Episode 473 - Genre vs Setting
Apr 5, 2020
In this Quackcast we talk about the differences between genre and setting and what genre really is. For instance: Fantasy and SciFi aren't genres, they're settings… Mostly. It's complicated but they both pretty much USED to be genres, now they're mainly just settings for genre stories to take place in. What does that mean? Well, Fantasy wasn't even considered a genre back in the day, not really till after the success of Tolkien. Later on a lot of writers began using that same style and consumers really wanted it, so it became a “genre”. It was only later on when it graduated out of that to become a setting that has genre stories set within it.
Topics and Show Notes
Scifi was much the same. We backdate the “genre” to Mary Shelly, Jules Verne, HG Wells etc, but that's actually a little silly. SciFi was invented back in the 1920s by publisher Hugo Gernsback as a niche marketing term for his pulp magazines. He bundled together a whole bunch of futuristic stories and works of speculative fiction to sell under that name and created a market for it. That created the genre that people started to write within and to. Now however SciFi is really just a setting that has genre stories within it: detective fiction, nior, action, romance, Western, apocalypse, etc.
This happens when the genre becomes so diverse and ubiquitous that the commonality between stories within it becomes less important than the differences- i.e. the fact that a story is a romance is more significant than the fact it's set in the future, we really don't care too much about the future setting. While in the past it's that future setting which would have been the main selling point.
Think of it in terms of anime, if you have a good familiarity with it. Years ago people thought of anime as a monolithic “genre”, with all the cartoons roughly sharing a lot of themes and styles. This was mainly because only a small amount of it got exported to the west. Now however a massive amount is available and it's very easy to see how different it is. Now “Anime” really only indicates where the cartoon came from, not what kind of product you're going to get.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Just wanna do porn webcomics - A dark room, the air is warm and close. Sweat, passion, heat… the only sound is heavy breathing… as the webcomicer furiously draws the latest issue of their racy webcomic! A lot of moans, vocal distortion and sexy synth music in this one.
Topics and shownotes
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Links
Banes Newspost, webcomics and genre - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/mar/31/webcomics-and-genre/
Trope talk - https://www.youtube.com/user/RedEyesTakeWarning/videos
DD on Discord! - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Moderated by Boundbun - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/BoundBun/
Featured comic:
O Sarilho - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/mar/31/featured-comic-o-sarilho/
Featured music:
Just wanna do porn webcomics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com /Just_Wanna_Do_Porn_Webcomics/, by Arspitzer, rated A.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Episode 469 - The cartoons that date us and Discord
Mar 9, 2020
We're talking about the cartoons that made us! This was inspired by kawaiidaigakusei's newspost from last week about Daria. Daria was a really cool cartoon from the late 90s. It was influential to her, to me as well, and I thought it would be a great idea for a Quackcast to talk about the other cartoons that were influential to us at certain points in our lives.
Episode 452 - Storytelling styles change!
Nov 11, 2019
Storytelling styles change over time for various reasons: fashion, audience expectations, competition for audience attention due to increased choice and availability of media, technological limitations and abilities, and culture. We chat about the reasons for the changes and how styles have changed.
Episode 451 - Fans who criticise are are good fans
Nov 4, 2019
“Toxic fans” is a bit of a catch cry now and that has seemed to turn into the idea that any fan who is critical of something or doesn't like it isn't a “true fan”, fans must should love everything. I find this a dangerously silly notion and one clearly driven by business interests with only a limited relationship to reality. It's quite similar to the idea that you're “either for us or against us”, the twisted idea of “patriotism” that says you must agree with and love everything your country and your leader does no matter what or you're a traitor.
Episode 432 - How to get more readers
Jun 24, 2019
Just Banes and I for this one! Today we have 3 topics: 1. Being positive and how that really helps us in online communication and social networking, as well as giving a boost to those we talk to- very important in comic communities. 2. How to get more eyes looking at your work. We always need to build our audiences! 3. Updates for drunk duck to modernise the site… We're going to have to raise a lot of money for this! How is the best way?
Episode 429 - Bad ends, not bad fans
Jun 2, 2019
This Quackcast was inspired by the fan reaction to Game of Thrones, a series that I haven't watched but Tantz and Banes have! Specifically it's about poorly written endings and gas-lighting fans rather than admitting to faults.
Episode 415 - lazy solutions cause plot-holes!
Feb 25, 2019
This Quackcast expands on my newspost from Friday about forgotten abilities causing plot holes, but now bunny Banes and Lady Tantz wade in to lend their genius to my silly ideas and we chat about what the real issues are: bad writing and laziness! This is when a character gains the ability to walk through walls or become bullet proof or go back in time and then forgets it for the rest of the story or in the sequel When basically 80% of the problems they encounter could be solved by it… And you're mentally screaming at them “Use your damn power that you got 20 pages ago… Remember that thing that would help you avoid all this trouble!?” Using easy solutions to get out of problems causes plot-holes! And your audience will hate you for it.
Episode 388 - Coding for Men and women
Aug 15, 2018
In this Quackcast we discuss the artistic coding used to represent males and females in comic art in a simple, minimal way. Pitface joins us, along with Banes and Tantz Aerine! Much like an expert physicist is able to simplify enormously complex equations into something seemingly simple like E=MC2 a good comic artist simplifies the essence of what they're drawing into something that's immediately recognisable without a lot of complexity. We're mainly talking here in terms of drawing men and women. It sounds like the most basic, silly thing, but even pros with years of experience have trouble with it. Some of the art for the new She-Ra cartoon is a great example of that.
