Today we're chatting about characters who're mainly based on tropes VS those that grow. You see this difference quite clearly in a lot of British comedy VS American comedy where characters are set up in certain ways, e.g. the nerd, the sassy one, the mature one etc- in British stuff they tend to revert to type, which is their most important trait, while in American stuff they tend to change and grow based on interactions and experiences. There are MANY exceptions though and one way isn't inherently better than the other.

There seems to be a few reasons for that: a huge established history of it in Britain and the BBC being a massively influential engine of creation that people emulate without even thinking, but mainly I think it's because most British stuff always used to have a single writer or a pair of writers working on something at a time and often changing them episode to episode, while American stuff often tends to be written by team. This means there's more continuity on American projects because when part of the team leaves they're replaced by others who join the existing team, while with British stuff you'll often have a full replacement. This means that with the single writer approach it's much easier to simply rely on tropes rather than keep track of what all the previous people who worked on it were thinking, but when you have a team people will remember from episode to episode so it's easier to build on characters and change them.

The original British Office Vs the American adaptation is a good illustration of the tendency of tropes VS change. Both sets of characters were based on certain tropes but over the course of the 2 seasons and the special episodes the characters in the original didn't really change or grow at all (Gareth is still a knob, David Brent never changes from being a sad wanker, Tim always thinks he's better than everyone despite hating himself), while as soon as the US episodes stopped directly copying the originals the characters began to grow (way before it went off into its multi season run). The British version had the same two writers, but they were following the popular British style. Both versions are great in their own very different ways and despite being trope based the British version is more serious and realistic, while the growing characters of the US version are cartoony and stylised.

There are other factors though and a lot of exceptions - show-runners can make sure things go in certain ways, The Simpsons have been going for a million years with many different writers and barely change, and things made with the same one or two writers episode to episode can still change and grow because you have creative continuity. Then you have creators who simply force characters to reset and revert to type regardless of the growth and experiences they've had,which is a terrible betrayal of the audience, but that's how bad writers roll. Related to that is the opposite version; where characters score unearned growth that just comes out of nowhere, which is another betrayal of the audience.

Do your characters grow and change or are they informed by the way they were originally setup? Which style do you prefer?


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Beg - Platforming pixels in the deep, dark, scream haunted depths of a magical video game dungeon where only the bravest are able to carefully creep.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Lauren Ipsum - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/sep/19/featured-comic-lauren-ipsum/

Featured music:
Beg - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Beg/ - by BettyTeaHorse, rated M.

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!
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- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
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Today we're talking about STAR TREK! Star Trek is a pretty influential piece of pop-culture. Most interesting to me is that it's a future that is NOT a dystopia. It's a large scale vision of a future world where everything is NOT terrible and collapsing in on itself. You can count those on one hand. It's worth talking about just because of that. Instead of taking the boring, tried and true dystopia route the creators of this world decided to explore a premise of “what happens when a world actually works?”.

Star Trek has had many versions, from the original series in the 1960s, to the animated 70s version, the movies, the 3 big series in the 1990s, the revival prequel series, and my personal fave: the animated “Lower Deck”s. Out of all Star Trek I've seen I have to say that The Next Generation, Voyager, and Lower Decks are my faves, along with the The Wrath of Khan. But Lower Decks really stands out as a classic because it pays homage to all of classic Star Trek as well as seamlessly updating the culture to today's political environment and being amazingly funny at the same time.

It is extremely rare for an IP to accomplish this. In almost every single case the creators will butcher the IP by changing everything, crapping all over the original incarnation and being super clunky and embarrassingly amateur with incorporating modern cultural ideals to do with things like gender equality, racial diversity, and sexuality. Lower Decks is as smooth as silk in that regard.

Which version of Star Trek is your fave?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The Spook Control - Starts off creepy then bursts into high speed, action oriented racing sounds, setting your pulse aflame and dangerously fast! Full on electronica.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
FIRST BOYFRIEND Infamous Delinquent Kazuki - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/sep/11/featured-comic-first-boyfriend-infamous-delinquent-kazuki/

Featured music:
The Spook Control - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Spook_Control/ - by MSK314, 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!

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Our topic this week is making your characters individual, distinct and setting them apart through physical traits. In many mainstream superhero comics or manga the only difference between most characters is their outfit, hair, and skin tone. There are a few reasons for that but a big one is that it saves time if the artist doesn't have to change to much when they're drawing different characters. Professional arts work hard and have to work fast so things that make work faster and easier are needed.

But webcomic artists are a different breed! We don't need to draw all our women with exactly the same body shape and face or our men with one of only 4 different body shapes like pro artists have to. We can mix it up and add interesting differences to really highlight individual character traits and features. We can do far more interesting and cool looking work than most pros have the freedom to. Give your characters a bigger nose, make them shorter, rounder, taller, darker, fatter, thinner, whatever!

In our Patreon video we mainly talked about giving them different shaped boobs...

A really great example of this sort of thinking is Steven Universe where characters are very physically distinct and certainly don't all follow the same old usual patterns.

Do you mix it up with your characters? Or do you prefer to do it like the pros do in Superhero comics or manga where most characters are much the same?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Oblique - A serious, desolate, mysterious, claustrophobic sound that elevates to a more confident, rocky, open, expansive feel… suggesting open vistas and distance. -

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Out By The Lab - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/sep/05/featured-comic-out-by-the-lab/

Featured music:
Oblique - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Oblique/ - Written by Genejoke, Illustrated by David Abiola Olukoga. 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

We're chatting about a couple of things today: the DD 2023 Awards which are in their completion faze now, and "strong" characters of any gender. 
The DD awards are finding up now and presentations will be happening so it's a good time now to be able to see who actually won and to be able to get a look at some really good comics you might not have seen before.
The latter topic was inspired by something Tantz wrote about. There's a trend of people trying really hard to make "strong" female" characters and in the process botching it because they're focusing on the wrong things. They try to combat a sexist trend of weak female characters in the the process ironically commit a worse sexist mistake... "Strong" characters are the same no matter the gender because it's never gender traits that make them weak or strong. If you know what makes a strong character that skill is equally useful for male, female, trans, or genderless characters. 

Some people mistakenly think that so called "male" traits make a character strong: physical strength, anger, power, leadership, height, muscles, meanness etc not realising that none of these are male traits, they're JUST traits. The masculinity or femininity we assign them is all cultural. By combining a lot of these traits you often just end up making an unlikable dickhead. Character strength has more to do with how well realised the character is, how well they fit into their world, the effect they have on other characters, weather they're "active" or "passive" in a story. 

It's a complex subject and we go much deeper into it during the cast! How do you write "strong" characters?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Boxdog - A contemplative, reflective, serious piano driven intro leads into a happy, pleasant pop-song, first as drums and a bass take over, then the process completes as lead duties are handed off to an electric guitar and the tune fully opens up! 

Topics and shownotes

Links

Some inspiration from Tantz's newspost:
Writing Strong Characters of Any Gender - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/25/writing-strong-characters-of-any-gender/

The 2023 DD Awards - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Drunk_Duck_Awards_2023/

Featured comic:
Oblique -
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/29/featured-comic-oblique/

Featured music:
Boxdog -
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Boxdog/ - By Boxdog, 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

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

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/

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

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

We're chatting about the current state of AI, it's use, abuse, and the moronic way it's typically being utalised by mid-level businesses to screw over creative people and save money in the short term.

“AI” is the current big thing on the market, specifically “generative” AI that's been illegally trained on copyrighted datasets like chat GTP, Mid-Journey, Stable-Diffusion and more. This sort of AI could be extremely useful IF used in the correct ways: things like sifting through masses of data to filter results in crucial and important ways, instead it's being criminally abused by completely untalented, uncreative, pathetic, greedy losers with nothing more than a business degree, to steal work from their creative superiors and produce mindless pablum in the form of copy-editing, scripts, illustrations and more. And that's just scratching the surface.

The biggest problem with the technology is that it can't actually create and it can't understand what it produces. It simply gives you a remix of existing data as an image, script, sound-file, or video. A moron might tell you that people do this as well, but they'd be completely wrong. The way humans create is far more complex and is never simply based on things that match a theme like it is with AI, but on things we actively WANT to represent. We have layers of intention, reasons, justifications, and even things like cultural background having a strong influence behind the sources we draw on. AI is the direct opposite of this as much as it's possible to be, there IS zero intent behind any of it, it's totally and absolutely mindless. The closest it gets is the human “prompter”, and their contribution is utterly laughable because the “prompts” are so limited, basic and stylised compared to the vastness of actual creative influence and skill.

What this means is that the “creative” possibility of AI is extremely limited since it HAS to draw on real creative work in order to fake its own. If it comes to dominate the market it will kill off genuine human creatives and then it won't have any new sources to steal from, which will be its downfall because it will be forced to draw from the crap it produces itself and we will get degenerated copies of copies of copies.

We're already seeing all sorts of interesting a terrible abuses. Production companies want to be able to digitise actors images and voices in order to keep them working forever but not have to pay them. They're doing the same with scripts from certain authors. This will kill off creative jobs, but it will also harm ALL of us as viewers. The harm this cheap, commerce driven garbage can do to culture is immeasurable and could be generational. There really need to be laws in place to govern the abuses of “generative” AI.

An idiot might say “the cat's out of the bag now, we can't go back”, but they'd be wrong and stupid: society always has the ability to correct for abuses. This is why we haven't had the use of a nuclear weapon in anger since 1945, people can't just use full auto machine guns willy-nilly whenever they feel like it, people aren't walking around nude in the cities and having sex where they feel like it, and you can't just steal what you want. When the internet became popular in the later half of the 90s, illegal downloading of music, movies and software was universal and endemic, but now none of that is a big issue anymore. The “cat” is never irreversibly “out of the bag”.

You can tell what side I'm on :)

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Domestic HellLand - Full of optimism and hope! Great things are jusssst around the corner. Life is amazing and wonderful things are about to happen. This is a very positive sounding piece, it’s all synth, piano and electric guitar. It’s full of happiness and light.

Topics and shownotes

Future cast: TRON and TRON 2

Links

Featured comic:
Eco Crew - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jul/18/featured-comic-eco-crew/

Featured music:
Domestic HellLand - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Domestic_HellLand/ - by SheepSheket, 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!

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We're talking about the pop-culture myth of psychopaths and sociopaths and other stuff like serial killers. Yes those conditions do exist, well sort of (not exactly with those names), but the pop-culture versions we know from the media are mostly myths. The real things aren't as exciting or flashy as the versions we know and love/hate from movies, comic, books, TV shows and podcasts.

In fact even though people with antisocial conditions we know as psychopathy and sociopathy are over-represented in prisons they still only make up a small part of population there and there are many many more who live free among us and never even think of killing people or committing crimes. Ironically when they DO commit offenses they are not smart about it or devious the way the pop-culture versions are ALWAYS shown because that's not part of the condition. If a deviously, evilly, cleverly planned murder is committed then it's very unlikely to be a psychopath.

We all tend to have the idea that a psychopath is some cold, calculating, very intelligent, evil person. a predatory wolf who observes and preys upon the passive sheep that are the res of humanity… This is pure fantasy and invention. The reality is that psychopaths tend to be less intelligent than most people because the condition they have directly stunts their social interaction and learning ability. They also don't plan out evil schemes because the condition is characterised by a lack of control, impassivity and an inability to delay gratification. These people are not the evil mastermind super-villains popculture makes them look like, instead they are mentally ill, damaged, and not fully formed. The only thing pop-culture sometimes gets right is the lack of empathy.

Anyway, Tantz is the expert, hear her talk about it on the cast!
What are your fave or least fave things about psychopaths? One of my least favourite shows in Psycho-pass. It's a cyberpunk anime about a police force that uses psychopaths to hunt down criminals because of their “unique” abilities, as well as an all-seeing administrator who controls everything and who has to be a psychopath. They're of course assisted by AI. This is a moronic anime that gets everything wrong about the future and is a total disservice to the entire cyberpunk genre. While Ghost in the Shell is quiet genius, this is simply a fart.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Comfur-Chan - A bouncing, warm piano lead, rock road-trip. Burning down a hot highway, streaking past the scenery at a fair clip. This tune knows where it wants to go and it wants to get there fast!

Topics and shownotes

Links

DSM entry on “psychopaths” - https://www.psi.uba.ar/academica/carrerasdegrado/psicologia/sitios_catedras/practicas_profesionales/820_clinica_tr_personalidad_psicosis/material/dsm.pdf

Featured comic:
Oni x Fox - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jul/11/featured-comic-oni-x-fox/

Featured music:
Comfur-Chan - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Comfur_Chan/ - by Ksteak, 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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Next week AI cast

With the release of the new Indiana Jones film comes some questions… We haven't seen it yet but we hear a lot of people don't like it and it's already being called a flop. But is that because it's actually bad, because people want it to be bad, or because it doesn't match people's expectations? What's the real story? It's hard to know at this point.

That got me thinking about cult classics, which are usually things that don't find an audience right away and instead pick them up over time. And then there are things that only YOU like but everyone else seems to hate for whatever reason. And lastly things that everyone loves but you dislike.

Some of the films we chatted about were Solo, Tank girl, Kinky Boots, The Rocky Horror picture show, Sucker Punch, TRON 1 and TRON and more. Tank Girl was my pick. When it came out it wasn't a big success mainly because audiences didn't know what to makes of it, it wasn't well marketed, it twisted its source material too much so that the relationship with it was thin, and it wasn't mainstream enough to work well as a major release. But along the way it found its own audience on video and DVD because even though it wasn't a good representative of the comic it was based on, it was something special and unique in its own right. Tank Girl is a beautiful representative of mid 90s alt culture and the Riot Grrrl movement. And in the end it was responsible for bringing many new readers to the comic it was based on.

Another film I picked was Sucker Punch. This film was pretty much universally disliked when it came out and is still broadly disliked. I think the main reason was that people were lead to believe it would be a comic book action fantasy film instead of a heavy and heavy-handed physiological allegory about severe mental issues, depression, sexual abuse, trauma, and self sacrifice contrasted with cartoonishly sexy outfits and insane fantasy sequences. Though I really loved it and it's still one of my favourite movies. Over time I believe it has started to find its own particular audience.

What are your fave cult classics? What do you think should be a cult classic. and what do you think does not deserve to be a classic?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Blessed Days - Pale chartreuse blurs in the foreground. Bright light glimmers and sparkles through crystal clear water droplets. Yellow sun rises majestically.Energy infuses the day as the world vibrates ponderously into action once more. Gunwallace has given us an evocative, throbbing piece of highly reflective electronica.

Topics and shownotes

Next week's topic: Psychopaths.
Future cast: TRON and TRON 2

Links

Featured comic:
Nordmand - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jul/03/featured-comic-nordmand/

Featured music:
Blessed Days - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Blessed_Days/ - by InkyMoondrop, 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
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Gatekeeping can be a pretty dickish practice… but not in every case.
Generally we see it as a social pop culture trend where older established fans of something will try and put down new people and discourage them from joining a fandom. This can stifle a fan community and really kill discourse, not to mention shutting out new members and new perspectives which is actually what a fan community needs in order to flourish and grow.

Where gatekeeping isn't a bad thing are fields where people need to submit to standards to join. ie, becoming a doctor, or plumber or electrician for example. Or where there's a limited scope: i.e. you shouldn't join a discussion based on Homer's Odyssey unless you've at least read it. Gatekeeping is more justifiable in any field that requires some reasonably objective expertise in a subject… but then lines do begin to blur and people often have a tendency to be arseholes about things.

Gatekeeping is a natural tendency that we're pretty much all guilty of perpetrating from time to time. The more you get to know about a subject or get into a fandom the more you'll be drawn to gatekeep it… Or you'll find you know so much you don't really care anymore and then you become to opposite of a gatekeeper. :)

What are you a gatekeeper about? At the end of this Quackcast we indulge in gatekeeping over Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Sell Outs - In the words of Gunwallace: Here's my somewhat lame attempt to do a ‘ska’ theme with ukulele, drums, keys, bass, and horns, as per the characters in the comic. Probably a bit tame compared with the comic, but it sort of works. - I like his description best.This tune has a light, after-hours party feel to it. Wearing your hawaii shirt and sipping margaritas on the deck in the evening.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Inspired by Tantz's Gatekeeping art newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jun/23/gatekeeping-art/

Featured comic:
Tales of Omnizari - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jun/27/featured-comic-tales-of-omnizari/

Featured music:
Sell Outs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Sell_Outs/ - by Terralopod, rated T.

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

We base our images of aliens in comics on aliens in TV shows and movies mostly, because those are the ones we all know.
But movie aliens have been generally based on humans because it's less expensive, easier to come up with a costume and makeup for an actor, and it's also easier to make those aliens relatable. “Aliens” even THINK the same as we do, have the same motivations, wants, needs, prejudices, opinions… Almost 100% of the time aliens in media are US, just a weird version of us: distorted reflection.

As comic makers we're not restricted by makeup budgets, prosthetics, CG issues, or actor comfort levels. We have a HUGE advantage. We can actually explore TRULY alien creatures in a way that is only really done in novels.
Consider- all the assumptions that we have for aliens in TV and movies are wrong:

1. scale- There's no reason at all that aliens should be our size or even slightly taller or slightly smaller. They could be MUCH tinier or MUCH bigger (as large as a house or a building or a planet)

2. Bilateral symmetry is an earth based genetic thing that evolved specifically only to animal life on this planet and not even all animals have it. Plants, fungi, viruses, bacteria and all other forms of life (which are all related to us) don't have it.

3. Four limbs, one head, and a few main sensory organs ON the head is something that only certain forms of earth animal life has, the rest evolved differently in various ways. So it's pretty much absolutely impossible that any alien life will ever have that structure.

4. All forms of life on earth are related and all developed from the same DNA, a process that took 100's of millions of years of weird false starts, accidents, specific adaptations to all sorts of different strange circumstances, and all those things were just added up on top of each other to create the life that's here. Without all of those things being exactly the same there's no possible way that any alien life will ever resemble any earth creature in any way, be it human, insect, cephalopod, pine tree, sea slug, or slime-mold. Even “convergent evolution” which produces the same features in unrelated things isn't as unrelated as it often seems since those creatures often share earlier precursors to develop the same thing: like eyes in cephalopods and eyes in other creatures.

5. Why would aliens think like us or even think to talk to us? To a truly alien creature there wouldn't be much difference between us and a housecat, to them we're both earthlings Even a tree and us would be much the same to them in a lot of ways. We have everything in common with a cat or a dog in the way we think VS what an alien would think about.

6. Alien motivations could not be the same as ours, They'd have to be based on the aliens themselves and how you chose to structure them. But they couldn't be anything resembling our needs unless it was very basic and elemental- the need for sustenance, survival, fuel, supplies etc. Things like lust, love, hate, ambition, competition, religion shouldn't really factor in because they're too human-centric.

It's a complex and interesting topic! If you want to continue to make human type aliens though go ahead.It's more fun to do and the audience will have less trouble relating to them that a truly alien creature like The Thing. Special mention to one of the most truly alien aliens: the planet in Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem. Special mention to the least aliens ever: the native American blue cat-humans from Avatar. What are your fave aliens?


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to THE SQUIRREL MACHINE - Slow to develop, creepy, atmospheric, and unsettling… This will keep you on edge, uneven and unbalanced. Dark, hideous monsters wait just around the corner, lurking at the edges of your vision, ready to drag you deep into a dirty, shadow filled, earthy crevice.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Drunk Duck Awards 2023 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jun/13/featured-comic-drunk-duck-awards-2023/

Featured music:
THE SQUIRREL MACHINE - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/THE_SQUIRREL_MACHINE/ - by Hansrickheit, rated M.

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

Today's topic is Nudity: Nudity in comics, censorship, self censoring, what you can get away with on DD, ratings, nudity on other platforms and how it affects the reach of your work, and more!

There are a lot of reasons for using nudity in your creative work, it can be fun to draw, it catches audience attention, it can be quite dramatic or funny or shocking. Nudity is a useful tool, but it can really limit the reach of your work so you have to be very careful with it because ironically even though lots of people like to look at it there are very few ways to show it to them. This is because most platforms out there have restrictions on what they allow to be shown. Drunk Duck is one of the more open and accepting sites when it comes to nudity but even WE have to have restrictions! We have two levels: a Mature rating where nudity is allowed as long as it's not the entire comic and it's not openly and graphically sexual. Then we have Adult rated comics that are restricted to only people who're over age and logged into the site, where you can show far more.

If your work has nudity you have to be aware of ratings on the platform you're showing it on and even where you can print it. In addition to that those rating can change and you can face bans to your account for stuff that was previously allowed! This has happened many times on sites like Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Webtoons, and more. What tends to happen then is that we self censor and eventually internalise that censorship so that we just avoid nudity in our work all together.

Nudity is a part of normal human existence, there's nothing essentially wrong with it, BUT we don't exist or create in a vacuum- there are all sorts of cultures and societies around the world that have different attitudes towards nudity for various reasons. There are laws, taboos, ratings, customs and lord knows what else so for that reason you'll always find it easier to get your work out to more people the less nudity it shows.

What do you think about nudity in webcomics? Do you use it yourself, or a variation of it like partial or implied nudity?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Nordmand - Dance a jig and slap your leatheren heels into the wooden floorboards, kick up dust and jump to the infectious rhythm! Garb a partner, hook your arm into theirs and take a spin. This is a fun folkish, high energy dancing tune made with traditional instruments.

Topics and shownotes


Links

Featured comic:
Gaia Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jun/06/featured-comic-gaia-comic/

Featured music:
Nordmand - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Nordmand/ - by Hart, 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/

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

Beginners at webcomics make mistakes, rookie mistakes. In fact people tend to make a lot of the same mistakes and we're going to chat about some of those in the Quackcast, but there are certainly a LOT more!
A few common mistakes of first timers:
- They have too many comic panels so it takes ages to draw and artwork and text become too small.
- They plan way too much, sometimes for month or even years before starting the actual comic. Planning is good but not when it prevents you from actually starting.
- Their art or designs are too complicated so that they can't sustain it for more than a few pages and they give up.
- Their story is too complicated so that it's too hard to translate into a comic or it would take too long to draw.
- The cover art doesn't match their artwork in the comic. Great way to turn off readers.
- Too much expository text.
- They make their comic too raunchy (when it's not a sexy comic) and limit their potential audience because it needs a higher rating and can't be displayed on most comic sites.
- They think they'll get popular and famous right away.
- They think people will just “find” their comic and rely too heavily on Google and the internal promotion system of their comic host.
- Filler pages, especially generic ones are a huge turn off. If you MUST do them show a BTS thing like a rough version of your comic page.
- Aggressive marketing. Don't be a one-eyed dick when promoting your work, it can have the opposite effect and make people avoid you.
- Giving up when you don't get feedback or if you miss a few updates. Keep working at it, people will come eventually, especially if you're a bit social. And people will still come back after missed updates. Stick with it!


Did you fall victim to any of those? Tell us some of your own rookie mistakes? :)

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Mirage - light dances around the sparkling surface of a smoothly curved, shiny object. Our view shifts and we dive through its hollow centre, observing the complex geometry of this unusual three dimensional object. Overlaying synthesised sounds.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Plusum - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/31/featured-comic-plusum/

Featured music:
Mirage - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Mirage/ - by InkyMoondrop, Rated E.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
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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Rumours can be damaging stories deliberately spread to harm people, they can grow organically of their own accord. Salacious rumours replace truth and stick around in history, like the silly stories of Catherine the Great and horses, Nero fiddling while Rome burned, Marie Antoinette saying “let them eat cake”, or the famously wealthy Roman general Crassus dying by having molten gold poured on his head. All rumours and silly stories but they become stronger than real history.
Then there's the notorious story of poor Fatty Arbuckle and how he supposedly killed a woman during a sexual act due to his ‘enormous bulk“. A complete and utter fabrication but it destroyed his career and is still believed today.

Rumours can be hurtful, they grow in size, they spread and redefine stories, but they can be used as a really clever writing trick too: to cause tension and conflict: give unreliable narration, to cause humorous misunderstandings, to grow the legend of a character, for misdirection, and many other uses. It’s a great album by Fleetwood Mac too 😚

These days we seem to have a big rumour problem caused by ”fake news“, usually from clickbait news advertising sites that pretend to be satirical, and the spread of things like deepfakes. People wonder what we can trust. But the truth is that sort of ”fake news" has always existed, as long as humans could paint walls or speak language we've been making stuff up and spreading bullshit. There were plenty of lies spread about Romans and Egyptians in the old writings, and heaven knows how much garbage cavemen used to paint on their walls about each other! There were fake documents written about the excesses of the inquisition by protestant forces and Catholics did the same thing about protestants and the excesses of their brutality. We also have the myth of the Illuminati and conspiracy theories etc.

Have you ever believed a stupid rumour? Have you ever had one made up about you or have you made up one about another person? Do you use them as a story writing technique in your comic?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The True Face (end credits) - A reverential, yet joyous, celebratory tune with a ritualistic sound given by the mysterious, repeated chorus. A distorted electric guitar, drum, and bells provide continuous rhythm, while vocals range from sepulchral tones to an overlaying, madrigal-like chorus in some unusual language, (originally Quackcast 450).

Topics and shownotes


Links

Featured comic:
Zed vs The World - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/22/featured-comic-zed-vs-the-world/

Featured music:
The True Face - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_True_Face/ - by Marcorossi, 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

We're talking about swearing! Swearing in comics, types of swearing, the use of swearing, causing offense, taking offense, swearing used as a term of endearment, and some history behind various types of swearing. We barely even scratch the surface! We don't swear in the Quackcast if we can help it so we're talking around and about the language without using it, though we DO swear in our Patreon vid, which is free to all patrons, even the $1 level.

Swearing can indicate a lack of maturity, it can indicate social class, it can express things like anger, fear, triumph, pain, surprise, joy, excitement, and even awe. We use it to cause a fight, to indicate how much we love a friend (very much in Australia), it's extreme language basically, it's a very blunt, simple tool in the language toolbox. If you REALLY want to cut a person deep and make them feel small then swearing is a pretty soft and floppy tool, unless you're 12 or an idiot you don't use it for that purpose.

There are so many different kinds of swearwords in all different languages. We have the common ones in English based on various taboos involving bodily excretions, sex, genitalia, and masturbation, that are quite popular all over the world due to the dominance of the language. There are more culturally specific ones about race, ethnicity, class, religion, sexuality, and sexual practices that are more individual. Not to mention the cultural based swears or pejoratives that go in and out of fashion, like “boomer” or ‘incell“ that carry a lot of rhetorical power.

Swear words go in and out of fashion- what could have been viscous in the past can be seen as almost a quaint joke today. Or what was once a harmless mundane term in the past can be seen as vile today; don’t say Poh Bear in China because their leader finds it a mortally offensive insult! Or the weird history of the terms ”arse“ and ”ass“ and how in the early 20th century ”ass“ completely switched its meaning with ”arse“. In American English ”ass“ was used as a safe, non-swearing punny, sneaky reference to ”arse“ because they're homonyms: one calling someone a donkey and the other a bottom, but for some weird reason the safe alternative just appropriated the entire meaning it was sneakily alluding to… Which was bad for language in general because it reduced the ways you can use the term as well causing a lot of modern people to misunderstand the use of ”ass" in historical literature.

How do you use swearing in your comic or reality? Do you have a favourite term or phrase that's your go-to? Do you avoid swearing and have a whole armoury of replacement words?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Mercury Virus - Light, retro keyboards, sounding very Moogy… jazzy and quiet. They’re offset by heavier notes from an electric bass guitar, loosely thrumbing and strumming along, promising danger, action and violence, while the keys are just doing business as usual.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Captain Gold and the Robotrons - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/16/featured-comic-captain-gold-and-the-robotrons/

Featured music:
Mercury Virus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Mercury_Virus/ - by Mercuryviruscomic, rated E.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
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!
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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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We're talking about WAR here! Trying to leave out politics, though that's really hard with war because it's basically ALL politics but on fire. So we're talking mainly about depictions of it or at least aspects of it, in art and the media. Both Tantz Aerine and myself work on war comics, Without Moonlight and Pinky TA respectively (plus Tantz also does Brave Resistance with Pitface), so we have some knowledge of the subject from a creator perspective.

There are a lot of approaches you can take from glorifying war to showing the horrible cost of it, you can show jumbled scenes and impressions or you can show purposeful actions where there's real strategy on show. Tantz depicts a the real historical events of WW2 in Greece using fictional characters (and real historical ones), while I depict totally fictional events with fictional characters.

Showing jumbled impressions and cool scenes to give you an idea of a battle being fought, as in a movie like The Return of The King, is a very poor way to do things. In that case it's an epic fantasy, so you're supposed to see the bigger picture; the movement of troops and the purpose of battles, movements and actions etc which you don't in that film. Rather it's just stylised action from a small scale and jumbled impressions from a large scale. In all the original Star Wars films we have great battle depictions because you can see exactly what the purpose of them is as well as looking cool, they don't need meaningless jumbled impressions to fool you into thinking continuity has happened while we transition to the character next scene.

Depicting war and battle in a comic is not easy, especially when you're trying to show it from a strategic perspective. You have to think about things very carefully so you can communicate the actions and the purposes behind them. It's far easier to go the jumbled impression route, which is why so many do it, but I would advise against it unless you specifically need to- i.e. the flashback scenes, or the chaotic first hand experience from a person involved in the conflict.

Depictions of war and battle don't have to make full logical sense, as long as it FEELS logical for the scene. Like the Battle for Hoth in the Empire Strikes Back - Giant war walker APCs are a silly idea but they seem to make perfect sense in the scene. The dog-fighting scenes with little space-fighters against giant space warships in Return of the Jedi are ridiculous; huge space battleships should have enough weaponry to wipe everything out of the surrounding space for thousands of kilometers in all directions and would never get closer to each other than a blip on radar, and yet when we see that movie the question never coccus to us.

Do you depict war and battle, if so how do you do it? What are your tips and tricks? And what are your fave depictions in the media and art? Can be positive or negative.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Elmwych - Mysterious, scene setting, classical, plotting, probing and prompting. This is a grand entrance into a cold, lofty manor house where all is not exactly as it seems… simulated strings and electronica spice.

Topics and shownotes

Future Quackcast: The cussing swearcast.

Links

Featured comic:
Mercury Virus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/09/featured-comic-mercury-virus/

Featured music:
Elmwych - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Elmwych/ - by Ironscarf, 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

Generational tensions are a cultural constant. It's popular to pick on the young and say they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid, changing things in silly ways etc, but it's also just as popular too defend them and debunk myths associated with younger people, we don't have that with older people and I find that a bit sad and disturbing. This cast tackles the myths associated with “boomers”.

The idea is that “boomers” are all wealthy, they're out of touch, they ruined the environment, they own everything, they're homophobic, transphobic, racist, conservative, they own their own homes (which they bought cheap), They were all hedonists in the 1970s and 80s and splurged on expensive drugs, they own EVERYTHING, they all had it easy with no issues in their lives like younger generations, their parents were a generation of heroes that fought in WW2 and they were losers, they're in all the senior positions, they all went to university for free and so on.

Like everything there are seeds of truth from which the myths grow. As you get older you have a tendency to accumulate and you usually want to keep what you have, you acquire more responsibilities, you rise to more senior positions if you hang around long enough, you have more time and seniority so you CAN go into things like politics. This is why politicians and CEOS often tend to be older- a simple demographic tendency. Though those people make up a tiny, infinitesimal portion of Baby-boomers and you'll probably find that more and more of those are in reality Gen-X anyway now.

They often had jobs for life because the culture and the economy supported that back then but it also kept them in those jobs and gave them very little mobility or creativity. They bought houses and started families because that was the path that most of them were utterly locked into, their jobs were their whole lives. Most of them never went to university at all, it was only a comparatively tiny elite, this is why university was cheap- because it kept most of the baby-boomers OUT. There was no reason for big student debt because there were so many less students so there was more public money to spend on the lucky few.

Lest we forget that the Baby Boomer generation suffered many issues- unlike Iraq 2 and Afghanistan which were very short wars with 100% volunteers and mainly hostile occupations, Vietnam was a hot war where many unwilling conscripts were forced to fight and die for many years. The terrorism that Babyboomers had during their lives was terrifying- with passenger planes regularly being hijacked and blown up, car bombings all the time, mass shootings, ships and buses regularly hijacked, mass-kidnappings and so on. Not to mention the constant threat of total nuclear annihilation. Many grew up with almost nothing and very little food during and after WW2 as rationing still continued many years after in a lot of countries. There were huge economic downturns in the 1970s and many were forced out of work. The oil crisis in the 1970s made driving almost untenable for a while and started the development of electric cars.

The Boomer generation were the first to seriously tackle sexism in the workplace in a big way, fighting for equal pay and conditions. They were the first to successfully fight homophobia and make sure we had gay rights. They tackled the nuclear issue and instituted the non-proliferation treaties, test ban treaties, and disarmament treaties, they fought for animal rights, they got whaling banned and fur hunting of seals, they fought for the rights of indigenous peoples, they gave us De-segragation, they fought apartheid, They tried to save the environment, they saved the freakin' ozone layer, they gave us safer cars, they gave us environmental protection and pollution laws and controls, and so much more!
Ironically with ALL that we blame the Baby-boomers for, they tend to be responsible for most of the good stuff that younger generations wrongly take credit for.

Of course not every baby-boomer was behind all those things but enough of them were that it created real and massive change in the world, so much that we're still all benefiting. And remember too that not all the the people in the younger generations are involved in good, positive measures today either.
No, the “boomers” did NOT ruin all the stuff.

As a Gen-Xer myself I just know they we ride on their coattails. ;)

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Ballad of Bill - Awesome, jazzy, gloriously meandering rock tune! The bass guitar opens the door, followed by cymbals, violin and an almost Arabic sounding distorted electric guitar!

Topics and shownotes

Links

- Future topic: War-cast?

Thread on the topic of the Boomer-myth - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179352/

Featured comic:
Mirage - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/02/featured-comic-mirage/

Featured music:
The Ballad of Bill - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Ballad_of_Bill/ - by TheBalladofBill, rated E

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

Asterix and Cleopatra VS Netflix… We were initially inspired by the furious reaction over Netflix's new series on Queen Cleopatra, a purported “documentary” and it's seeming focus on fantasy rather than history, but then we started thinking about the brilliant comic Asterix and how it handled history… It didn't pretend to be accurate, it's a comedy afterall, and yet it managed to retain a great level of veracity without taking too many liberties.

Fantasy and conspiracy documentaries on Netflix based on weird fringe opinions are popular at the moment it seems… hidden advanced ancient civilisations, mountains of gold and now this…

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Danse Macabre Danse Amour - Piano leads this macabre waltz out onto the haunted ballroom floor. Ghostly dancers slowly spin in linked couples, twirling together in creepy synchronicity forever and ever… trapped, reliving the same patterns for eternity!

Topics and shownotes

Future Quackcast idea - The boomer myth: no generation had it easy.

Links


Featured comic:
Generational Drama - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/apr/25/featured-comic-generational-drama/

Featured music:
Danse Macabre Danse Amour - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Danse_Macabre_Danse_Amour/ - by JCorrachComics, Rated T.

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

We finally gave in to temptation and just started chatting about Star Wars. For our Patreon video we were talking about the idea of pivotal pop-cultural landmarks that changed the cultural landscape in various ways. Star Wars definitely qualifies… but instead of finding other examples we just decided to indulge in a Star Wars only cast. We didn't do more than scratch the surface unfortunately though. It's a cool cultural phenomena and it's something we always refer back to when we talk about story structure. SO please bear with us as we indulge!

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Arkin Blade - twiddling strings on the guitar, soft repeating percussive notes on a xylophone, building a soundscape, layer upon layer till they’re joined by a spiky electric guitar with the promise of violence.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Extract from Holt's Mars, Performed by the USAF Heritage of America Band.

Featured comic:
The Ballad of Bill - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/apr/18/featured-comic-the-ballad-of-bill/

Featured music:
Arkin Blade - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Arkin_Blade/ - by GuyPercinn, rated T

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

What rights are people actually entitled to? That question is a lot bigger than you think!
The Quackcast today is sequel to last week's about entitled people, this one is about actual entitlements- what people SHOULD be entitled to. i.e. rights and such. It's a topic that Banes and Tantz really wanted to do and my purpose was to link it to writing and comics (not just theory and politics), which I think I did ok. This topic turned out to be very interesting.

Why are entitlements important? Well they inform the basic structure of any relationship between two people and any imbalance in the entitlements actually received VS those that are given is cause for conflict. At a societal level the community should all expect basic rights, if those break down or are removed this can have a shocking, drastic effect- as in Maus, A Handmaid's Tale, or Persepolis.

A red flag for bad writing is when the creator doesn't understand that people in a society have basic rights, as in something like the Deathwish, or Dirty Harry franchises- those are exciting rightwing revenge films but the worlds they depict feel totally “off” and not right somehow, as in a fantasy, because people's basic rights in those movies are suspended at will. The only way they make sense is if you see them as tales by an unreliable narrator; i.e. this is the world as the protagonist sees it, a serial killer perspective.

Different sorts of worlds have different kinds of entitlements based on their structure. Fahrenheit 451 or Logan's Run depict worlds bizarre to us because they're built very differently, one around the criminalisation of recorded knowledge and wisdom, and the other based on extreme ageism, but they are believable and make sense because people have rights and entitlements within those worlds.
Superhero worlds rarely address this aspect of story, what happens to people's entitlements when there are those who have the power of a god? What would happen to the insurance industry? To rescue workers? To the legal profession?

Banes took this topic right down to the ant's eye view:
What to do if you're being bullied at work, or school? What to do when someone's being rude. When someone embarrasses you, or tries to embarrass you, or belittles you? What to do in a disagreement? What are your entitlements in those situations? All that describes the seeds of conflict and suggest action needed to address that conflict


This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Guardians of Man - CHA-CHa-Cha-cha… serial killer, slasher music sounds.Echoing reverb on isolated percussion and creepy electronic, scene setting sounds all weave together to create this unsettling landscape of terror. THE KILLER IS BEHIND YOU!

Topics and shownotes

Links


Featured comic:
Gamma Blue Smoldering of Creel - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/apr/11/featured-comic-gamma-blue-smoldering-of-creel/

Featured music:
Guardians of Man - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Guardians_of_Man/ - by Gumshoecomix, rated M.

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

The Quackcast this week is about entitled bossy Karens. In fact it was originally going to BE “the Karencast” but the whole “Karen” thing is a bit sexist and pejorative. So why a Quackcast on overly entitled people then? Well aside from we stealing it from Tantz's newspost on Friday, those kinds of people make great minor villain characters. They can be comic relief baddies but they can also be deceptively dangerous when they really DO have connections to back up their arrogance!

We also talk about how human nature is often like a fractal, in that these patterns repeat at all sorts of different scales. In the case of the entitled you can see this in children's behavior, adults, corporations, and even entire countries. Tantz has an extensive background is psychology so she thinks a lot about this stuff! It was a good talk. If you're a Patron of ours, on this week's video we talk about the upcoming 2023 DD Awards and the new DD Anthology, and also a bonus minnie-Quackcast where we talk about the tragedy of comedians becoming serious actors, The Eternals and Dr Strange 2.

This week Gunwallace was too sick to do a Quackcast so I picked an old fave: the theme to Customer Service - slow, steady, cool. Dim the lights and slow dance to this gro0ve. Black satin sheets, sophistication, late night, let those clothes slip to the floor and get a little skin to skin contact.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Taken from Tantz's Newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/apr/07/a-sense-of-entitlement/

Featured comic:
Night Lights and Dark Places - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/apr/04/featured-comic-night-lights-and-dark-places/

Featured music:
Customer Service - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Customer_Service/ - by Synwells, rated T.


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

Have you ever watched a series devotedly then lost touch with it for some reason for a while and then gone back to it a couple of years later and tried to get into again but this time you look at it with a very different perspective? Or maybe you loved a movie when you were young and decided to watch it again as an adult to see if it holds up?

Reevaluation can be quite interesting! You see stuff with new eyes. Sometimes it holds up fine, sometimes you see new things and appreciate it in a whole new way, and sometimes you just see it as trash…

One example I give in the Quackcast was Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, those two Arnold Schwarzenegger fantasy movies from the 80s. When I first saw Conan the Barbarian as a kid I thought it was trash; it was dark, overly sexy, gory, stodgy, way too serious, had clunky effects, it was just too slow and the climactic scene wasn't satisfying. When I first saw Conan the Destroyer I loved it; it was brash, bold, exaggerated, fun, funny, completely over the top, and the ending was amazing. However watching them both as an adult I saw them very differently, I saw Conan the Barbarian as a clever and beautifully told story, almost an opera with a rumination on nihilism and Nietzsche with many interesting themes and an absolutely perfect ending, while Conan the Destroyer is completely silly and cartoonish with no themes, just whacky foolishness with some good fight scenes and Grace Jones.

Do things hold up when you revisit them? Do you change your opinions, or does nostalgia protect you against seeing them with new eyes?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Blank Galaxy - A pastel pink and white star field. A void, void of detail… quickly invaded by throbbing pixels glowing brightly and filling the world with scintillating detail. This is a pulsing, trancy, electronica sound.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Inspired by Em's newspost here - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/mar/30/crazy-ex-girlfriend-uses-genre-tropes-against-you/

Featured comic:
Guardians of Man - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/mar/28/featured-comic-guardians-of-man/

Featured music:
Blank Galaxy - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Blank_Galaxy/ - by EA_Espino_Comics, rated T.

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

We're talking about the importance of a good cover in this cast. Another technical comicscast! I love making coves, they're one of my fave things because I get to stretch my artistic muscles and get a little more flashy and creative with my art and graphic design. They can also be pretty dread things to work on when you've used up all your creative powers on your actual comic and have nothing left over…

The art of creating covers is extremely important! It's the initial thing that attracts people to your work along with the title. I'm huge fan of all covers, it's one of the things that got me into art in the first place: books, albums, movies, games, posters etc, cover-art can be so cool! There are many different kinds of cover art, but number one fave is art that illustrates an exciting, evocative scene from the story it's promoting, something that makes you want to find out more about what's happening behind the scene you're looking at. Good covers not only attract your attention and get you to look at or buy something but they can be a part of the ACTUAL thing, just as much as the story itself, especially for book covers and album covers- covers ADD to the work, they're part of the experience.

Another great cover type is a sort of medley of story content as well as having a bit of story narrative on there. Josh Kirby was known for doing that with his Terry Pratchett covers, he'd have everything on there, all sorts of Easter-eggs for the reader to spot. The art was weird and bubbly but fun and it captured the flavour of Pratchett's writing so well. Indiana Jones and Star Wars movie posters are typical of this in a way too- their primary focus is the “pin-up” image of the main characters, but they also have little bits and pieces form the story there to reward you if you look for them.

Pin-up covers are when the main focus is a person or persons, usually the main protagonist in a story but not necessarily, especially with album covers. These can be hit or miss. They're very popular because they're so easy to make but can be really bland and chicle if done badly, or people just get carried away with the “sex sells” adage and don't go beyond that (I make all these mistakes!). A good pin-up doesn't just have a figure but it also expresses something unique and interesting about the story itself, this could be as simple as showcasing a really unique and interesting looking character that makes people want to find out more about them.

What I like to call the “graphic design focused” covers can be a mixed bag too. These can have really cool design elements that make you want to know more- with clever use of symbol or text. Or they can be just massively bland and tedious like those that use a generic symbol in a boring way or simply have a giant title and author name and nothing else. These are lazy and stupid. Lazier and stupider though are the designers who make covers using cropped copyright free art- typically they crop a portion from a classical painting that has nothing to do with the work they're promoting, and stick generic title and author credits on it. or they do the same thing with a licensed stock photo.

Photographic covers in general can be problematic, not because photography is bad but because it seems easy so people often create bad cover images with photos (especially author photos). They don't realise that you have to be just as artistic and creative with photographic images as you do with other kinds of artwork.
The bottom line with cover art is that regardless of the approach you take, the more unique it is to your work the better! The more generic and meaningless the cover the more crap it will be (though there are always exceptions… Penguin classics anyone?). Given that criteria, it's advisable not to use AI art!
What are your fave types of cover?


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Kingdom of Cats - An early morning start, sun streaming golden at a low angle, on the road, moving away, moving towards, making a start.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Danse Macabre Danse Amour - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/mar/21/featured-comic-danse-macabre-danse-amour/

Featured music:
Kingdom of Cats - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Kingdom_of_Cats/ - by Rachel87, rated E.

* Theme music taken from Gunwallace's theme to Thrud Goddess of Thunder - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/THRUD_Goddess_Of_Thunder/


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

Today its another technical comics making focused cast, suggested by Tantz Aerine! We cover our notions about how to maintain character consistency and consistency in general, plus a bit on speech bubbles and the text in them. I was SOOPER tired towards the end though so I wasn't all there mentally but the guys carried it through admirably.

How do you maintain character consistency? The industry standard is to create a “bible”… basically you put all your character info in there. All the descriptions and traits and also sketches of them from all different angles and in different outfits, doing different things, lots of facial expressions, hairstyles etc. If you do that then you have a document to refer to each time you need the character, so you can look back on it and always be consistent. It's a lot of work to create one of those, but it saves a lot of time as you go. Unfortunately Banes, Tantz, and I all gave up on character bibles after a single sketch (waaay too much work), so the way we maintain consistency is to do things like remember the relative heights of characters and make such we look at previous pages while we're making the current one. How do YOU do it?

Apologies for the weird sound in this one! I may have forgotten to put the microphone close to my face.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Thrud Goddess Of Thunder - Big fat beats and an epic sound! This one really brings the thunder! It’d be great as the intro tune to a professional wrestling match. It builds anticipation perfectly and really slams home and delivers on its promises. Epic sounds! Maybe this could be the new Quackcast theme?

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Game Punks - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/mar/14/featured-comic-game-punks/

Featured music:
Thrud Goddess of Thunder - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/THRUD_Goddess_Of_Thunder/ - by Takoyama, rated T.

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

VIDEO exclusive!
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Today we talk about an unusual type of villain, a secret type of bad guy and a particularly nasty one: the person who maliciously does nothing. This is a person who COULD intervene to resolve a dire situation or save someone, they could do it easily; they know how, they have the means, they're not scared or unsure, and it doesn't mean much risk to themselves, they just choose to sit back and watch the person die or the situation collapse… either because they know the result will benefit themselves or they're just curious to watch the person die or the everything turn to crap for the victim or whatever. Either way they COULD easily intervene but they choose not to.

The simplest way to characterise this villain type is that person in the elevator, waiting and looking out at you while you're running for it. They don't do anything, or maybe they pretend to press their finger on the “door open” button, but they really don't… You run but it's too late, the doors close and the lift leaves. That bastard could have helped but they didn't! That's the funnier version, the more chilling is the person who sits and watches while a person drowns or chokes to death near them.

That took us down the road to talking about Phil Collins' song “In The Air Tonight”, which doesn't really have anything to do with this topic but people like to think that it does, and then we started talking about Genesis and how we couldn't remember any songs from when Peter Gabriel was the vocalist. :D

Do you have a fave secret villain who watches? or do you like “In the Air Tonight”?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to TinasStory, called “Welcome back Tina's Story”.
It's a groovy rocking dance track that’s full of celebration, energy and joy, which makes it a fitting theme to honour the return of Tina’s story to DD! Tina's Story has previously had a theme back in Quackcast 213, a nice little classical number.


Topics and shownotes

Links

From Tantz's Newspost on Friday about a new type of villain - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/mar/10/good-people-do-nothing/


Featured comic:
Oswald the Overman in the Lesser Planes of Hell - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/mar/07/featured-comic-oswald-the-overman-in-the-lesser-planes-of-hell/

Featured music:
TinasStory - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/TinasStory/ - by Zenia, rated A.


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

Character design is a fun process but not without its challenges. Do you design the character or their story first? I've followed both of those approaches, they have pluses and minuses. On one hand when you create the character first that can make it a real passion project, you make a cool character and then create a story for them to live in and be themselves. But that can also lead to Mary Sues, wish fulfillment and self inserts, which makes for a weak story. Creating characters to fit a story can sometimes lead to using a lot of stereotypes and ending up with fairly generic and bland characters, which can make for a dull story. So it's best to use a bit of balance and judgment.

In this Quackcast we all talk about how we developed some of our own characters, particularly how Banes and I came up with the characters for Bottomless Waitress. Nicky was an interesting example. Banes' outline for her was a rugged, queer woman truck driver, short haired, average height, average build etc, but when it came for me to draw her I had my own vision for an extremely tall muscular, person; she wore bootleg jeans, a tight white tank-top and cowboy boots, a tattoo on one shoulder, pretty eyes with a strong Italian nose, hair dark shaved short at the back of her head with a long blond fringe at the front. I was thinking of Gina Gershon in Bound and Lori Petty in Tank Girl. It was a fun comic to design for!

Lucky Patrons at the $5+ level get to see us talk about character boob design for the Patreon video XD
How do you go about designing your characters?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Sunday Punch! Gunwallace says: I know I've done a theme for Tag Forester before, but since it got featured I made one for the current story (Originally Tag got a theme in Quackcast 464). There’s a mystery to be solved… There is always a mystery to be solved when you’re Tag Forester, detective. He’s out there on the mean streets, alone, looking for trouble to prevent trouble, taking his life in his hands and taking the world by the balls.

Topics and shownotes


Featured comic:
Sunday Punch - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/feb/28/featured-comic-sunday-punch/

Featured music:
Sunday Punch - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Sunday_Punch/ - by Rickrudge, rated M.

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

HPKomic is a great guy, he's been on DD since almost the beginning. He alternates the Friday newsposts with me, he focusses on the intricacies of comic panels. This time he asked people to talk about their own processes though and I thought this would be a good topic for a Quackcast!
So on this comic podcast we're finally talking directly about making comic pages, who would've thought?

Tantz, Banes, and I all have our own methods and it was fun to talk about the differences. The key method I learned early on is to have one “sexy” panel and anchor the page around that. It could be a sexy character, an exciting scene, a giant mecha, a cool establishing shot or whatever, just as long as it grabs the reader focus and make them really want to look at the page and find out what it's all about. I anchor all the other stuff around that. It also means you can get away with less imaginative art and angles in other panels if you like.

It was also interesting to chat about how the long scrolling format has enabled artists to be more creative with storytelling but has meant the death of some of the more artistic traditional techniques of panel structure from traditional pages- which I really like to use. How do you make your comic panels?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to American Pantheon - Down grimy stairs, duck your head into a dark basement dive bar. Blue smoke curls lazily up towards the dusty, slow moving ceiling fan. A grizzled, craggy faced man with shadowed eyes sits alone nursing a glass of whisky, a battered pork pie hat on his head. He throws you a gap-toothed smile, clears his throat and lets out a racking cough…
Cool, slow jazz…

Topics and shownotes

Links

HPKomic's newspost on comic panel creation - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/feb/24/panel-by-panel-let-me-ask-you-something/

Banes' newspost on the differences between writing comics and prose - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/feb/22/prose-v-comics/


Featured comic:
Sell Outs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/feb/21/featured-comic-sell-outs/

Featured music:
American Pantheon - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/American_Pantheon/ - by Serg19, rated T.


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

Arrogance is a fun subject. Related to cockiness, hubris, assertiveness, self confidence and pride.
It's a fantastic trait for a villain and it's really fun to write. Heroes are often arrogant too when they need to learn a lesson in order to become a better person, it's super common in stories. We're all a bit arrogant ourselves about our skills, our knowledge, where we come from, what we look like etc. It's a universal trait! It often strikes when we think we know better or know it all on a subject: the human tendency to over-reach and to speak for others.

The famous Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of arrogance: basically, when you know a little about a subject you tend to imagine you know a LOT more about it that you do. Whereas when you know a lot about a subject you know enough to know that you also know that there's so much more that you DON'T know. Beginners think they know much more than they do and experts tend to know more than they realise.
But people mistakenly think that Dunning-Kruger only affects stupid people, when in reality it affects everyone all the time. No matter how clever you are there are a million things you are not an expert in and can never be, and you will overestimate your knowledge without even knowing it. I'm doing that right now with Dunning-Kruger :)
A good word for these people comes from Greece: Sophomore. In English it means a beginner, but in Greek it means “wise fool”; a person who knows just enough to think they're wise on a subject but not enough to know the limitations of their knowledge.

So who are your fave arrogant characters? Rick from Rick and Morty is surely one. He can back up his arrogance with actual knowledge and skill though, which just makes him an a***hole. Scaramouche from the Commedia Dell'arte is a famous example, so is Blackadder who's some what based on him. One of my favourite arrogant characters was also from Blackadder; Lord Flashheart and also Captain Flashheart (both played by Rick Mayall). They're hilarious in their overblown image of themselves. Arrogance can add charm and comedy to a character or it can make them insufferable and repellent. Do you like arrogant characters? What about arrogant people?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Kirth Space Bounty Hunter - Almost sounding like a space-age version of traditional Chinese music, this is a fascinating piece. It’s upbeat and yet slightly mournful and quite evocative. All in all a joy to listen to.

Topics and shownotes


Featured comic:
Simple Complications - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/feb/14/featured-comic-simple-complications/

Featured music:
Kirth Space Bounty Hunter - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Kirth_Space_Bounty_Hunter/ - by RobertRVeith, rated T.

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

This is when the writer leads you to think something big has happened in the story, like a character dying or falling in love or winning a big prize or something, only to have the character alive in the next part, or the prize or love never mentioned or addressed- this is “schmuck bait”.
The writer gets you invested and excited for something but cops out, leaving the audience frustrated and cynical. This was common in older episodic things where the episodes are intended to be seen in any order, so the writers couldn't have continuing arcs and development across a season. It's also common in bad writing where the writer builds things up a lot for an events but then loses their nerve or just doesn't posses the skills to properly resolve things.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Return of the Old Gods - Tonnal, dark, Intimidating, heavy sounds enveloping and surrounding, warning of doom-filled portents, and solemn premonitions. All created by fully electronic tones. Gunwallace: This one came out more to my liking. Sort of Fripp & Eno lite with some 70s sci-fi.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Banes's newspost about Schmuck-bait here - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/feb/08/shmuck-bait/

Featured comic:
The Return of the Old Gods - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/feb/08/featured-comic-the-return-of-the-old-gods/

Featured music:
Prince of the Moonlight Stone - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Return_of_the_Old_Gods/ - by RabbitMaster, rated E.


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

Toxic positivity can take all sorts of forms, but I think it's most easily recognised by someone telling you to be happy about something when you just don't feel it. It's a really odd, nasty, weird feeling when a person tells you you're basically not allowed to be grumpy or even neutral, you MUST be happy. How many times have we all been told to “smile” by someone?

I think it's interesting when it involves pop-culture:
When you're not allowed to criticise things or dislike them. People do this with nationalism, politics, brands, products, cars, celebrities etc, but it's really telling with pop-culture. The whole “Shhh, just let people enjoy things” meme: It has a good side but also quite a big dark side as well. Being relentlessly negative and stomping all over other's enjoyment of things is a real dick move, so yes, let them enjoy the thing. The dark side of that is when people use it to shut down ALL criticism.
I've been in groups where they ban people for saying anything at all bad about certain shows or the characters in them, even as a joke. That's quite a toxic environment. For example, not only must you like every Star Wars movie and not make fun of any of them or any character, you must also like all the TV shows whether it's Lego Star Wars, Clone Wars, or even the games. Disliking any can “ruin someone else's enjoyment” so you get a ban.

Then there are the people who stomp into the middle or of a group happily dedicated to the enjoyment of criticism and use the “…let people enjoy things” line on them, not realising that they're refusing to let those people enjoy what they were into. Yes, people shouldn't be dicks about things, but people shouldn't be super “positive thinking” thought-police either, which is worse because it induces stress and pushes people out of fan communities.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Succubus - A quiet, contemplative, slightly mournful tune, delicate in piano, is suddenly swamped by a red wave of horror and chaos as the music is ripped asunder and this new sound gouges deep into your ears.

Topics and shownotes


Tantz's Toxic positivity - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/27/character-trait-toxic-positivity-toxic-acceptance-part-1/

Featured comic:
She Used To Be Fractal - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/30/featured-comic-she-used-to-be-fractal/

Featured music:
Succubus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Succubus/ - by Coydog and TheDeeMan, rated M.

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

My idea was to talk about social pariah characters, people who it's socially acceptable to laugh at, despise, or even hate. They can be the uncool people, the dorks, the dags, the idiots, the overweight, the ugly, the old, the out of touch, the over the hill… On the extreme end they could be monsters and criminals. Generally they're written pretty two dimensionally as a collection of cliches, but when the writing goes beyond that to lend them humanity is when it goes to the next level.

I'm not talking about underdogs or members of minority groups because people should already know better than to write them as stereotypes or to laugh at them for being what they are. I'm not talking about “punching up” or “down” or sideways either.
A good example would be one of those Mansplaining “M'Lady” characters: a fat, young white guy with a thin goatee beard, in a black stingy brim fedora hat and black trench coat, worn over a t-shirt and cargo shorts. It's socially acceptable to universally despise that person, and it can even feel good to have someone like that who everyone is allowed to laugh at. Other examples are the Boomer, the Karen, the angry vegan woman, nerds, pervs, trainspotters, Furries, Bronies, and Treckies.

My conjecture is that an ordinary or bad writer just uses them as is and leverages the popular social derision surrounding them for humour. While a really good writer goes beyond the cliches and gives the character some humanity. Dwight in the US version of The Office started out as a character we loved to hate, but as the show wore on and he gained more humanity he became an immeasurably better character. King of the Hill is a show entirely dedicated to the sort of people pop-culture gives us permission to mock and deride and yet it shows us their vulnerabilities which makes them so much better than the characters in Family Guy who are similarly despised people but with no other dimension.

One of the main faults of the second Knives Out movie, Glass Onion, is that the characters are mostly all built around cliches we're supposed to despise, and they don't go beyond that. I liked the film but it wasn't as clever it thought it should be

By all means start off with a boomer, Karen, angry vegan lady or a Mainsplainer, pick the low hanging fruit jokes, get all the easy laughs, but then turn things on their head. Go deeper. Show them as more than a simple cliches, more than a cutout! That will enhance your story supremely, make your characters more interesting, the drama more effective and your jokes funner.


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Prince of the Moonlight Stone - Mysterious sounds of the cold, snowy, moonlit, pine-forest… Percussion heats up and leads us down into the steaming jungles in the valleys below, away from the cry of the wolf and the savage bite of the cold mountain winds.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Explorer Chronicles - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/24/featured-comic-explorer-chronicles/

Featured music:
Prince of the Moonlight Stone - - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/_Prince_of_the_Moonlight_Stone/ - by KillerSandy, rated M.


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

Talking about AI again but this time our subject is different: Does it have a negative influence on culture?
AI creative tools in the hands of an actual skilled creator opens up amazing possibilities. Real creative people will be able to use them as the tools they are, to mix and match with their own knowledge, talents and many different creative sources to produce novel and interesting things!

Culture is invigorated by people making novel things, but the way these creative AIs are designed they produce essentially only derivative content. This can be tempered by the human factor of the person using it, especially if they come to it with a lot of background skill and if they don't intend to simply “stop” with the AI produced art but rather intend to use it as part of a larger process. However, because this technology mostly attracts non-creative people most AI produced creative work is not creative (be it writing, video, music, games, or visual art). The commercial pressure to produce the cheapest and quickest products will mean that creative people are largely pushed out of creative jobs and replaced with non-skilled, non-creative people using AI tools, which will have a degrading effect on culture produced in the commercial industry.

That can have a negative impact on culture as a whole, especially as younger people grow up with it as the norm, not knowing anything else.


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Meatware - Grinding, red, churning, twisting, growling, processing, heavy, liquid, viscous, thick, fibrous, chunky, fatty, sinewy… a heavy electronic sound that gets you deep in your bones.

Topics and shownotes


Tantz's AI newspost on culture - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/20/the-ai-problem/

Adventure thread - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179254/

Featured comic:
American Pantheon - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/16/featured-comic-american-pantheon/

Featured music:
Meatware - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Meatware/ - by TheJagged, rated M.

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

The Saying goes that The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence. Envy and jealously are destructive, negative feelings that either lead to bad outcomes or just make you feel pretty crappy. It especially affects creators! We get down about our artwork, our writing, the popularity of someone else's comic etc and we wish WE were as good as them and wonder why we aren't… maybe we're just not as good? If we could only just have their talent, their luck, their skill then WE'D be awesome too. it's just not fair…

Banes heard a pretty cool solution to this on a podcast once. The idea is that you CAN have those things you're envious off, you can have all of their cool traits, popularity, all the good stuff, but ONLY if you're also willing to accept all the crap in those person's lives as well. Would it really be worth it? To swap your life completely with theirs and not to be yourself any longer?

Or in a more realistic sense, you can look at those people who're beautiful and thin, or big and buff and muscular, those people with fantastic guitar skills, parkour champions, amazing athletes and dancers, and envy what they have… But YOU can have that as well, YOU can be like that, you just have to put in the thousands of hours of work it requires to have those skills, the thousands of dollars of beauty products, training and surgery, physical complications, the injuries, all the struggle and privation, all the denying yourself of life's many pleasures, tasty foods, TV watching time, time with friends and family… Because that's usually the true cost of the things with envy in others. The difference is that they're prepared to pay it.

Even super wealthy people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos paid a cost to get where they are: would you be prepared to make those bad deals, to cheat and scam strangers, friends, family, exploit others for your own personal gain again and again and again, are you prepared to wear that on your conscious and your soul? If so then the billionaire life is for you. :)

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Silences Echo - A sophisticated piano jazz bar, with a faint touch of latin rhythm… almost a tango. People dancing close, tension in the air, the energy is crisp and flowing with this short, punchy tune!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Banes' excellent and encouraging newspost on his Cure for Jealously - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/11/the-cure-for-jealousy/

Featured comic:
Meatware - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/10/featured-comic-meatware/

Featured music:
Silences Echo - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Silences_Echo_/ - by Hykarige, rated M.


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

Adventure is a fun genre! Not as many things get made for it these days but it used to be hugely popular in the past. It's one of my favourite genres and this is what we're chatting about for the Quackcast. What IS adventure? I think it usually involves a whole lot of different things like exploration, action, discovery, heroic protagonists, rivals, travel, exotic places, fights etc. It can be set in the past or in the modern day. Good examples are The Mummy, Indiana Jones, the original Tomb Raider, the two new Jumanji films, Strange World, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ducktales, Tailspin, Jungle Cruise, Uncharted and so much more. I'd love to know your faves!

Adventure stories have a basis in reality, real life explorers like Sir Richard Francis Burton, Marco Polo, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. And from this background there's a negative connotation in the adventure story DNA: because it comes from a world of colonialism and imperialism. Adventure often involves an emissary from the known world in the west going off to the unknown world in the east, Africa, or South America to see exotic places and discover new things, which of course are not exotic or new to the locals that actually live there!
But even so I think it has a valid rationale because these things were largely unknown and exotic to the wider community in the west and this was the way they found out about them. Adventure stories also work perfectly well from other perspectives- the adventurer can originate in Africa, China, Polynesia and wherever else and they can be exploring Europe or any other part of the world and it works just as well.

No theme from Gunwallace this week because of the holidays, so more best-offs! These are the two themes Gunwallace made for Bottomless Waitress from Quackcasts 423 and 490 -
- Theme number one is such a happy sounding, Southern, joyful track, filled with banjo and layers of guitar, twanging away… bringing notes of sunshine, natural wood, the light glinting softly through tree leaves and making dappled shadows on the ground… Perfect for an advertising jingle!
- Theme number two: Revenge of the banjo! We start off with a tractor roaring into life and a banjo opening us up to the sounds of rural Midwest America- wide open corn fields, golden wheat, grain silos, quiet back-roads, haystacks, big red barns, and a kinky little diner where the coffee is bottomless and so are the staff!

Topics and shownotes

Adventure thread - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179254/

Featured comic:
Arkin Blade - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/03/featured-comic-arkin-blade/

Featured music:
Bottomless Waitress - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Bottomless_Waitress/ - by Ozoneocean and Banes, rated M.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
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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Happy 2023! This was the last Quackcast of 2022 and the FIRST Quackcast of 2023! I was recording during 2023 while Tantz, Banes and Pit were still stuck in 2022 because of the time difference between us, so we straddled the years!
We had the full crew here of myself, Banes, Tantz Aerine, and Pit Face! We chatted about what we did with comics in 2022, what movies we saw and the issue of “AI Art” and how it impacts actual artists. It was a really cool talk!

What movies did YOU see in 2022 and what big changes happened to you?

It was lovely to see Pit again and you can see us all in great detail in the new video format on our Patreon video for those clever $5 and up supporters :)

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Short changed - Snappy, happy beat, with a joyful repealing piano tune. This is such a simple piece but is so nice and happy and friendly! This makes a lovely new start to the new year ^_^

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Withdrawn - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/dec/27/featured-comic-withdrawn/

Featured music:
Short Changed - - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Short_changed/ - by Kiddermat, rated T.


Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
PIT_FACE - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
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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Happy Life Day! Hahaha!
Merry Christmas for 2 days ago… This week we're talking about the “Christmas specials” that populate entertainment media this time of year. No particular reason for it, it's just because it's seasonal! It's not always Christmas focused there are the occasionally hanukkah things as well, and in the northern hemisphere this is the season for traditional winter festivals afterall.

What are your fave “Christmas specials”? Do you like them when webcomics do them? I always used to love the one that Kittyhawk did for her Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuki comic https://www.facebook.com/montrose.is/

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Nocturne 21 Volume One - Darkly introspective with an Asian influence. It reminds me of an unfinished Hong Kong skyscraper in the1980s at night- wind whistling through the open floors, the lights of the city below and around but not inside the shadowy, debris strewn depths of the skeletal structure, smelling of concrete dust and epoxy. There’s a slow, considered pace to this compelling piece.

-As a Christmas present all Patreon members get to see our video, not just the $5 and up members, AND it's better quality so it's NOT painful to watch haha!

Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Neville Magicians Rabbit - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/dec/20/featured-comic-neville-magicians-rabbit/

Featured music:
Nocturne 21 Volume One - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Nocturne_21_Volume_One/ - by Hirokari, rated M.

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

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Inspired by Banes we did a Quackcast on SUPER TEAMS! You know those groups like the Justice League, the Avengers, the Suicide Squad, or even Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy from The Journey to the West (Monkey Magic is my fave version). These are super powerful characters on their own but together they're even more awesome because their strengths and weakness complement each other in interesting ways. DD had its very own super team in the form of the Heroes Alliance, where a lot of DD creators got together to work on a shared universe. And back in the 2000s DD had a “Civil War” even with Keen Space (AKA Comic Genesis), where a huge number of our creators and theirs participated in something like a DC Vs Marvel crossover battle.

So what are your fave team ups?

This week our Patreon Video is available to all our Patreons (not just the 5$ level), and it's also MUCH better quality because we're using Zoom now finally!
https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck

There was no new theme for the week because Gunwallace and his whole family are ill with CoVid! So instead I deiced to do a “best off”. I included 6 of my fave tracks from 2022 that Gunwallace created. Get well soon man!! The Quackcast topic starts after the music at about the 17.30 minute mark.


Topics and shownotes

Links
Inspired by Bane's newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/dec/13/super-teams-are-the-baum/
DD's very own super teamup, Heroes Alliance - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Heroes_Alliance



Featured comic:
Domestic HellLand - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/dec/13/featured-comic-domestic-hellland/

Featured music:

From 567 - Ark Hunters - Notes cascading and calibrating, before committing and tumbling down and along in a continuous torrent, a cataract of notes, flowing and bursting outward. Accoustic and electronic, guitar, violin, piano and percussion vying continuously.
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ark_Hunters/ - by Tombag, rated T
25th of January

From 572 - Eva of Asgard - Thunderclaps, followed by a slow, steady downpour that gradually increases in strength before collapsing into a furious, chaotic storm of electric guitar driven hard rock! An electric guitar strikes like lighting, illuminating the entire piece in sharp relief, till the metal tempest blows itself out and fades away.
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/EVA_of_Asgard/ - by Synwells, rated T.
1st of March

From 576 - Caveston - Authoritative violin pronounces and directs. A four stringed general deciding the course of action, laying out the battleplan. Electric guitar listens well and leads the squad on a furious audio assault! Storming forth and prevailing in a mighty show of shock and awe.
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Caveston/ - by Caveston, rated T.

From 582 - Rat Test Blues - Gunwallace doing his own thing here! The dangers and worries of CoVid-19 are universal, and New Zealand is no exception. Here Mr Gunwallace gives voice to his and all our apprehensions when faced with a malady when there’s a pandemic about… “Do I have Covid or just a cold?” Only the Rapid Antigen Test can say for sure. Awesome blues number, that guitar roars and sings and Gunwallace’s vocals are perfect.
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ - by Gunwallace, rated N/A
10th of May

From 589 - Into the Bookwoods - A folksy calming journey into dark green, misty, warm depths and golden lit fields in afternoon sun. An acoustic driven piece with the pleasing sounds of plucked wire strings!
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Into_the_Bookwoods/ - by Kvalhissir, rated ?
28th of June

From 600 - Brittany Hyperstyle - Bouncy, pop bubblegum bubbles of light and joy floating, rising and falling in sweet smelling convection currents. This sound is pink and powerblue with a sheen of iridescence. Synth electronica that’s fun, light and happy!
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Brittany_Hyperstyle/ - by Shampoo_Venom, rated T.
13th of September




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

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The 1930s were quite a uniquely influential time for a number of reasons. The 1930s were the very last days of the old world before the new one was born in the apocalypse of the 1940s. Old empires, kings, colonialism- forces that had shaped the planet for decades were about to be shattered for the good, thankfully. New technologies were on a rapid rise as things were spiraling closer and closer to global war, Air travel was becoming a reality even as the old ocean liners were still the main means of transportation connecting the continents, people were building cites around the realities of car travel. Cinema had changed drastically with the advent of the talkies. and so much more!

I grew up during the 1980's when the aesthetics of 1930s were being revived in fashion, film, and architecture: pastels, art deco, modernism, shoulder-pads… some of the most influential movies had a very strong a 1930s influence: The Star Wars trilogy with its scenes inspired by Triumph of the Will, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon film reals and old cowboy films, the remake of 1932's Scarface, the Indiana Jones movies, Batman, Superman, Dick Tracy, the Conan films that made a star out of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The influence was all over the British New Romantic pop music movement, the style of Michael Jackson and Madonna, and on TV with noir detective shows. All these things continue to have a legacy today.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to She used to be fractal - A quiet, chillout, relaxing track to spaceout to and go zen… A slow cruise into nothingness, white on white. It’s as clean as new glass and as smooth as a polished stone. Gunwallace says of it “Channelling my inner shoegaze spirit”.


Topics and shownotes

Forum post about the role of the 1930s - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179231/

Featured comic:
Nocturne 21 Volume One - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/dec/06/featured-comic-nocturne-21-volume-one/

Featured music:
She used to be fractal - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/She_Used_To_Be_Fractal/ - by CartoonAdventurer, rated E.

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

There are times when you need to give your brain a bit of a break, that's when comfort shows come in handy! Movies and TV shows you can watch again and again- you can appreciate them every time and they don't get old. The tension never gets too much for you because you already know what's going to happen. You can just relax and enjoy the familiar story, revelling in the company of characters you know and visiting their world once more. They're great for creating to as well because you don't have to worry about missing anything important.

I have quite a lot on my list. Often it's older stuff but there are newer things as well. Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, Romney and Michelle's High School Reunion, The Life Aquatic with Steve Siszou, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, Conan the Barbarian, The Office (US version), Parks and Rec, the Richard Sharpe series, The New Girl, The Duellists, and much more. For Banes it was things like Friday the 13th part 2, Back to the Future 2, Terminator 2 and more.

This is a great season for comfort shows, especially the Christmas themed ones. What are your fave comfort shows and why?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to This theme is unsettling, creepy, on an angle… off-putting. It's a journey into a strange dimension. The lights are dim and won't turn to full brightness, it's grey and shadows abound, what are the strange sparkles in the darkness? A heavily splintered dark wooden door slams shut. This is a perfect late 80s horror film sountrack! A mix of electronic and orchestral sounds are layered to make this scary, demonic piece.


Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
The Return of Jake Sunrise - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/nov/30/featured-comic-the-return-of-jake-sunrise/

Featured music:
House of Other Worlds - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/House_of_Other_Worlds/ - by Hartchamber, rated M.

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

Doppelgängers was the subject of our Quackcast today. What are they? Generally they're evil duplicates of people. Originally if you saw one it was supposed to be a portent of impending doom, but they've since evolved through pop-culture to be mirror people who envy the originals and want to kill them and replace them. There are MANY other kinds of Doppelgängers too now: Future versions of people, clones, robots, virtual copies, alternate universe versions, spirits, demons, helpful lookalikes, and more.

We asked people on the forums and a newspost about the subject and their responses were really interesting! We included many of those in the cast. Links to them bellow.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to City of the Sun - Golden drops of sun, falling like heavy liquid plasma, dripping down and illuminating everything around the, converting it to bubbling, flaming, energy… spreading heat and a fury of chaotic magnetic flux… This is a beautiful, contemplative digital piece that starts slow and slowly ramps up its energy into a wall of noise.


Topics and shownotes

Link to Banes' post - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/nov/23/dont-i-know-you/
Forum post on Doppelgängers - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179226/

Featured comic:
Silences Echo - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/nov/21/featured-comic-silences-echo/

Featured music:
City of the Sun - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/City_of_the_Sun/ - by Topnug, rated M.

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

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, so the saying goes but it's absolutely true. There is a layered subjectivity to it based on personal preference, the cultural standards of your community, the ethnic traits of you and your peers, prevailing global fashions in appearance, the dominant archetypes in the media and so on. All these things combine to form our personal subjective ideas of beauty. You can see this yourself if you look at paintings, statues, masks, frescoes and other artifacts that have been produced by all the diverse cultures on earth over thousands of years: there IS no standard, eternal, objective of beauty.

Years ago a plastic surgeon thought he'd cracked the secret. He wrote a book about the idea of a mathematical, objective beauty model based on symmetry. Of course any artist could have told him it was absolute nonsense for any number of reasons, but popular books based of pseudo-science gain a lot of traction among the majority of people that don't tend to be able to think too hard about these questions and crave easy solutions.

There are two competing, rudimentary forces at the base of the idea of beauty:
One part is based on conformity: becoming the most generic, simplistic, ordinary, average version of something. Symmetry is a big part of that. This is what that sort of cosmetic surgeon specialises in. We can surmise this comes from the drive to find things that look like us (i.e. our tribe), and is the best representation of “us”.
The second part is based on novelty: What makes this person stand out, what makes them different and unusual.
And then cultural standards, popculture, fashion and many other factors add layers of complexity to these.

*A note on symmetry:
Part of the mistaken notion that inflated its role in “beauty” was the idea that it's an indicator of health or “good genes”, which is false. The reason for symmetry in bodies is just to make the coding simpler. Recent studies have confirmed this: just like when an artist wants to save time by using a mirror or copy, pasting and flipping to make a face or body, nature does it for the same reason.

We talk about it in much greater detail in the Quackcast! Who do you find beautiful?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Phineus Teen Wizard - Thrumming 80s groove. Synthesised neon soft pink glow in the midnight blue fuzz. We’re going back in time… roll up the sleeves on your red leather jacket, slip on your fingerless gloves, lace up your hightops, get on your BMX bike and peddle back through the decades to 1983!


Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
The Faceless Comics Set 1 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/nov/15/featured-comic-the-faceless-comics-set-1/

Featured music:
Phineus Teen Wizard - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Phineus_Teen_Wizard/ - by Phinmagic, rated E.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
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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So how do you like comedy that makes you cringe? You know that really awkward humour where you feel embarrassed for those involved and almost in physical pain for them? You feel really bad for them… It could be cruel pranks, or jokes based on lies or misunderstandings that are just carried way too far. Personally I find them hard to take. It CAN be great like in the original version of The Office, but even that was REALLY hard to watch at times.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Stick Figure Apocalypse - Relaxing, cool funk groove that cruises along dreamily, hitting turbulent waters hallway through, with a wildly discordant patch of sonic confusion, startling us out of our revere, before slipping back into the same quiet groove again and fading to silence.


Topics and shownotes

You can still see our Halloween video, which is normally a Patreon only perk!
Here - https://www.patreon.com/posts/dd-patreon-vid-73979608?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator

Featured comic:
Eternity Dreams - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/nov/07/featured-comic-eternity-dreams/

Featured music:
Stick Figure Apocalypse - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Stick_Figure_Apocalypse/ - by MattDavise , rated E.

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

There are all kinds of relationships and they're great fodder for stories. The most typical is when two characters are getting INTO a relationship- all that will they/wont they stuff. But characters could also be ending a relationship, or maybe ending one in order to get into another, they could even be in a stable, long term relationship, although those aren't quite as common in media. My favourites are the ones where sex and attraction isn't a factor: relationships between family members, co-workers, friends etc. For some reason when it's platonic I find that a lot more compelling than sexual tension, especially when there would normally be the potential for sex- i.e. two unrelated compatible people with the same sexual and gender preference.

What are your favourite kinds of relationship in stories? Shipping, Love triangles?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Angel Academy - A little like the Ghost in the Shell movie theme. This music sores high through the stone vaulted ceiling of a vast cathedral tower, reaching the heavens and beyond. Golden rays of sun shine down from celestial silver tinted clouds. Thundering drums, breathy chorus intoning like the notes of panpipes, and all the sounds echo and reverberate imperially.


You can see our Halloween video from last week, which is normally a Patreon only perk!
Here - https://www.patreon.com/posts/dd-patreon-vid-73979608?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator


Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Blessed Days - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/nov/01/featured-comic-blessed-days/

Featured music:
Angel Academy - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Angel_Academy/ - by Sketchydrawer, rated M.

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

Happy Halloween! Our topic is horror Sci-Fi. Sc-Fi brings with it a whole lot more interesting things you can do with horror and scary stories and there are so many great examples, from the worlds of HP Lovecraft, Alien franchise, Dead Space, Doom, Warhammer 40K, Event Horizon, the Cell, the SCP universe and more. We were inspired by Bane's newspost about horror and technology and all the cool responses he had. What's your fave horror SciFi?

As promised, here is our Halloween video. Patrons got access to it a day earlier, on Halloween - https://www.patreon.com/posts/dd-patreon-vid-73979608?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Game Punks - A hyperspeed punkish howling grind, ploughing into bedrock, ripping through concrete, burning through the forests, and drilling through time. Raw, rocky, hard, and gritty!


Topics and shownotes

Horror and Technology - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/oct/26/horror-and-technology/

Featured comic:
Joanna Ghost Hunter - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/oct/25/featured-comic-joanna-ghost-hunter/

Featured music:
Game Punks - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Game_Punks/ - by TroyVS, rated T.

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

How do you write scary scenes for comics? Banes loves horror so he come up with this subject, plus we're coming up to Halloween! Listen to find out what we come up with.
How do YOU write scary scenes though, what are your tips and tricks?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Diary of a girl with a third eye - The mystery of the occult, battling dark forces, a gritty darkness that swallows light whole. This tune has a wonderfully eastern sound, mixed with a darkly gothic rock feel.



Links:
Horror comedy comic - Slaughter at Camp Notamoovi (NSFW) - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Slaughter_at_Camp_Notamoovi/

Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Vampire Girl - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/oct/18/featured-comic-vampire-girl/

Featured music:
Diary of a girl with a third eye - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Diary_of_a_Girl_with_A_Third_Eye/ - by Wizard Worm, rated E.

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

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Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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When creating fiction we always have to stylise experience in many and various ways in order to communicate with the viewer in a way that's meaningful to them because it's usually impossible to simply show them the exact reality of something and expect that same meaning to carry through.

A great example is a fight scene: when you're involved in a fight or close to it, it can be pretty affecting. Your body releases adrenaline, your pupils widen to take in as much as possible, your brain is on high alert so it narrows in on just the action and notices everything that it can, this makes time seem to slow and fight last much longer than it actually does. To the person involved or the close spectator everything is more dangerous, epic, and impactful. However, to a more distant viewer the fight is over in seconds, it probably seemed silly, stupid, even embarrassing and pathetic. So as a creator we have a whole bag of tricks available to us to convey the feelings of the participant or close observer to the audience- we slow down the action a LOT by making the fight last 10x times longer, we zoom in on the fighters, we zoom in on the fist that's doing the punching, we add SFX, VFX, tone and colour and a million other things.

That's just one example, most of reality has to be stylised in various ways in order for it to translate to a viewer in the way the creator intends. And we have many ways of doing this, some more extreme than others. Musicals for example are highly stylised but the singing and dancing is generally not just for show, it communicates meaning just like the rest of the less flamboyant parts of the story. Even something like a documentary, reality TV or a sports broadcast have to stylise reality in a way to more effectively communicate and engage with viewers; through camera angles, clever editing, cutting etc. Pretty much nothing is simply presented as is.

This is the reason I defend the art of Rob Liefeld: objectively it does not depict reality, he puts giant shoulder-pads on characters, too many pouches in silly places, too many teeth in grins, broken backed bum-popping women, huge nonsense guns that are just random assemblages of tubes with a handle and trigger, anatomy that has only a passing acquaintance with the human form- And yet it's not what the art shows, it's about what it evokes in its communication with the viewer. The bum-popping women mean “sex appeal”, huge guns mean destructive potential, giant should-pads equal power and strength, pouches equal action, toothy grins mean determination of purpose. All these things communicate directly with the viewer without having to be spelled out, and in the 1990s that was very successful for him!

I think it's very important to understand the stylisations we have to learn to use in order to properly translate our meanings to our audiences. Not just for comics but for books, movies, plays etc. Reality is never presented directly, not even in news broadcasts or 3D VR, or security footage, it's always stylised and modified in some way.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to AGENCY - High up in a helicopter, swooping in over a vast metropolis. Endless rows of buildings fly by underneath. Sophistication, towering glass skyscrapers, vast canyons of concrete and steel… It’s music for the big, cold city. Pulsing 80s synth tracks,


Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Drunk Duck Awards 2022 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/oct/04/featured-comic-drunk-duck-awards-2022/

Featured music:
AGENCY - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/AGENCY/. - by JediAnn Solo, rated T.

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

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What happens when the victim becomes the victor? Most of the time it's like the classic line from The Who “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”, typically revolutions (and elections), that promise change don't really deliver, the new people use it as a chance to get revenge on their enemies, take advantage of things the same as the last guys, and do everything they can to cling to power. The true exceptions are rare and special, i.e. Vaclav Havel and the Velvet revolution.

We decided to apply this to fiction and characters- What happens when the underdog gets the upper hand? Do they use it as a chance to take revenge, are they gracious and magnanimous, do they become the bully themselves, do they betray their ideals? How they handle their power is very interesting and says a lot about them. There are characters like Walter white, a downtrodden highschool teacher, who rises to power and becomes a crime boss. A similar story is told in Scarface, 711 Ocean Drive, and The Godfather. The new Netflix series “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” has a smaller scale take on it with a bullied youth becoming a super powered cyber-warrior criminal. In these stories the character arc is well portrayed and it's interesting to watch their moral fall even as they rise through the ranks of evil.

However, it can become a little more muddy when a character is written as honourable and good and yet they still use their sudden power to get revenge in a petty way. This simple act can be a powerful indication of hypocrisy and moral weakness, or just really bad writing. Of course that doesn't apply to all acts of revenge, only when it betrays a character's ideals or is OUT of character.

How do your characters handle a turnabout in fortunes? Do they use it as a chance to take what they can get and bet the bad guy themselves, do they get revenge, do they throw away their ideals, do they stay true to their character, are they magnanimous?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Crimson Stars - A creepy, gothic horror techno landscape of winking red stars and the pale blue trailing lights of ion drives in deep space. This is a cold world of blackness, danger, and vampires! The music really sets the scene.

Topics and shownotes

Featured comic:
Dave Skunk Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/sep/20/featured-comic-dave-skunk-comic/

Featured music:
Crimson Stars - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Crimson_Stars/ - by Commissar_Tarkin, rated T.

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

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
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If something affects or disturbs you so much that you want to respond to it through a story that you write, that can be a pretty powerful form of inspiration! But it depends on how you handle it. For example, Stephan King's acclaimed novel Misery was inspired by nasty interactions he had with fans after he published a fantasy novel. This story was very well received and even turned into a popular movie.

And then there are other ways to handle it… Popular fantasy author JK Rowling felt personally attacked by responses to her public stance on social media that transwomen aren't really women, so she incorporated the episode into a fictional story (a detective series she writes), where a creator had to deal with unfair and extreme criticism. This isn't necessarily a bad thing to do, but the way she handled it was less inspiration and more just a rant about her own experiences only slightly fictionalised. It was so poorly done that it even disappointed fans of her detective series that have no stake in her social media battles.

There are good ways to handle rants like this in fiction and bad ways, and we're going to talk about both! Have you ever used a negative real world expereince as inspiration for a story? I know I have, but I always keep it subtle, unlike some.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to GOP Nuts - Gunwallace note: “With apologies to Vince Guaraldi” - Why? Because this is such a cool, jazzy “Peanuts” sounding theme and Vince Guaraldi was the master behind the themes for the animated version of Peanuts… which is what the “GOP Nuts” is stylistic parodying in its spoof of the American Republican party!
It’s an easygoing theme driven by the low notes of a piano, a breathy flute, brush tapping on the drums, a cheeky, warbling trumpet, a plucked double bass, and a zoo full of goats!


Topics and shownotes

Links
Tantz's newspost about elegant rants - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/sep/02/venting-your-frustrations-needs-elegance/

Featured comic:
Brittany Hyperstyle - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/sep/13/featured-comic-brittany-hyperstyle/

Featured music:
GOP Nuts - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/GOP_Nuts/ - by Rawdale, rated E.

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

There's a lot of buzz about so called AI generated art at the moment using programs like Dall-E, Neural blender, Dream studio lite and so on. People use text prompts, i.e. “flying clockwork fish balloon” and the AI generates “art” based upon that. It usually does this by using actual art and photography created by real people, and visually mixing them to create a new image. Some results are much better than others.

The main issue with the approach is that the AI like all AI is dumb: it has no awareness, no understanding, it can't think, it can only serve up the most superficial interpretation of the prompt text. 100% of the “meaning” or “art” a viewer sees in that image is their own imagining, this in itself is never a good indication of art. But this also means that the AI has no capacity to understand the visual language it's speaking so it just provides you with a poor facsimile of art, which is all it can ever do due to inherent limitations.

For example, ask it to create a pirate image based on certain parameters. All it will be able to do is create a pastiche of already created images on the subject, like a bad deviant art image by a poor artist. A good human artist would think about the subject in terms of the ethnicity of the pirates, the type of vessel they use, how ratty or decorated their clothes are due to their time at sea, the body hair, tattoos, piercings and injuries on the pirates, the time of day and where the light comes from, the style of clothes and weapons due to the period, geography, and culture of the pirates etc. All that means something and will have a significant influence on the image (you can apply this to any other scenario too), while AI can only produce generic pretend art.

Unfortunately people don't understand these significant limitations and expect AI to do more than it can, (in all fields, not just art). AI is a useful tool when used correctly and when you properly understand its limitations, but when you don't it creates havoc. Which is why AI assisted systems tend to be so shit- like auto-correct spellcheckers, Google search algorithms, Facebook and Instagram image checkers, YouTube copyright checkers, “smart” chat-bots that big companies use as help systems etc. If we have people mistakenly thinking AI can replace artists or graphic designers, then we're in for a tsunami of boring, generic, meaningless design and the world will be a blander place because of it.

Try not to be fooled by the “idea” of art, when you see an AI generated image remember there was no thought behind it, no meaning to the placement of figures, style of clothes, body posture, mistakes etc, and the stylistic choices are simply stolen from human artists. It's a system that specialises in creating pointless parody pastiches.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Brittany Hyperstyle - Bouncy, pop bubblegum bubbles of light and joy floating, rising and falling in sweet smelling convection currents. This sound is pink and powder blue with a sheen of iridescence. Synth electronica that’s fun, light and happy!

Topics and shownotes

Links
Forum discussion that inspired the topic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179155/?page=1#latest/
Dream studio lite - https://beta.dreamstudio.ai/dream/


Featured comic:
Vast as the Night - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/sep/06/featured-comic-vast-as-the-night/

Featured music:
Brittany Hyperstyle - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Brittany_Hyperstyle/ - by Shampoo Venom, rated T.

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

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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Source material is something that we can love and respect, but it's just as often disregarded, degenerated, and denigrated, especially these days where it seems like everything you see is an adaptation or even an adaptation OF an adaptation or worse. I think it's important to go back to the sources so you can see what was truly great about the original to begin with. It can help you see what was lost in the adaptations and to discover new and important meanings and ideas that you never would have guessed at.

This Quackcast topic was inspired by a video by the Youtube based culture critic Georg Rockall-Schmidt and his video titled “Nevermind The Source Material”.

I'm sure there have been a lot of times for all of us when we've consumed an adaptation of one of our favourite books and we've thought it was lacking. But have you ever done the reverse? Have you seen an adaptation and then hunted out the source material to see what all the fuss was about, to see where it all started? I've done that quite a few times myself and it's usually pretty rewarding. I really loved the film version of Tank Girl, it was anarchic and captured a certain alternative 90's zeitgeist. The original comic series though is a very different beast! The movie has a lot of heart and pathos, but the comic is far more cynical, nihilistic and sardonic with a much harder edge. They both have the same sort of style, but the point of view and sense of humour of the creators is largely absent from the film.

Many of us know Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from the film and TV versions, especially starring Colin Firth. Mr Darcy in those versions is seen as the prototypical sexy, rich, tall dark and handsome man that women lust over, who Elizabeth Bennet eventually wins… It's seen as a great romantic story with a strong heroine. What's lost from the source material is the fact that it's a romantic comedy over the top of a satire on British mating rituals of the country gentry. Rather than an aloof, desirable bachelor, Mr Darcy is actually a pathetic, shy man who hides his acquired social anxiety behind a mask of snobbery, although he's good at heart. And all throughout, Elizabeth's real goal is not to win a man and a big country estate, rather it's to survive and retain her place and pride among her piers.

The Adams Family is a much adapted piece of work. There was the TV series, a cartoon series, a TV movie, the 90s movies, and now a Netflix series, but what was the source material? You'd think it was Charles Adams' comics from the New Yorker, but that's not actually fully true. The Adams Family was actually created for the 1960s TV series starting John Astin, Charles Adams worked with the creators to develop the characters. His comic was simply a bunch of single panel jokes with unnamed reoccurring characters, it wasn't till the show that they acquired structure, names, personalities and a world to exist in. Most people today have no idea that the 90's movies that are seen as so definitive are simply short summary parodies of the 60s TV series. The latest Netflix version is basically a pale copy of a pale copy. It would take far too long to explain what has been lost in the translation- I am sure the Netflix series will be good in its own right but we should never let later adaptations overshadow usurp superior source material.

Have you ever gone back to uncover the source material for something and been pleasantly surprised? Or maybe even disappointed?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Mega Maiden and the Chop Chop Princess - Heavy, deep bass synth thunder dueling with percussion and synth guitar in a fierce fight for dominance, which turns into a dance battle to the death with the bass synth landing the final, decisive blow!

Topics and shownotes

Links
Georg Rockall-Schmidt - Nevermind The Source Material - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlD63pcwjgE&t

Featured comic:
Crimson Stars - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/30/featured-comic-crimson-stars/

Featured music:
Mega Maiden and the Chop Chop Princess - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Mega_Maiden_and_the_Chop_Chop_Princess/ - by Teh Andeh, rated.

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

What makes a character two dimensional? What makes them three dimensional? Does it matter that they only have two dimensions to them? This was an idea that GeekyGami posed and so we thought we'd explore it in the cast. My own theory is that a character that is purely archetypal, tropeish, or cliche, with everything about them flowing from that archetype, and they never go beyond their archetypal traits- that makes them 2D.

An example for this could be a “nerd” character who has their trousers pulled up too high, a pocket protector, short sleeved collard shirt tucked into their undies, thick rimmed glasses with tape in the middle, slicked down dorky short hair, pimples and greasy skin. They can't talk to girls, they're super smart, they're arrogant to anyone who they see as less intelligent in math or the sciences, they can't do sports, they're uncoordinated, they're often bullied, asthmatic, easily injured and talk in a high pitched voice. They only like Scifi and fantasy and they play dungeons and dragons all the time… etc. That's a moronic cliche, but it's often used. If they stay perfectly true to that no mater what happens or changes around them physically or socially then in my opinion they're 2D.

2D characters are not always a negative thing though. Not every side character needs to have more to them. Even primary characters can get by as simple 2D cutouts if the story needs them to be that way. You always do what's right for the story rather than sticking to rules or biases about what you should or shouldn't do with characters… Intention is the main thing! You don't want to inadvertently make a 2D character when they're not meant to be that way.
What do you think makes a 2D character?


This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Scorned - In the words of the man himself: Went for a Sex in the City meets the Underworld kind of vibe. I would say it’s a cheeky salsa rhythm that drives you to shake and dance, which then takes a terrifying leap into a gothic baroque circus of doom!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Forum post - Hawk and Flo Ice Cream Truck of Doom part 1 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179142/

Featured comic:
Hawk and Flo Ice Cream Truck of Doom part 1 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/23/featured-comic-hawk-and-flo-ice-cream-truck-of-doom-part-1/

Featured music:
Scorned - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Scorned/ - by Damehelsing, rated M.


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

Today we're talking about a technique in storytelling that we're calling the “revelation”. Inspired by Banes doing an article on the weird trope in movies of having a character discover newspaper stories about the villain that suddenly reveal the true stakes of the story and kick things into high gear. There are other types of revelation in stories though and they're used in different ways.

The revelation technique can be used in the midpoint of a story as a way of showing the true scope of what the protagonist faces, which signals a corresponding urgency in the story, a rise in tension and an increase in pace - when done well! When done badly, as in the recent Marvel movie Eternals, it has the opposite effect- killing tension and diffusing the energy of the story. A revelation can be used towards the end of a story to show a twist which makes you reevaluate the entire story and look at it in a different way as in Unbreakable or The Usual Suspects. A late revelation can also be used to enrich the story by revealing extra details about a character and sweetening the story after the climax. And then there's the typical Marvel movie way of using super late revelations in the form of Easter eggs which give an audience a sense of anticipation and reward, uncovering secret things about where a story will go next!

A good revelation can add a lot of spice to a story and you're usually pretty safe in its use. The Eternals is a weird exception, where they really messed up this easy technique, TWICE, and cut the power to the story. Watch it and you'll see what I mean! Do you know any stories where a revelation ruined things?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Hawk and Flo Ice Cream Truck of Doom part 1 - Flicker, flicker, hypervelocity turning and spinning, action and movement. Techno synth keyboard, strings snapping drums moving faster than thought.

Topics and shownotes

Links
Banes' newspaper revelation newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/16/the-horror-newspaper-revelation-scene/

Some of the stuff mentioned in the cast:
The Eternals - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9032400/
The usual suspects - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
The Guest - https://asianwiki.com/The_Guest_(Korean_Drama)
La Mante - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6467482/


Featured comic:
Them There Hills - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/16/featured-comic-them-there-hills/

Featured music:
Hawk and Flo Ice - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Hawk_and_Flo_Ice_Cream_Truck_of_Doom_part_1/ - by HawkandFloAdventures, rated E.

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

Leaders are not born, they're created… literally in the case of fiction, created by creators of comics, books, movies, and other media! For this Quackcast I was inspired by two things: a video on Leader Characters by the satirical YouTube channel Terrible Writing Advice, and the Disney movie Lightyear, in which the lone wolf classical hero figure learns how to lead.

Lots of traits are useful for leadership: Charisma, experience, age, rank, communication skill, empathy, compassion, dominance, and confidence among others, and different styles of leadership work better in different contexts. Take for example the military paradigm of the lieutenant and the sergeant - a lieutenant is typically the lowest ranking commissioned officer, they're a beginner. They're young and they're not experienced but they outrank enlisted men and non-commissioned officers who might have more experience than them. The sergeant is usually one of the highest ranking “non-commissioned officers”, they're usually older than the lieutenant, who outranks them, and they have a LOT more experience. This creates an interesting leadership dynamic- the lieutenant learns from the sergeant but they also lead in a different way from them. The sergeant is better at leading the soldiers and knowing what to do from a practical standpoint while the lieutenant is better at theory and interpreting with higher level orders, eg. “Our orders say we have to take that hill and meet up with the other squad near the river at this map reference, so I want to split the squad…” etc While sergeant will actually be able put all that into practice a lot better than the lieutenant could.
- (Said by a non-military person, so this could be very wrong)

Fiction is full of leaders, good and bad. Most Scifi tends to have a military influence so it all has a very familiar military hierarchical setup. Star Trek is especially known for its “good” leaders, who're inspiring, clever, brave, full of empathy, experienced, and wise. The perfect foil to them is Zapp Brannigan from Futurama who was specifically created to be the anti-Star Trek type leader with all the very worst traits that any leader could ever have. He's a horrible person, sacrifices troops meaninglessly, has a poor grasp of strategy, and takes advantage of his position for self-gratification and self-aggrandizement, all of which makes him beautifully entertaining as a character! He's one of my fave leaders in fiction, on a par with the 90s Star Trek leaders Jean-Luc Picard, Captain Benjamin Sisko , and Captain Kathryn Janeway.

Leadership is a huge subject with lots of other aspects. Politics is a massive subsection in its own right! And we can't forget that it's the followers who actually give the leader power and if they choose to desert then that power can vanish… We cover all this and more in the Quackcast. Who're your fave fictional leaders and why?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to The Waves Inside - Clear ocean. Orange blue pink. Liquid metal swells. A calming, hypnotic synth journey over 1000 kilometers of smoothly textured sea.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Terrible Writing Advice, Leader Characters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lawvXdBYlAI

Featured comic:
Mydan Post Beginnings - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/09/featured-comic-mydan-post-beginnings/

Featured music:
The Waves Inside - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Waves_Inside/ - by TheJagged, rated M.


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

VIDEO exclusive!
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How do you describe your work to sell it to people? Writing blurbs is a real skill! You generally have to avoid doing these four things: Underselling, Overselling, Selling the wrong story, or Revealing too much. It's quite a tricky balance to master. I've been writing feature blurbs for comics here on DD for many years now (about 16), so I've developed a technique but even I haven't mastered it!

- Overselling is when you promise too much, more than the work can ever provide. It might help you attract an audience but it'll probably piss them off when the promises aren't met.
- Underselling is when you downplay the work too much so that it doesn't really sound interesting and discourages people from checking it out at all.
- Selling the wrong story is when you advertise things about your work that it's really not about, like advertising it as a love story when it's really about violent action. You'll just attract the wrong audience and lose readers.
- Selling too much is when you reveal major plot points and crucial story elements. People don't usually want to look into a story if they already know how it's going to go.

My technique with featured comics is to use a standard format. I introduce the main character and and the issues facing them in their world. Then I talk about the art and the story style. I do this so I can personalise the story for people, centering it onto that character or characters. Mentioning the issues introduces some stakes so people start to wonder how the character will deal with those. Talking about the world of the characters gives everything a context, a playing field unique to them and their situation. Talking about the story style, genre etc filters things to the correct audience, as does the mention of art. This works for me because I have to do it over and over hundreds of times, another style might work better for you. :)

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Sad W - Hurry up and wait! All the loose energy and stress of a Friday afternoon when it’s almost time to go home but your boss throws an urgent last minute job onto your desk. Hurry, hurry, quick, finish! Damn, you made a huge mistake, do all that bit again. Hurry! This is a modern sounding, high energy, track, thrumming with urgency.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Forum post - Writing spoiler free blurbs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179116/

Featured comic:
Remedial Magic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/01/featured-comic-remedial-magic/

Featured music:
Sad W - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Sad_W/ - by Sstavix, rated E.


Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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!
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The Manchild can be a fun character or they can be pathetic. They're a staple of comedies because they're an adult that gets to act immature and childish, without the restraint and responsibilities imposed by adulthood. This can make a great contrast; “The adult man acting like an immature child”, John C Riley and Will Farrel have always done that extremely well, as did Chris Farley back in the 90s. It can be be portrayed as pathetic and sad when the person can't seem to be able grow up or take on any responsibilities. They're often characterised by people with “childish” interests, like the cast of the Big Bang Theory, or with a childlike love of something like sports like Kevin in Kevin can F Himself.

This trope was particularly dominated by male characters until recently when female characters have finally been able to join their ranks. My theory was that the majority of writers always used to be males and so were much better at portraying women from an external perspective; i.e. as what they mean to males: desirable, caring, scary etc, rather than an internal perspective showing what it's like to BE them, as they did with male characters. A good example of this is the Simpsons where Homer is usually a manchild while Marge is generally a responsible mother who holds the family together.

But now we see more instances of women allowed to be silly, immature, pathetic, childish and funny, just like their male counterparts and it's really good to see that balance being restored; All about Steve with Sandra Bullock, most Melissa McCarthy and Rebel Wilson films, Muriel's Wedding, even Fleabag depicts a womanchild character, although in a very self critical light.

In the end though I think the trope resonates with us because we are all really still children inside, underneath the superficial trappings of adult responsibilities, restraints, and tastes are the same childhood exuberances and joys. The biggest, meanest, bearded, hairy man or the old white haired bespectacled woman are still the same kids inside that they were when they were growing up and this is something that we all have in common. The older I become the more I look back at the facile childhood aspirations to adulthood -things like wanting to drive, to drink, take drugs, fight in a war, lose one's virginity- as being the epitome of immaturity and childishness. None of those things are about growing up or adulthood in any way, in fact they're exactly the reverse. Adulthood is about responsibilities. The womanchild and manchild characters can allow us to vicariously enjoy adult life without responsibility, whether it's in a positive way like The Dude or negative like Zach Galifianakis' Alan in The Hangover series.

Do you agree? What are your fave Womanchilds and manchilds?


This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Zeitgeist B-Side - Dizzy, dreamy, acoustic guitar, throwing moods and colour. This takes us from a minimal white apartment, to the twilight shadows of the evening in a forested wood. Night surrounds and pervades.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Banes' Newspost Manchildren - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jul/21/the-manchild/


Featured comic:
The Waves Inside - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jul/26/featured-comic-the-waves-inside/

Featured music:
Zeitgeist B-Side - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/B_Side/ - by ISTKY, rated M.


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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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The risks of online creative success
We live in a wonderful time where you're able to turn your creative passion into a job that can support you just by using freely available online services like YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Patreon, Ebay, Paypal, Etsy, Webtoons etc. You can start with nothing more than your computer or phone and end up with a thriving business based on your passion project. It's not easy, achieving enough success where you can quit your day job still tends to take a lot of work, but once you get there it can be amazing. However, that's not the end of the story unfortunately.

The services that you use do not have too much compassion or care for their creators. They are not subjected to the same regulations or legal responsibilities as traditional businesses. They are not neutral services that you can use to build a business around and always have the same expectation of stability.

To use an analogy- it's like a business park office complex offers tenants free space and basic services if they set up their businesses there. So of course you leave your previous rented office spaces because it's pointless managing two locations. In return for the use of the space and services you help bring in multiple new customers who want to see you, but they're able to also redirect them to their other tenants and show their advertising to them as well. That system seems to work great for both of you, till they decide they want to redirect all of your regular customers to their other tenants because they don't like what you do for their image anymore; or they decide to shut down your offices which erases all the money, time and effort you've put in to making your business a success…

If that happened in the real world, you could very easily have a legal case against them. But there is zero recourse like that in the digital world. Instead they pretend that they're just providing free tools and nothing more, and so they have zero responsibility for the real world investment of money, time, and energy that people put into their work to build their audiences- Audiences which are the real capital and what Google, Facebook, Instagram, Etsy, Spotify and all the rest REALLY need the hard work of the creatives for. These “free” services use the effort of the creatives as a free resource to build and maintain a larger user base that they exploit in various ways; data-mining them, trading personal-information, up-selling subscription services, and selling their time to advertisers.
So they DO have a lot of ethical responsibility to their creative user-base, but not a legal one because the law hasn't caught up yet unfortunately.

There have been many thousands of instances of creators being shafted because the service they used suddenly screwed them over. Patreon, YouTube, Instagram, Spotify, Tumblr, Paypal, Facebook to name a few have all carelessly harmed creators/users in various ways.

So, you can become a huge success, but you can also have that success robbed from you by the very system that you used to start yourself off. How do you combat this? You could try lobbying politicians to bring accountability to these large companies that control the internet, but more realistically there are sensible precautions you should take: Don't quit your day job- always have a real source of real world income; Don't put all your eggs in one basket- use multiple services and sites and accounts for your work if you can; Try and own your own domain name so you can point users to a new service if your old one betrays you. I'm sure there are other ways too.

Lastly, we can sort of put The Duck Webcomics in this category too since we offer a free service to creators and we benefit form the audiences those creators bring in. However, we haven't changed our rules for over a decade, the service were provide is fully stable, our entire motivation is about maintaining a good neutral place for creators to host their comics, we don't make any profit on the site, and we don't mine our site audiences in any way at all: no data-mining, no selling of information to marketers, no up-selling of subscriptions or other services. But even so you shouldn't just put all your eggs in our basket either because no site is 100% reliable in perpetuity.


This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Cribal Series - Raw, wiry electric guitar weaves in and out in an exotic tangle, threading around this tune to create a barbaric themed melange from a distant time and place.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Black Parade - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jul/19/featured-comic-the-black-parade/

Featured music:
Cribal Series - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Cribal_Series/ - by Trebuxet, rated M.


Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
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
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Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

History is happening faster now. With the growth of universal high speed communication and cheap world travel, culture and technology move at unprecedented speeds. Because of these factors the rate of change is different to what it was at any time in the past. This is an objective and verifiable truth rather than subjective perception: the current speed and quality of global communication has never been possible before and that has ramifications for how the world changes.

This topic was inspired by Banes's newspost last week about how a huge stoush on American late night TV only a little over ten years ago is now unrelatable history; something that was so important then is largely meaningless now. A fight over TV time-slots lacks meaning for us now because time-slots are irrelevant, not to mention most people would rather stream than watch TV. And yet at the time it was vitally important, as it would have been in the 60 years or more before that.

My cover image references phones and how they've changed at an ever increasing rate over the years. They've changed so fast and so universally that you can date when something was made to a granular degree just by seeing a phone, to the year. In the past you could read an old comic or see an old TV show and there weren't that many differences to the present day because things changed slower. You could see that fashions and the styles of things had changed but mostly it was still all very relatable and you could not easily pinpoint the date of something to the year it was made from only a single item of tech.

The pace of change means that many stories happen in ways today they couldn't in the past, but it also means much more things from the past are harder to relate to for people who've had no direct experience of them in the historical contexts they came from…
What are some of the things you recall that have no meaning today?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to FrayFall - In the words of the maestro: “Still in a soundscape sort of mood. Calmness, but demons lurking is what I was going for”… And this is what we get with a seemingly serene landscape of slightly pulsing tones, fading in and out and overlaying one another like the calls of distant whales in the green-deep open ocean… But the thing about depths is that you never really know what’s lurking down there, just out of sight.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Banes' Newspost about modern period pieces - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jul/11/you-call-that-a-period-piece/


Featured comic:
Book in Hat - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jul/12/featured-comic-book-in-hat/

Featured music:
FrayFall - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/FrayFall/ - by Frae, rated E.


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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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The Superhero movie cast last week was popular, I wanted to chat to Tantz about different types of superheroes. We all know that the same kinds of superheroes seem to popup and reoccur in multiple forms all the time, even within the same worlds, i.e god-like superheroes like Superman, Captain Marvel, Omni-man, Homelander, or Magical types like Doctor Strange, Zatana etc. It was a fun chat about all the categories and subcategories we could think about!

There are so many heroes that fit in multiple groups and of course there are way more categories than either Tantz or I could think of. Here are the ones we thought of; God types (i.e Superman), Speedsters (Flash), Magical devices (Shazam), Supernatural (Ghost Rider), Humans who use tech (Batman), Magic users (Dr Strange), Mutants (Wolverine), Angels (actual angels as superheroes), plot-armourerd human contextual heroes (Judge Dredd), Heroes enhanced with tech (Spiderman), Disabled heroes (Oracle), Strength types (Hulk), Heroes WITHOUT secret identities (not that many), Gritty (The Punisher), Guns (The Punisher), Military (Tankgirl), Rich people (Ironman), Immortals (Wolverine), and so on!

Tantz and I are both pretty ignorant though. If you know more please say! It's not the categories that are the interesting part though, it's how many heroes basically fill the same roles. Like, how many Superman style “god” types are there for example?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Shadow Born - Low sun glinting through gaps in the slow moving silhouette of a freight train shuffling past into the clitterly clattery distance, losing itself in evening twilight shadows as day sinks away to night… This is a soundscape of shadow, winter and darkness, rendered with atmospheric, rhythmic, layered synth sounds.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Goldstar Of Wishes and Miracles - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jul/05/featured-comic-goldstar-of-wishes-and-miracles/

Featured music:
Shadow Born - - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Shadow_Born/ - by GunPowderRum, 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/

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

I wanted to do an easy and fun one this week and just chat about our fave superhero movies, starting with our firsts! For me and Banes it was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It's a real classic, full of positivity, hope, and optimism, all with bright colours and classic iconic imagery… In that way it's a bit like many of the Marvel films and the more popular DC offerings like Aquaman and WonderWoman, but without the overbuilt and over-defined muscles!

Reeve was handsome in an almost alien sort of way and quite well built but his muscles weren't pumped up to the extreme like they are on pretty much every single modern superhero movie character, which is quite interesting when you think about it. His suit was very simple- no crazy little irrelevant textures that are there for no clear reason, no finicky details and effects, it was just bold and flat like in the original comics. Starkly iconic!

The superhero films that do better always seem to be the ones that are completely unapologetic and unironic in their portrayals. They don't try to make their heroes “realistic”, they don't deconstruct them, layer on drama, get rid of the over the top costumes, tone down colours or superhero abilities. Superhero films that aren't ashamed to be superhero films tend to succeed. You could say that the other side of the coin is when things are taken too far as in Batman and Robin, but that was an obvious self parody rather than a film in love with the idea of superheros.

One of my own personal faves is Captain America: First Avenger, because it shows the true superhero origins in the real historical context as well as actually showing that superhero doing his day to day missions after getting his powers (fighting the Nazis and Hydra). Too many of the films just give as an origin story and then a climax, they never ever actually show us what the hero “does”: They ONLY show a simple progression from birth of the hero to challenge hero faces to hero overcoming challenge. The fact that it gives us a proper historical context can't be overstated - It means you get to see the world in which the very idea of the modern superhero was actually created, the world that gave birth to these superheros is actually on show!

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Space Pack - A gentle dancy progression, leading into more and more urgency and danger. Very Scifi and slightly spooky, with a little explosion at the very end… But is it really the end?

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
DNR - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jun/28/featured-comic-dnr/

Featured music:
Space Pack - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Space_Pack/ - by Stingy, rated E.


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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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A and B stories… And C, and D etc. It seems that it's more popular than ever to have stories with multiple concurrent threads. This is when you have a main story and a bunch of other sub stories all happening at the same time. These might come together at the end of the story or they might peter out. We don't get many stories just made with just an A-plot and nothing else these days.

I used to think it was the mark of a superior writer, but it's really not at all, it's just another in a long line of techniques that has its uses and missuses; most annoying of which is when cutting to the B story takes the momentum and energy out of the A story or it changes the tone of the overall story in an unfavourable way. While a good use of a B story could be to give the audience a momentary rest from the stress and urgency of the A story, while retaining the momentum.

The multiple thread story structure is most obvious in sitcoms, but it's really everywhere and when it's good you don't tend to notice too much. Do you write stories with multiple subplots? Can you name a story that's just an A plot and nothing else?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Into the Bookwoods - A folksy calming journey into dark green, misty, warm depths and golden lit fields in afternoon sun. An acoustic driven piece with the pleasing sounds of plucked wire strings!


Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Shadow Born - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jun/21/featured-comic-shadow-born/

Featured music:
Into the Bookwoods - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Into_the_Bookwoods/ - by Kvalhissir, rated E.


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

Our very own Tantz made a newspost last week about the idea of “Heroes” who are really villains… or at least they're actually villains who think they're the hero, but come to realise that they aren't. Sometimes that makes them change their ways and they seek redemption, maybe even becoming a true hero. Sometimes they just lean into and embrace their true villain nature.

There are many examples in stories: Disney's Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Lord and Captain Flashheart in the Blackadder series, Zapp Brannigan from Futurama, Stan Smith in American Dad, even Ace Kinkaid in my comic Pinky TA. They're fun characters… It can make for more complex villains, nuanced heroes, or just subversion of audience expectation.

A real life example came to me when I watched the nastiness of the Russian invasion unfold in Ukraine and realised that they used all the same justifications as our countries did for our invasions and occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. We're ALL “the baddies”, no one is immune from self delusion and self righteousness.

Start Audio - Better Call Saul
End Audio - The Burbs

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Cassie York in the Purple Nowhere - A sophisticated, classy, adult, dancey, jazzy piece mixed with some sharper, harder edged rock. It’s a well made, pretty dress sword with an extra hard edge. Decorative and yet practical.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Tantz's newspost about a hero being the villain - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jun/03/when-the-hero-is-the-villain/

Featured comic:
Space Pack - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jun/07/featured-comic-space-pack/

Featured music:
Cassie York in the Purple Nowhere - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Cassie_York_In_the_Purple_Nowhere_Part_I/ - by AidenGrunge, rated E.


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

How do you keep on with your creative output when something happens to you? When you lose function or are impaired in some way, how do you adapt or relearn so you can keep on as you were before? Maybe you can't and have to change to another medium that's a better fit for your abilities? Comic creator Bravo1102 once talked about how he moved from drawing to using action figures to make his comics partially because of his eyesight. My own eyesight has suddenly started to go bad and I'm having to adapt to that, and Tantz tells us how her deteriorating eyesight forced her to work digitally.

The four of us have had limited experience at dealing directly with impairment, but we've had our moments and all of us know many people who've faced more significant challenges. On numerous occasions I've suffered paralysis to my thumbs lasting many months (alternating sides, not both at the same time), in order to keep on creating I had learn to used the mouse in my other hand (which I still do today), and create a brace made of bands and ties so I could hold my pens and brushes. But that was a minor inconvenience compared to the situation faced by Pitface's mum, Karen Hillard Good, a noted illustrator and artist known for her commercial work and children's books. Last year she experienced a stroke which paralyzed half of her body as well as causing some cognitive impairment. She's had to adapt to her changed physical abilities, relearn how to use her body to create and overcome the challenges facing her.

As we age and life happens to us there are many things to which we have to learn to adapt, not just physical impairment but mental too. It's just as difficult to adapt to things happening with your mind, like not being able to concentrate, memory issues, depression etc. Are there any physical or mental issues you've had to learn to adapt to so you can continue to create? If so, how did you do it?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to The Sophomore - Sparking into action, the reverent tones of a groovy church organ play us into the roiling conflagration of this dancey little tune, full of heat and glaring orange light, this sound warms you through!


Topics and shownotes

Links

Artist Karen Hillard Good - https://www.facebook.com/Karen-Hillard-Good-Studio-Art-444025792286012/
Bravo1102 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/bravo1102/

Featured comic:
The Sophomore - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/may/31/featured-comic-the-sophomore/

Featured music:
The Sophomore - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Sophomore/ - by MrPenguin, rated M.


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

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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Adaptations of one thing into another is an interesting process. What's lost, what's gained, what modifications do you have to do to make it happen? As webcomicers we do it all the time in many ways, we have to adapt our influences into ideas, adapt those to stories, and adapt those to images and comics, which isn't trivial! It's often quite difficult to transform the written word into narrative sequential art- what portion of the writing gets directly turned into images, what's cut, and what becomes dialogue? For me about 20% is cut, 78% becomes art and 2% becomes dialogue or captions.

We chat about film and story adaptations as well of course, War of the Worlds (HG Wells) in particular, since it's become several different movies, artwork, video games, a radio play, and a really excellent prog-rock concept album among other things. All those adaptations take different approaches, Orson Wells' radio play version updated it from the late 19th century Britain to his present day and location and framed it as a developing news story, making clever use of the medium it was playing on. Most cinematic versions have followed Orson's style, but the concept album by Jeff Wayne stuck with the original historical setting which made the story much more interesting, tragic and compelling.

Another more current and different take on adaptations is the “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers” movie. This is a live action and CG animated hybrid film version of the 1990s Disney adventure cartoon series which featured a crime fighting rodent team. The usual approach to those adaptations is to simply update the origin story, stating from 0 and set it in the present day using current animation technology to make the characters look as real as possible, the original media is treated as lore and inspiration but is not cannon to toe movie. This movie however took the opposite approach: the original cartoon is treated as a real TV show that the characters (who are shown as actors), stared in, and this movie shows their lives 30 years later. The animation is a mixture of 3d CGI and pseudo 2D cell animation, plus pseudo stop motion claymation and the film is largely used to parody and spoof animated adaptations in general, so it’s perfect for this topic!

So what are you fave adaptations? Where dp they go wrong or right? And how do you go about the process with your own work?

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Amie Armageddon. Hard to describe this one, it sounds like a great pop-song you’d hear on the radio or as the theme song to a big budget movie. Echoing tonal vocals, evocative, layered, sounds… It sets a scene and then expands upon it. Just a really lovely piece of electronica.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Amie Armageddon - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/may/23/featured-comic-amie-armageddon/

Featured music:
Amie Armageddon - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Amie_Armageddon/ - by Machineheadstudio, rated T.


Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
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!
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We start off with the idea of talking about art techniques, tips and tricks we've mastered and could help people with but the cast turned into a discussion about drawing male and female characters- also trans, androgynous, etc. There's an art to representing gender in imagery! It's super important to remember that the way we see gender in art is mainly culture based rather than an innate biological reaction and the perception of gender in art is different according to your cultural background. It's basically a visual language that everyone learns, but as an artist you have to learn to actually “speak” it, and that's not as straight forward as you think.

A rough example of of how culture based our perception of gender in imagery is:

- In most Western art the “male” is the default. We take for granted that a figure is male in art unless it's augmented in some way, the most basic version is the stick figure. These are men. To make a female stick figure you add long hair, a dress or boobs. Some or all of that, it doesn't matter. And this scales up to other representations. A natural, more realistic depiction of a female person won't always read as a woman in art unless they are “feminised” in some way, i.e. a prominent bust, removing angles and lines and adding soft, rounded features, featured lips, larger eyes, thin waste, wide hips, long legs, large thighs, styled hair, thin neck, large head. And doing any of that to a male figure is a way to “feminise” them or blend their gender.

-In comic art from places like Japan and Korea it's the opposite somewhat, especially manga. The female form there is more of the default. Male characters involve a lot more augmentation to create a “masculine” effect, sometimes bordering on caricature, as can happen with female characters in Western art. A generic male manga character would typically read as more “feminine” if dumped straight into a western context.

In times past the focus was more on primary (genitals), or secondary (beards, boobs etc), sexual characteristics, i.e the Venus of Willendorf (a very female form) and male figures with disproportionately sized penises. While early Egyptian sculpture is pretty androgynous in his regard, male and female are not well differentiated, the main focus is on the build - eg. men having slightly broader chests. Early Greek sculpture even more so with simple abstract forms representing “humans”. Much later on this changed into a more separated, codified style: men being heavy, muscular, bearded, women being soft and slim, with youth of both sexes being more androgynous. Interestingly genitals were very diminished in this art, penises were small and flaccid, while vaginas were never depicted.
Though it was a different story with the art intended for more secular, “common” consumption, which could show pornographic scenes (mainly 2D). Art featuring Satyrs or Priapus massively exaggerated the genitals for deliberate comedic effect. For them focus on genitals didn't indicate masculinity or femininity so much as comedy, stupidity, shame, or porn.



Basically gender in art isn't about genitals or genetics, it's all culture based and you need to learn the visual language of your audience to make yourself understood by them, as well as to confuse them or subvert their expectations!
What trouble have you had when depicting gender? I always run into issues myself. I make my women too angular and my men are too slim.

This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Gyor - Charged up, magnetically accelerating into clean, sweeping, panoramic electronic tones, momentarily overrun by a furious chaotic electric discharge, only to return to serenity once more.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Gyor - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/may/17/featured-comic-gyor/

Featured music:
Gyor - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Gyor/ - by Tuxie, rated E.


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

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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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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Spoiler- we don't actually talk much about Yu-Gi-Oh! But I feel it's a good example of a pretty bad story- a so-bad-it's-good story, but bad nevertheless. The idea we're talking about here is that it's useful to look at bad stories and stick with them because they can really help you write better. They're a lot more useful than good stories because you'd rather just enjoy those and it's a bit harder to examine them for technical details, but with “bad” stories the faults stand out strongly. Instead of simply dismissing a bad story or making fun of it, it's more useful and valuable to try and “fix” it: try and work out why it seems bad and think about what would be needed to make it better, then think about how that applies to your own work. Maybe you're actually making many of the same mistakes?

Yu-Gi-Oh! is a little too much work to use as an example, but something like the Marvel movie Eternals is good because it only had a few flaws. Big ones, but also very good parts as well:

- Lots of telling rather than showing. A text dump at the beginning was just the start of that. It wasn't stylistic choice like in Star Wars, but rather something we need to understand what is happening. All through the film characters tell us about things rather than the story properly depicting them.

- Revealing the solution to mysteries too early and so it undercuts built up tension. Mysteries are really interesting and intriguing to the audience, even when they think they've solved them, it still feels very rewarding to have them revealed nearer to the end of the story. Revealing them far too early feels like you're being cheated and wastes a valuable resource. Eternals does this twice with very significant mysteries about halfway through.

- Having generic, cannon-fodder bad guys. This is true of many action stories especially from Marvel films, but it's particularly bad here. Saying any more would be a spoiler. But this is something that Yu-Gi-Oh! does far better.

- Leaving out information that would better make sense of story elements. We have the character Icarus refereed to frequently as “the Pilot” by another character who's never met him before, but we have no idea why. A deleted scene reveals why, but without that it makes no sense, you're just left to feel it's a pointless joke about the Icarus myth, which it's not.

- Not solving logic errors. The characters are supposed to be the basis for mythical figures in earth cultures but most are of different ethnicities to the cultures that worship them. This could have been easily solved in two ways: 1. the character “Sprite” could have been shown to have created illusions around them to make them seem like the characters of myth. 2. The character Druig could have been shown to manipulate people's minds to think they were seeing the mythical characters. The story does neither.

Despite all this and more there are many good points to this story and it would be possible to fix it through re-editing. I found it more rewarding and interesting to work out what exactly made this not such a good film and it helped to better highlight the good parts for me. It also helps me see what to avoid in my own writing and what I'm doing wrong. Try it yourself? Maybe you can tackle Yu-Gi-Oh! and let us know how that could be fixed?
I'm not brave enough.


This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to - Malefic Demonic Apocalypse - A creepy red garden filled with writhing demonic monstrosities and horror! This electronic piece grinds and roars, sounding like an acidic, burning harpsichord spewing fury and vitriol in a crimson torrent.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Our movie critique thread does this somewhat - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177412/?page=36

Featured comic:
Oni Streamer Builds a Mech - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/may/10/featured-comic-oni-streamer-builds-a-mech/

Featured music:
Malefic Demonic Apocalypse - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Malefic_Demonic_Apocalypse/ - by Genejoke, rated M.


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

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

Let's go forward in time to the past so we can get back to the future and kill our grandfather and be our own ancestor while we step on a bug and change the course of evolution 200 million years in the future and doom the Morlocks to a date with Doctor Who, while Bill and Ted drive a Delorean in the Old West and save Fry's dog as it waits out the front of the Pizza place… Time travel is fun to talk about, but it's easy to mess up because paradoxes in plots pop up all over the place as timelines intersect and cross over and over, getting tangled and logically prevent events that have already happened from happening!

Here we chat about some of that as well as our fave time travel stories, like Dr Who, Bill and Ted, The Tomorrow People, Playing Beati Bow, Back to the Future, The Time Machine, A Connecticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur, Army of Darkness, Outlander etc. Examples abound! Time travel stories can allow us as an audience to visit a distant time with ourselves looking at the future or past through the eyes of the time traveller, or their naive helper like Marty from Back to the Future or one of Dr Who's companions. They can give us outlandish adventures or bizarre and complex mysteries that make the most of the time paradoxes.

Time travel is fantasy fiction for us because we can only go forwards at the same rate… but it exists in physics as a logical theory and paradoxes can be overcome in specific ways, so it's a possibility, just one that no one can work out how to usefully achieve. Which is why we have stories! So what are YOUR fave time travel stories and why?

This week Gunwallace has given us something different! Rat Test Blues - Gunwallace doing his own thing here! The dangers and worries of CoVid-19 are universal, and New Zealand is no exception. Here Mr Gunwallace gives voice to his and all our apprehensions when faced with a malady when there’s a pandemic about… “Do I have Covid or just a cold?” Only the Rapid Antigen Test can say for sure. Awesome blues number, that guitar roars and sings and Gunwallace’s vocals are perfect.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Sad W - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/may/03/featured-comic-sad-w/

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

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

David's always right - Introducing Hpkomic! Hpkomic has been with DD since the earliest days, he's a comic artist, writer, English teacher, and podcaster. He even participated in the second comicbook challenge that Platinum held way back in the day when they controlled DD, and came second! He was part of many community events, like the Drunk Duck Civil War (the DD answer to the comic book Marvel Civil War) and DD VS Comic Genesis, which was the DC Vs Marvel of Webcomics! In fact he has the oldest post on this version of the DD forums! After the site was fully deleted at the end of 2005, he was the first person back who commented with an offer of help to get things back online again. Bonus points if you can find it.

He's spent some time away but he's resurfaced again to actively participate once more and lend his experience and help with a newspost every second Friday. I will continue to do the Fashion Spotlight, but Hpkomic will alternate newspost with me to lighten my workload and provide variety.
In his time away from DD, HP broadened his interests into podcasting, doing the Chucky based “Kid's Stuff”, the supernatural focused “Supernatural Selection”, and writing for “Haunted MTL”, a Canadian horror website. So have a listen to this amiable and intelligent fellow regale us with his brilliance!

This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to Ghost Network - Xylophone bones, tapping a happy tune on dried out ribs…grinding into a veil of deep red, steaming and chugging through into a cloud of mystery. This is a jaunty ditty crossed with a dark, heavy electronic piece for a very unusual mix.


Topics and shownotes

Links

HPKomic's links and links mentioned:
It came from the fridge - Hpkomic's start at drawing digitaly - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Warped_Archive/4889607/
Galactic Hub Serreven - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Galactic_Hub_Serreven/4958715/
Cosmic Dash -https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Cosmic_Dash/
RGBots - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/RGBots/
Supernatural selection - Supernaturalselectionpod.com
Dragoneers -hogan crossovers http://crossovers.dragoneers.com/

Featured comic:
Succubus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/apr/25/featured-comic-succubus/

Featured music:
Ghost Network - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ghost_Network/ - by Ohnomelon, rated T.

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

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

The full team is assembled yet again! Tantz came up with the idea of having a look at fantasy worlds in fiction that have strong ties with the “real world” and how they function together. Her main example was the world of Harry Potter which has many strong connections to the real world and yet manages to stay very well hidden, which stretches plausibility a bit. The World of Casandra Clare's Mortal Instruments is similar in that regard, it's deeply tied to the mundane world and yet it stays hidden from it to a degree that isn't really possible.

There are many other fantasy worlds where the connections with the real world are much more limited and that makes their hidden nature more plausible, i.e. Oz, Neverland, Narnia, Xanth, Wonderland… This was a fun topic to chat about! We covered a lot of ground. We even touched on the world of Hellraiser as a hidden fantasyland. To make your hidden world more believable, don't make it so that there are heaps of people who experience it all the time or have it constantly influence the real world because asking people to accept that no one knows about it is a bit silly.

This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to COLD-BLOODED - Coils and coils of slithering intrigue, smooth scales kletter over dry sands, a powerful, muscular form wriggles through the shimmering desert heat towards the nuclear furnace of the hot, yellow sun. Heavy, synth, rhythmic sounds.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Tantz's newspost about Fantasy worlds - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/apr/22/the-problem-with-magic-worlds/


Featured comic:
Up the Pyramid - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/apr/19/featured-comic-up-the-pyramid/

Featured music:

COLD-BLOODED - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/COLD-BLOODED/ - by Perrys_Hotter, rated T.

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

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

BANES RETURNS! …to talk about boobs with the rest of us. The topic of the discussion this week was brought to us by Tantz's newspost on the 2nd of April about bosoms and how their shape and size doesn't matter. In the crusade against “sexualisation” in comics people tend to focus too much on big or “unnaturally shaped” boobs, but the truth is that any type of boobs can be fetishized and by reacting against one type you just cause a new form of exclusion.

The problem isn't boobs, it's that people fetishize them in their art too much and often inappropriately. It's fine to do that in certain kinds of work but not every time you draw boobs on any character in any context. It's not the shape or size, it's how you draw them! The “how to draw” breast meme guide annoys me quite a lot- it has good advice on how to draw breasts but where it fails is in telling you what “not” to do. The breast shape and behaviors that it says are wrong are quite normal for people with implants and those are ubiquitous these days for many reasons, so let's not tell people there are the right kinds of boobs and the wrong kinds.

We were also going to chat about toys that inspired us as kids and also the Will Smith slap, hence the title that Banes came up with, but we decided just to go with breasts instead.

This week: The unholy return of Banes!
Next Week: the DD Awards

This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to Team 541 - A techno dance track that means business! It thumps out with a high speed futuristic military march, dancing in perfect stomping precision with a show of force and power.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Tantz's newspost about boobs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/apr/01/i-want-to-talk-about-boobs/


Featured comic:
Ghost Network - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/apr/05/featured-comic-ghost-network/

Featured music:
Team 541 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Team_541/ - by Mg78, rated E.

Cover image by PitFace from - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/PUTRID_MEAT/5432145/


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

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

Creation is a process with a lot of ups and downs: Agony and ecstasy! The easiest way to think of it is a simple inverted parabola- you start of feeling good about your idea and its potential. As you work though you feel worse and worse about it till you get to the nadir of the curve, then things turn around and you start feeling better and better about it as it finally comes together and you finally manage to finish it!

For most of us though the reality is more complicated and the longer you work on a piece the more ups and downs you have during it. This could occur during a single page, a single panel, an entire chapter or the whole comic. It takes me ages to do a page so I go through this process with every stage of the page creation- thumbnails, 3 different layers of line art, background drawing, and the colour process of every element of every panel.

The downs are pretty bad but the highs of creation are wonderful and that's what you're always chasing because creation feels good. Yes, drug addiction is an obvious analogue, but any experience that makes you feel good is similar; from surfing, to sex, to love, to watching a great TV show, or doing a lot of exercise. But creation is what we're doing here and I think it's superior to most activities because in the end you've midwived something that didn't exist before into reality and hopefully that will go on to inspire others.
How's your experience of the lows and highs during the creation process? Maybe for you it's all high, all lows or just neutral?


NEXT WEEK: The return of BANES!

This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to Lord of Seasons - This is a requiem for a lost empire. Mournful cello builds a soaring subterranean tomb that we as listeners observe as the music leads us inexorably on through the twisting caverns and galleries. We feel uneasy and uncomfortable as if the spirits of this lost place are restless and hateful. Throughout all there is an impending sense of dread.


Topics and shownotes

Links

The Agony and the Ecstasy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Agony_and_the_Ecstasy_%28novel%29

Featured comic:
The New Butler - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/mar/29/featured-comic-the-new-butler/

Featured music:
Lord of Seasons - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Lord_of_Seasons/ - by ArmandoB, rated M.


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

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

Retro adventure heroes are an interesting and unique sort of hero. The trope was revived and crystallised by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg with Indiana Jones, but it had existed long before then and continues to persist now in many forms. They're not without their problems But I like these characters. I love their outfits, their competency, intelligence, self sufficiency, and their penchant for exploration and discovery.

What is a retro adventure hero? Typically they're an adventurer, a member and representative of a powerful Western country, they like exploring, they're self sufficient, they can survive by themselves in the wild, they can fight, understand many languages, have arcane knowledge of and respect for native peoples and different exotic cultures, they tend to be very worldly and highly educated. This trope was inspired by real life examples, typically explorers from the 19th century, foremost among them was Sir Richard Francis Burton. He was highly educated, a soldier, an explorer, a swordsman and a shameless self promoter. With the explorations of Burton we have the romantic idea of a representative of the British Empire and Western civilisation delving into the hidden worlds of the Arab east and darkest Africa.

A partial influence for Indiana Jones was the story of GE Kinkaid and his 1909 find of the remains of a fabulous city accessed through a cave in the Grand Canyon… all sponsored by the Smithsonian institute. Of course nothing about the story was true and GE Kinkaid never existed, but it was quite inspiring nonetheless. My own character, Ace Kinkaid, from my comic Pinky TA was based on GE Kinkaid. Instead of going in the Indiana Jones direction of a “true hero” I decided to take a different tack- since the story was clearly made up and quite stupid (obviously designed to fool people), I made Ace Kinkaid someone who wanted to look like a hero but was in reality a con-man, only out for himself.

The most important fictional retro adventure hero is H. Rider Haggard's “Allan Quatermain” (I wrongly say he was Edgar Rice Burroughs' character in the Quackcast). He's another huge influence for Indiana Jones. There are many other popular fictional retro adventure heroes though: Brenden Frasier's character in The Mummy, Romancing the Stone, Lara Croft, El Borak, Steve Canyon, Biggles, Bulldog Drummond, John Carter, Dirk Pitt in Sahara, Flashman (though more of an antihero) and many more, even The Rock's character from the recent Jungle Cruise.

Why “retro” though and how can contemporary characters like Lara Croft and Dirk Pit be retro? Well there are a few reasons; number one is that they follow the clothing conventions of a lot of brown, leather, and straps; number two is that they have all the right competencies with fighting ability, self sufficiency, a penchant for adventure and exploration, visiting ruins etc, a good education…; number three is that they come from a retro world view of imperialism, so they can be a representative of the “enlightened modern world” going off to “discover” and explore exotic places - which of course aren't exotic or in need of discovery from the point of view of the locals.
This trope can still work just as well in a modern setting because we still continue to think like this, but it works best in the 1920s/30s for a couple of reasons: The aesthetic then is perfect, but this was also the end of the old imperial era. It marked the end of the time when we could still imagine representatives from “western civilisation” exploring unknown places, technology was at the highest point for characters of this trope (aeroplanes, machine guns, trains, steamships…), and many of the original adventure heroes were created in this period because we were romantisising the idea of adventure and empire while it was ending.

After the second world war scoured the entire globe and the last gasp of the dream of empire was shattered, the far reaches of the earth no longer seemed exotic anymore or to hold the same mystery. Retro adventure heroes had their hey-day in the transition from colonialism to post colonialism. We like them now for the romanticism of the image of what they were and the spirit of adventure and exploration, that's what we emulate rather than the distasteful idea of a colonialist imperial cultural ambassador, tourist, and thief.

Do you have a fave retro Adventure hero? If so, who? Do you even like the trope?


This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to Caveston - Authoritative violin pronounces and directs. A four stringed general deciding the course of action, laying out the battleplan. Electric guitar listens well and leads the squad on a furious audio assault! Storming forth and prevailing in a mighty show of shock and awe.


Topics and shownotes

Links


Featured comic:
Caveston - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/mar/22/featured-comic-caveston/

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


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

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

Fantasy creatures are cool and we're here to talk about our faves. One of mine is elves. I love them… Being quite elfy myself. Fantasy is pretty fun to play around with, you have the freedom to create anything but even so there are a few recognised and agreed on fantasy creatures that people stick with.

Tolkien is responsible for creating iconic versions of creatures like Dwarves and elves among many others but it was really the American students going to university in the 1960s and 70s that solidified things. These were RPG gamers. RPG games had always been popular with that crowd. In previous generations with the SciFi writers in the 30s and 40s it was naval based war games that they'd play on the floor with ship models. But in the 1960s fantasy was all the rage.

These RPG enthusiasts came up with detailed game systems like Dungeons and Dragons which created bibles of fantasy creatures of all kinds. This served to collate, define and refine fantasy creatures for pop-culture as a whole for the decades to come. This is why despite all the freedom, fantasy creatures across different stories and mediums don't changes very much.

So what are YOUR fave fantasy creatures? Here are some of ours, see if you can guess who's is who's: Naked, mysterious, secretive, powerful, necromancer witches; big veiny, musclebound, brutish, ragged trolls; Noble, brave, muscular, archer centaurs.
I also have to mention Tantz's fantasy book series The art of Veiling!

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Little q - An intriguing safari through the dark, misty, damp, green humid jungle of human emotion. Ringing bells of synth vibraphone tones shine like spots of sunlight through the dappled shadows of expectation and obligation. Warm and comforting.



Next week's Quackcast:
Retro Adventure heroes. You know the sort, dressed in khaki, loose shirts and leather, going to exotic places, quick with a gun or a whip, exploring, fighting, doing what's right and adventuring. So we'll be chatting about the likes of Indiana Jones, Brenden Frasier's character in The Mummy, Romancing the Stone, Ace Kinkaid in Pinky TA, Lara croft, El Borak, Alan Quartermaine, Steve Canyon, Biggles, Bulldog Drummond, John Carter and maybe more!

Topics and shownotes

Links


Featured comic:
Welcome to my House - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/mar/01/featured-comic-welcome-to-my-house/

Featured music:
Little q - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/little_q/ - by PaddyWolfe, rated E.

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

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

I consider Drunk Duck (or the Duck Webcomics) to be the Heavy Metal of webcomic hosting sites, because like that excellent anthology comic publication we celebrate the oddballs. On DD we have comics of all different styles, many that would find it hard or even impossible to promote themselves anywhere else. We're open to all skill levels and all styles. We only promote things we consider to have high quality or high potential in our features, but we don't have a particular style prejudice, we don't only feature things that give us a homogeneous, unified look. We're proud of our variety! We don't gate keep or block anyone from access to our site and we feel that's one of our greatest strengths.

The inspiration for this cast was a thread Bravo1102 made about a mention in the “bad Webcomics Wiki”, about things that indicate a webcomic is “bad”. One of them was that it was hosted on a site like Drunk Duck. The commenters in the thread took exception to that, as you'd expect, coming together to rally against a common threat. I want to be clear that we in no way consider The Bad Webcomics Wiki a threat, it's just an entertainment site focusing on roasting webcomics, the mention of DD was probably made over a decade ago by people who've long forgotten about us now. However the community reaction was interesting and brought up many things worth talking about.

We're the granddaddy of hosting sites, and we're still fit as a bull. We've been around for 20 years (I never tire of mentioning that). Kids have started with us and come back to us as adults. Young adults have started with us and met partners through us. Members have had kids and now their kids have comics with us. Our older members have been with us right up to the end. DD members have gone one to have very successful money making webcomics, have careers in the gaming industry working for people like Rockstar, working in publishing, in Hollywood, working in professional comics for Marvel and DC, etc. Many started out with basic skills and were nurtured and supported by the community here till they developed their skills. And many professional comicers have hosted with us.

Hosting with us is far from being a sign that your webcomic is “bad”, rather it's a sign that you're an independent thinker; that you have something interesting to say that doesn't fit into the cookie-cutter mold of other places on the net. At DD you have a home for your creativity.


This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to A Lunatics Tale - Quick step and tap, tap, tap your foot into this funky conversion between Instruments! The light chatter of the electric guitar, the sensible burble of the bass, loud interjections of the trumpets, bombastic quips by the percussion, finishing with an intriguing conclusion from the synth.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Thread about Bad Webcomics Wiki - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179010/


Featured comic:
Atom Man - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/mar/08/featured-comic-atom-man/

Featured music:
A Lunatics Tale - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/A_Lunatics_Tale/ - by BeckKeep, rated T.


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

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

Cults are weird. Unlike normal religions (from which many cults stem), cults are usually based more around charismatic individuals rather than simple doctrine. Which means the followers of cults can often get a little crazy because they're following the whims of an individual rather than boring old text from a book. And this is why religious groups with charismatic leaders (i.e evangelical Televangelists and hardline Imams), become crazy and cultish too.

Our lovely Andreas Helixfinger inspired this cast with an idea about how horrible cults can be in fiction. He made a newspost about that on the last Sunday of February. One of the interesting things I find about depictions of cults in fiction are the difference between how the right and left show cults. The rightwing version of what a cults is usually involves satanism, pentagrams, goats, human sacrifice, blood, knives etc. While the more leftwing version is of a creepily nice, ultra conservative, uptight group of people who live in perfect houses, dress very neatly, have their hair just right and are usually very rich, but under the surface they're all creepy murderers or sex fiends or demon worshipers or something.

Some of the fictional cults we mention in the cast are various cults in Warhammer 40k; the Chaos cultists, the Imperial cult, The machine cult, the genesteeler cults… It's funny how the Chaos Cultists mirror our real world cultish people: Slaneesh cultists are sex maniacs B&D, S&M people; Khorn followers are death metalheads; Tzeentch followers would be Q-Anon conspiracy theorists; And followers of Nurgle wold be antivaxers.
Some good fictional cults were shown in The Wickerman, Midsommer, Hot Fuzz, Randal and Hopkirk Deceased (the reboot series) has about 3 different cult episodes, Welcome to NHK has a brilliant depiction of a multi level marketing cult (Anime is FULL of cults), and Tantz mentioned a great Korean movie with a cult: Keuraim Peojeul.


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Remedial Magic - Puddles and ripples of light and dappled shadow spreading outward ever wider and wider. Beads of light glow within, sparkles glitter and burn. This is a pleasantly thrumming piece of electronica that gently steps from note to note.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Evil Cult Newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/feb/26/horrific-evil-cults/
Keuraim Peojeul - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15305982/

Featured comic:
ORIGIN by David Abiola Olukoga - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/mar/01/featured-comic-origin-by-david-abiola-olukoga/

Featured music:
Remedial Magic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Remedial_Magic/ - by Sameth, rated T.

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

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

Last week we did a thing of the persistent myths of fiction- fictional conventions that we all just accept, and are repeated over and over and even influence real life- for example: that people are blasted back in reaction to being shot. It started as a way of making shooting scenes more dramatic and obvious on film, but became a convention and we all believe it so much that it influences reality- it's part of the famous JFK conspiracy about a “second shooter” because people foolishly think JFK's head rocking “back and to the left” indicated the direction of a gunshot. The kinetic energy of a bullet is imparted to the medium it strikes, typically through heat and destruction when it hits a soft target like a human.

In that vein we cover a few gory myths, thanks to suggestions by Bravo1102 and Tantz's Red Cross experience. Everything from decapitation to period myths. Also some stiff about defibrillator paddles- they can't restart a heart that's stopped, rather there are two particular kinds of irregular rhythms that they are able to shock back to normal- I picked up that bit of info from my Ex, Amy- an excellent ER nurse. Uncredited in the Quackcast. We cover quite a few more. People's suggestions were great!

Lastly- We'd like to acknowledge the horrible invasion of Ukraine that has taken place. That is an awful thing for the world and particularly the civilian population of Ukraine itself. We mention that in the cast. I don't like propaganda or tales of heroic military action and defiance, it's ridiculous and stupid. We stand with the civilians who're suffering. War is a horrible thing and we hate it. Tantz and I both do war themed comics and our perspective is a bit different from the usual. We recommend the comic “The Second Crimean War” on DD for a good perspective on Ukraine.


This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to Eva of Asgard - Thunderclaps, followed by a slow, steady downpour that gradually increases in strength before collapsing into a furious, chaotic storm of electric guitar driven hard rock! An electric guitar strikes like lighting, illuminating the entire piece in sharp relief, till the metal tempest blows itself out and fades away.


Topics and shownotes

Links

Thread about persistent myths in fiction - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/178988/

The Second Crimean War - a great comic about the issues with Ukraine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Second_Crimean_War/

Featured comic:
Cassie York in the Purple Nowhere Part I - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/feb/22/featured-comic-cassie-york-in-the-purple-nowhere-part-i/

Featured music:
Eva of Asgard - - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/EVA_of_Asgard/ - by Synwells, rated T.


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

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
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There are so many really silly cliché myths from fiction that we all just tend to accept. They're objectively stupid but they get repeated so often that we don't bat an eye when we see them and we can even start to believe them in reality. I thought it'd be fun to dig into them in a Quackcast. I made a thread in the forum for people to contribute to. Unfortunately we didn't get to many in the Quackcast but there's always time to do another!

Just so you get an idea of what I mean, here are some bellow:
- That Indian burial grounds are magical and can cause spirits to come to the land of the living.
- that demons speak Latin, or Aramaic, or ancient Greek or any other bronze Age language.
- that guns can't harm demons or monsters.
- that dangerous animals and insects are evil and they want to kill you.
- that people get blasted through the air when shot by guns.
- that all native people can track stuff anywhere and live off the land and that they're also close to the spirit world etc…
- That security lasers are red beams and easy to avoid.
- That women in the 19th century always complained about tight corsets.
- that peasants were dirty and never washed.
- That back-flips are the best way to doge when in a fight.
- That using paired weapons in each hand is always better and means a person is super deadly and skilled.
- That wearing a sword on your back is a good idea.
- The Heimlich Maneuver is the standard medical and scientifically endorsed way to stop someone choking.

More fiction myths please!


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Untitled Brick Comic - Piano notes step back and forth, swaying, prevaricating, halting, hesitating, before taking the leap into action to dance, spin and twirl on the glowing dance floor to this 90s inspired dance track.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Myths of fiction thread -

Featured comic:
Team 541 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/feb/14/featured-comic-team-541/

Featured music:
Untitled Brick Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Untitled_Brick_Comic/ - by Ccznen, rated E.

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

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

Time to chat about character hairstyles. Tantz did a newspost about them a few weeks ago and I spun the topic off into a fashion subject for a Quackcast, but something really basic and simple like hair has a lot of potential in its own right. There are lots of things you can consider…

-What does the hair style mean for the story and the on screen action (messed up, neat etc)?
-What hair we like to draw on characters?
-HOW to draw different hairstyles?
-Characters with the best hairstyles?
-To manga or not to manga hair? Manga hair styles are pretty weird. Either clumpy and spiky or weirdly coloured and super glossy.
-Bald is beautiful? Pinky was going to be bald at one stage…
-What's up with beards?
-Body hair?

It's just endless ^_^


This week Gunwallace gave us a musical theme to Wrota Metro - It bounces along like the rythmic, mechanical pulsing of a complex machine, keeping to a time and purpose known only to itself and it's creator. Following its progress is lulling and mesmerising, one could get caught up in it and keep going for days!


Topics and shownotes

Links

Tantz's newspost on hair - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/12/the-significance-of-hairstyle/

Featured comic:
Space Daddy Adventures - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/feb/08/featured-comic-space-daddy-adventures/

Featured music:
Wrota Metro- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Wrota_Metro/ - by Byj561, rated M.


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

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

He might not be in the Quackcast right now but he's in our hearts and in this topic! Banes did a newspost about Nostalgia the other day because so much popculture these days is openly recycled: from reboots and remakes, to stuff done in 80s styles etc. This sort of thing has always existed of course, nothing is new not even nostalgia ironically, but today there is more of it and less totally new stuff.

Oh! Special note. Today we were joined by Andreas Helixfinger! The brilliant Swede. So we have even more international flavour now. He will be doing newsposts on Sunday!

Instead of complaining about it we decided to talk about the nostalgia we loved! What are the best reboots and sequels? What are the things that you love that are being revisited?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to DNR - contemplative, cool, introspection. Electric guitar and synthesizers waft in blue and pink waves, vibing together and relaxing. They hit a couple of stressful bumps in along the way though, where the energy is ramped up too high. They play through that and go back to relaxing the first time, the second time it happens they're finished and flatlined.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Banes's newspost: Fountain of Nostalgia - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/feb/02/fountain-of-nostalgia/

Featured comic:
TWO PENNY VAUDVILLE - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/feb/01/featured-comic-two-penny-vaudville/

Featured music:
DNR - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/DNR/ - by Arborcides, rated M.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
PitFace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Andreas Helixfinger - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Andreas_Helixfinger

VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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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 about one of the cool things about being an adult: growing out of childhood prejudices and expanding your tastes to try new things. There's this rosy, idealistic idea that kids are culture sponges, open to everything, all experiences and tastes, but that's a fantasy unfortunately. Kids are only open to experiences for a relatively short time before their preferences solidify, but even THEN they have a very strict hierarchy of sources they'll accept those influences from- parents, friends, family etc. A lot of what they like is driven by peer pressure and the opinions of others.

Even as a teen and young adult you have pretty strong prejudices, you like a lot of things but you tend NOT to like many things in broad categories because you “know” that you don't like them. For example: “classical music is boring”, “modern art is pretentious”, “Romance movies are for wimps”, “Country music is for rednecks”, “Poetry is lame”. etc. These childish broad brush “I know what I like”, statements are things we all say at one time or another.
One of the wonderful things about adulthood is that we don't have to worry about the prejudices so much, especially those influenced by peer pressure and perceptions about what others will think about us for liking certain things. this means we can go back and check out all those wonderful things we missed out on and see if we really DO like them!

Try reading some classics, try some jazz, country and classical music, read some superman, try the genres you despised and see if that's really what you think.

TLDR: Being an adult- means losing prejudices so you can go back an enjoy what you missed


This week Gunwallace Gunwallace was busy busy getting older and having a birthday! Yup, he's growing up. So the classic Gunwallace theme I've picked this week is Feint (also for Quackcast 459) - A raw thrumming violin importantly intones ringing chords over and over as it sets us up for a beautifully rocky crescendo that culminates in a tumultuous sonic climax!


Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Wrota Metro - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jan/25/featured-comic-wrota-metro/

Featured music:
Feint - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Feint/ - by Stonedraccoon, rated M.


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

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

Pit and Tantz join me to talk about about fairies, fae, Faery, Fair folk, Yokai, and all that good stuff. They're like the dark-matter of the supernatural world: they're not really gods, demons, monsters, or ghosts (though sometimes they are al of those sort off…), they generally fill the spaces between. They exist in a lot of cultures all over the place. They can be naughty spirits, elemental creatures, or animalistic, but generally they're quite alien and unknowable. This discussion comes from Tantz's newspost on Saturday.

We talk about the pretty fairies from popculture and how those were quite popular in the latter half of the 19th century among the spiritualists and romantic naturalists. We talk about the “royal fae”, the sexy humanoid Fae like Titania, Puck and Oberon (mentioned in Shakespeare), and Herne the hunter. Fairy myth like changelings and kelpies and how they may have arisen as cautionary tales. We chat about how alien mythology simply directly replaces fairy myth in the modern world with things like abduction, mutilation of farm animals, lost time and other fantastical ideas. We also talk about the modern KING of the fairy image and myth: Brian Froud, who not only created a brilliant book with gathered myths and explanations about the seelie and unseelie court, but also single handedly created and influenced the very look of all modern illustrations of fae-folk with his particular stylings and his work on things like The Labyrinth, the Dark Crystal, the Story Teller and other things.
What are your fave fairies and fairy stories? What do you hate in fairy myth?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Ark Hunters - Notes cascading and calibrating, before committing and tumbling down and along in a continuous torrent, a cataract of notes, flowing and bursting outward. Acoustic and electronic, guitar, violin, piano and percussion vying continuously.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Tantz's newspost: The Fae - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jan/21/the-fae/

Featured comic:
Dry Kings - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jan/16/featured-comic-dry-kings/

Featured music:
Ark Hunters - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ark_Hunters/ - by Tombag, rated T.

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

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

Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

Let's talk about total immersion… When consuming media rather than creating it, if you're lucky you become immersed: the struggles and fears of the character become your own. You feel for them, you care, their pain, their hunger, even their shivers and sweats, you care about the world in which they live…
That can be an amazing feeling and it's pretty much WHY we really enjoy and keep consuming media. Themes, great visuals, intellectual explorations of ideas and concepts are all very well but nothing compels and excites you as much as when you really CARE what's happening.
So that's what we're chatting about!

Tantz and I talk about some of the times when we've felt really immersed in a story and what that felt like. It's amazing how comics, movies, games, radio plays etc can take you away from your present and plonk you into the world they're depicting. Personally I find the less visuals provided by the media the easier it is to be immersed (so books and radio plays), because most of the story has to be built in your head, but you can find immersion with any media. That's why when its over you feel so bereft and marooned: you've been bumped out of that world. It's also why we want sequels so much and are usually always disappointed by how they turn out: we don't really care about another story with the character starting over, what we want is to live in that world with them one more time, and when it's inevitably not the same (because most writers don't understand the real point of a sequel), we're unsatisfied.

This is also the main reason I don't like horror movies: I will become immersed in the story so I feel the pain and fear of the characters, I care about them too much so horror movies depress and sadden me if I let myself become immersed.
What are your experiences with story immersion? Are they good, bad, do you love it or just not care too much?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Dude in Distress - a classical, slow, dancing promenade… careful steps in satin slippers on mirror polished wood… At full speed we’re launched into relentless movement. Hydraulic, electric servos of enormous power push us ever on, altering the world in unimaginable and extreme ways.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
INTERSTELLAR BATTLE GIRLS LEAGUE of SUPER WARRIORS - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jan/11/featured-comic-interstellar-battle-girls-league-of-super-warriors/

Featured music:
Dude in Distress - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Dude_in_Distress/ - by EssayBee T, rated T.

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

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

“The Girl Boss in the sausagefest”
Pitface and Tantz chat are here to chat with me about the subject or lady Barbarians: What they look like, where they originated, why they originated, what they mean, and the logic behind them. They're often overshadowed by their male counterparts (e.g. Conan), and often dismissed as simply an erotic male fantasy, but they've been around just as long and they've also had just as much of a role to play in the traditional “barbarian” mythos as the male versions. Sure, the sexy versions are abundant, iconic, and visually striking, but they're not the be all and end all!

This Quackcast was inspired by the topic of my 8th Fashion Spotlight and its focus on the barbarian woman Rose Red, I go into a lot of detail there and it's linked bellow if you're interested. for a little bit of a recap: lady barbarians go back at least as far as the Roman empire, even older possibly. In Rome they took the form of “gladiatrixes” (female gladiators), who were dressed as and promoted as barbarian fighters from exotic, uncivilised lands (Africa, all over Europe etc), as a way to excite the interest of the paying public to pay to see the fights, the same as we'd do today with wrestling and MMA. Many influences were behind this: the myth of the Amazons, the myth of Atalanta, red haired Celtic queen Boadicea, even early ideas for what was behind the myth of Medusa - she was thought to be based on the queen of a barbarian tribe rather than Ovid's much later idea that she was a virgin temple priestess.

But of course most of us know female barbarians because of their modern incarnations. They've always been around in the history of art but they had a spike in popularity with the Italian “Sword and Sandal” movies of the 1960s, then the art of fantasy art master Frank Frazetta in the 1970s. They found their way into things like Dungeons and Dragons and with the success of Conan the Barbarian and the Robert E Howard inspired Valeria in that film a whole host of lady barbarians got their own films, often exploitative and sexy. The most famous lady barbarian of the time was Red Sonja, loosely based on another Robert E Howard character called Red Sonya, but turned from an armoured fighter against the Ottoman Turks into a scale-mail bikini wearing comic book barbarian woman from prehistory.

The most famous lady barbarian to come after her was Xena, the warrior princess, played by statuesque New Zealand sketch comedian Lucy Lawless. Xena was simply a female spinoff from Hercules The Legendary journeys. The really cool thing about her is that not only did she achieve extreme popularity and her show totally eclipsed its originator, she was also an original character AND she got that popularity without leveraging the sexiness of the premise or character!

Some notable lady barbarians I can think off… Virginia Hey's Warrior Woman, Tina Turner's character, and Furiosa from the Mad Max 2, 3, and 4 respectively; Lady Death; Red Sonja; Grace Jone's character from Conan the Destroyer; Valeria (Sandal Bergman) from Conan the Barbarian; Queen Boadicea; Xena; Betty Paige's Cheetah woman (her look was probably an inspiration for Xena in some ways); Ygritte from Game of Thrones; Atalanta; Princess Merida of Brave; I even created my own version in a Barbarian Pinky TA!
Who are your faves from the this genre?


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Creeping through the desert ruins, not wearing overly much, heat hits like a wall, golden sun dazels and mystifies. From plucked strings to creepy atmospherics, the sound bursts in a bombastic wave of high energy multilayered noise and exotic sounds, with pounding percussion.

Topics and shownotes

Links

DD Fashion Spotlight 8: Rose Red - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jan/05/friday-fashion-spotlight-8-rose-red/

Featured comic:
Latitude Zero - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jan/04/featured-comic-latitude-zero/

Featured music:
Hentai Action Theater - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Hentai_Action_Theater - by Bedlam Boy, rated A.

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

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

Happy New Year! It seems we've all decided to keep going on with the 20's so let's continue…

Did you know the year 2022 marks 20 years that Drunk Duck has been around? YUP! The site is actually THAT old THIS year!
No other comic host is as old and legit as us. They're all little babies. Even Facebook didn't exist when we stated, no iphones, no smartphones, tablets, no Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Pintrest, Instagram, Spotify, tiktok and so on. Jeeeeez man, we're freakin GRANDDADDIES of the internet. Even this podcast turns 12 years old this year.
Hopefully 2022 will be the year when we get our facelift, new looks, better features and keep being the cool, grown-up, mature and interesting alternative, to all the bland cooperate comic hosts out there.
At the end of the cast, we start getting arrogant and silly and describe ourselves as the gods of DD XD I can't believe we recorded that!

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Giovani Vigilanti - Catchy bass notes, strings echoing like percussion leading us up bouncing purple steps into an orange cloudy sunset lit sky. This tune moves ever onwards, always right, like a 16 bit sidescrolling fighter, towards inevitable confrontation with a level boss. We best him easily and keep rolling ever on.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Stick Figure Apocalypse - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/dec/28/featured-comic-stick-figure-apocalypse/

Featured music:
Giovani Vigilanti - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Giovani_Vigilanti/ - by Urekgp, rated E.

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

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

Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/drunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

huh hu hu hohohohohohohohohohohoh Merry Christmas!

Merry Xmas from everyone here at DD, but most especially Tantz, Banes and me, Ozoneocean! Pitzy is away for a while on family business, it's the time of year and family comes first. Tantz is at home with her pretty Christmas tree in cold Athens, Banes is snug and warm in his place in snowy Canada, and I'm sweating my bum off in Perth Western Australia as the temperature gets close to 44C (110.66F), but I dressed up like an exotic santa anyway hahaha! Which I tried to draw but lost confidence in my skills because it's SOOOO bloody hot and I can't concentrate so I posted screenshotted pics from our Patreon video instead. I AM MELTING!!!!!!
We have no particular topic this time, just a Christmas chat. It's mostly Tantz and I because Banes had to rush off to work, dedicated fellow he is.
How did you spend Christmas?
Was it hot there too? Cold? Did you actually get a white Christmas?
I would LOVE a winter Christmas.

This week Gunwallace gave us no theme, instead he suggested replaying The Rose Killer, a theme to a comic by Nicotine. This theme first apreared in Quackcast 199. It's noir, street, jazz, smokey bar music, VERY atmospheric.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Giovani Vigilanti - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/dec/21/featured-comic-giovani-vigilanti/

Featured music:
The Rose Killer - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Rose_Killer/ - by Nicotine, rated M.

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

Merry Christmas and whatever you celebrate :)
Interesting topic from Banes! It's his idea that sometimes the literal elements of a story (the plot etc.) are simply too weak to properly support the theme. He gives the example of The Truman show, where the idea is that a person is living a fake life under constant surveillance as the star of one of the most popular real life TV shows ever and he doesn't know anything about it… The themes are the power of the media, commercialism, the American dream, obsession with reality TV etc. Banes felt that although these themes were very strong the practical setup of the world and story weren't quite strong enough to support it.
I remember feeling that way as well when I originally saw it. The universal obsession with the show and the practical challenges of setting up and maintaining that fraud for so long with all those people were all nonsensical. Good theme but they didn't think hard enough about the setting. This is an aspect we don't always think about!

That's distinct from stories with a more symbolic setting like The 7th Seal, or Mullholland Drive because we know they are are not meant to be literal, there are more than enough cues! But when the literal aspects of the story are key to conveying the theme then they need to work. It's a very simple but powerful idea and helps you realise whey a lot of stories with big themes just don't quite gel or sit right: it's not you, it's them.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to c h h t - Seriousness, sadness, blue strobes, faded scenes, isolation, concrete and plain facades. The lights are dim as twilight approaches. Night closes in and streetlights bloom with golden halos. Two strangers meet in the a circle of light glittering on the wet road.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Banes' newspost on themes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/dec/15/above-and-below-the-surface/

Featured comic:
Tiger Tea - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/dec/14/featured-comic-tiger-tea/

Featured music:
c h h t - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/c_h_h_t/ - by Princefishie Lover, rated T.

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

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

We all know that fiction and reality are separate things, but fiction mirrors reality and we suspend disbelief to ignore the parts that are unrealistic so that we often treat fiction the same way AS reality. But there are many tropes and aspects of fiction that ONLY work in fiction and can't work in reality. I was inspired to examine this idea because of our Fetish-cast with Fallopian Crusader and his idea that certain fetishes can only exist in comics.

An obvious example of this is superheroes and their costumes. Of course there are many stories that try and make more “realistic” versions of superheroes (Kickass etc), but that's beside the point. The vast majority of superhero stories create their OWN reality that we just accept- amazing superpowers, magic, horrific acts, feats of amazing heroism, and super amazing costumes. It's possible to have heroic vigilantes in reality, without powers, but classic superhero costumes just never work, even though marvel has shown better than anyone else that they can work amazingly in live action movies.

A lot of fiction sets us up with unrealistic expectations- raunchy comedies about university life all gave us a very unreal idea of what goes on there (this was parodied in the Simpsons), and romantic comedies and romances give us a terrible idea of how to court a person! If we were to do a lot of these things in reality they'd be regarded as criminal acts; assault, stalking, theft, or just plain creepy, unethical, crazed and horrible.

What were some of the unrealistic expectations you had about reality from fiction? What are some of the things that only work in fiction but don't really exist in reality?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Ferda Boys - The sounds of the crowd ebbing and flowing, Ice hockey sticks clacking, a whistle blows and the action is on! Heavy piano, light drums and soaring distorted guitar burn through this 70s sports power ballad, singing the plays while the match progresses. The music fades and the crowd roars in appreciation as the puck strikes the back of the net!
The sound effects come from https://Zapsplat.com, a royalty free sound library.

Topics and shownotes

Links

FetishCast, Fallopian Crusader tells us about how some fetishes ONLY exist in comics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-557-fetishes-in-comics

Featured comic:
Ferda Boys - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/30/featured-comic-ferda-boys/

Featured music:
Ferda Boys - - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ferda_Boys/ - by Hockey Webcomics, rated E.

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

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

This interesting Quackcast topic was influenced by a DDer who has been subsumed by anti-CoVid conspiracy. This inspired me to delve into the reasons for the massive growth in these types of conspiracy and how the current state of the internet contributes to it. I had some theories, but I thought I should do some reading on the subject to see what the real reasons are rather than using guesses to fill the gaps like conspiracy thinkers tend to do. I was quite shocked by what I found.

There are really three main parts to the problem: 1. Gate-keeping, personalisation and curation of our online communication and viewing by big tech companies. 2. This curation tends to have the effect of polarising us and making our views more extreme than they are 3. Groups use these factors to manipulate people through the use of bots (in the form of fake users), as well as paid users with several accounts.

Gate keeping:
The majority of our online interaction is through only a few large companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, TikTok, Twitter, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon etc), they closely track every aspect of our online behavior and use it along with AI to customise and curate our online experience: the Facebook and Twitter feeds, suggested videos in YouTube, “personalised” Google search and so on, the same for the “friends” it suggests to us. None of that is nefarious or evil, it's just impersonal AI skewing what we see to keep us online longer and sell more ads. But this is also why their online services are free and often quite useful. It's actually quite crude and clunky, their AIs are terrible and obvious most of the time, suggested videos, news results, friends, product ads, and search results are just as often terrible as they can be useful.

Polarisation:
The friends, news stories, links, posts in Twitter and Facebook, videos on YouTube and TikTok that appear in our feeds are generally biased to what will get the most interaction and engagement from us; something that makes us angry like politics, or happy like celeb news for example. Researchers investigated this by creating neutral bots on Twitter. Beginning with “liking” the first random things suggested to them by Twitter, they then randomly “liked” subsequent things Twitter suggested to them. Each time Twitter would base what it suggested next on what had been liked, which meant that the neutral bots gradually had more and more extreme versions of whatever was initially randomly liked. If the initial thing had a slightly left leaning bent, in the end the suggestions were extreme and the same for right-wing and so on. In this way social media has a default tendency to radicalise us. This is part of the reason online debate is so polarised.

Manipulation:
The Problem is that it's very easy to manipulate this system and us as a consequence. It's very cheap to set up millions of bots as fake people and give them user accounts. I'm sure you've occasionally seen suspicious accounts that have tried to add you as a friend, people with names and preferences that don't fit their profile photos, these are generally poor people in West Africa and Pakistan who're paid to set up multiple profiles, basically the human version of bots, in an effort to circumvent anti-bot security measures.
The purpose of these fake accounts is manifold. They can be used to skew the kinds of news people see, spread fake rumours, sell products and scams, increase the profiles of certain people etc. This is done by having them all share the same phrases, hash tags, and links, and liking things, that in turn tricks the AIs that curate and personalise your feeds and searches into suggesting what the bots have promoted.

Researches have documented this activity from Russian and Chinese state controlled bot farms, it's also been the tactic of Islamic State (ISIL) to attract and radicalise people, spammers, scammers like Natural News and Mercola who sell fake health products and diet scams, multi level marketers, hackers, angry conspiracy theorists with agendas like the antivaxer crowd, and even just people out to make money from advertising with fake clickbait news stories about celebrities- You've all seen and clicked on those terrible ads at the bottom of news stories run by Zergnet, Taboola, and Outbrain. These always lead to low quality, often fake stories with lists that you click through. They're harmless but time wasting.

If you lacked scruples you could also use those tactics to increase the profile of your webcomic! In fact we can see it in the small scale in the way webcomic hosts like Taps and Webtoons manipulate their audiences: only recommending certain types of comic to them, promoting only those comics on their main page and elsewhere etc, this in turn forces creators to produce comics which look and feel the same way because it seems the only alternative available.

Online VS the real world
It's very important to remember that the online world Vs real world is a false dichotomy. There is ONLY the real-world. The internet is only a form of communication, but it is the dominant and most important form of communication which is why this stuff is so very important and dangerous. It has real world consequences, as seen with CoVid-19 conspiracies, Pizzagate and the invasion of the Capitol building, this idiocy results in mass deaths. Sites like Twitter, Youtube, Tiktok, and Facebook have been great sources of citizen journalism and alternative news, but unfortunately they're now very simple to manipulate and control. Where once they were a great alternative to polarising mainstream media, now that usefulness has been compromised.

Personally I'm all for neutrality and fact checking which is why I financially support the Web Archive, Skeptoid Media, Wikipedia, Snopes, and The Skeptics Guide to the Universe (I bought their book). None of these sites get it right all the time, but they actively try to and they provide valuable resources for the rest of us to try and help keep the world honest and agenda free.


This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Ham - a quiet country road… golden sun rays barely caress the shadowed trees through the cold morning mist. An old truck bounces and jounces along on stiff suspension, past brushing branches, roaring through the stillness. Beautifully evocative notes draw us in, then the tune excites with plucked banjo and burning, distorted electric guitar.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Sources:
In Defense of Truth - https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdoepub/377/
Social Bots and Social Media Manipulation in 2020: The Year in Review - https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.08436
Fake Online News Spreads Through Social Echo Chambers - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fake-online-news-spreads-through-social-echo-chambers/
Artificial Intelligence and Echo Chambers - https://www.counterterrorismgroup.com/post/artificial-intelligence-and-echo-chambers
Neutral bots probe political bias on social media - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25738-6
Skeptoid Media - https://skeptoid.com

Featured comic:
Pep Squad - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/dec/07/featured-comic-pep-squad/

Featured music:
The Ham - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/the_ham/ - by Hansrickheit, rated M.

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

Today we're chatting about the NEW news feature that we're doing every Friday: The DD Fashion Spotlight. This is a new way to promote comics without all the restrictions of the featured comic system. To be eligible for a normal Wednesday feature a comic has to have at least 15 pages, be currently updating, not in the top ten, have good writing and artwork, not be adult rated, and not have been featured before. That cuts down the playing field quite a lot but it's what we have to do to make it worth a feature.

The fashion spotlight is quite different! All that's required is that the comic has characters with outfits that are interesting enough to talk about, It could be a one page comic that stopped updating 11 years ago, it can be adult rated, it can be in the top ten, it can have had a feature before, it can even have had a fashion spotlight feature before, whatever, as long as there are clothes to talk about it's eligible. I've done two so far.

There were a few reasons behind this new feature… One was the featured comic from a couple of weeks ago about the Halloween Fashion show comic, one was Tantz's newspost about how character's hair styles can be used to convey emotion and things, there was the fact that Emm couldn't do Friday newsposts anymore for a while, and lastly my own love of clothing. I've always been a bit of a collector of clothes, especially antique items. I also do my own sewing, do cosplay, make my own Napoleonic military uniform gear, and I love designing outfits for the characters in m comic. Initially I approached Vino Mas with the idea of running the feature because he's run many fashion events on DD in the past, but he has too may commitments so I thought I'd tackle it myself. I future we may have other reviewers though!

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Tiger Tea - Bass notes lead us on a winding little path… to a vast winding staircase built by a relentless driving synthesised tune that takes us on mysterious journey, up, down, and around, disorienting and enchanting.

Topics and shownotes

Links

DD Fashion Spotlight 1 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/18/friday-fashion-spotlight/
DD Fashion Spotlight 2 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/25/friday-fashion-spotlight-the-intrepid-torpedo/

Featured comic:
Catch22 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/22/featured-comic-catch-22/

Featured music:
Tiger Tea - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Tiger_Tea/ - by PaddyWolfe, rated M.

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

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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Interview with Dwight L Macpherson, creator of The surreal adventures of Edgar Allen Poo, now known as The imaginary voyages of Edgar Allen Poe! Dwight joined DD back in the old days, well over a decade ago. Back then he hosted his comic with us, about Edgar Allen Poe. From the very beginning I could see that both it and its author were destined for bigger and better things and I'm pleased to say that came to pass. Through a lot of hard work, with the efforts and both him and his wife working as a team, Dwight has found success as an independent published author with a number of projects under his belt and more ongoing ones in the pipeline.

I still remember the surreal moment years ago with I saw his Poe book in a bookshop here in Australia in my isolated city of Perth. I had this weird moment where I was taken out of reality and didn't know know where I'd seen it before and then worlds came crashing together! From all the way back in 2006 when I first saw it online on DD to years later when it's there in book form right in front of me, not in the USA somewhere or Europe where most DD stuff lives, but right in front of me at my little suburban bookshop in Perth Western Australia, in the most isolated capital city on the planet. It still seems like a false memory. And now Dwight is back with us on DD and happy to chat and tell us all how he got where he is today, happy to share the secrets of his success.

Dwight's story: It all started in Korea, stationed there as a sergeant, researching pirates for a story which became the comic Dead Men tell no Tails. It was eventually published in Arcana comics with Ben Templesmith as the cover artist (a fellow Perth peson who I've met). A TV producer in California was looking for works to option and picked up Dwight's book. It didn't go anywhere but Rebecca and dwight eventually met, married and became a powerhouse team working on Hocus Pocus Comics togther (HP comics). Dwight is a huge advocate for independant creators and alternative publishing modes, one of those of course being webcomics!

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Miss Sisyphus - Slow, faded monochrome ennui, colour bleeds in gradually, like a stain on paper, filing with life, danger, adventure, futuristic exploration, like a dull and dusty bud, blossoming into a gorgeous flower, full of colour and heady scent.

Topics and shownotes

Links

About Dwight and Hocus Pocus Comics - https://www.hpcomics.net/our-story
More of Dwight's links - https://linktr.ee/Dwightlmacpherson
Dwight's comics on DD - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/edgarallanpoo/
The comic I first knew him for - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Surreal_Adventures_of_Edgar_Allan_Poo/
Pip's Monster House, the current project - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Pips_Monster_House_/

Featured comic:
c h h t - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/16/featured-comic-c-h-h-t/

Featured music:
Miss Sisyphus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Miss_Sisyphus/. - by SinisterDuck, rated M.

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

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Fallopiancrusader joined us as a very special guest to chat about fetishes in comics! It's really interesting and he brings his expertise with adult comics and his wide ranging knowledge of comics in general to bear on the subject. So what are fetishes? Well they're often things that people have sort of a sexual interest in but aren't always associated with sex themselves, they're peripheral to sex. Because of that they're often enjoyed and appreciated in their own right for their own sake! Think of things like body piercings, tight laced corsets, wearing fursuits, spanking, wearing S&M leather and PVC gear, shoe appreciation etc. all things associated with sex that people can also enjoy and appreciate outside of sex.

Comics have a long and surprising history of being associated with fetishism. One obvious thing is that superheroes wear skin-tight outfits that leave little to the imagination, they also often find themselves in perilous situations where they're tied up and gagged (or at least they USED to in the old days), and there are obviously people for who dressing up as superheroes IS a fetish (not cosplayers), but that's not really what we're talking about here so much, apart from two big exceptions: The mainstays of DC Comics Wonder Woman and Superman. Both have an association with fetishism.

Joe Shuster, cocreator of Superman, made money drawing comics where characters would be whipped, tied up and “tortured” in titillating ways. The creator of Wonder Woman was into bondage, which is the reason Wonder Woman has a magic lasso and why she always used to find herself tied up with it. He practiced bondage in his private life with his wife and her female partner. There are also people like Wally Wood who was a great comic artist, commonly credited with Power Girl's impressive bust, his sex comics are extensive and very well drawn!

Something very insightful that FallopianCrusader bought up was that there are various fetishes that can ONLY really be explored through the medium of comics! Things like giantism, miniature people, vore (where characters eat a lot), expansion, furies, Robot sex, horror body modification, giant boobs, huge genitals, Tentacles and more. In fact one of the most popular runaway hit comics on DD (NOT a sex comic) explored both expansion and vore fetishes at the same time, it was called “Craving Control”. In it a woman would be insatiably drawn to consume vast quantities of food and as a consequence her body would expand, her stomach and already big boobs would grow. But very soon she would magically shrink down again back to her old conventionally sexy proportions. People LOVED it, it had massively wide appeal outside of those fetish interests because it was funny and well drawn but it was only created because of fetishes and the fetishes in that from can't really exist in reality.

Some of the other things we chat about: Fritz the cat - Robert Crumb, Air Pirates and the secret Disney sex files, Virtual sex, Body modification, Vampirella, Greg Land, Fan-fiction, Witchblade, Adam Hughes, Richard Corbin big dick characters, Convention VS fetish, Pantsu upskirt, Opia, muscle women, dick women, kicking in the genitals…

This is a safe for work Quackcast and does not go into sexy details, so don't worry in that regard.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Creepy and beautiful synth scene-setting that creates space and volume and then fills it with a meat grinding steamroller of death that slashes and crushes all in its path like a huge armoured monster!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Our Special Guest, Fallopiancrusader - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/fallopiancrusader/

Featured comic:
Halloween Fashion Show - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/09/featured-comic-halloween-fashion-show/

Featured music:
Halloween Fashion Show - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Halloween_Fashion_Show/ - by Sleeping_gorilla, rated E.

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

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Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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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 other day Tantz Aerine wrote a newspost about an article critical of Squid Game. The crux of things was that the Squid Game creator had said their message was anti-capitalist, while this critic was saying that the author's message with the Squid Game was an anti communist critique and not a very good one at that.
The issue here is that isn't how you do criticism. At all. You can give an interesting reading of something and tell us why YOU think it's anti-Communist, or tell us how it looks through the lens of post-colonialism or new wave feminism etc, but you can't say that is what the author is saying or what the work means, especially if the author explicitly says WHAT they are saying.
This may seem like a small distinction but it's actually very, very important. Bad criticism often tells us what the creator is saying. Don't do that. Don't be that person.

When you have a creative work to look at, you can't tell us what it means or what the author means, only the creator can do that. You CAN tell us what it means to you though. You can tell us about the commonly agreed meanings of various tropes and symbols too as well as their meanings within different cultural frameworks and contexts, but not why the creator used them, that's up to the creator.

The Squid Game is based on the deathmatch trope from anime and manga using all the clichés from that form including poor ordinary people caught up in something dangerous that they don't fully understand, a callous attitude to life, normally innocuous games turned deadly, twists and turns with who's really behind the whole thing, betrayal and so on. We can say that for a certainty because it's provably true. Why did the author co-opt the deathmatch trope? We can't say, but we can theorise they used it because it's popular in Korea and Japan. We can also talk about the history of the deathmatch trope, different examples of it like Running Man, Deathrace 2000, Gantz, Btooom, Danganronpa, Deadman Wonderland, Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, and many more which all follow the same pattern. We can use those examples to talk about why the elements of those tropes exist but we can NOT talk about their use in Squid Game in isolation. That would be like talking about the use of the word “and” in the English language without talking about the use of similar words in other languages and the origins of the word in German.

It's important to remember that things do not exist in a vacuum but also that intent is up to the creator to define, not the critic.

This week Gunwallace ha given us the theme to Secrets Of Uncrom - Secrets, hidden knowledge, secret cult meetings in guttering candlelight, murder most foul, and plots thickening! This atmospheric electronic tune has layer upon layer of interesting and disparate sounds, suggesting mystery, darkness and hidden things.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Tantz's newspost on conflicting with the author intentions - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/oct/22/flipping-off-the-author/

Featured comic:
Sapling - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/02/featured-comic-sapling/

Featured music:
Secrets Of Uncrom - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Secrets_of_Uncrom_The_Balance_of_Life_and_Death_/ - by Secretsofuncrom, rated M.

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

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Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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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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See our Halloween video on Patreon! It's free to everyone this week, just go here https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck and you can see us dressed up in costume for the cast! We always do these videos before each Quackcast but they're usually only available to Patreon subscribers. You get to see us and a much more candid version of the topic we're talking about.

This week we're talking about group shots and how cool they can be! I love drawing them, having all your characters together in the frame is so cool and fun- you can hint at character relationships, have them doing some sort of fantasy activity or just being awesome and posing together. We also chat about some of our fave group shots in film like the beginning of Reservoir Dogs, and the most prolific source of group images ever: album art!

In the cover of today's Quackcast I've added some of my fave group shots I've done from actual Quackcast covers. What are your fave group shots from film, album art, comics, posters, or your own art?

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Superstar Sparky - happy, easy going old fashioned organ notes. Grooving along on a warm summer's day, not a care in the world. Synthesized trumpets step in and raise the level, promising big things, fun, sun, and good times!

Topics and shownotes

Links

Banes' newspost on horror group shots - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/oct/24/the-horror-group-shot/

Featured comic:
Miss Sisyphus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/oct/25/featured-comic-miss-sisyphus/

Featured music:
Superstar Sparky - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Superstar_Sparky/ - by Jamanning7, rated E.

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

This year for Halloween we've decided to do another commentary! It's of the 1980s Zombie movie “Return of the Living Dead”. It's extremely 1980s in style. There are zombies, punks, yuppies, electronic music, toxic waste… It's quite an entertaining, quite comedic, nihilistic cold war zombie film with very good effects for the time that really hold up today. Even the gore is tasteful. I am NOT a fan of horror in any way, Banes and Pit lobbied hard for this movie… but even so it was not a bad film. The zombies are animated by a man made chemical contaminant, which is quite an 80s theme in of itself. They're not contagious like modern zombies, there's no infection or outbreak to contain. The problem here is that they're virtually indestructible because of the chemical that animates their flesh, they're also fully intelligent and fast moving, this makes the zombies far more menacing and scary than any modern shambling brainless decaying infected version.

If you can find the movie online (it's pretty easy) you can watch along with us as we do our commentary on the film!
Have you seen Return of the Living Dead? What did you think of it? How does it stack up today?

This week Gunwallace wasn't able to give us a theme so I'm replaying Scarred Eden: A million futuristic laser violins play a symphony of light and sound, weaving the landscapes of our dreams against the awesomely huge backdrop of a swirling, purple, star filled nebula. It's a very Jean-Michel Jare sounding piece of 80s style electronica so pairs well with this movie.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Rabbit and Corvid - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/oct/19/featured-comic-rabbit-and-corvid/

Featured music:
Scarred Eden - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Scarred_Eden/ - Damehelsing, rated M.

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

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