Happy Halloween! The time of spookiness and ghosts. Spooks messed up the cast so the sound quality is really bad I'm afraid, I tried to do what I could to fix it though.

This week Banes, I, and Tantz are chatting about Halloween and related subjects like scary movies and things. I personally only like comedy horror, or whacky horror films where things are taken too far so I don't identify with the characters and feel bad because of it. I find I identify with characters in film far too much (if it's realistic), the genre doesn't matter, it can be comedy, horror, murder mystery, romance whatever, so that means if the tone is too tragic and depressing it usually makes me feel extremely down. For that reason a lot of horror doesn't appeal to me unless I can distance myself from the characters somehow. So comedy helps, or if it's super-over-the-top and whacky like The Nun.

How do you go with horror and did you dress up for Halloween?
Bellow you can view our Patreon vids FREE this week and see us in our Halloween gear.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by History, An Intimate little epic fantasy - A royal fanfare trumpets the arrival of this epic beginning, hinting at gig things to come and adventure in mist shrouded lands of high mountains, deep valleys, and shaded forests.

Topics and shownotes

Links

This week we made our Patreon vids available free to all because we liked our costumes so much!
We didn't have much to say this time because we don't usually dress up this much so we were just obsessed with how we all looked but at least you get to SEE us and you can finally see the elusive Banes!
Click on the links bellow to see the vids on Patreon.

First Halloween vid - https://www.patreon.com/posts/dd-patreon-vid-91934504

Second Halloween vid - https://www.patreon.com/posts/dd-patreon-vid-91932022

Featured comic:
The Spook Control - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/oct/23/featured-comic-the-spook-control/

Featured music:
History - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/History/ - by Slickpuppy, 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/

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We're chatting about the subject of musicals for this particular Quackcast. You might think this has nothing to do with webcomics but webcomic musicals popup from time to time, like The Black Parade on DD by Ashlee S.

Musicals are a type of entertainment like any other, usually in the form of a film or stage play, they evolved from Operas and operettas. Their characteristic feature is that communication of scenes is at points stylised into the form of a song, often involving a dance with detailed choreography. I personally love musicals, some people don't, which is fare enough.

But one of the silliest complaints about musicals is when people say “I don't get it, why are they suddenly bursting into song and dance”, they tend to say that this isn't “logical”, among other things.
ALL forms of entertainment are highly stylised and mediated, there is no such thing as literal reality in entertainment, nothing even approaching it, no matter how much we fool ourselves. Singing and dancing in musicals is actually no less realistic and no less valid than a super serious crime drama like Breaking Bad or The Wire, these all have heavy stylisation and artificial forms of communication in order to get their point across. You just have to get used to it.

Remember- before we had TV we were limited to comics, books, and silent films. Before that it was operas. Before that it was puppet shows, stage plays, and oral histories told in rhyming verse as epic poems and all those things were easily understood by audiences and able to fully communicate the feelings, emotions, tragedy and the plot for thousands of years- which is something to think about next time a person says they can't get their head around musicals. Taste is one thing, being ignorant is another.

Anyway, do you like musicals? If so, what are some of your faves?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Gaia Comic - Delightful, mysterious, evocative, and gentle. This is an interesting mix of styles, with a woody percussion, pizzicato on violins and a mournful chorus of cellos.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Musical webcomic - The Black Parade https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Black_Parade/

Featured comic:
Alpacomics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/oct/17/featured-comic-alpacomics/

Featured music:
Gaia Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Gaia_Comic/. - by Novil, rated T

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

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The art of the tease is what we're talking about here. It's something Banes and I work with on Bottomless Waitress and it's what you see in a lot of raunchy comedies, you also see it in other applications too, like in a slasher thriller where it's teased that a character will become a victim but they never do. My fave application though is the traditional sex comedy where there's never anything explicit even though that is the thing you're always led to expect is just around the corner. The art is to keep people hanging on with the internal expectation of seeing something, while never actually delivering on it and yet not pissing them off.

Japanese Ecchi comedies are a great example of the “art of the tease”, these are raunchy, sexy comedies and yet they're not erotic. This genre works so well because it doesn't just tap into you intellectual expectations of maybe seeing something naughty, it manipulates and uses your instinctual attraction to sexy things, and because of that it reduces your fatigue in dealing with it - ie. normally you can only hang on for so long with the expectation of seeing something, if you don't get it after a while you get bored and quit, but because of the way sexy comedies are structured that is less of an issue.

Do you use the art of the tease?
It can also be related to things like subversion of expectation.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The Werewolf Prince - Howling portents of canine savagery and music that bounces in with an understated menace which is softened by airy synth tones that soar and dance.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Last week's Quackcast on Character growth VS tropes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-654-tropes-vs-character-growth/

Featured comic:
Pitrats - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/oct/09/featured-comic-pitrats/

Featured music:
The Werewolf Prince - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Werewolf_Prince/ - by SorbetMystery, rated T.

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/


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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!

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This Quackcast is a sequel to our Quackcast last week on alternative character growth, but instead of Star Wars this time we decided on Indiana Jones. It's a really interesting creative writing exercise, we think up a better, more interesting way of of growing and continuing an established character and their adventures.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a bit lame and Soviets didn't make nearly as good enemies as Nazis so that's where we started… We thought about what Indie would have done during WW2, perhaps doing espionage work and making friends with spies from Britain and the USSR. And after the war he goes on a mission to acquire holly relics with special powers, hooking up with his spy friends and going up against a Nazi cult. There's lot more to it than that, we had fun coming up with ideas.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Lauren Ipsum - A jolly feast of wackiness with tropical Island party vibes. This is a dance on a warm beach during a beautiful sunset, sipping mai tais and coconut milk.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Thirley Peak - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/oct/03/featured-comic-thirley-peak/

Featured music:
Lauren Ipsum - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Lauren_Ipsum/ - by bakertoons , rated E.

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