Episode 681 - Swords and armour
Apr 1, 2024
Today we're talking about swords and armour, the reality of those things and their use in fiction. I've always had a bit of an interest in swords since I was a little kid because I loved them in fairy-tales, comics and fantasy: The Three musketeers, puss in boots, Zorro, the Narnia books, Robin Hood, Errol Flynn movies, King Arthur, Conan, Asterix and more. Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Topics and Show Notes
I only started seriously collecting them as an adult though when I needed the correct costume sabre to go with the hussar uniform I put together. I started with replicas and very quickly moved to buying expensive antiques. So I have a collection of real military sabres now, some over 200 years old and i've learned a lot about swords in general in the mean time.
A sword is a long piece of sharp metal with a handle at one end, it's ancient technology that's been constantly updated over the centuries. Most cultures developed their own versions, starting with bronze and then moving to steel. Swords are heavily symbolic of power, royalty, command, control, action, chivalry, and nobility.
There are many sword myths: A popular modern internet myth is to say swords were always “secondary weapons” or “side arms” in history while pole-arms with the “primary” weapon. Which is a silly simplification, the use and importance of the sword was always context based, they were “primary” weapons in many instances and situations; on the battlefield by Roman legionaries, by Hungarian hussars, Landsknechts and their giant swords, sailors and their cutlasses, by any solder who fought in a confined space, and the sword was the main civilian weapon for centuries.
Another silly myth is that Japanese katana swords were the best, lightest, sharpest, most sophisticated swords, of course none of that is true. Swords are much the same the world over with none being really better than any other, they're just better for their own particular geographical, cultural and historical contexts. “Folding” the steel in a katana is just a clever yet primitive solution to reducing the concentration of impurities in the metal, there are other, easier, better ways to do that but that method stuck because it became a tradition. And no, “European” swords were not heavier, clumsier or blunter.
Then there's the modern myth of swords being worn on the back for use, which was never done in history because any sword the size of your arm or longer is impossible to draw from the back, unless you do weird things. Swords with worn on the hip, waist, or carried on a horse generally. it looks cool but it's useless.
Another myth is that the straight swords that knights used were called “broadswords”. That term came about much later when skinny swords like rapiers, smallswords, and spadroons were popular It was a way of differentiating swords that were a bit wider than the more popular thin swords, and they usually had basket hilts.
I could nerd out much deeper and talk about pattern welding, Ulfbert swords, crucible steel, Damascus swords, tempering, differential hardening, tangs, grips, guards, rapiers, sideswords, pala, Kilij, small swords etc, but I won't! What is your favourite sword or favourite swordsperson? My fave has to be Nothung, the sword of Beowulf, just because it has such a cool name. And my fave swordsperson has to be Inigo Montoya
This week Gunwallace made up a theme inspired by Soulmates by SirMollington - A contemplative, dreamy, floaty, trip through clouds of muted colour, in a world of quiet stasis against a slow, jazzy background.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Sandra's Day - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/mar/26/featured-comic-soulmates-by-sirmollington/
Featured music:
Soulmates by SirMollington - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Soulmates_by_SirMollington/ - by Sir_Mollington, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 499 - Life's worth?!
Oct 5, 2020
What is the worth of human life in your stories? This isn't something people often consider, we just tend to have a fairly accurate guess based on our experience of the real world, but sometimes stories get it really wrong and that can harm suspension of disbelief.
Episode 471 - Fantasy
Mar 23, 2020
Today we're having a chat about fantasy fiction! Mainly books and the fantasy writing that inspired us and that we love! Faves like Tolkien, Fritz Leiber and Piers Anthony! Just to define, we're talking swords, elves, armour, dragons etc, in a “medieval” context, generally European. As a subset there's native, Arabian, Asian, Mayan etc, also high fantasy, low fantasy, sword and sorcery, historical fantasy and even mythology…. And then techno fantasy, contemporary fantasy, steampunk, fantasy cyberpunk and so on… but we mainly stick to the mainstream stuff and only just touch on the weird little variations for now.
Episode 276 - Time management, Deadlines and Organisation
Jun 20, 2016
For Quackcast 276 we had a discussion about the topics of time management, organisation and deadlines- all things essential to the practitioners of webcomics, and even more-so to people involved in webcomic collaborations! This is tricky stuff to handle, you have to balance your webcomicing with your other life activities as well as audience expectation for updates! And as you go on it gets harder and harder to stick with self imposed deadlines, so how do you combat that? Well one way is to make a Patreon account so people will put money towards you updating, That can make an excellent incentive to stick to a deadline, when there's money involved! Collaborations can be easy or hard to keep alive, as long as everyone is equally eager to take part and everyone wants it to succeed then you're good, if not then your group project needs a good leader: not someone who WANTS to be a leader, rather someone who's dedicated to getting the project DONE and needs to be the leader to make that happened, sort of like my role at Drunk Duck. They need to be willing and able to coordinate people and tell them what to do, handle their strengths and weaknesses right to get the work done. The last part to remember is contingencies for when things go wrong! What are your safeguards? i.e. buffers, finishing early so you've got extra time to work on the project if it needs it, have backup people lined up to do work for you, filler art at the ready, guest strips, maybe even simplified techniques or just posting line art instead. How do YOU stick to deadlines (if you do), how do you handle time management and organisation with your comics and collaborators? Gunwallace's theme music this week was Z74's Star Knights. It's An operatic swarm of hornets on a massed bombing run over enemy territory.
