Tue, 28 April 2026
The DD comedy promotion month is coming to a close so we're having a Quackcast focussing on comedy in general this time. Tantz, Banes and I talk about comedy, how it works, and what makes something funny, and ironically that's one if the least funny things you can talk about! There are a lot of different kinds of comedy: puns, slapstick, cruelty based comedy, taboo based humour, humiliation based comedy, non-sequitur “random” humour, cute comedy, intellectual comedy, satire, toilet humour etc. I heard the other day that “slapstick” (physical comedy), gets it's name from the noise making “slap-sticks” used by the harlequin clowns in the commedia dell'arte plays from the 1500s. They'd use those to mark when something was funny and the audience was supposed to laugh, though that sounds a little dubious to me… Personally I think the simple “subverting of expectations” neatly explains the methodology behind most if not all comedy: You set something up which comes with its own inerrant expectations, then you surprise people by giving them a conclusion that goes against those expectations, while still fitting in with the logic of the scenario presented. And if things are done right, then you find it funny! That explains puns, humiliation, physical humour, crude humour, anything! This is why the typical number of panels in a gag comic is 4, because that's the easiest way to do setup: You present the concept, you set it up, you provide a complication or question, then you surprisingly subvert it. I did not invent that idea BTW. Then there's also relatability VS specificity: The more relatable something is, the easier it is for most people to find it funny. But if it's too general then it's seen as lame and obvious. Specific subjects can be cuttingly funny but you limit your audience right down. Related to this: In the Quackcast Banes mentions the idea that comedy helps to tell truths at the heart of things. I do not think that's the case, I think it's just that easy generalities connect with more people, so when you surprise them with your subversion more of them will react and agree that it's funny, rather than because it's a “truth”. People often say comedians are “truth-tellers”, though again, they're just being relatable with very simplified concepts. I'm examining comedy in a very raw and basic way here that is entirely unfunny! I don't think many people approach it that way when coming up with jokes. For most of us we rely on our instincts and what makes us laugh rather than thinking about how it works and why it's funny. How do you approach comedy? This week our best-off from Gunwallace is: Bruno Harm - an appropriate Rockford files style intro for a guy who thinks he’s Peter Gunn. Added comedy lines! Topics and shownotes Featured comic: Featured music: April comedy them month! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2026/apr/24/funny-stuff/ Special thanks to:
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Direct download: Quackcast_789_-_The_anatomy_of_comedy.mp3
Category:Webcomics -- posted at: 12:00am PDT
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Tue, 21 April 2026
This is the second part of our Manipulation focussed Quackcast, and we have a special guest: Gunwallace! This time we're talking about manipulating your audience to think or feel certain things that you want them to in order for your story to have a greater impact. Gunwallace was here to help us with the humour aspect because getting people to find things funny is a challenge all in itself! It could be emotional beats, things like sadness at an event in the comic like the death of a character, betrayal, disappointment, joy, revenge, triumph, elation… If you can make the audience feel that along with the characters then the story events have way more meaning! Conversely, if you mishandle it then the event can be a little meaningless or even funny like the famous miscarriage scene in the Ctrl+Alt+Del (CAD) webcomic. But how do you manipulate people into having the feelings you want them to? I suppose the best way is having them identify with the characters, make their situation relatable, make the audience care about the characters and what they're experiencing, then these effects will have a greater impact. Humour is another aspect of this, how do you convince people that something is supposed to be funny and that they should laugh? That's really too big of a subject, but briefly: you can set up a situation and then subvert expectations in a silly way, you can exaggerate things foolishly, have a character embarrass or humiliate themselves etc. There are a lot of ways to go about it. Humour is very easy to fail at though: generalised humour is best because you'll have the broadest appeal and the most chance to make the joke land with more people, but if you're too general the joke becomes generic and boring. Specific humour about a clever reference or focussed on a particular subculture or scene can be razor sharp and awesome, but if people don't get the references then it comes off as meaningless. Lastly, if you have a character who's meant to be super smart, beautiful, a great fighter, charismatic, mysterious or something else, how do you manipulate the audience into believing that? One way is to have other characters simply describe them as that… which is the worst way to do it, at least in isolation. If other characters are announcing those traits you'll need to back it up with an example or it will come off as silly. Part of the trick then is to have a combination of characters reacting to them in a way that confirms those descriptions as well as a demonstration of it: Show a character is smart by having them quickly solve a difficult issue or come to a clever conclusion, rather than writing something like “they're the world's smartest person, they graduated from all major universities at 9 and they have 5 doctorates in neuroscience, experimental quantum physics, rocket science, genetics, and virology!”, rather than giving the audience the impression that the character is smart it will make them think the writer is an idiot. How do you manipulate the audience into having the impressions that you want? Have you ever tried to do that and failed? The best off Gunwallace track this week was picked by Gunwallace himself, it's the theme to Joe Pop - Staring Oz and Banes! This one is funny, and was a lot of fun to do! Oz is so great on base!
Links Manipulation part 1, Quackcast 784 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-784-manipulation Featured comic: Featured music: Special thanks to: VIDEO exclusive! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Direct download: Quackcast_788_-_Manipulating_your_Audience.mp3
Category:Webcomics -- posted at: 12:00am PDT
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Tue, 14 April 2026
Taboos are generally things that are considered “forbidden” by society for various reasons, but what we start with are personal taboos rather than at the society level, but we do talk about that too. Taboos for me in humour are animal cruelty, sexual violence, racism, sexism and ableism, all to varying degrees but animal cruelty is the main one. I really hate it when a joke involves killing or harming an animal. When it comes to personal taboos I don't tend to become a “Karren” about it, when I personally have an issue with a type of humour I'll generally turn away from it rather than assume everyone thinks like me and go on a tirade. Society level taboos are different, sometimes it's culturally based, like taboos about comedy based on religion, national heroes, nationalism, etc, it could be political, it can be touchy subjects like racism, sexual violence, cannibalism, sexism etc, or even silly things like toilet humour and bodily functions! There can be good reasons for both avoiding taboos completely and also tackling them head on directly. One of my favourite TV sitcoms is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which makes a point of constantly taking taboos head on. A general rule about taboos and touchy subjects in humour is to “punch up” rather than “punch down”, which means it's not cool to go after the vulnerable, instead go after the empowered and entitled. But that doesn't mean you should infantilise the groups you deem worthy of protecting and treat them like that have no agency or humour, that can be just exactly as bad as attacking them directly because in both instances you are dehumanising them. A great instance of tackling a taboo in humour is Robert Downey Jnr's blackface in Tropic Thunder. Blackface is a taboo because it was about creating a dehumanising caricature of black people in order to denigrate them. The blackface in Tropic thunder isn't used that way at all, it's making fun of the character who is doing the blackface, his entitlement, overweening arrogance and gall to think he should be able to get away with it, as well as the ridiculousness of the situation. Do you have personal taboos that you don't joke about? Or do you think it's a good idea to make jokes about certain taboos in humour? -Waning- I recount a horrible, awful sexist joke near the end of the cast as an example and Tantz Aerine demolishes it with humour showing a good way to deal with such a thing. This week our best-off from Gunwallace is: Temple at Fifty Fathoms - Disco freaky! Better version, groovy, naughty, perfect. Topics and shownotes Featured comic: Featured music: Special thanks to:
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
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Tue, 7 April 2026
We're talking about the changing depictions of sexuality in media over the years. A big misconception is that trends are purely linear, so a popular belief is that things started out all very pure and safe and gradually degenerated into a kind of sexy free-for all… which is not true. Humans have always been the same, sex is a massive part of our cultures, since the first media existed sex was a part of it (back in the ancient world and pre-history). The 19th and 20th centuries where no different. Prudish Victorians are a myth. Film, books, music, comics and more in the early days included depictions of sex and sexuality, the first porn films came out at the same time as the first mainstream films and it was a similar story with all other media. But there was always push-back from other parts of culture and so that toned things down. This is a continuous process: Sexuality and censorship, the pendulum swings. In the the 1930s in the USA they had the Hays code which got rid of sexiness and sexuality in Hollywood and that had knock on effects for the rest of the world. By the time of the 1960s though things had gone the other way, especially since the Hays code wasn't a thing in Europe and their sexier content came over and influenced the USA. Since then things have continued to go up and down: with the rise of porn on home video, sexuality in film and TV decreased in the 1980s. By the 90s with the rise of cable TV became sexy again and so on. Comics in the USA had the Comics Code Authority, which took out all adult aspects from comics for decades and affected comics in different countries too, but not all. Meanwhile in Europe, Asia, and South America there was interesting stuff being created. We got a taste of that through things like Heavy Metal magazine and some of the Manga that was imported and translated. In the USA and UK it encouraged the growth of an alternative culture that wasn't subjected to the Comics Code Authority and so artists like Robert Crumb proliferated. A push-pull with censorship is always going on for all sorts of reasons. Another misconception is that Christianity and religious conservatives are the main enemy so that there's a proxy divide between progressive left-wingers and the conservative right but the truth is that it's far more complicated unfortunately. We cover this in the Quackcast, but briefly, depictions are often driven by commercial interests rather than simply the needs of art so we have had over-representations of certain kinds of eroticism in media, like things only really made for the male gaze (because men were imagined to be the main audience), which led to distorted depictions (exploitation films), and objectification. This led to to a push-back in art and intellectual circles against that sort of thing. Then there are factors like the protection of children, which crosses all political divides: all of us want to keep them safe. These processes happens in all countries at different rates and different times and the creative products of every culture influence those in other cultures and cause further change. How do you handle sex and sexuality in your own work? When I started Pink TA my goal was not to have any barriers to what I wanted to show, but as the years went on I realised I had to tone things down so my comic could be seen more widely and as I've gotten older I have a lot less interest in sexy things than I did when I was younger anyway so that caused further change. This week we have another best off from Gunwallace and this time it's - X up - 6 … is this a theme for a comic? … no! It could be a theme for X Up, it does have some Wah Wah guitar (the sexiest guitar), after all, but it isn’t. This is a theme for the number 6. That number that a certain user, plymayer, gives to comics all when he feels they deserve it. A 6. A 6 out of 5. This is a theme for a concept. The concept of a supportive DD’er. To plymayer … and to every 6 he has handed out. (Okay, so it’s also a theme for X Up … but don’t tell anyone). - Disco sex -
Links Thread that was inspiration for the topic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/180234/ Featured comic: Featured music: Special thanks to: VIDEO exclusive! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Direct download: Quackcast_786_-_Sexuality_in_media.mp3
Category:Webcomics -- posted at: 12:00pm PDT
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The QuackCast features Ozoneocean, Banes, Tantz Aerine, and Pitface, talking about writing, movies, webcomics, art, politics, philosophy, sexuality, and everything else! We're the hosts of the oldest webcomic host on the net, Drunkduck.com, aka theduckwebcomics. 20 years this year!
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