Lately more and more comics and animated features seem to consciously, and more importantly loudly, incorporate political messages in their stories. From feminism to social stratification and discrimination, to racism and xenophobia or even depression and psychological trauma.

This is by no means a new thing, to incorporate themes and ...

There is a general idea that cliches, when they surface in the narrative of a story, be it movie, tv or webcomics or anything else, is a sign of bad writing.

There is of course a good basis for this presumption, because usually a cliche is a plot device, or ...

Happy June 1st everyone!

I have been youtube-crawling today around the cinema pop-culture side. And as I was watching assorted comments and commentary on a whole lot of YA (i.e. Young Adult) and children's books and TV/film/animation series, from Harry Potter to The Last Airbender to ...

If you want to design a memorable character it doesn’t just stop at their looks. How they speak, write and use body language is integral to who they are as a person as well as how other character’s may react to them. When you read a comic or ...

Hurtling through space without a helmet and a jetpack on her back is Jill, the spunky redhead who still needs to do chores. One night, after sharing a room with the son of her friends, Jill is awoken by the foreboding tales of a little boy’s nightmare. In order ...

by Frank Miller

SHOWING MOVEMENT

I was talking to my brother about writing scripts for comics and mentioned that I sometimes forget that what I'm writing can't move. I'd start accidentally writing as if it were a movie script, with characters moving around, then realize that I ...

What's in the Box?

An iconic part of the movie Pulp Fiction is the McGuffin that Jules and Vincent deliver to their boss, Marcallus Wallace. It's a briefcase that, when you open it, glows on the face of the person looking at it and absolutely astonishes them. Is ...

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In this Quackcast we chat about set-ups. pay-offs, and rip-offs. To make your climaxes and endings more satisfying you have pay-offs for audience expectations: set them up ...

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK

I was amazed and surprised to see that I wasn't the only one that had an idea to talk about setup and payoff and Game of Thrones this week! The lovely Emma Clare did it ahead of me, and she ...

After seeing both the recent episode of Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame, I walked away wondering why I felt slightly unfulfilled. I’m going to go into spoiler territory here, so if you haven’t seen either GOT or Endgame it might be best to steer clear of this ...