So the first two chapters of my story Jailing Fortune are up at [link]CarpeChaos.com[/link] which is a good place to get caught up if you haven't (there's a lull between chapter 2 and 3).

I would LOVE if you guys would critique my writing in Jailing Fortune. It's a strange request, I know, because most of the comic is silent, but I'm sure that you recognize the elements of direction that come from a writer in even silent scenes. I want feedback for this comic in particular because it's mostly silent. It's an unusual way for an author to have their work conveyed, so I'm a bit out of my element.

Go here to read the first two chapters:
http://carpechaos.com/stories/jailing-fortune

Then come here and give me some feedback.

On page 11, frame 4 is confusing, where he gets scraped with one of those loose net pieces. I was too confused to get the panels after panel 4 but I finally understood what's going on (after trying to read it several times) when I gave up and moved to the next page where he looks at the scar it leaves.
There's just nothing to make you notice or understand what's going on in panel 4. You see him making a strange face but you don't see why he's making that face (is he in pain? is he angry? is he having a spasm?). Simply coloring the wound-in-making as a really bright color (white even) would fix it, though, and that's just at the top of my head. You have to point the reader's eye to the most important element in that panel - the piece of metal scraping his body (his face and body language aren't enough here).
I think that everything else is fine. Most of it is clear and then there are parts that should probably not be too obvious (for example page 26 with the stone piling and pantomime) so they are also fine.
I do however have an unrelated problem with the cover. Everything on the left side of the cover is too dark, it's really hard to see any figure in there. You should either color it differently or move some elements around. I mean, really, I didn't see that dark alien there. I just didn't.

11-4 was a bit of a struggle for us. I like what you were saying about coloring the wound white or something. I think frame 3 might be clearer if it had motion lines showing that he's pulling that stuff out from under the other guy.

Maybe a close up shot of the wire cutting his chest.

Was the initial exchange where we set up that they don't speak the same language clear enough? Figured having shared bubbles with two tales might work, but I wasn't sure.

A close up on the chest should make it even clearer, it's a good idea.
I understood pretty much everything, other than that part in page 11 of course. It's better to get more feedback from other people first, there might be some other stuff that weren't clear to some people out there.

Yes... other people... that'd be awesome.

Very nice artwork and design in the comic. The two main characters are engaging. It's obvious that a lot of thought went into their creation.

The arrangement of panels and flow of action was relatively clear. I thought it was the actual dialogue that was less so.

What I found confusing about the dialogue is that we have two aliens who are speaking different languages, but the presentation is inconsistent: sometimes we see untranslated symbols, sometimes we see the symbols with a translation, and sometimes just the translation. It's hard to tell, especially early on, what each character understands. In a situation in which characters don't understand each other, I think it's important to pick a point of view and stick with it; otherwise it's very confusing for the reader. In this case, I would pick one character (probably the green one) and show everything from his point of view: all his dialogue is translated, and anything he doesn't understand is shown as gibberish. Or, you could choose an omniscient view and translate everything, but then I think you're going to have to work harder to somehow demonstrate to the reader that the two characters don't understand each other. The line on page 8 ("you obviously can't tell I don't speak your gaggy moany language") really isn't that clear unless one is reading very closely, which I wasn't the first time through -- I really didn't get what was going on until the near the end.

I'm guessing the translation issues are probably not going to be a problem going forward now that they understand each other, but I thought I would mention it.

As for the translated dialogue, I found it a little bit "light." The use of casual, colloquial language, especially the curses (are aliens really going to say "fuck you!"?) and familiar abbreviations ("PC," "GPS") don't really add to the feel of what should be alien cultures, technologies, and ways of talking. Also, the two main characters talk almost exactly the same way; they have pretty much the same voice. I realize that these are technically translations, but I think some more creative word choices could add a lot to the feel of the individual characters and their alien cultures.

Thanks Arioch. Really liked hearing what you have to say.

I think your appraisal of the translation is really fair. As the story unravels in the coming chapters and tension grows between the two character, I hope that readers will start to ask which of them is the protagonist. So we worked to avoid having a static point of view where one character had all the thought bubbles or translation. The first two chapters make a strong effort to tell the story from each character's perspective. The translation happens or doesn't happen depending on who's within earshot in each frame. We hoped that by setting up different frames this way, people would be able to figure out which language the audience understands based on which character they're with. But looking back, it's not really that clear. (There are notes in the script about how we need to pull this off, and we've had numerous arguments about how to do it right). I think if I did it again, I'd segment when they audience can understand which language better. If I used the sort of changing first-person of wheel of time, where each chapter is narrated by a different character, maybe the language game would be clearer. Something like that.

In any case, I hope people can enjoy the story whether they understand when things are translated or not, and I'd love to hear more about how other people think it would be best to pull this kind of thing off.

You're not the first person who's said these two sound alike. In fact I think it's because they both sound like I speak. Writing compelling and distinct voice is an area where I definitely need to grow as a writer. I was hoping to learn some tricks from the Verbal Mannerisms workshop.

It was hard for me to tell which blob guy was which. Only the dialogue made their characters differentiable (if that makes sense... ). On that note, the dialogue is great. Although I didn't understand that the alien characters were the two characters not understanding each other until the blob said that line about not understanding Fortunate.
Pages 24-28 were pretty boring. I couldn't figure out where the story was going.. they were just walking around too long. I knew the blob had a plan, but you established that back on p14, so this felt like filler.
The first time I went through page 35 I was confused again. Maybe showing the guards searching with the main characters sleeping in view?

I feel like the art isn't explaining the action. Like the panels are focused on the moments inbetween the action. For example, that frame iaviv mentioned, where he gets scratched on the fence. It looks like he was lying down, concerned, then the fence had some kind of break in it.. the moment of him getting hurt from piercing himself on a broken metal space-jail fence was lost.
So there's some work to be done on the silent writing, but the dialogue is awesome, and the story was interesting. Can't wait to get into carpe chaos :]