Disclaimer: This entity may or may not be considered a real artist. Heed it's advice at your own peril. Really, I'm more of a writer than a n artist.Possible side effects of this advice include, but are not limited to, Limited color palettes, arbitrarily restricted writing for mass appeal, artist overload, and uninteresting backgrounds.
Okay, so there are no actual comics in RCA, just a teaser strip, right?
There's two guys, breaking the fourth wall. X-Box hat and Nintendo T-shirt are in evidence. Will a PS3 character be appearing, and will their platforms of choice be a feature in the plot? If the shirts are just free advertising, to establish personality and tie them into a particular culture, that's good, but going into gamer jokes too soon can get you pigeonholed, if you aren't planning to make an actual gamer comic.
The predominance of dark colors and the stark white background make the expressions hard to see, especially in the long shots where they're just two dots and a curvy line. A background field in any other color would offset this, but re-balancing the palette so the black and blue are easily differentiated would probably be a more versatile, long-term solution.
On the plus side, the characters are visually interesting, without excessive complexity. Also, the joke is tired, but still pretty funny, if you haven't heard it before.
For Katarizo:
In the first strip, I see more colors muting each other. The browns and blacks in the first scene make it seem darker and harder to see than the establishing shot makes me feel it should be. Perhaps more translucency in the shading layers would let us see into the shadows, without making them go away altogether.
Strip two: Ooh, the hard edged light looks nice. It seems a little rushed, particularly in the second panel.
The shopkeeper's dialog feels awkward, like he's somehow trying to squeeze plot exposition into small talk, about small town economics. When selling luxury goods, it's important to convince customers who find your selection anemic that you've got great stuff, if they'd just look a little closer, you've got what she needs, not tell them that your other walk-ins said the same thing. Maybe put things you want to tell the audience, but would be unwieldy/impractical in dialog in thought bubbles?
Strip 3:
Perhaps I'm over-analyzing, but the first two panels could have been blocked better. The ever popular comic writer's adage "Show; don't tell." comes to mind.
Using some form of agitrons/motion effects to convey him swiping the gem conveys the act of the theft without the reader needing to think back to where the gem was at the end of the previous update. It also eliminates the need for the "Gotcha!" exclamation, which seems out of place, since he's hiding. Again, if he shouldn't actually say it, we can just see him think it, unless that kind of omniscience breaks the reader/writer dynamic you're building.
Putting the theft and the jeweler's first statement in the same panel, so that we see the gem stolen right from under his hand (and strip 2 seems to imply that's how it went down), as he says that, would be both amusing and easier to follow.
3/4 clearly isn't your best perspective for muzzles. You might want to put some extra practice into those, as the full face, and profile shots are already okay.
"Simple emerald"? In what world do jeweler's talk like that? It's always a "radiantly burning, precious, viridian jewel, imported from distant Ethiopistan" or some such. No wonder he's going out of business.
This guy couldn't sell a flamethrower to a goblin.
Page 4:
"Show; don't tell." The art for this one is very good, and the actual exchange of the gem conveys itself well, but the writing fells like somebody has been squeezing exposition into it again. Most of that exposition is actually, quite good, and fit's nicely, but towards the end we get rather more than we should, and it highlights just how much we've already got.
"As Always"? If this is the way they always do it and it's been planned in advance, why does he need to ask? Why did he say "Throw it to me!" instead of "Up here!"? These statements are obviously for the reader's benefit, and don't make sense, when the characters should be saving their breath for fleeing pursuit.
Now, whether Vinny shows up at the river or not, we'll know he was supposed to then, because:
A. He'd arrive without incident, and nobody would be surprised. If you felt like beating the reader over the head with the "planned in advance" point, you could have him be late, which would draw a comment from his ally, but that would make him look less competent, and we're clearly to believe that Vinny knows his trade, so something to the effect of, "You're late! You're never late!" would be in order.
B. Vinny wouldn't show up (this being more likely, since you bothered to tell us where he was going), and his comrade would think/talk/other-form-of-exposition about his failure to arrive, and the need/lack thereof to rescue him. (are they really friends or do they just work together? Would Vinny expect a rescue or know better? Show; don't tell.)
C. Vinny would be captured and then exposit (perhaps internally) about his need to make the rendezvous, to get his cut of the profits. This has been made to work well, as you can squeeze the exposition into his constructing a brilliant escape plan.
or D. When Vinny or his ally deliberately deviates from the plan, the other expresses surprise. This can build to a double cross, a "Save yourself/myself" situation, or a simple change in plans.
Of course this is all secondary to the simple principle that, now that we know where he's going, and what the plan is, we know that isn't how it'll go. If everything was going according to plan, we'd have been allowed to see the plan as it played out, instead of being told in advance. If you're like most writers, you've spoiled that surprise, so we'll understand the actual surprise you have planned for us. Unfortunately, doing so partially spoils that surprise, too. All we need to do is wait to see
what goes horribly wrong.
A way around this trap is to show us the usual procedure (provided it's worth seeing) once, and then throw in the disaster next time they try the same trick. Overusing this technique also becomes predicable, since everything works the first time, and nothing does the second, since we saw that already.
Writing is tricky, because it's really all about tricking people, by telling them the truth.
