There are a lot of things that only exist in fiction and really don't have any basis in reality and yet we THINK they do! It's just that fiction has done such a great job of making us believe this stuff and setting it up that it pretty much replaces reality. We focused on spies for our Patreon only video, and how the version we know from popculture in Kingsmen, Mission Impossible, James Bond, Chuck, and many other things is complete fiction.

This Quackcast topic was inspired by a forum thread on DD to which many people contributed and we draw a lot of inspiration from that. We talk about how in popculture when bullets are removed from a shooting victim they immediately start to heal up and get better, when in reality doctors often wont bother removing the bullet because that would cause more damage since it's the path the bullet tore through you that's the problem, not so much the bullet itself… unless it's impinging on something vital and NEEDS to be removed.

Real cowboys didn't fire from the hip or fan their guns… at least according to Wyatt Earp who said that any that tried in a gunfight never lived to try again. Real military explosions from ordinance don't produce huge fireballs (unless it's an incendiary bomb), because what kills is the shock-wave and shrapnel, so most explosions produce a lot of smoke, dust, and chunks. Swords don't go “shing” when you draw them (unless it's from a metal scabbard). People never carried and drew swords from their backs in battle. No ninja ever dressed in the classic black outfit we all know and love. Vikings never wore horns or indeed the shaved heavy metal haircuts, black leather and makeup and tattoos of the modern TV versions either… and so on!

What are some fake popculture tropes that people think are real that you're aware of?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Devils Blood - Floating angels, golden sun streaming through white fluffy clouds, the sound of a heavenly choir soars high into the blue gradient of the sky… starting from cerulean, to ultramarine, and into deep prussian mixed with black, it winks out with the twinkling stars.

Topics and shownotes

Links

See more fake things that only exist in popculture in this forum thread - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179409/?page=1

Featured comic:
Into the Bookwoods - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/22/featured-comic-into-the-bookwoods/

Featured music:
Devils Blood - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Devils_Blood/ - by Dragonsong12, Rated E.

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

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- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

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When you're drawing people in a webcomic one of the common ways to indicate gender is by outfits, but why are clothes gendered at all and is that a constant?

Gendered clothing clothing is influenced by many things like fashion, history, custom, occupation, class, culture, and religion, and much less so practicality or biology, contrary to popular belief. All these things have gendered components that have an influence on the clothes people wear and the way they present themselves. There are no constants in gendered clothing, the idea that men have short hair and wear trousers and women have long hair and wear dresses for example was thought to be a constant in the 20th century but that was utter nonsense since even IN the 20th century there were plenty of examples of people doing the opposite with mainstream styles all over the world, let alone all throughout history.

What we associate with “masculine styles” and “Feminine styles” are also a nonsense because that always changes and is different all over the world, it only applies here and now. People LOVE to rationalise based on current styles and pretend it applies more universally but that's just foolish to anyone who looks at world history. For example the current “masculine” style is for men to be drab, dull and modest in their styles, with clothes that are only dark, bulky and hide the shape of the form, but we know from little more than 150 years ago this was strikingly different, and 200, 250, and 300 years ago it was even more striking!

But we don't have to look that far back for an example! There's the modern myth of the “hair band”. The term is now used to describe flashy heavy rock bands from the 1980s in order to separate them from other musical styles and create the myth that they were unusual. While the truth is far more interesting: “hair band” was a term used at the time to describe British “New Wave” bands like Flock of Seagulls who mainly liked short hair with a long fringe over the eyes. In the 1980s Heavy Metal took over as one of the most popular commercial music styles and this was completely driven by bands that had flashy “glam” stage clothes (the name comes from 1970s glam rock, a different genre). Their popularity influenced all other rock bands. Contrary to modern belief, all rock bands dressed in flashy glam clothes, most especially every single heavy metal band, and all had long hair almost without exception. They were never “hair bands” because ALL metal bands looked like that. The modern myth is simply driven by our need to rationalise what we see now and somehow apply it to history.

We do the same thing when we look back at the long haired men with their high heels and gold capes from the past and question their sexuality, while characters like Buffalo Bill Cody who were the epitome of American masculinity commonly wore thigh high leather boots, leather outfits with fringes, long wavy hair, and a slouch hat! Women in the past have never been limited only to dresses and skirts, there have always been examples of them wearing trousers throughout history. Even gender neutral clothing is nothing at all new: a famous version was the proposed simple suit consisting of a black jacket and trousers for men and women just after the French revolution!

Ironically all of us in the Quackcast have designed our characters with heavily gendered outfits! How do you go with gendered fashions?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Eye Hand Voice - A miles high wall of sound that snakes over the landscape and reaches up to the heavens! Gunwallace builds this tune brick by brick till it blocks out the sun, it’s a mighty effort. Layered with scythe sounds and a driving beat

Topics and shownotes

Links

Special thanks to -
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Soushiyo/
-For the addition of then new “other gender” part of our sign up forms.

Some inspiration from Tantz's newspost -
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/18/gender-toxicity/

Featured comic:
Masks Comic -
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/15/featured-comic-masks-comic/

Featured music:
Eye Hand Voice -
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Eye_Hand_Voice - by Kalamitycomics, rated M..

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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS


Duc Francis d'Quackarto XIV, ancestor of The Drunk Duck

This week's cast was an experiment and if it works out we'll do more! We came up with the idea for discussing a comic live on air, the hard part was choosing it, for that we settled on our trusty Kawaiidaigakusei to help us. She chose “Up the Pyramid” by BUDLO. And this was her rationale:

“A comic that I had already featured, but deserves a second run in the spotlight. There is a chapter specifically that would work for a Quackcast episode discussion titled, ”My Mother, Her Baby, & Mary Cassatt“ that went live a few weeks after the comic had been featured. It is a story that is told in very beautiful panels, set in real world settings, and it struck a chord with me when I read it over again and gave me a real pause in order to think about life paths. The chapter could resonate with many people on the site.”

that seemed like amazing reasoning to us and so we chatted about that chapter of Budlo's comic, page after page, all having seen it for the first time. So fancy that, a webcomic podcast that finally talks about webcomics!

Do you think this works? If not, why not?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to NSFW - Heavy on the bass and lots of groove, this is a very 1970s sound!This tune sticks with a line and rides it through to the end. It’s a really solid groove that knows what it wonts and how to get there.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Our comic of Discussion: https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/UP_THE_PYRAMID/5709169/


Featured comic:
VIRTUS - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/09/featured-comic-virtus/

Featured music:
NSFW - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/NSFW/ - by Arborcides, rated A.

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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Future-cast - Gendered fashion

We're having a chat about characters that differ from the source material and turn out crap because of it. Characters where the people adapting them didn't care, understand, or even take time to read the original stuff because they thought they knew better.

There are a lot of instances where characters are adapted from source material and get totally messed up because the writers either don't understand or care about the source material they're taking from. Were not talking about being exactly true to a book, we're talking about understanding and respecting the characters so you can translate them to another medium and still have them recognisable and be themselves.
There are many examples of poor character translation… apparently this is what happened with The Witcher in the 3rd season of the show. The story is that the led actor, Henry Cavil is a fan of the character from the books and games and took exception to the character's dilution and sidelining as the series progressed. We've been told that the writers for the show would openly laugh at the source material, something they're not really qualified to do since even the well regarded first series is extremely badly written and only gets the praise it does because of Cavel's portrayal of the lead character.

An example that's very near and dear to me is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. This is a sort of a special case since the author had SOME involvement in it before he died but not enough apparently. the characters of Arthur Dent as played by Martin Freeman and Ford Prefect by Mos Def are terrible interpretations, so much so that they end up actively damaging the movie and harming the story. The essence of Arthur's character is a bemused, suburban British superiority: He has an expectation that as a British citisen his rights should be respected, his opinion should be listened to, people should understand his language, and things should conform to his suburban understanding of what is normal and good, all this is signaled by his wearing of Pajamas, a dressing gown and slippers the whole time. Whereas Martin Freeman's version simply doesn't understand what he's seeing and goes through the whole movie with an affronted frown on his stupid face. This is absolutely incorrect! Rather than not understanding anything Arthur is suppose to believe that he understands everything, but only in simple, suburban British terms,so that he can go through the story with a sense of befuddled superiority.

Ford Prefect is supposed to be cool. He's easy going, and just meshes with whatever situation he's in, even if he doesn't understand it. He's very smart and quick to adapt. Mos Def's version is just a moron who looks good. All that said,Sam Rockwell's version of Zaphod was more perfect than perfect, and Zoe Dashenell was perfectly fine as Trillian, but that character was never ever written well to begin with in the original.

What characters do you think with translated poorly in an adaption? Adam West's Batman? Hernry Cavil's Superman? Who?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Oi Tales of Bardic Fury - A Jangling, reverential, exotic, evocative sound of places far away, the smell of sweet spices, mulled wine, and cured meats on the warm breeze in the salty air…

Topics and shownotes

Future cast: TRON and TRON 2

Links

Featured comic:
RATKIDS - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/01/featured-comic-ratkids/

Featured music:
Oi Tales of Bardic Fury - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Oi_Tales_of_Bardic_Fury/ - by Omeow, rated E.

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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Drawing fight scenes is damn hard! One of the best ways to deal with this is to use references, but that's hard too because it's a pain to find the ones you need! So today we're talking about making your own reference pics for fighting because that's what I just finished for Tantz- I stripped shirtless and wielded some of my many antique swords in fight poses for Tantz to use in her new fantasy webcomic.

You can also look at movie versions of stage fighting but those are pretty unrealistic usually and don't have a follow through of action. You can use fight manuals but actual realistic fighting isn't very exciting or interesting to look at. There's footage of training and sparring with people doing fencing, kendo, battle of nations or HEMA but those are all unrealistic in certain ways too because they're forms of stylised fighting designed to earn points- real fights would never have gone down that way. Even with HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts), which is supposed to be the most realistic, it really isn't because people rely on their protection too much and always rush in fast for killing hits because they wear advanced protection, when in a real historical fight people would be more careful to avoid injury, which would slow the fight a LOT.

My solution was to pose in semi realistic ways that still look theatrical and heroic enough, so it's a balance between reality and theatricality.
How do you do fight scenes?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Echoes - A mystery is about to be uncovered, by how deep does it really go? This highly cinematic tune delves deeper and deeper into the shadow and windy, dusty dark spaces to find out things we never suspected or even dreamed of! When oh when will Peter Jackson hire Gunwallace to write the scores for his films? That’s what I want to know.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Oi Tales of Bardic Fury - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jul/25/featured-comic-oi-tales-of-bardic-fury/

Featured music:
Echoes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Echoes/ - by Usedbooks, rated T.

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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!

Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS


Future-cast: Comic read though
-We will ask Kawaii to pick a comic for us to read through on the cast