Photo: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Paul Gauguin. Oil on Canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (1897-98)

A somber recollection carries me back twenty-two years ago on this day when I walked into a class where an inconsolable history teacher delivered a line ...

The debate on what constitutes a “strong female character”, whether having “strong female leads” or “feminism” is tanking “woke” films these past few years, is ongoing. There's accusations of toxicity on both sides. Misogyny, misandry, wokeness and brokeness, all of these terms and hot takes are fired and take ...

I was thinking about the power of books in fiction - like, secret journals, diaries, and such.

In the show Supernatural, the brothers found a lot of information, help, and intrigue in their father's journal of his monster hunting exploits. I will say that it got harder to believe later ...

One of my favorite tropes (at least I think it's a trope. Not sure how common it is) is the “unknown hero”.

It's when a character who's known to us, the audience, maybe very well, and is at least somewhat important to us.

The character dies and ...

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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 ...

This wasn't the official poster, but the teaser poster, for the Last Crusade. There was a giant
version of it in my local theater before the movie came out. Excitement unbound at the time!

My earliest clear memory of Indiana Jones - or one of his movies - was in a ...

As You Like It
Character likability part 2

The great actor Jack Lemmon said about his character in Glengarry Glen Ross that he didn't want the guy to be likable. He thought Shelley Levine “isn't a nice man” and was not someone people should feel sorry for. Lemmon ...

Photo: “Blessed Days: Chapter 5 Promo (featuring Dylan + Grace)”. Story and art created by InkyMoondrop. May 2023.

We have several major announcements from three talented comic creators here on The Duck. InkyMoondrop of Blessed Days has updates for the direction chapters five and six are headed. Stahlberg of Android Blues ...

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Art: Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano

We're talking about WAR here! Trying to leave out politics, though that's really hard with war because ...

Photo: “Windmills through the Passenger Side Window”. Photo taken by me. (June 2022).

“When June came
The grasses headed out
And turned brown,
And the hills turned brown
Which was not a brown
But a gold and saffron
And red—
An indescribable color.
And from then on until the next ...