BONUS WEEK #1

[Josiah]

So, this is something I've been wanting to try for a while. I was thinking that every time at the end of the rotation (as in, right before my week) we'll have a bonus week. So what's a bonus week? It's a week where I'll post a special comic, something we wouldn't normally review or discuss. It might be something I don't think anyone would ever pick for one reason or another, it might be a comic that's too short for a regular week, something that doesn't exactly fit in the web comic catagory, or whatever. So anyway, we'll give the bonus week concept a try for the next two or three rotations and see how it works out. And for our first bonus week, what would be better than...

Pebble Version
Plot: Brendan and May start out on a Pokémon journey that more or less follows the plot of Ruby/Sapphire (at least for now). I could go more in detail but seeing as this is the PEBBLE VERSION forums and all, I'm sure you already know.
Art: Not so great early on (though fairly good as far as Paint made comics go). It steadily improves and has now gotten to a point where I'm completely happy with it.
Things to Know: There's commentary written for the first 120 strips so far. If you haven't read it, you might find it interesting.
Favorite Strips: I'll post some later. Curious to see what favorites you guys have though.

So, feel free to reread PV if you want. But, since I'm sure you guys are all fairly familiar with it, you can comment without a reread if you'd prefer. I'm curious to hear your general thoughts, favorite strips, suggestions, comments, etc.

[Giga-Gar]

So, I see you're shamelessly promoting your comic due to the posts, or lack there-of, on the official pebbleversion threads. No matter.

The art in the begining could be better but I think you said it yourself that this is your first web comic. The transition from paint to using the in-game backgrounds was very well done, and I was all for replacing the R/S/E mini-sprites for the ones in Mystery Dundgeon. I personaly would like to see background go from having half the screen a solid sky blue to a top-down veiw like in the game. Also, I was around when you decided to change the text around, and that made things a lot less cluttered. I also like how Brendan addresses the very interesting physics and habits of Hoenn.

One of my favorites is when Brendan and May are addressing why the packs can hold up to 99 of the same items, but can only hold a limited number of different items. I've acctually found out that your item box in your PC can only hold a limited amount of items as well(I forgot how much exactly). Due to digitizing your items and only having one box for them, you'd think that the storage space would be unlimited, but I guess that can be explained to computer memory.

Just wait untill he discovers the upgraded bags in Sinnoh.

[Silver]

Shameless promotion's a little bit nicer than what I would have said, which is shameless ego-boost, but you know what? Josiah's one of my favorite people on the planet anyway, so I'll bite.

Pebble Version is the greatest thing to grace the Internet with its existence. And by that I mean The Grass Kid. The Grass Kid is the greatest thing to grace the Internet with his existence. The grass kid is indeed, and forever will remain, popular among the forum members. And these guys! For characters that appear once every hundred pages, they're surprisingly memorable... Work in the dark Wednesday. Why can't we do that at school? "All right, class... I knew what we were going to do today, but I can't seem to find my lesson plan. So instead I thought we could discuss the mathmetical property of... they all walked right out the door already, didn't they?"

So... graphically speaking, Pebble Version's come along way, especially with the upgrade to Mystery Dungeon sprites... but the earlier pages had more Grass Kid, which more than makes up for everything in the universe.

Yeah... lately, it seems we're following the plot of R/S a bit more strictly. It pretty much writes itself. And having played through R/S more than any human being should, I kinda miss the good ol' days where incinerating an innocent or two with Torchic's comic relief Flamethrower was a bit more common, y'know? Although I wish one of those wasn't God - I mean, The Grass Kid - the divergence from what you can and can't burn in the Pokemon games was fun. And the reference to Weird Al in the very first pages... good times, good times...

tl;dr: Silver <3 Pebble Version. Hence the hanging around the forum for four years.

[Josiah]

Actually the point of this is more to get some feedback then self promotion or ego boosting. And it's not like every bonus week is going to be PV or anything.

On Gar's comments... The sky isn't actually a solid blue...or at least it hasn't been for the past 600 strips or so, there are clouds. But aside from that, I thought about doing the top top view when I first started the comics but I figured that if I did that my backgrounds would end up as mostly screen shots. With the angle I use, it's easier to build my own and switch things around when I want to.

On Silver's comments... The plot will be diverging a bit more from that of R/S around the time the next major Teams Aqua and Magma event begins, although that's talking more about the actual story line instead of the humor style, which is more what you're getting at. I'll try and work a bit more of that in in the future. There hasn't been much burning since combusken is now too big to ride on Brendan's head so it spends more time in its pokéball. But you should be happy to know that there will be a lot of burning in the next big arc (which will be dealing with something in the coming town).
Glad you like the guys in the dark. They'll likely be appearing again before too long. The Grass Kid...well I wasn't planning to have him show up again. But then again I wasn't planning to give him that little three strip segment in the 400's. And since he still seems to be pretty popular... Let's just say that I haven't decided yet what the strip 800 different character arc(s) are going to be yet so he might make an appearance...

And, since I said I'd post some of my favorite strips... Art aside, I always liked the tall grass strips. And then there's the start of the battle music joke, and... Hmm... It'll take way to long to post all my favorites so here's a few random ones. Just know that I'm skipping a lot. But here's one, and there's this one just because I was so happy with how the effects turned out, catching Abra, strategic switching, and battling on bikes, to name a few.

[PoikSpirit]

The only complaint I'd have Silver expressed. Burning's fun. Didn't one of the games have a pyro in it or something? Maybe not Ruby/Saphire though. Never played.

[Saber Knight]

Yeah, I'm also a fan of just slapstic humor. I m8iss the grass kid, too.
Lesse....it's been a while since I've read some of the old comics. The art has definatly gotten much better. The change to Mystery Dungeon sprites was great, much better than just having a very small amount of poses.
If I can, I'll get back to you on some of my favorite comics.