I have a problem with the top panel; it looks like they stopped hugging in surprise and THAN the curly-haired one began speaking. I think its supposed to be that she spoke, thus surprising the hugging.
Maybe the speech bubble should be moved over, into the first panel? (This is left to right, right?)
The chibiness of the first panel is cute and I like the rest of the panelling. ^^
o.o And this is precisely why I need an editor or someone to just look at my thumbs...because it looked okay before, but now I'm beginning to think I'm confusing myself!!! @___@
I think that's why the bubble overlapped the two panels, but...>__<
Get rid of the panel border for the first panel. If the problem is the timing between the first two panels, and there's not supposed to be any time elapsed between the two, get rid of the panel border and everything happens at the same time.
Although in this case, you'd have to do a bit more; the fact that the hair is the only tone in the top third of the page except for the BG pushes the speaker further back in the picture, as if he weren't standing in front of Bri anymore. Since this isn't the case, you'd either have to tone the hair differently (lower dpi), or use more tones on the huggling aspect of the frame, to fix the depth perception.
Do you see it? Or need more fan-art? =)
(did you get the last one?)
I'd say if you just had made your sound effect a little more boldly your first panel is perfect!, and you'd not need to make any other changes...
I'm not one to say you always HAVE to stick to someone else's formula to have a winner.. And, those that step outside are the ones who find the light!
In a previous panel you accidently put your diag-line running the wrong direction. However, I feel that worked out as it actually added emphais to the scene... sorry for the misspelling