Having a love of music, forming a band, struggling together, maybe rising to fame and fortune, then falling from those heights, and then figuring out what to do next…it's a version of the Hero's Journey that can be found in real life.

There've been plenty of ...

Photo: Life-Sized, Modern Sculpture Adaptation based on the Oil Painting “Yellow Hat Woman” by Edward Hopper. Created by Mr. Brainwash. Mr. Brainwash Museum. Beverly Hills, California. (August 2023)

Nestled in a non-descript corner where Santa Monica Boulevard and Beverly Boulevard intersect, steps away from Rodeo Drive in the city of ...

On a recent Quackcast episode here on the duck, Ozoneocean made an interesting point about some older raunchy comedies.

The point was that in some of these movies, the female characters were presented a certain way, maybe not as three-dimensional as the male characters, or maybe came across more sexual ...

LISTEN on our player!
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

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 ...

If you look up Wikipedia on apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction it will be described as a subgenre in which the earth’s (or another planet’s) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. It can be due to the cause of nuclear war, or climate change, a pandemic (maybe one that ...

Redlettermedia, in an old review of Michael Bay's Pain and Gain, contrasted that movie to The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese.

In the Wolf of Wall Street, the RLM guys say, there's a subtext that we're ALL capable of the mistakes the main character ...

Last time I'd written about gender toxicity and what a trap it can be for creators seeking to write powerful characters. It is not something that only plagues the “strong female character” attempt, but also the “strong male character” and definitely the “strong LGBTQ+ character”.

Too many of these ...

LISTEN on our player!
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

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 ...

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 ...

The movie “Hook” is not one of Spielberg's best-regarded movies - I've always liked it quite a bit, though. One element of it that speaks to me is the main character who's forgotten his true identity and true nature. I love the story about the writing of the ...