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I'd stress that the main flaw of both comics, is ultimately being rushed. Not in terms of art (that's easily forgiveable), but in the number of comics. Both would have improved immensely with more pages to round them out. I definitely don't blame either of you for not making that many, but the comics would definitely have been a lot better for it. I can only speculate how many of the misc problems would have ironed if not for deadlines. But alas, those are the circumstances.
Anyways, original PM below.
"While the comics were similar in ending, they weren't too similar in progress. Meho's consisted of a couple of pages for exposition of the breakthrough and set up to the fight, a lot of pure action pages, and a quick ending. Zega, on the other hand, spent many more pages on plot and gags (almost ironic considering his character). Being of same length, his fight ends up rather short. Oddly predictably, I find that Meho's fight works better than Zega's and Zega's plot progression works better Meho's. I can imagine that they'd have balanced it out, had they made 10 more pages.
Anyways, you can't really weight plot and humor against action in a meaningful way, so it's more relevant to see how well they each do in their respective categories. Meho's plot goes for drama, but ends up a being a bit rushed, giving it a somewhat shallow impact. For instance, it's mentioned that the breakthrough is a time portal made from a restricted spell and Nereid is clearly shaken by it, but it isn't given time to sink in, and it isn't communicated clearly what's SO bad about either. The classic 'motivation by memories' scene at page 13 also falls a little flat because it doesn't actually seem to be her motivation afterwards, but rather a will to destroy the abomination. It also seems weird she's thinking of Erol when she's married...
On to the fight, Meho's is quite with varied attacks, ping pongs between the combatants and a generally rising tension. It's not without a couple of flaws, though. Especially, I find the avatar a cool, but a bit unsatisfying end to the battle. Nereid implies that it might kill her, but it ends up being just an overwhelming power that she controls at no real expense, making me wonder why she didn't just use it to begin with. In essence, it seems quite overpowered.
Zega, as mentioned, spends a lot of pages on set up and oddly enough almost more time on Meho's character than on his own, which I dunno is good or not. I laughed out loud a couple of times, which speaks to the quality of the humor. There's also a good amount of characterisation of SRS BSNS Nereid and Goofy yet Cruel Nemathu... whatever. I really like the fade in to the fight (page 10). Nerma goes from a bishounen pervy guy to a monster in a split second. There's a couple of spot where the dialogues is sorta awkward The real problem is there's no fight to speak of. She punches him, he bites her, she unleashes ultimate attack. The ultimate attack doesn't seem that climatic when there isn't much building up to it. The "mouth attack from the ground" was also used in the last battle, which is a bit uncreative.
The ending of the two comics is virtually the same, except that Zega's has the twist that Nema still "won" even though he was killed. I like that twist, as it ends both characters' stories nicely.
To draw it all together, I think Zega has a slightly better script, but they excel in different ways.
Effort-wise, they both did a commendable effort. I don't doubt in the slightest they've been busy. Even if Meho's isn't inked, it's still relatively clean and thoroughly worked. Zega's still definitely take the crown, though. It's inked, it's more detailed, and while both don't make much use of backgrounds, Zega makes good use of the white space in a couple of places (page 08, last panel, for instance). Artists are lazy bastards by nature and purpose, so making the laziness work for you gets you extra points in my book. The first two pages also have absolutely killer inking.
Lastly, I'd say that Zega's visual quality, even discounting inking, is a bit higher than Meho's as well. However, I am quite biased towards Zega's kind of style (or even his style in particular), so I won't put any weight on that.
So, yeah, I vote for Zega and Nemarghuteh too."
Zega wrote to me first and voted for Zega, and none of this changed his mind, so we reached a conclusion quickly.
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