Episode 689 - One Big Passion and Influence
May 27, 2024
What was one significant inspiring piece of pop-culture that a massive influence over your creative endeavours? All of us have had many, many different influences over the years but that's certainly NOT what we're interested in here, what we're talking about is that one thing you can remember that had a huge effect on you, why, how, and when.
Topics and Show Notes
For me, I picked the time I saw the Tank Girl movie. It was all the way back in the mid 1990s. The movie didn't have much promotion so I didn't see it in the cinema because I didn't even know it was being screened, I only remember some radio ads. It came out on video very quickly and that's how I saw it. I rented it out and I actually own that very video cassette now because I bought it when the shop went out of business years later. An Ex stole my DVD and I can't buy a digital copy online here
But I digress… When I saw that movie it was the perfect critical mass of creative influence for me. The story wasn't very good and it bore little relation to the comic but it was full of so much 1990s alt culture that it's a perfect time capsule and exemplar of the period; From the post-punk alt club fashions, to the alt rock and grunge soundtrack curated by Courtney Love, the aggressive alt-grrl femininity, the fantastic scenes depicted, the haircuts, and then there are the performances by Lori Petty, Tony Collette, Ice T, Malcom McDowell, Iggy Pop and more. It set off the creative bulbs in my head and I spent all evening creating a huge drawing on 3x A1 sheets of paper of a Tank covered in different incarnations of sexy Tank Girl inspired women. I was an art student at the time so I was very familiar with the alt culture depicted.
At it's core the imagery of a funky dressed, sexy woman, with an aggressive DGAF attitude, paired with heavy, custom modified and decorated military hardware is what sticks with you and has been one of the core influences in my creative pursuits from then on. There have been many others of course, but this was A significant moment.
The image in the art for this Quackcast is the drawing I made back then. I took it to class the next day and my lecturer just said that to her it just showed an “arrogance in drawing ability”, which I was a little shocked by, but this was the mid 1990s and drawing ability was NOT a priority among artists at the time. I am very serious- most 1990s fine artists lacked even rudimentary skill. It was a weird time.
Can you tell us about any significant creative influence exposure events?
This week Gunwallace made up a theme inspired by Pipeline Lizards - Oriental, old west, rock! This capers up to you in an enthusiastic, confusing, crabwalk of anachronism, bathing you in exciting rock and the plucky tones of what sounds like a shamisen played like a banjo! - Im saying that I love it BTW.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Faeward - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/21/featured-comic-faeward/
Featured music:
Pipeline Lizards - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Pipeline_Lizards/ - by Pipeline Lizards, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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The pic. Click to see a full size - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/media/users/Ozoneocean/assets/tank-girls.jpg
Episode 688 - Artistic Evolution
May 20, 2024
How and why does your creativity change over time? It “evolves”. Evolution is often wrongly thought of as a process that leads to a goal, like the idea that humans are the pinnacle of evolution, or that we will “evolve” into something better and “more superior”, or that there is a “next level” of evolution… All of that is just silly comic-book nonsense and terrible sci-fi. Evolution has no goal or direction, it's simply how we describe change that occurs over time. Creatures don't get “better” due to evolution, rather environmental pressures influence changes that make creatures fit in and cope with those specific pressures better. And many factors influence evolution, not just environmental pressures.
Episode 687 - ...a very special episode
May 13, 2024
This isn't really a special episode! It's a Quackcast about them. Not PSA episodes though. Our topic was inspired by those weird special non-sequitur episodes in anime and manga like the famous bikini episode where all the characters head off to the beach, water park, hot springs or something and get into their bathing suits. It doesn't usually forward the story too much, if at all, but it's a chance to have fun with the characters, outline and explore any underlying love themes, and show off skin.
Episode 686 - May the fourth be with you
May 5, 2024
We recorded the Quackcast on the 4th of May, which of course means that it was “May the fourth”, the Star Wars celebration date! So we decided to talk about Star Wars, but instead of our usual rants about what we think could be done better we kept it to mainly positive stuff, focussing on what we loved about the films, mainly original series, which are the best ones.
Episode 685 - mantle
Apr 29, 2024
“Passing the mantle” is an interesting phrase. Many claim it comes from a biblical origin; the prophet Elijah was said to have passed his mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven, thereby symbolically transferring his authority… but honestly that seems a little silly and elaborate of an origin story, the sort of thing bad bible scholars in America loved to come up with in the 19th century. Mantles of office were commonly worn by kings, statesmen and even lord mayors today and the passing of those symbolises them gaining office and authority. It's a very ordinary, commonplace secular tradition.
Episode 684 - The hero is dead?
Apr 21, 2024
What happens when the hero dies? Especially when it's early on in the story… do things fall apart or does someone else take over? Our topic is about a story style where you establish that a character is the hero or chief protagonist, only to do a bait and switch and swap them out with a less likely character like a sidekick. This makes the audience rethink the way things are going, instead of sticking to an expected formula you force the audience to wake up and wonder what will happen next. This can be very effective!
Episode 683 - Hot for Teacher
Apr 15, 2024
This week it's a short cast because my computer broke and we wasted time trying to fix it! We're chatting about teachers in fiction, a topic inspired by Banes' newspost on the subject. There have been many memorable teacher based fictional stories, To Sir with Love most famously, The Sound of Music, Blackboard jungle, Goodbye Mister Chips, Assassination Classroom, Educating Rita, My Fair Lady, the Mighty Ducks, Dead Poets Society, Kindergarten Cop, Welcome Back Kotter, and so much more! What are your faves?
Episode 682 - Exposition!
Apr 8, 2024
Tantz came up with this week's topic: Exposition! It's because she's well on her way into starting her latest comic, Verdant, and working out ways to introduce the story, the world, characters, culture, magic systems, religion etc without doing a massive text dump, which people generally don't like too much. So how do you exposit in a good way?
