.jpg)
I generally avoid using current events in my articles about webcomics, but this time I can't help it. Signalgate has been living rent free in my mind ever since the editor in chief of the Atlantic broke the story.
There are many reasons for that, most of them not relevant when we are talking comics, writing, and the general creative process. But one of them is. Seriously, I've been asking myself this one question:
Suppose I wrote this EXACT thing happening, in the exact way it happened, and then handled by the government, in a thriller story about …let's say about strapping investigative reporters that actively try to get that geopolitical scoop. (Say someone like Tintin ) Suppose the strapping investigative reporter was accidentally added in a top secret chat room that is more compromised than a sidewalk library that works on the honor system.
How many readers would immediately go ‘that DOES NOT HAPPEN’ and have their suspension of disbelief completely shattered?
I know I would call it lazy writing at best.
…and yet this is real life. With plot that wouldn't fly in ANY work of fiction, unless it was Spaceballs II. Maybe. And that's not even getting into the blatant admission of war crimes being endorsed, which nearly nobody seems to have picked up on or care about, but I digress.
I don't know what point I'm making here, except maybe irreverently tweak a Mark Twain quote:
Life is dumber than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Life isn't.
Sometimes, realism is too unrealistic for fiction, and this is the life we're in now.
Don't forget! The #quackchat has moved to BlueSky! Join us on Sunday evening for our Quackchat at 5:30PM(EST)!
You can also advertise on DrunkDuck for just $2 in whichever ad spot you like! The money goes straight into running the site. Want to know more? Click this link here! Or, if you want to help us keep the lights on you can sponsor us on Patreon. Every bit helps us!
Special thanks to our patrons!!
Justnopoint - Banes - RMccool - Abt_Nihil - Gunwallace - PaulEberhardt - Emma_Clare - FunctionCreep - SinJinsoku - Smkinoshita - jerrie - Chickfighter - Andreas_Helixfinger - Tantz_Aerine - Genejoke - Davey Do - Gullas - Roma - NanoCritters - Teh Andeh - Peipei - Digital_Genesis - Hushicho - Palouka - cheeko - Paneltastic - L.C.Stein - dpat57 - Bravo1102 - The Jagged - LoliGen - OrcGirl - Miss Judged - Fallopiancrusader - arborcides - ChipperChartreuse - Mogtrost - InkyMoondrop - Jgib99 - Hirokari - Orgivemedeath Ind - Mks Monsters - GregJ - HawkandFloAdventures - Soushiyo - JohnCelestri- Tottycomics - Casscade - Salexander - Willed - Sketchydrawer - Niccea
When Life's Too Crazy for Fiction
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, March 29, 2025
7 likes!
©2011 WOWIO, Inc. All Rights Reserved Mastodon
PaulEberhardt at 3:10AM, March 30, 2025
Point in case: back when I started my comic I thought its premise was completely absurd. That was the idea. A lot of its humour relies on it. However, I eventually found about people who actually try keeping tigers as pets in their home - which is bad on many levels apart from the gruesome accidents waiting to happen, since its detrimental to the tigers' well-being and supports illegal catchers and so on. There is a reason why my human main character is a witch and I keep stressing that it's a comic and that even in the comic universe it wouldn't normally work. My readers are fortunately smart enough to know this - well, it's the Duck after all - as well as that I hope these inconsiderate, stupid a-holes will get mauled and burn in hell. Nevertheless I'm still trying to figure out ways to make that clear without getting preachy. As I said before some time, somewhere: we're too tolerant of idiots. I'm not going to tolerate idiots. Neither will I let them ruin my or everybody else's fun.
PaulEberhardt at 3:01AM, March 30, 2025
Well said. It's the kind of stuff I might have used as a satire - like, part of a catch-22 since that was mentioned: it would be a great change to put people in leading positions who have at least some kind of clue what they do, but you have to be incredibly stupid or crazy to actually want such a job. But I'll stop now. Human stupidity indeed knows no boundaries. Whenever you come up with something really silly, you might as well bet a million that some morons will be able to one-up it for real.
dragonsong12 at 7:39AM, March 29, 2025
*Looks at picture* NOPE.
usedbooks at 7:07AM, March 29, 2025
My comic was inspired by my two roommates. I told them many times that I had to water down the characters because they weren't believable. One of my roommates invited a random guy she met at the bus stop to our shared house. Who does that?! She was also chatting with a professor who invited her to a bar and said "my wife is very open," and she thought he was just being conversational. These are things I could never have a character do unless I was writing a ridiculous parody.
bravo1102 at 4:15AM, March 29, 2025
The human capacity for stupidity is infinite. You can't fix it short of intense and very painful training by experts and even then there is cognitive dissonance. Nearly all the people who can fix stupid give up because of how much stupid there is. As for the theater of the absurd not working in fiction see Catch-22 and realize that nothing in there is completely fictional. Exaggerated, but not made up.
marcorossi at 2:41AM, March 29, 2025
A quote from famous italian writer Luigi Pirandello "Because life, for all the shameless absurdities, small and large, of which it is blissfully full, has the inestimable privilege of being able to do without that most stupid verisimilitude, which art believes its duty to obey. The absurdities of life do not need to seem plausible, because they are true. Unlike those of art which, to seem true, need to be plausible. And then, plausible, they are no longer absurdities. A case of life can be absurd; a work of art, if it is a work of art, cannot. It follows that to accuse a work of art of absurdity and improbability, in the name of life, is foolishness. In the name of art, yes; in the name of life, no." (Googletranslated)
plymayer at 12:33AM, March 29, 2025
lol.