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Sometimes you get hooked into things, you become a fan and you wonder how you got there. A while ago you were laughing at those dorky, obsessed fans over there and now suddenly you're one of them! That's what we're talking about in this cast, the things that hook you in and our own stories about what we were unexpectedly hooked into.
The idea came to me as I was making a coffee and signing the words to XTCs Great Fire. It's a silly song with lyrics about a fire burning in Noah's Arc and also in a house, which is a metaphor for the singer's growing love. XTC is a strange, very progressive British pop group from the 70s and 80s. They have some extremely thoughtful and intelligent songs about culture and social issues and many that are just foolish pop-songs and yet I like them all and happily sing along to them. But I wondered how I got there.
It was 1994, I was extremely sick with chickenpox, trapped in my bed for weeks with nothing but books and my radio for company. Every so often the same few songs would come on the radio and I began to love them. I cant remember them all now but there was Spoonman by Sound Garden, Positive Bleeding by Urge Overkill, and Senses Working Overtime by XTC. Senses Working Overtime is a sort of a mediaeval chant and drone, paired with pure bubblegum pop about empirical philosophy. It's about our perception of the world and the difference between what we're told and what we personally experience. I find it beautiful. I had no idea why they kept playing that song though, it came out in 1982 and it wasn't being re-released, there was no reason for it to be played over and over at that time along with recently released hit songs.
In fact I couldn't even track it down. Years later it was re-released on their best-off album, Fossil Fuel, but even THAT was hard to track down because none of the music shops stocked it or could order it for me. When I finally got it I listed to all the songs over and over and became a fan. I was indoctrinated! I love their crazy silly pop-songs and their intellectual stuff about the failings of society equally. In this Quackcast we have a few similar stories, like the way we were drawn in to Star Trek while we initially found it dorky, and things like Buffy the Vampire slayer, Harry Potter etc.
Do you have stories about things you were hooked into? if so, what were the hooks? Did you know that I didn't even like comics till an art lecturer forced me to draw them and it wasn't till I was posting my comics on Drunk Duck that I actually started to appreciate comics in general?
In Gunwallace's words: An odd little thing for Quail's random, based on my Thursday post. Quails Random - A random melange of majestic influences, cat yowls and alien sounds. This is a glorious mixture of melodic mastery that shouldn’t blend but somehow does!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Senses Working Overtime by XTC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrcemZpOmpI
Featured comic:
Little Miss Allison Blue - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/may/19/featured-comic-little-miss-allison-blue/
Featured music:
Quails Random - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/may/20/random-quail-comics/ - Inspired by Gunwallace's newspost.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Quackcast 741 - Hooks
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, May 27, 2025
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Ozoneocean at 8:09PM, May 27, 2025
@PaulEberhardt - funny you should say that about fantasy :D I had always been predisposed to fantasy because I loved Robinhood, the three musketeers, King Arthur, the Norse and Greek Gods, fairy tails etc, but it wasn't till I saw the amazing cover for The Hobbit that I was completely hooked... My mum was part of the school book club and The Hobbit was getting a major release through there at the time, it had a beautiful image of Smaug on it that I fell in love with. Fantasy art was the hook that got me.
Ozoneocean at 8:01PM, May 27, 2025
@Usedbooks - That's a lovely story about your grandfather and your love of Agatha Christie murder mysteries!
PaulEberhardt at 7:46AM, May 27, 2025
Incidentally, I really got hooked on fantasy fiction when sick in bed. I'd never disliked it, just hadn't cared that much about it either, but as a voracious reader from an early age I found myself facing the demons of impending boredom because almost everything in reach seemed to have way too few pages - until I spotted a copy of the Lord of the Rings I got for Christmas as a veritable life-saver, Tom Bombadil, singing and the crossing of the Dead Marshes notwithstanding. No idea to what lows I'd have stooped in my desperation otherwise - I might even have done homework for school. The mere thought! ;) I've been a big fan of fantasy and written sci-fi ever since.
PaulEberhardt at 7:32AM, May 27, 2025
The thing with getting hooked on something, as well as weaned off it, is as much about wanting to like it as anything else. A while ago I read that many young people start drinking coffee mostly because they see grown-ups do it and want to feel a bit more grown-up themselves so much they can convince themselves they like it despite the bitter taste. I've wondered ever since if it's the same with everyone, because it definitely doesn't ring true with me, personally. I can't remember not liking it, but I do know I've never had anything like a sweet tooth like all of the other kids, apparently, and I would have liked very much not to be the odd one out yet again - yet I was... Anyways, it does ring true for a lot of classic literature, though.
usedbooks at 4:41AM, May 27, 2025
I also single-handedly turned my Gen Z coworker into a Trekkie. XD I'm proud of that. It gave us something to talk about. I didn't realize how completely enveloped he would be. He bought tickets to meet Shatner at a con in a few months.
usedbooks at 4:39AM, May 27, 2025
My granddad got me hooked on murder mysteries. We were traveling with him and we're planning to attend a play, The Spider's Web. Grandpa was excited because it was Agatha Christie. I never heard of her. He said she was a favorite author. I enjoyed the play, started reading. Kept reading. Then reading/watching other whodunnits. When he died, no one else wanted his books, but grandpa and I had bonded over it, so I carefully collected around 60 Agatha Christie books from his apartment.