I’ve gotten a lot of strange critiques and comments on my comic lately, so I thought this would be a good idea to put up.

Comments.
Unless a comment is outright offensive, I will leave it alone. Comments automatically publish unless my spam filer thinks they’re junk. It has yet to catch any legitimate comments. I have blocked a total of 2 comments since moving to a comicpress site. Leave any comment you like. I read them all and reply to the ones that warrant it. If I don’t reply to your comic, it doesn’t mean I didn’t read it, it just means that I don’t have anything to say in response to it.

How come you keep changing your update schedule?
I have this thing called life that keeps kicking me in the butt. My kids are constantly tugging me in one direction or another, I have a house that needs cleaning, and I sometimes have work (I’m a substitute teacher). I would really like to get back to the twice a week updates as I feel the story just moves too slowly like this, but it can’t be helped. If it weren’t for the digital inking and coloring, I could, in theory, update 3-5 times a week depending on how much drawing time I have. Once I get my scanner cable (I scan with my digital camera right now and pencil crayons look wretched), I may very well get updates up traditionally (with text added in photoshop) and just do them digitally at my leisure. I’m not really sure yet.

Will you link to my comic?
Sure. Just let me know where your banner is.

Will you critique/review my comic?
If you really want me to, sure.

You do know your anatomy is terrible, right?
Why yes, I had noticed that. I never claimed to have good anatomy. I’m still learning. Please, don’t mention posemaniacs. I am already well familiar with that site and use it quite often. It’s taking time to learn.

As a side note, you do know that there are plenty of successful (and good) comics out there with less than perfect anatomy, right? We try. We really do. Art is a learning process, even for people with so-called perfect anatomy. The only place you will find perfect anatomy is in a photograph.

How about you just try making the comic from now on just black and white. No colouring. The you can see the forms more easily and focus on making them… normal humans.
Want to know how I make my comics these days? I get out my script and see what I need. Then I get out any image references I need. I can’t always find what I need, so I have to make some stuff up (which doens’t always work). Then I draw it out on paper by hand. I ink that by hand, load it into photoshop and digitally ink it, fixing some of the mistakes. From there I color, shade, add speech and text.

Have you considered screentones?
Yes, but no. I hate screentones with a fiery passion. When they’re well used, they’re great, but I can’t use them at all. And frankly, I doubt they’d do my comic any good and just look stupid. It’s a comic, not a manga.

What’s with the bright colors?
Most fantasy comics I’ve seen have dull, boring colors. I like to work in bright colors. I’ve had this discussion with a friend of mine in which we came to the conclusion that things that look one way on my monitor don’t look like that on hers. If things look too bright to you, that could just be your monitor’s settings being drastically different from mine. I can’t help that.
Also, some of the characters are quite wealthy and can afford to wear things with bright colors. As for the others, well, they work around/with/for very powerful people and so are dressed appropriately.

Your paneling and speech bubblies are wacky.
Yes, I know. I’m sure I could fit more on my pages if I tried. Please bear in mind that I’m mostly experimenting with this comic and that experimentation isn’t limited to my drawing. The paneling and speech balloons are also being tinkered with.

You need to work on your coloring.
*sigh* Everyone has a different opinion on it. Some people say I should stick to black and white, others flat colors, and even others that I should do cell shading. What am I?
I get the same mixed things on the backgrounds. They’re either too busy or not detailed enough.
I appreciate the comments, but just telling me that stuff doesn’t help me out at all.

Some of the dialogue is too close to the edge of the speech bubbles.
you’ll find that problem mostly on older pages that I haven’t gone back and fixed yet. I am getting around to that.

This is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever seen and you’re a horrible person for unleashing it on the internet.
…
If this is the worst thing you’ve ever seen, you haven’t been around the internet much. While your comment is quite rude, I can think of things much worse than a mediocre comic like mine.

Why is Kinrou such a misogynist?
Kinrou’s hatred of women comes from being betrayed. When he was a very little boy, his village burned down and he wound up living with the bandits. He was given to a slave woman to be raised. She tried to escape with him one night and was killed for it. This one act led him down a path of mistrust in women. The only one he kind of likes is his best friend’s mother (who raised him after that). His experience with the bandits taught him that women will use and betray you to get what they want and that any affection they show you is a means to get those things.

What are the Dragon Warriors?
There are five people known as the Dragon Warriors that act as the protectors of the Chief Priestess. In the old days, the priesthoods of the five countries weren’t as respected outside of their country and it was common to attack the Chief Priests and Priestesses to keep the other countries off balance. To prevent harm from coming to them, the Warriors were instituted. Each country has a group of five warriors. The names vary depending on the country.
Shanshiire – Tiger Warriors
Doval – Wolf Warriors
Zalityu – Fox Warriors
Jiinal – Shark Warriors
Telvan’s Dragon Warriors are identified by the oval shaped red Sacred Gems that they carry. Warriors are Chosen by Kal Sharash via the Sacred Gems and each warrior is granted special abilities that vary from person to person.

Sacred Gems?
These gems are gifts from the Sky Lords and grant their bearers a wide range of abilities. Each country’s gems are different in shape and color. The gems can be set in a wide range of holders, such as belts, jewellery, gloves, and weapons. Whet holder the gem is set in determines how the ability can be used. As all of the scared gems are the same size, the holders designed to hold them can hold any of the gems; as such, a bearer can change holders at any time.
Each country has several gems, more than they really need. Typically, there are only five gems active at any time, though in times of war, this number has been known to grow. The bearers serve as protectors of the Chief Priest or Priestess and are dedicated to their deity. When addressing one or more of these bearers, they are referred to as warriors. What country their gem comes from determines their title. For example, a person bearing a Telvan gem would be known as a Dragon Warrior.
Sacred Gems bond with their users. The longer a warrior is in possession of one, the stronger their ability becomes. When that warrior dies or retires, their gem is put away separate from the others so that it can be cleansed for future use. It is extremely unwise to allow anyone not from the Priesthood or Royal family near that gem as it will bond with the first suitable person. Such a bond always results in some very unusual abilities. Often, it takes years to fully cleanse a gem. Such is the reason why each country has so many of them.
What ability the gem grants seems to have no relation to its bearer’s present abilities or their personality. Sometimes, the ability it grants seems useless, but always turns out to have some greater purpose. Most common of the abilities are enhancements to fighting skills or granting ones that didn’t previously exist. Elemental abilities are the rarest and are seen as a mark of high favour with the Sky Lords.

Telvan – oval, red
Doval – square, brown
Shanshiire – teardrop, black
Jiinal – circle, blue
Zalityu – square, white

Who are all these people you keep mentioning but never show up?
There’s a long list of people that are important to the characters in the comic. Some show up, some don’t. They’re important to the overall back story (which is slowly being posted up). I like tying things together, making it flow smoothly. That’s why they get mentioned.
Chief Priest Eladan – Mienna’s predecessor; he shows up briefly in a flashback scene found in the redrawing project. It’s important to know that he’s no longer around.
Jiken – Kinrou’s best friend and adoptive brother; he does actually show up outside of the flashback scene, but not until the end of chapter 2. He’s a person, not an inanimate object.
Empress Shinjaloye – Sahiren’s mother; she shows up at the very end of the comic. She’s fairly important.
Colahar – Sahiren’s personal servant; I don’t think he ever gets mentioned by name, but he does show up in chapter 09

Why do Kenjariyo, Sahiren, and Leshmiir all have the same design?
The Imperial Robes are mostly standardized. In the far distant past, the various Emperors would create increasingly elaborate robes in an attempt to prove that they were better than the others. The Sky Lords put a stop to this and standardized them. The robes of the Empresses have some variation depending on what country the Empress is from, but those robes always have the same design for each Empress and never changes. It may seem boring, but it’s the easiest way to identify the Imperial Family. It also comes in handy in plays. Anyone seeing those robes in will immediately make the connection and assume that the character is Imperial.

Could you explain the animal symbols that pop up?
There are five animals associated with the world of An’katerr, though only three are really important to the comic.
Dragon – symbol of Kal Sharash the Fire Lord, protector of Telvan
Tiger – symbol of Kal Berash the Metal Lord, protector of Shanshiire
Wolf – symbol of Kal Kiterr the Wood Lord, protector of Doval
Members of each county’s Imperial House are occasionally referred to as Children of the (insert country’s animal here). The title of the comic, ‘Children of the Tiger’, refers to the Shanshiire Imperial House.