Josh Phillips wrote:Alison: http://www.livejournal.com/users/staedtler/212149.html
Hrm.

That's a nice drawing, but it doesn't feel like Alison.
Let me explain:
Part of the charm of the Avalon characters was their blockiness and angularity. It gave them an earthy sense of solidity, and made them feel *real*. Real as in, "Those people look like people I could know" or "These people are so real I could care about them." The way that "Alison" is drawn here give me the feeling more of "This schoolgirl is too pretty to exist." And so it is not Alison, because Alison was never pretty. She may have been beautiful to some of us, but that came 100% from who she was, not how she looked. *This* person I expect to sprout wings and flit off to gather dewdrops and nectar from a field of bluebells and ladyslippers. She's too pretty to live, and far too pretty to be bitter, sarcastic, arrogant, wonderful Alison.
Obviously Avalon is your work, your baby, your vision, and you have every right to do anything you want to it--and your audience *wants* you to do things to it. None of that is in question in the slightest. But the work you put out does become transformed from exposing it to an audience, and gains a certain mythology. Try to imagine "Peanuts" drawn with a completely different style. It's hard--the mind balks at the idea. "Peanuts" characters possess a certain shape and style without which, they would no longer be "Peanuts".
And so it is with Avalon. The Avalon characters are rumpled, angular, stocky, and thoroughly identifiable-with. They possess the same awkwardness and inelegance that the readers do. They share the same gawky world that we shared when we were in high school. This "Alison" is not one of us. None of us are worthy of gazing too long on the otherwordly vision that is this "Alison". She is from Avalon, indeed, but not the one in Ontario!
I really, really, really hate to say anything that might slow your potential forward momentum on this or any project, but I ask you to *please* consider where you came from as well as how far you've come.
And if you don't find any hint of relevance in my post here, please ignore it. I'm still eager to see what comes next, regardless of what has come before.