Episode 211 - How Mary Sure Are You?
Mar 23, 2015
Hello hello hello! This week Ozoneocean and Banes pirate another of HippieVan's much discussed newsposts. When the test for Mary Sue was brought up in our recent writing tests Quackcast it generated some heated talk so HippieVan went a little deeper into it and people responded again. Banes and I discuss those responses and try to come up with some sort of consensus on how to more properly use the Mary Sue test and some of its pitfalls: i.e. it's highly context sensitive and can't be used easily on certain genres (Superhero etc), it's also something you as a writer typically don't have to worry about unless you're inexperienced- or so Banes and I believe.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and Show Notes:
Featured comic:
Psycho Babble - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Psycho_Babble/
Linkatronics:
Posts read from here - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2015/mar/05/avoiding-the-mary-sue-a-contest/
Results of the Mary Sue comic contest - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2015/mar/19/mary-sue-contest-submissions/
The dreaded test - http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm
Contributions from:
Call Me Tom - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Understanding/
Tupapayon - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/tupapayon
Strixvanallen - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/strixvanallen
VinoMas - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/VinoMas
bravo1102 - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/bravo1102
KimLuster - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/KimLuster
HippieVan - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/HippieVan
JustNoPoint - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/JustNoPoint
Peipei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Peipei
usedbooks - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/usedbooks
irrevenant - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/irrevenant
Kou the Mad
Hayakain - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Hayakain
Special thanks to:
The world's greatest Musician and BBQ chef, Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
The most attractive man in the world and most intelligent Co-host, Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Super qualified and amazingly beautiful featurer, Kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
The theme song by Gunwallace this week was for:
Devil Spy - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Devil_Spy/ by Jaymzeecat.
Episode 205 - What about bodyshape?
Feb 9, 2015
This week Banes and I were inspired to talk about body shape in the depiction of figures in comics, inspired by some famous images from photographer Howard Schatz's 2002 book, Athlete. In it there are photos of many athletes who're at the peak of their sports and yet their bodyshapes are vastly different, subverting the idea of an "ideal" bodyshape or what it means to be a top athlete or even fit. too often bodyshapes in comics follow a very narrow range, not getting much past what we think of as the current popculture ideal. We all know that idealised model shape is a problem and yet we all still perpetuate it, most of the time you can only tell most "realistic" characters apart by their hairstyle or costume, especially in superhero comics. And that invents a second problem: the myth of the "normal" shaped body as opposed to the ideal- there IS no such thing as normal, and even the ideal is always changing throughout the ages. There's even a lot more to body shape than the famous categories: Mesomorph, Ectomorph, and Endomorph, or Skinny, Pear, Athletic, Hourglass and Apple. We also have a beif mention of how stylised characters (Sponge Bob, Calvin and Hobbes etc) are exaggerations of these shapes and differences.
Episode 201 - The Improvisationcast
Jan 13, 2015
Pitface joins the duo of Banes and Ozoneocean once again, this time for the Improvisationcast! Pitface and Tantz Aerine do a lot of writing together when they work jointly on their script for Brave Resistance, but in order to further exercise their creative and collaborative muscles they also practise a turn by turn writing style where they improvise a story as they go. They start off with their own comic characters, one writes an intro and a bit with their character and the next one carries on after with their own character and also weaving the first person's character into the story with them, and so on. In the end you can produce a startling organic story that has forced you to examine the way your character would react to totally unfamiliar situations and stimuli. In this Quackcast we all experiment with this by doing an improvised play with characters we make up on the spot, to very mixed results....
Episode 196 - The Sidekick-cast
Nov 30, 2014
The topic of the Quackcast was inspired by Kawaiidaigakusei's Thoughtful newspost article "An Ode to Sidekicks" that examined the varied subject of The Sidekick. She was inspired by Geoff Peterson, the much loved animated skeleton on the Craig Ferguson show and she went on to examine some sidekick types using DD comics as examples. In our Sidekick-cast we cast the net a bit wider. We try and have a chat about all the different types of sidekicks we can think about (and there are a LOT); sidekicks in books, films, comics, talkshows... Heroic sidekicks, villain sidekicks, lackeys, lieutenants, backups, stand-ins, partners and all the various types in between and beyond! We mentions such obvious luminaries such as Dynomutt, Scoobydoo, Scrappy Doo, Dr Watson, Robin, a swathe of Dr Who Companions, and more! Banes is hilarious, Kawaii is insightful, Ozoneocean is opinionated ad boorish.
Episode 191 - The Halloweencast part 2
Nov 3, 2014
We find our heroes STILL stuck far beneath the soaring spires of the Drunk Duck Gothic palace of doom, down deep in the dank, dark, dusty catacombs, their way lit by the guttering orange light of stinking flaming torches... As the quaking Banes and Ozoneocean explore the bone strewn crypts of the abandoned webcomic ossuary they're frequently visited by the terrifying spectres of those very webcomics, eager to commune with living souls once more in the hope of experiencing the joys of an active audience again. Our many contributors helped introduce us to these abandoned webcomics and we hope you'll give them another look too!
Episode 186 - X-men of the galaxy wintersoldier
Sep 29, 2014
No more pre-recorded Quackcasts... Ozoneocean is BACK from Europe! For this Quackcast Banes and Ozone chat about 3 superhero films... well, more like two because BANES bloody didn't see Guardians of the Galaxy! The bastard. Anyway, Ozone and Banes have a bit of a talk about these films and give them a rating out of five. They were all good films pretty much, some better than others, Banes and Ozone talk about the things that worked best, the things that didn't work, and which films were their faves. SPOILER- the film starting with G was THE best out of the 3 by a looooong way!!!!
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.
Episode 176 - Endings, part 3
Jul 21, 2014
For our FINAL part of our discussion of story endings we talk about yet MORE ending tropes, methods and styles. In a fit of towering arrogance and indefensible pomposity we even trash the mighty Shakespeare for his ending of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet! Our contributors offered up some truly interesting perspectives on the matter or constructing story endings and we give them their due respect by reading them out in strange voices... As I've said in all of these so far: writing the end of a story is the hardest part so we hope to provide some clues on how to write a good one. Ad with that we reach the END of our exploration of ends! Next week we interview AMY and Nick from CHARBY THE VAMPIRATE!!!
