Episode 333 - Retcon the retcon
Jul 24, 2017
The thing with retcons is that the author tends to get an idea which makes them want to go back over their story and redo or tweak the whole thing again, that's what's happened here… well sort off. Banes had some more ideas on the subject that he wanted to share, so we dove into the whole thing again! We were helped by a Websnark article on the subject linked to us by Kam in a comment on the last retcon Quackcast. It's a useful guide, breaking down the different kinds of retcon into five types: Category One: Now Revealed! A Lost Tale of the Hero! Category Two: The Story You Thought You Knew! Category Three: The Real Story You Thought You Knew! Category Four: The Story You Thought You Knew Was Right, But Now There's Been A Change! Category Five: Meet the New Hero, Not The Same As The Old Hero Because That Never Happened! In this Quackcast we expand upon those concepts. Gunwallace's theme for the week was for Lego Space - It’s Block time! The sound here brings to mind the techno-mechanistic world of Lego, and especially the bright and glittering transparent blocky world of SPACE lego, vectors, angles, and joins!
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Una Garza Negra - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/18/featured-comic-una-garza-negra/
Links:
Great Websnark article about retconning - http://www.websnark.com/archives/2008/01/retconning_just_1.html
Bane's newspost on retcons - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/08/wheres-chuck/
Our first retcon Quackcast - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/08/quackcast-331-retconning-your-work/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Lego Space - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Lego_Space/, by KDog, rated E.
Episode 320 - Making the reader believe
Apr 24, 2017
In this Quackcast I wanted to talk about the magic of authorship: how the creator of a story sets up the whole situation so that they can convince the reader of anything. You can write a story about the smartest man in the world, and the reader will believe that they are, within the story, because you set it up that way: not just by having other characters reacting to them and forming that impression, but also independently convincing the audience of it as well by having them solving riddles and such or knowing lots of languages, quoting literary texts etc, but the creator doesn't have to be a very smart person themselves… Like Sherlock Holmes is seen as super smart because he's meant to, but Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't a super genius himself. You can write about a Casanova type charmer who's fantastic with the opposite sex and readers will believe, but only if you set the stage well enough. You as the creator set the parameters for anything to happen. Without having certain abilities or skills yourself, you can create a character with totally convincing skills far outside of yourself. The music for this week by Gunwallace is for The Gloom, it's creepy, ghostly, unsettling, uneven. This one gets under your skin and keeps you off-balance.
Episode 290 - Characters coming alive
Sep 26, 2016
The idea fr this Quackcast was inspired by a Korean TV series that Tantz Aerine recommended called “W” (http://myasiantv.se/drama/w/). The show is about a manga artist who does a super popular webcomic. He wants to quit doing it and has decided to end by killing off his main character, but his main character seems to have ideas of his own about that… Tantz and I thought about how that could apply to us real webcomicers. That's a fantasy situation, but if it could happen, which of your characters would do that? Which one is independent enough from you that they would want to take on a life of their own and fight you? Incorporated in this are the idea of characters “breaking the fourth wall” and the fictional characters becoming so well realised and independent from the author (so to speak), that they seem to influence the direction of a story against the intentions off the writer. People will often talk about characters seemingly writing the story themselves or taking things in directions the writer never wanted to go. So that's what we chat about! You really should check out “W”, it's a great series! This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to HardLuckComics. It's full of energy and vive, driving. This is working music! This is the intro to the drive time program on the radio! This is “the news”!
Episode 270 - Historical Accuracy Vs Story Needs part 2
May 9, 2016
We return to the topic of historical accuracy versus the needs the the story. This was Bravo's idea and we wanted to have him along but alas it was not to be! Tantz Aerine, Pitface, Banes and I discuss the topic, reading from a few of the many contributions in the form thread that Bravo started. Special congratulations to Pitface who's just graduated with honours with her BA in classics! -So you she really does KNOW what she's talking about… as does Tantz too of course. Banes and I are just along for the ride. Gunwallace gave us a really pretty tune for the comic Torn Vines, a real action music, such a driving rhythm to it!
Episode 268 - the antagonist-cast
Apr 25, 2016
On the Quackcast we've talked about villains plenty of times before. This time it's very different though… I wanted people to talk about their OWN villains, to promote their comic as if the antagonist was the main character, to give their antagonists the time in the sun that they so desperately CRAVE! And well it sort of worked out, not as well as I hoped but it was a good idea. We have many good contributors and they're read out by Pitface, Banes and myself. I must apologise for the audio quality though- very sorry about that, Skype kept on cutting out. Gunwallace gave us a theme to Cataclysm, a comic that I keep on trying to feature over and over again for some mysterious reason XD It's a very jaunty and modern, a good positive take on the Scifi.
Episode 265 - Drunk Duck updates and the future
Apr 4, 2016
For Quackcast 265 I wanted to steer the direction toward the idea of future fixes and features for Drunk Duck! We talked a bit about the 2nd wave of fixes that will be happening now- HippieVan worked to gather people's suggestions for the most important bugs that needed fixing (with our limited funds), and features people want added, and then did a survey to find what people though were the highest priority. It was a lot of work and took a few weeks to come up with the results. Bellow is a summery of what she learned:
Episode 246 - Characters: Fictional Love vs Real Life Hate
Nov 23, 2015
Characters you would love in media but hate in real life! In this Quackcast, once again we have an ensemble cast of Banes, Ozone, Pitface, and Tantz Aerine, but THIS time we were also joined by the talented and studious kawaiidaigakusei! We wanted to talk about fictional characters we love in fiction but would hate if they were real. It was sort of an extension of last week's Quackcast topic, with that fiction VS reality vibe. Gunwallace's gospel themed theme for Jesus 2016 is hilariously great!
Episode 207 - A question of bodyshape part 2
Feb 22, 2015
In Quackcast 207 we talk about bodyshapes in comics again; as a follow up from the chat we had about it in Quackcast 205 we thought we'd let the community weigh in with their thoughts... so Banes and I could get the chance to practice our voices. We wanted to know what others thought about the subject of about bodyshape in comics; Ones that they draw, read, or have just seen and think that it needs commenting upon. These Quackcasts were inspired of course by the images of athletes from the 2002 book "Athlete" by Howard Schatz. The photos show various athletes who're at the top level of their respective sports, it also shows that they have wildly different physical attributes: there IS no one ideal, and there IS no “normal”. This got us to thinking how body shape can define a character as much as facial features, hairstyle, clothing etc. Anyway, people had their say and it was enlightening! Also, Gunwallace's music this week was for FUNK! And funky it was, give it a listen.
