For Quackcast 294 we all dressed up as members of the Addams Family! Me as Gomez, Banes as Cousin It, Tantz as Morticia, and Pit Joan D'eath. We had a great time and you'll be able to see us all on video!
The theme of this Quackcast was based on a newspost by Banes: Comedy and Horror and the relationship between those two things. It's very close. Both try hard to evoke strong emotions and emotional pay-offs. It can be very easy for most horror to devolve into comedy if things go wrong. Many horror tropes are actually pretty silly (i.e. slow walking zombies), which is why there are so many shows that make fun of them like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Munsters, The Cyptkeeper, and the amazing Addams Family! Horror comedy is a tried and true genre. If you're interested read more about that in Bane's newspost.

Gunwallace's music for the week is the same as the feature: Miracles. The sound is dramatic,urgent, exciting, classical, action music- SOMETHING is going to happen if we don’t stop it in time!


Topics and shownotes

Quackcast VIDEO - https://youtu.be/ZGrsfuJZvbg

Featured comic:
Miracles - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Miracles/

Newspost:
Comedy and Horror - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2016/oct/05/horror-and-comedy-true-bedfellows/

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz%20Aerine
Genejoke - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Genejoke/

Featured music:
Miracles - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Miracles/ by lex40515, rated E.

In this happy season of October we come to that time of year again when Banes starts to get excited by Halloween! This year his idea was for us all to do a real time DVD commentary for The Burbs, that great comedy horror film staring the famous Tom Hanks, from back in 1989 when he was still a hilarious leading man and not a super serious drama guy. We all LOVE this movie, it's very funny, with a lot of cool twists and great scenes. Along with Tom Hanks it stars Princess Leia AKA Carrie Fischer, dudeman Corey Feldman, and Bruce Dern being Dale Gribble before Dale Gribble was even a thing! Pitface, Tantz, Banes and I all talk along to and over the movie as it's playing. To enjoy the FULL effect I strongly suggest you find a copy of The Burbs on a legal streaming site, or less than legal one depending on your ethics, or maybe even a DVD or old video! Pop it on and spoil the movie by listening to us all blather away together, it'll be just like watching the movie WITH us! And wouldn't you like that? I'm sure you would, we're all very friendly people. ;)
Our feature AND the music by Gunwallace this week is for the same comic, “Useless”. The theme is atmospheric and haunting, lightened with the strains of a singing, melodic electric guitar.

Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Useless - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Useless/

Links:
The Burbs IMDB page - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096734/
The Burbs Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_'Burbs
The Burbs trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg7RpL3kTBk

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz%20Aerine
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/

Featured music:
Useless - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Useless/ by uselessvigilantes, rated E

Separating the art from the artist, the message from the messenger… Can you do this?
You know, when you find out an actor, musician, comic artist or whatever is an arsehole or says things you disagree with or is a criminal, can you separate that from their work and STILL manage to enjoy it? Or does it taint everything they've ever made? I've thought about this a lot. I think I can usually separate the art from the artist and I DON'T think that consuming the work of that artist in any way legitimises what I disagree with about them personally or endorses their criminal behaviour unless the art is specifically about that. But it can really depend on how personally you're affected by whatever it was about the artist that offended you; A Jewish person could have a far more negative reaction, understandably, to the watercolours of Adolph Hitler than most other people, to use an extreme example.
What about you? Can you separate the message from the messenger, the art from the artist?


The comic chosen for a marvellous theme THIS week was Cybertech. You'll hear the sounds of apocalyptic destruction and burning plasma in a dark future, epic world.


Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Story of the Soul - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Story_of_the_Soul/

Links:
Forum thread - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177567/

Contributors:
KimLuster - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/KimLuster/
Bravo - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/bravo1102/
Usedbooks - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/usedbooks/
Genejoke - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Genejoke/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean/

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz%20Aerine
kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/

Featured music:
Cybertech - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Cybertech/ by superzentredi, rated T.

This week's Quackcast is brought to us by Tantz Ariene! Tantz is a very political creature, seeing as she comes from Athens which is pretty much the birthplace of politics AND philosophy, that's hardly surprising. Clever Tantz in her tantzglasses, dudeman Banes, and me,Ozoneocean all talk about this interesting subject: what are the politics and philosophy involved in YOUR webcomic? Even though we don't realise it, there's ALWAYS politics of some sort in a comic, as well as philosophy. If your writing is pretty clever you might have multiple political view points in your comic and a whole range of different philosophies!
Consider something as basic as Peanuts. Those characters have all sorts of political viewpoints! Peppermint Pattie is very forthright in her feminist views, but she's also pretty left wing, Lucy is rather domineering and and right off centre in the way she thinks, Charlie Brown is a bit of a fatalist blank slate for the audience to project themselves onto, Linus is a quiet intellectual… etc, I don't know, it's been years since I've read Peanuts! Gimmee a break!
In superhero comics it's the same; most of them are pretty right wing, libertarian, individualist sorts of characters- Batman for example, Iron man, etc. There's a good argument for Superman being somewhat more Socialist since he's an ordinary man with an ordinary job most of the time and works out in the open for the good of all humanity, while Batman is a super rich guy most of the time and when he's doing hero stuff it's usually smaller scale vigilante type stuff against people who threaten his city, or commerce in his city like thieves and the Mafia.
Try it yourself! Examining the politics and philosophy of your OWN characters as well as classic ones is pretty interesting.

Gunwallace's theme this week is for Krasnosvit, a subtle, careful, fairytale theme, inducing you into the dark forest strangeness of Krasnosvit.

Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Epic of Blitzov - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Epic_of_Blitzov/

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz%20Aerine
Genejoke - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Genejoke/

Featured music:
Krasnosvit - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Krasnosvit/ by MadMindInk, rated T