LISTEN on our player!
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/
We're chatting about the subject of musicals for this particular Quackcast. You might think this has nothing to do with webcomics but webcomic musicals popup from time to time, like The Black Parade on DD by Ashlee S.
Musicals are a type of entertainment like any other, usually in the form of a film or stage play, they evolved from Operas and operettas. Their characteristic feature is that communication of scenes is at points stylised into the form of a song, often involving a dance with detailed choreography. I personally love musicals, some people don't, which is fare enough.
But one of the silliest complaints about musicals is when people say “I don't get it, why are they suddenly bursting into song and dance”, they tend to say that this isn't “logical”, among other things.
ALL forms of entertainment are highly stylised and mediated, there is no such thing as literal reality in entertainment, nothing even approaching it, no matter how much we fool ourselves. Singing and dancing in musicals is actually no less realistic and no less valid than a super serious crime drama like Breaking Bad or The Wire, these all have heavy stylisation and artificial forms of communication in order to get their point across. You just have to get used to it.
Remember- before we had TV we were limited to comics, books, and silent films. Before that it was operas. Before that it was puppet shows, stage plays, and oral histories told in rhyming verse as epic poems and all those things were easily understood by audiences and able to fully communicate the feelings, emotions, tragedy and the plot for thousands of years- which is something to think about next time a person says they can't get their head around musicals. Taste is one thing, being ignorant is another.
Anyway, do you like musicals? If so, what are some of your faves?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Gaia Comic - Delightful, mysterious, evocative, and gentle. This is an interesting mix of styles, with a woody percussion, pizzicato on violins and a mournful chorus of cellos.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Musical webcomic - The Black Parade https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Black_Parade/
Featured comic:
Alpacomics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/oct/17/featured-comic-alpacomics/
Featured music:
Gaia Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Gaia_Comic/. - by Novil, rated T
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Quackcast 658 - Marvellous musicals
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, Oct. 24, 2023
Alpacomics,
Banes,
Drunk duck,
Featured comic,
Featured music,
Gia Comic,
Gunwallace,
Kawaiidaigakusei,
Marvellous musicals,
Ozoneocean,
Quackcast 658,
Tantz Aerine,
Webcomics hosting
7 likes!
©2011 WOWIO, Inc. All Rights Reserved Mastodon
Ozoneocean at 8:49PM, Oct. 25, 2023
@Dpat67, love all those too :D Plus the musical episode of Scrubs!
Ozoneocean at 8:48PM, Oct. 25, 2023
@Banes- Thankee man! ^_^
dpat57 at 10:09AM, Oct. 24, 2023
West Side Story (the amazing 1961 version) and Guys and Dolls are among my top 3 fave movies. Once More With Feeling from Buffy comes close behind these masterpieces.
Banes at 9:39AM, Oct. 24, 2023
Stupendous cover image, Oz. It...well, it downright sings!
Ozoneocean at 9:34AM, Oct. 24, 2023
@Marcorossi- perhaps but I think that plays with some singing parts and performances pretty much always existed and didn't die out, so those would have been around at the same time opera was developed?
Ozoneocean at 9:31AM, Oct. 24, 2023
Thanks Kawai! It's based on a pic of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers!
Ozoneocean at 9:30AM, Oct. 24, 2023
@Bravo- yes, there are many different styles of musical, ones where it's a show are diegetic musicals. We're suspending disbelief for every form of entertainment media to the same degree, though we don't often realise it.
marcorossi at 4:01AM, Oct. 24, 2023
When I was in high school, I studied this explanation for the birth of the Opera: In ancient times, ancient poetry like the Iliad was usually sung. The with the advent of writing nobody sung the stuff anymore (e.g. the Aeneid is written to be read, not to be sung). In the renaissance, around 1500, literates realized that ancient poetry that they were rediscovering was originally supposed to be sung, but misunderstood big time how it was sung, and in an attempt to recreate this recreated the opera. So in some sense, to the degree that musicals come from opera, it is the sing and dance part that comes first, and the normally aqcted parts that are the add-ons.
Tantz_Aerine at 12:26AM, Oct. 24, 2023
You outdid yourself with this cover image Oz!
bravo1102 at 12:25AM, Oct. 24, 2023
Actually had a unit on this when I studied film. It could be considered a literal suspension of disbelief. The song and dance are where the audience is supposed to suspend their disbelief and flow with the song and dance. There are also films that work hard at separating the created reality and the fantasy of the musical numbers by making them some sort of dream or the imagination Then there are those that have each musical number being a show. Betty Grable is in A Yank in the RAF? Okay she's an entertainer so she can have two dance numbers.