A nice sci-fi mystery. The amnesiac hero is a classic motiff, having the mystery hero even a mystery in appearance behind that weird mask is a nice touch. The art was pretty solid as well. Hope to see it continue.

First off, thanks RKB for the review. Very in dept. I guess the captions thing is really hanging me out to dry here.
Albatross: Thanks for the kind words, even if I'm a little slowwww.
saulone: Irony is that the captions were going to drastically be cut back as the Stranger interacts with the other people in the city.
sheldon: I'm the writer and Juan is the artist. As for the sign, that was completely my call. The sign serves it's purpose.
dash: I hope I move up too. Not giving up yet.
mpd57: Read the review. The first paragraph is dead on about getting the ball rolling. Don't worry, there will be fighting... and a little dancing as well.

The Fighting Reviewer AKA The Webcomic Witchfinder has a dance routine all worked out over at:
http://www.mpd57.blogspot.com
Unknown strangers with a mysterious past welcome.

RKB: Can you be a little more specific? ;-)

*shrugs* ;)

SCREEN 1: The art is very good clean ,and easy to follow I really enjoyed the cinema-esque quality you brought to the comic by showing off the landscape, we even get some perspective -cool. You talked about the tower in your synopsis and we see it on screen 1 very good. However we only see a little figure of a robot I guess is C4D on the very last screen. Your synopsis suffered from the old 'if you have a gun on the mantel in act 1, it had better go off by act 3' problem. I know we saw the bot, and you probably wanted to end on a full page shot, but still I think it would have involved the reader more if The fighting Stranger had met the bot by the end of the first 8 screens. Also, it's been said before, but I'll say it again, I show up to read a comic called The Fighting Stranger, I expect to see a fight scene somewhere in the 8 screens otherwise it's just a tease, which makes me wonder why you would pick such a pedestrian and in the context of the 8 screens we have to judge by inane title. Felicitas I think would have been much better, more of a mystery. The name of the town means luck (-or the goddess of) so I'm guessing it wasn't chosen at random. The font is very easy to read, and the colors are a nice fit to the story as well.
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I HATE text box thought balloons, everyone should know this by now, they drive me up the wall. This wasn't even that, it was just text boxes. Box after box of needless narration. I'm guessing you didn't go the text box thought balloon route because you wanted to keep FS's inner thoughts kind of a mystery, so we get the third person point of view. It's not a novel you don't have to draw a picture in my mind's eye with your colorful descriptive words, you can just have the artist draw a picture. I thought on the first screen, maybe too many TB's but I also thought it's the first screen you don't want the reader to be lost so I understand it. The truth is with the exception of screen 1 and 8, and 1 or 2 text boxes in screens 2-7, you could have cut all the rest out and ended up with a better comic. Much fewer text boxes and a fight scene would have got you a extra star from me. It wouldn't have been a bad idea to space out the boxes on screen 1 and 8 over the rest of the comic either.
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SCREEN 2 panel 1 Great art, like the sound effect, and FS's movement over the panels, and a very impressive panel layout. None of the text boxes on this page were needed. I know if you had had page after page with no words on it, someone would have said (probably me) "hey man where's the words at I-want-to-read-my-comics" The simple solution to wise-guys like me is sound effects, you used them, use more of them. Also, like I said spacing out your text boxes don't front load them like you did with screen 1, space them out better screen to screen, and then you won't be repeating the same "He doesn't know who he is" thought more than once on the same page. This could have been a running narrative throughout the comic instead of how many times per screen are you going to tell me he doesn't know where he is?????
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the wide-screen look of the panels were great, don't clutter up the art for something that really doesn't move the story along, IMO.
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The elephant man mask, and the whole mutants are thought of higher than humans is a great point to your story. FS only showed the guard his hands so he could still be a mutant. The mask got me to thanking about The Elephant Man movie, and wondering is he, or isn't he??? ...and are humans treated as bad in this world as the Elephant Man was in the real world??? You could go for some serious drama even without the fight scenes, that would keep me reading.
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SCREEN 3 panel 1 "two bizarre looking men, heavily armed, riding giant boars" Why would you letter your panel description to your artist into your final comic????
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the text boxes in panels 2 and 3 actually serve a purpose. So good job on that.
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I didn't think you needed a text box for panel 4, but I get why you put it in there, so it's a push. The art did a great job of getting the point across, you really didn't need more than that. I don't know if you have worked with Juan before Monetta, but his art is so good you can tone it back with no worries.
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SCREEN 4 panel 1 "-it's because he subconciously knew they were supposed to be there in the first place" I wrote a clunker like this in my pet project (actually i wrote more than 1;) ), but my reaction to this is you must be kidding me???
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Panel 2 we can see they have yet to attack, why overrun the art. I really enjoyed the use of perspective, and the panel layout.
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Panel 3 You don't really need the text boxes here either. It would have been better for me as a reader if you had went with a HAHAHAHA, sound effect from the muties. It could even have trailed after him into panel 4, or trailed down the hill in panel 2.
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Panel 4, damn good panel layout, damn good artist, and the text here actually helped move the story along.
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SCREEN 5 Panel 1 text boxes about looking for answers to who he is again, at this point it's beyond beating a dead horse. It's beating a dead horse, then burying it, then digging it up so you can beat on it some more, then shooting it mafia execution style in the head, then shipping the carcass off to a glue factory so you won't be tempted to beat on it some more.
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Notice how my beating a dead horse diatribe got needless and redundant towards the end -same with the text boxes.
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Panel 2, 3, 4, and 5, very good layout, and good use of the page to show what you needed to show and end on a scene (gun in face/ meet a new character), that made me want to read the next screen.
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SCREEN 6 panel 1 good panel layout, good dialogue, the text boxes didn't do anything for me.
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Panel 2 good call to make it FS's P.O.V. and looking down the gun threw his non-mutated hands. What about you???? You don't see either of these guy's faces just their hands, so I took his words as a challenge. Non-mutated hands prove nothing, so maybe a you take your mask off, I'll take mine off, this is the scene that really put me in mind of The Elephant Man. Of course it's well drawn, and text boxes aside well written, the best scene art and wordage wise of the whole comic. If I wasn't on text box overload right now I wouldn't have minded them. Really well written interaction's here Monetta.
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Panel 3 it was it was!!! a challenge to take your mask off and I'll do the same.
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Panel 4 It would have been stronger without the text box -just silence is okay.
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Panel 5 "answers to questions I don't even know" on the one hand this is corny as hell, on the hand hand it just sounds good and fits the story, it should be the tag line to the comic if you win the contest.
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SCREEN 7 panel 1 good panel layout, "we only can" or "we can only" which sounds better to your minds ear???
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Good panel layout, for panel 2.
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Panel 3 "if you prove to make yourself useful around here you'll get more" my first reaction was kind of like ptimony why is this poor guard giving away money to a stranger, do they do this for every newcomer??? In the next panel he says "get lost" he doesn't make extra rations by giving away money to the poor. WTF??? In that case why didn't the guard just keep the card and tell FS to take a hike??? Then I engaged in a habit of mine of projection onto the story. I realized the guard giving him the money could be a set-up, maybe he knows who FS is just like the two boar riders do. As a matter of fact who knows who all in the town is in on who FS really is!!! You have the chance to set up a wicker man type story where all, or most of the town is in on the mystery whatever the answers are. Wondering who is in on it, who can FS trust, could really grab the readers.
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Panel 4 depends on how you want to read it.
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SCREEN 8, okay we see (I think) C4D speeding up to him, but it should have ending with this meeting. The doesn't seem to be that many people in the town. The text boxes here are okay, felicitas has to mean something, made me have to google it. I think you were trying to end on a big full page shot to show off the town, but it didn't come across. The ob-long hexagon 'felicitas' text box had me wondering what that was about.
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Loved the art, very good colors/ letters, text boxes bad, character interaction good. The story has a lot of promise some very good directions you could go in. I know over on the boards you said the story would go on with less text boxes, so I know you get some folks had problems with them.
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3/5 stars from me, some good promise, but too much text, and no fight scene's to be found. I know for me this was a fairly harsh comment, but if just a few changes here and there, and view of the comic would have been very different.

have to say, screen eight--love the Mr. Peanut-style juggling robot (what is his deal!? I am so curious where he is off to in that top hat). I like the shadows in the art, both cast and hatched, and the way the stranger's legs disappear into gestural lines scr 8. cool. fave from me, hope you move up next ranking!!

Clint Eastwood comes to Tattooine! I'm kidding of course, but it does have both a Star Wars and Pale Rider feel as ptimony and Kidgloves pointed out. The art is consistent - something that hurt past Zuda competitors, but that this month's have avoided. The one thing I really like about this one - the establishing shots. I feel like this is something many competitors forget - that which places the viewer. It was a nice touch to both begin and end with one. My only gripe would have to be the inner monolgue/narrator. I think towards the end we could have lost the narrator for inner monologue which the narrator is delivering. You colour palette is a good one - nice earth tones, and very good linework - on the buildings at the end especially. Good effort and good luck in the competition!

pbdeberry: Digital Webbing represents!
J.W.: Coming up with an original concept and keeping that idea original is extremely hard these days. Just last week, I was thinking of starting a story where Robin Hood was a villain and the Sheriff of Nottingham was the dashing hero, a role reversal. Ends up, while researching, I find out Ridley Scott's next movie is the same thing (or at least that what it seems). It's tough putting something original out there first.
kingofsnake: There's a bit more to his amnesia than meets the eye. But thanks for giving it a shot.
Kidgloves: It's cool between us. Yes, along with the sci-fi elements, I wanted a bit of a western feel to it.
virtuadept: Thanks. I really didn't want to quickly pace the beginning of the story. I wanted to try to build tension between pages. "Is this where the fighting begins?" type of thing. Future submissions I think I'll keep a bit tighter to 8 pages.
ptimony: Thanks. The guard does serve his purpose, but it might not be what it really seems.
Thanks for all the comments so far. If you want to read some more of my work, I have a webcomic on Drunk Duck called Lucky Dawg. It's a super-hero werewolf story.
http://www.drunkduck.com/Lucky_Dawg/

Interesting setting so far but as for a story there really is nothing to go on here. Art was nice. I look forward to more episodes.

oh boy, an amnesia story...

I kinda have a personal gripe against amnesia stories, I think beacuse a wrote one once, and shortly after realized it was stupid and the device is over used and they're all basically the same.

That said I don't wanna rule out things for this comic, amnesia stories have one me over (Bourne) but it's a big strike against it from the get go.

I'm also a little tired of all the dystopian post-apocalyptic stories that have been submitted to zuda. I swear it's like ever other comic is a crazy sci-fi future earth after the fall of society.

Anyway, I would keep reading if there were more, for at least another 20 pages or so. Its hard to tell if anything I would like would develop out of this.

two of my favorite DW talents working on this project. score!

You know, the locale, look of the main character and use of captions shares some similarity with To The Red Country from last month. That's just surface stuff, of course.

I like the setup, guys, and dig the art; European with a slight American influence. I never read a strip's synopsis before the comic itself, and there's a lot in the synopsis that we don't see in these 8 screens. However, the amnesia angle gave it an immediate hook, so good show!

Nice work I like the art and the character looks interesting, mmm maybe few text can be better, but at the end you have a good concept here. :D

(OO) lookin great!!!! You guys work here is amazing!

I'll go on record, also, with I think some of the caption were unnecessary. The first rule of fight clu . . .I mean captions is that the words should never repeat what's conveyed in the art. If you want to double emphasize something than make the words radically different--almost abstract.

Say you have a shot of a guy stirring coffee, and you want to emphasize the mundane nature of it. The caption shouldn't read--He mundanely stirred his coffee. or whatever. But perhaps the caption would read-- Circles, circles, nothing but circles.

But hey, what do I know. 2nd place was as good as we got. :)

Sans the bit about the captions, I like this entry. The art is nice, consistent and clean.

Caanan: Thanks for the kind words.
I put as much in the synopsis as I could without revealing too much of the mystery ahead for the Stranger. I'm not sure it'll hurt me or not, but I definitely didn't want to stuff the entire story into 8 screens/pages.

dash: Thanks.

SamLittle: Yeah, I need to learn to shut up more often. The captions will calm down after this page as the Stranger begins to converse with the people of the city.

ha! me too, Adam--finally, the competition is on!!
This is a very strong entry, best of luck to you guys!