Episode 179 - Token representation in comics
Aug 11, 2014
There's no question in my opinion as to whether representation of different kinds of people in fiction matters. Having spent my childhood poring over superhero comics in which the girl's job is usually to turn invisible and press a button or something, I remember being impressed and delighted by some of the badass female characters in The Spirit. Lady-people could be cool, too?! Is it insulting when comics add token characters to their line up, or does it really make a difference? And what makes a token character anyways? -HippieVan. Banes, HippieVan and I focus on the subject of token representation in media, mainly comics. This discussion was inspired by a newspost HippieVan made in response to a new character in the Archie comic, which got a lot of interesting responses.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and Show Notes:
featured comic:
Dinnersaurus Rex - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Dinnersaurus_Rex/
Token newspost:
Here - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2014/jul/10/friday-newspost-representation-in-comics/
Special thanks to:
Banes, resident male stripper - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
The musical theme this time was for Attack of the Robofemoids - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Attack_of_the_Robofemoids/ by Bravo1102
Episode 170 - The REAL Chatcast!
Jun 9, 2014
Kawaiidaigakusei came up with a great idea for a call-in show… That didn’t entirely work out so we did a “Harassment show” instead, where we phoned various duckers till we could finally get someone to talk to us. Seriously, we were desperate! All the people we called utterly destroyed us on our running fridge gag… Tantor tells us about the neolithic days of webcomics and the early days of DD! Such comics as User Friendly and watching porn comics on an Amiga! Kawaii hit us with some profoundly interestings questions on making money vs doing what you love, the madness of creative people, and how much your creative product can influence you emotionally and how much it needs to in order to get you interested in creating it. And finally Mr Neil tells us about using Mark Crilley’s how to draw videos, his great superhero comic Dasien, and an artist’s need for feedback from other creators in order to stay interested in their work. He also talks about his work with Kittyhawk, author of SGVY.
Episode 167 - Anatomy of a Villain
May 19, 2014
Today we talk about villians! Kawaiidaigakusei made a newspost about villains that generated quite a bit of interest so Banes and I had her on to chat about them and read out some of the things our community members had to say. Kawaii can introduce the topic in her own words: I used to take the side of the cheerful, positive, and heroic protagonist in films and comics when I was much younger. As I got older, I wised up to the idea that being a protagonist is relative to biases of the storyteller. Now I rewatch those same films with a renewed perspective of what constitutes “good” and “bad”. Lately, I have been finding that more and more, I am a fan of villains. I believe the reason we are seasoned to differentiate heroes and villains at a young age is to train our super-ego about rules and societal expectations. It teaches every Goffus that they should aspire to be more like Gallant. But living a hero's lifestyle by-the-book can be as boring as vanilla. For the record, I love vanilla, it is GOOD, but it does not make it any less boring. Emulating the characteristics of a supervillain feeds our id. It just feels good to break the rules. Give villains a chance. Afterall, without a villain, there would be no need for a hero.
Episode 163 - Hip to be shark!
Apr 21, 2014
HippieVan, one of our wonderful news admins, made a newspost about the latest Archie comic sales tactic/plot device, killing off Archie, in the context of "Jumping The Shark", and it was quite a popular topic of discussion. Jumping the Shark is the term we use for a TV Series (but it could be anything), that has reached a bit of a creative desert so the writers attempt a silly stun or the introduction of a new character or theme or something that breaks the narrative and the story dynamic, all in an attempt to re-energize the failing series. Sometimes it works, but often it's a sign that the thing is on its deathbed. And that's what Hippie joined us to talk about: Shark jumping! In the meantime, we find a shark of our own...
Episode 156 - The Abt Nihil and Pit Face Bottomless Hero Alliance
Mar 3, 2014
Today we welcome a dastardly new bad guy alliance between three powerful super villains of Duck City: Ozone Evil, Pit Dastardly, and Abt Destruction! In their pirate lair aboard the bottomless pirate ship, the trio revel in their shared passion for bottomlessnessnessnessitude. Abt and Pit go on to chat about getting comics published in paper form, the Hero's Alliance community project, and the Mega City 2:2135 Judge Dredd fan comic project.
Episode 154 - Abandoned Webcomics Nostalgia
Feb 18, 2014
It's one of the great tragedies of webcomics the way ‘real life’ so often gets in the way of our comic work. This Quackcast was inspired by HippieVan's newspost about webcomics that disappeared into the atmosphere or deadended into nowhere... Hippie joins Ozone and Banes to discuss the topic of comics ending before their time, comics we miss, comics we need closure from! Why do they end like that? Have you got abandoned work under your belt? Will you ever come back and finish it? What are some of your forgotten faves? Bellow are a list of ours
Episode 149 - The Royal We
Jan 13, 2014
Banes sez: Bereft of our Captain, ozoneocean, I talk with Niccea about the 2013 Drunk Duck awards, which are finishing up as we speak. She reveals some spoileriffic information (which will not be nearly as spoileriffic as you read this), and we reveal the not-so-breaking news that the drunkduck.com domain is ours again! Please get involved in planning the 2014 Awards! Niccea will need help!
Episode 144 - Bold New Experiment with the Top Ten!
Dec 2, 2013
For this Quackcast it's just Ozone aaaaaand HippieVan! We're discussing various things, the most important of which is the Top Ten rating system for the front page of DD. It has been frozen solid since the site stopped tracking stats about TWO years ago. Hopefully we'll restart hat when we figure out how to code it up, but for now HippieVan and Irreverent came up with a good idea: The Top Ten comics will be based on how many "likes" they have. This will be calculated every week by HippieVan. So now comics have the ability to get into the top ten if they can get enough "Likes", so start campaigning people and you'll have a spot on the front page! Unfortunately we're not including Adult rated comics in that list because those can't be seen by people who aren't signed into the site so would just look like blank boxes on the front page. Never fear though, Adult comics are still ranked proudly on the comic search page in their true like order.
