that way. And maybe label them with their chapter titles too. Adding a link to the whole album in your top post could be pretty useful.

Wait, you were reading it on photobucket? I hadn't intended it to be seen there, so my apologies for your confusion. That album idea sounds pretty good...

Thank you for taking the time to critique my comic, you've told me a lot about how the readers are interpreting it and that's what I need to know to improve. I promise that I won't publish anything that I don't think is worth your time to read.

mysterious~fossil~HP~10;049;

 

[Avenue]

Oh dear, I kinda forgot Corrin was 5. He seemed older than that with how tough he acted towards the bullies and how he drags his brother around, heh.

Woah, that Weedle is pretty hard to make out but these quirks are pretty good ideas. The rat is actually in page 7, peeking out of the eye of the skull. Come to think of it, I think I see a bull/buffalo in the fields... and very faint traces of the words 'Remember sons'... Hmm, is the latter one of the quirks you talked about?

Anyway, about reading it in photobucket. I used the url to go to the album directly because it was annoying having to open new tabs for each new picture (the scroll-y thing on the top right corner is pretty handy as well). It's a bad habit of mine and I probably shouldn't have done that ^ ^; Also, I noticed that in photobucket, you can group pictures in different albums. Maybe you could group the Prologue in one album and Chapter 1 in a new one? This is actually something I was planning to do myself, though I haven't had much experience with the site yet.

By the way, don't worry so much about whether it's 'worth reading' or not. If you think that's how you want to tell your story, just do it. ^_^ Critiques and comments can help point out certain things about your work but ultimately, you're the one who's going to live with it. Not saying appeasing your audience is a bad thing, but follow through with it only if you really think it's a good idea.

P.S: Are you using pastels to draw this comic?

 

[KidisMokuba]

this is one of the better comics here I've read, but the plot seems to twist and turn a bit up to the point where one would just give up on it. By twist and turn, I don't mean plot twist, I mean it seems inching closer to interesting, but flail back to boring, and vise-versa. I'll look on this one.

 

[mysterious~fossil~HP~10]

Patience, Patience! I am well aware this is a bizarre way to start the story, such a difficult concept as it is, but I had to start the story somewhere. Hold on until atleast the end of this chapter before it is condemned. Please?
I'm trying to go through it faster, and atleast now I know that somebody out there cares. So the next page shall appear by Wednesday night or Thursday morning Eastern Standard Time.

No, I haven't used pastels yet, but I may for future panels. I'm a bit concerned about the possibility of smudging on just about everything, other panels, other pages, the scanner itself.
I see by your descriptions you are scrutinizing the pages, especially if you noticed that phrase. It's actually "Remember, my sons" and yeah, we can call that a quirk if you want. I can't give away all of them here because that's my method of proving ownership other than producing the actually sketchbook. Neko uses a cat's (or uncia) eye watermark, and I have barely noticeable quirks that only I can locate and explain.

So artistic property thieves beware, I alone have the knowledge to prove ownership of Paths of Time. Don't even think about it.

 

[mysterious~fossil~HP~10]

16
Our friendly specter, Hyxaloranxaiquilikand

Drat, I missed the deadline by 6 hours and 3 minutes. I thought I was finally going to make it too, for the first time ever.

 

[Neko]

So you noticed the cat's eye mark, eh? Well, I may have pointed it out myself on a few occasions, but meh...

I really need to start reading your comic again, sorry about that. By the way, if people are having trouble reading your pages on Photobucket, might I recommend you get a Smackjeeves account? It's a free webcomic host that builds the navigation tools for you. Very nifty. And there are a lot of Pokémon fans there, waiting for stuff like this, so you would probably increase your reader-base too.

 

[mysterious~fossil~HP~10]

That's a high compliment coming from you, Neko.

And yes, I have noticed the watermark on your work; It seems to be quite effective.
The reason why I haven't jumped over to SmackJeeves.com or DrunkDuck.com is because in the long run I'd like to design my own website for my own art much like yours. I'm also waiting until the story has moved along more before it merits such special treatment.

I never intended Paths of Time to be viewed on my photobucket account, mostly because I have no idea how to organize it, but also because I think it's not the easiest way to follow the page sequence. Maybe we could make it a game, to see who has the fastest time putting the images in sequence...

 

[mysterious~fossil~HP~10]

17
Gratitude

 

[mysterious~fossil~HP~10]

17
Gratitude

"Wait a second, Paths of Time is still alive? Impossible! These forums must be lying. I've even read that article, you know, the one about this artist falling right off the face of the Earth. Yep, NASA's tracking her as space debris right now, to avoid collisions with lazy comic artists that may compromise their Space Shuttle missions."

Did you know you can get wireless internet and update from even in the frozen, hostile grip of Inner Space?​

Space jokes aside, my college semester finals are over and I may have my life back. Studying is definitely not my forte.

Chapter One is almost over actually, and it only took months...

I can honestly say this page is one of my favorites in terms of its composition, beaten out only by Chapter 1 Page 8 because of the pretty colors. I was expecting this to be to be dreary and hard to interpret because of the dark colors, but it seems to have turned out fairly well. I can't really explain Mew's new colors, other than I forgot the original. I've always thought my version of Mew seemed farther down the evolutionary road towards Mewtwo, but this bicolor is just too bizarre, like Mew has a fever or something.