Episode 534 - Biting off more than you can chew
Jun 7, 2021
Taking on more than you can handle - i.e. James Cameron and JJ Abrams are good directors and writers but neither could handle the demands of a complex Sci-Fi project that needs full world building and internally consistent logic etc (Avatar and Star Wars). They're great with more simple SciFi that's based on 21st century earth and simpler stories, but epic SciFi was clearly a long way beyond the capabilities of either. We're talking about when WE have been caught taking on stuff we couldn't handle, how we dealt with that and also how other creators dealt with it too.
Topics and Show Notes
It's very easy to get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task that you take on, whether the story style is too much for you, you can't get a good ending, the research is too much, the artwork is too hard, the schedule is too demanding etc. We've all been caught in some way or other, usually multiple ways! One strategy is to break stuff down into more manageable chunks, but sometimes that's just too hard anyway. It can be worth it to battle on because it forces you out of your comfort zone and makes you learn new lessons and techniques. Sometimes you can still produce something great even if you didn't reach what you were originally aiming for. And sometimes it actually makes more sense to quit because you find yourself wasting too much time and energy on it when you could be spending that more profitably elsewhere. There are no single right answers here.
The cover image is emblematic: an antimissle installation developed for billions by the US, which was abaondoned soon after. They bit off more than they could chew... Not only with the idea of hunting and killing balistic missles before they hit the US coast, but pursuing a concept that would have fundamentally unbalanced the M.A.D. docterine of the late cold war: If one side can defeat the other's missles then it becomes practical for them to strike first which makes nuclear war far more likley, which means that the other side becomes more desperate... fortunately the idiocy of this path was abaondoned before it led to further escalation.
(Image: By Pitface, abandoned antimissle site in ND)
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to COSMIC SAFARI: A trip through the wilderness of the vast galaxy, along beautifully coloured nebula filaments, past the rings encircling gas giants, and through the tails of comets! This is Jean-Michele Jarre meets a small remote controlled car!
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
COSMIC SAFARI - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/jun/01/featured-comic-cosmic-safari
Featured Music:
COSMIC SAFARI - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/COSMIC_SAFARI/ - by Frenemy, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Pitface - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Join the Discord server to chat in real time with other DD comics people - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Episode 528 - How tall are your characters?
Apr 26, 2021
Character height is not something we think about too much but it's actually a fairly big deal: in terms of what the height means, what it means contextually, how the character fits into their world, how they relate to others around them, and how it's like to draw them! A character can loom, they can shrink down, they can appear bigger than they are due to force of personality or smaller due to being shy and retiring, Largeness can equal power and strength, stupid docility, threat, potential, or it can be used to highlight the strength of a much smaller character that beats them as in many animes.
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 190 - The Halloweencast!
Oct 26, 2014
For the Halloweencast Banes and I will be journeyed beyond the veil, down into the depths of webcomic HELL… There, we encountered the LOST and the DAMMED: the tormented souls of abandoned webcomics that were ended before their time. Deep underneath the black, soaring Gothic spires of DD HQ lie the labyrinthine catacombs, dry, dusty crypts, and ossuaries where the bones of old abandoned webcomics go to rest and moulder away, their lonely souls pining for the time when they could see the day and frolic in the sun, with viewers to keep them company. Watched over by the great demon Death Porn and harried by mischievous spriter sprites, the poor souls languish in their solitary torments, hoping to one day be reborn anew! For the Halloweencast, Banes and I asked for contributors to name some of their old lost faves so we could pay our respects to these tragic cases, give them a voice once more, and hopefully return them for a few brief moments to the sun again by sending some more viewers their way.
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
