Merry Christmas one and all! And all that stuff. This year our release date falls exactly on the 25th! It was a busy year for us, lots happened.
But in this Quackcast what we chat about is something rather different: the difference between pros and amateurs, specifically when it comes to comics. There's this common misconception that an amateur is a novice that will produce work of a lower quality, while a professional is an experienced person who knows what they're doing and will always produce things of the highest quality… The REAL story is more complex than that.

Professionals produce work for a living. It has to support them. Because of this they need to develop a high level of skill and proficiency. They need to learn how to produce work reasonably fast and to a consistent level of good quality on a regular basis. Time, cost and quality are the main factors, the pressure is on them to make things relatively cheaply, relatively fast, and at a good quality. This is very hard to do so they learn to make compromises and take shortcuts to achieve that. “Quality” becomes “good enough”, or basically with enough tricks and shortcuts to convince you that it IS high quality. In terms of art that involves tracing, pre-rendered images, photo backgrounds with filters, gradient fill colouring, cut and pasting, use of 3D assets, reliance on standard models. For writing that means sticking to formulas and story outlines someone else has come up with; tasks are split and delegated to teams: pencilers, inkers, colourists, background artists, creative directors, writers story editors and so on.

Amateurs come in many flavours. On one end of the scale you have the beginners who are learning, then you have casual people with just enough skill to do the job, and finally you have people with an extremely high level of skill, higher than any professional. Amateurs lack the pressure to make a living out of their work which means they have far more time to produce it in and experiment. They have the freedom to learn, advance and perfect, far beyond what is available to people stuck in the professional world.

But of course it's not a case of either/or. Both worlds can learn from each other and frequently do. There are many helpful tricks that amateurs can pick up from the pro world and pros have a LOT to learn from doing projects at a more amateur level. I hope this Quackcast helps to dispel the old myth that Pro = great, while amateur = bad. Reality is frequently a lot more interesting and complicated! ;)

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Lost Honey. Something epic is about to begin! Chords full of portent rise and flood your ears, creating a gorgeous blue backdrop upon which play the golden notes of the piano, full of stinging melancholy, joyful exuberance and wistful reminiscence.

Topics and shownotes

VIDEO exclusive!
Only for Patrons who donate $5 or more, here:
https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck

Featured comic:
Urban Legend - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/18/featured-comic-urban-legend/

Christmas Newsposts
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/19/merry-quackmas/
Emma Clare - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/20/winding-down-and-looking-back/
Tantz - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/21/a-most-awesome-dd-year/
Pitface riding in a TIGER TANK - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au8cImGEjhA&feature=youtu.be&t=948

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean

Featured music:
Lost Honey - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Lost_Honey/, by Fleebites, rated E.

On the 18th of December people who post things with nudity on Tumblr will be kicked off the site. That means all the adult bloggers, comicers and things that made that journalling site stand out above the rest of the vast sea of blog sites and image hosts are being screwed out of what they helped build up! The reason of course is to make the site more attractive to advertisers and so it can more easily fit the standards of puritanical companies like Apple and Google who have taken it upon themselves to scrub the world clean of anything that defines us as adult human beings.

Inspired by my newspost on Saturday (link bellow) this Quackcast has a look at the anti-nudity, anti-adult craze and the reasons for it, as well as censorship in general. We also strongly encourage any refugee adult webcomicers from Tumblr to make The duck Webcomics your new home and please tell anyone you know that we are there for them! Unlike Pornhub we are actually a proper webcomic host and unlike other comic sites we do not quibble about your content. As long as it's legal, it's a comic, you have permission to post it, and you rate it correctly, go to town!

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Terminal Velocity: The music builds a high altitude atmosphere… Floating through the sky free of gravity, clouds float by as weightless and unencumbered as you but infinitely more massive. All is stillness apart from your heartbeat and the wind whistling past, which builds up pressure as you feel the suction of gravity towards the earth far below and the world seems to speed up as you see the ground rush towards you. Then you fall into the cold grey heart of cloud and all is stillness again for a moment, leaving you alone with the sound of your pulse.

Topics and shownotes

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https://youtu.be/0iOV1IbrKLQ
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see the rest of it and other videos and perks:
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Featured comic:
The Lightning Orb - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/10/featured-comic-the-lightning-orb/

Based On my Saturday Newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/13/the-great-tumblr-censorship-exodus-dd-welcomes-you/

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean

Featured music:
Terminal Velocity - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Terminal_Velocity/ , by Barry Corbett, rated E.

We mined Tantz's Saturday newspost for our discussion topic: Strong characters and how to write GOOD ones!
What is a strong character? Well it has nothing to do with physical ability, power, command, or anything so obvious and trite. Strong characters are well rounded and well realised, they're often active and opposed to reactive, they make things happen, the story hinges on them.
Failed attempts at “strong” characters or obvious and often result in Mary Sues, whether male or female. People hand them traits that they THINK will make the character strong: make them a general, make them a great fighter, make them royalty etc. The problem comes when none of that is ever logically backed up in the story. You can't just title a character something or have other characters talk about how great they are without having them demonstrate a reason for it, or else all you have is a pathetic paper tiger and a really shizzy failed part of your story.
Nothing worse than a character that can't live up to the hype! Anime does that a lot: you might have a huge muscular monster of a character that never properly uses that strength, so they always seem just a little disappointing, or a general, master ruler, expert strategist that never does anything of the sort.

I must apologise for my scatter-headed form, I was very tired at this stage! Tantz and Banes carried the Quackcast with grace, élan and great ability! They are strong characters who more than live up to their hype.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Akacya the Bounty Hunter - A blast of flame into the orange polluted skies over a desolate future world with no hope. This track conjures an ash grey plain on a distant world as it carves an intricate, multilayered soundscape… a hulking black city of glimmering glass and soaring steel towers rises over the horizon, glittering windows reflecting the rays of an ancient sun.

Topics and shownotes

VIDEO exclusive!
Only for Patrons who donate $5 or more, here:
https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck

Featured comic:
Through The Window - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/04/featured-comic-through-the-window/

Links:
From Tantz's newspost here - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/dec/07/strong-women-strong-men/

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Pitface - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean

Featured music:
Akacya the Bounty Hunter - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Akacya_The_Bounty_Hunter/, by Shinka, rated M.

This Quackcast was inspired by a newspost by Tantz. There seems to be this prevailing idea at the moment that serialised storytelling is better than episodic style stories. Tantz informs me that it's one of the many Twitterverse controversies! So let me explain what I mean here: Episodic story telling is when most of the story you're telling can be parcelled into the course of an episode: you can have a strong beginning, middle and satisfying conclusion in the course of your episode, whether that takes the form of a comic chapter, a page, a strip, or a half hour TV show. The Serial style has things stretching over multiple chapters or TV episodes. What we talk about in this Quackcast is that it's an utterly false dichotomy: You do not have to have either or, in fact most projects have elements of BOTH at the same time and it's a little foolish to think that one style could possibly be inherently superior to the other since they're just tools for telling a story. It is up to the creator to pick which one is right for their own work and the context in which it's going to be shown.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Belle Starr! A cold sun rising over an alien land, liquid fire spreads across the plain, chasing shadow, banishing darkness, lighting the way for our heroine… Belle Starr! gird your loins for battle, success is the only option!

Topics and shownotes

VIDEO exclusive!
Thank you very much to our patrons! You get to see our videos here:
https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck

Featured comic:
Lost Honey - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/nov/26/featured-comic-lost-honey/

Tantz's newspost on serials and episodes! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/nov/30/serialized-vs-episodic-storytelling/

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean

Featured music:
Belle Starr - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Belle_Starr/, by Jeff Salty, rated T.