Nidotamer wrote:... Guess I'm just too dumb to quit.
That's what being an artist is all about, if you ask me!
I promised to write some "proper" reviews here, so here's my stab at them.
Dark and Stormy Night is, for me, one of the best pieces you've done so far. The first-person narration is quite impressively done, the conversational bits don't feel distracting and add a lot to the narration, and it slips in lots of little jokes and tangential commentary that gives the characterisation a lot of depth (I like the part when she compares herself to other siblings, and when she talks about the house's architecture). The story itself is as simple as it can get, but the tone of the narration is what really makes it work. It's an extremely sweet tale, with lots of cute little details, but they don't feel gratuitous. There's a truth and a honesty to the narration that really puts me in Sherri's shoes and makes the story work.
One nitpick I noticed only now is that, for a few lines, it switches to the present tense. I actually don't think that's much of a "mistake" considering the style of the narration, that is, it could be a "mistake" on Sherri's part instead of the writer, but you still have to keep an eye on that. And I know I do make this mistake quite often too, and only catch it after multiple revisions.
The Magic Act is a story that I
should I have objections against, but surprisingly, I think it works as a piece of dark comedy. It has the right rhythm and a very good closing line for that. If anything, I would have picked a secondary character as a "victim" instead of Lisa, but because of me being a fanboy (... well...
partially because of that, yes), but because the show was never too shy about being violent to its secondary characters. With Lisa, it feels quite jarring. Except if this were imagined as a scene from a Treehouse of Horror, of course, in which case everything is valid!
The Strategist is worth it just for having Martin take the spotlight, and yes, it's quite easy to see you enjoyed writing him. I find this nice when you can see this joy showing through the text. I think this story would work pretty well as a comic, in fact, since it does have a very visual element.
One thing I would change is some of the word choices in a few moments. For example, when you say Jimbo "predictably" joined his compatriots; I feel this kind of humour needs a certain bluntness and snappiness, and you can achieve that in a written form by cutting words like that. It's the same situation as when Bart fell into a "convenient" pile of trash back in the vampire story: it's better to let the reader fill in those descriptions in their mind.