LISTEN!
The thing with retcons is that the author tends to get an idea which makes them want to go back over their story and redo or tweak the whole thing again, that's what's happened here… well sort off. Banes had some more ideas on the subject that he wanted to share, so we dove into the whole thing again! We were helped by a Websnark article on the subject linked to us by Kam in a comment on the last retcon Quackcast. It's a useful guide, breaking down the different kinds of retcon into five types:
Category One: Now Revealed! A Lost Tale of the Hero!
Category Two: The Story You Thought You Knew!
Category Three: The Real Story You Thought You Knew!
Category Four: The Story You Thought You Knew Was Right, But Now There's Been A Change!
Category Five: Meet the New Hero, Not The Same As The Old Hero Because That Never Happened!
In this Quackcast we expand upon those concepts.
Gunwallace's theme for the week was for Lego Space - It’s Block time! The sound here brings to mind the techno-mechanistic world of Lego, and especially the bright and glittering transparent blocky world of SPACE lego, vectors, angles, and joins!
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Una Garza Negra - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/18/featured-comic-una-garza-negra/
Links:
Great Websnark article about retconning - http://www.websnark.com/archives/2008/01/retconning_just_1.html
Bane's newspost on retcons - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/08/wheres-chuck/
Our first retcon Quackcast - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/08/quackcast-331-retconning-your-work/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Lego Space - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Lego_Space/, by KDog, rated E.
Quackcast 333 - Retcon the retcon
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, July 25, 2017
Banes,
featured comic,
featured theme,
Gunwallace,
kawaiidaigakusei,
Lego Space,
Ozoneocean,
podcast,
Quackcast 333,
Retcon the retcon,
Una Garza Negra,
Webcomics community
2 likes!
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bravo1102 at 11:45PM, July 27, 2017
All the Shakespeare histories are actually retcons written to please the Tudors. That Scottish play was a retcon to please James I. Control the past and you can control the present. Even Saladin made sure to choose a chronicler absolutely worshipped him.
Ozoneocean at 9:03PM, July 27, 2017
Countries regularly retcon their own histories; ALL countries. I don't know one that hasn't and if you do name one I'll doubt you. At first I just thought of China because the Emperors used to take it to extremes and the communists were no different but then I realised we all do it.
bravo1102 at 5:09AM, July 26, 2017
Many leaders attempted to retcon their lives by hiring personal chroniclers. Christopher Columbus actually was retconned too by his son Francesco who compiled and edited his father's notes, put a proper spin on them and promptly destroyed all the originals.
MOrgan at 2:36AM, July 26, 2017
It even happens in world history. When I was a kid Christopher Colombus was a heroic explorer who discovered America. Now he's an evil monster who destroyed the Native Americans' way of life. ;-)
Ozoneocean at 9:42PM, July 25, 2017
I HATE retcons when others do it, but because I'm a selfish author of my own stuff I'll do it with impunity :) That is honestly how I feel. But maybe we should respect our audiences more and leave things as they are? Respect the integrity of the work. I'm pretty sure retcons have always been a thing though. King Arthur and Jesus got it, and many famous authors who had the control over the work that they needed to do it, did it.
Ozoneocean at 9:36PM, July 25, 2017
Sorry about the sound levels! They always change and I'm always trying to get on top of that. It's a never ending struggle. :(
bravo1102 at 8:54PM, July 25, 2017
And proper planning includes leaving holes for future retconning. ;)
bravo1102 at 8:50PM, July 25, 2017
You need two things for retconning. The first is a continuity and the second are fans who care about the continuity. I can change things as much as I like as there is no established continuity except in my unpublished notes and there are no fans who care. Now to avoid any problems in the future follow tantz's excellent articles about world creating and you'll never have to retcon because proper planning prevents poor performance.
cdmalcolm1 at 7:50AM, July 25, 2017
The last 2 categories is a bit far fetched and yet it still happens. With those two Topics it changes the arc and could disappoint any fans that might have loved the original. I know sometimes it can't be helped from the creator to reintroduce a character or a story that needs to be said for future timeline stories. There are ways to doing it correctly. First, if you want to change something that major, my thoughts is to just reboot the story and start anew. If you have fans of the original, you can explain to them why a reboot is in order. You might get some rogue fans after that but you may get some new ones. I thought about rebooting SolarCell comic but I talked it over with some close readers and they kind of lead me to doing a Redux version of the original comic, but as a season 2; the future.) This time it is told by the character herself instead of me. And yes it is the same story but you'll get to know why. This gives me a lot of room to make additions.
KAM at 6:40AM, July 25, 2017
One major retcon in the KAMics is Nikki. For a while I did some cartoons featuring myself, but when I needed another character to talk to I used this red-headed gal later named Nikki, and at one point "I" told her she was a fictional character. Then when I decided to stop doing the KAMtoons because I'm boring, I revealed that she was a sister to Gertrude and Brunhilda and "the cartoonist" had lied to her. So while it was a change it's still a part of her backstory that for a time she was convinced by some evil cartoonist that she was a fictional character. Soooooo, category 2? 3?
KAM at 6:30AM, July 25, 2017
One problem with the show was that Ozone was hard to hear, but when I turned up the volume Banes was too loud. Other than that, nice show. :-)