But and Therefore

I'm a fan of user-friendly, practical advice on things, especially writing. It's why I dig the Banes Method (it's not my method; it's just named after me).

Anyway, I came upon some dandy advice from Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park ...

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Overview

The Jonathin Quackup series takes place in a dying ...

So last week I talked about the basic principles of dialogue, so the recipe to the cake itself. But now I’d also like to talk about that cake’s icing and trimmings- what will make the dialogue we’re writing be fun and distinct and pop in our comic ...

LISTEN!

When heroes fail… Hey, why would you ever want a hero to fail? Well there are a lot of reasons and listening to this Quackcast will tell you why, but the quick version is that you don't want your hero to be a perfect Mary-Sue sort of character ...

The Businessman, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I have a certain level of disdain for people who believe that comics and art in general are merely hobbies. When I was much younger and on the receiving end of advice from many well-meaning grown-ups, the word “practical” and the phrase ...

In any work of art where storytelling is concerned, dialogue (should) play a central part. The relatability of the characters hinges on how they behave, and a lot of that behavior is verbal, especially in movies, theatre and comics (but also books. And everything else.)

So how do we create ...

Image by Gunwallace, from Utterly Rucked, found here on the Utterly Drunk Duck!

Photocomics

My somewhat undisciplined, regularly wandering mind went, awhile back, to the possibility of doing photocomics instead of drawn ones.

Of course, my fanciful thoughts hit a wall after realizing the amount of WORK that goes into ...

So I suppose it is no secret I like activism, standing up for a cause and giving it your all no matter what. From my comics to my actual life I have been doing so.

But what about the imagery that gets such a thing across to an audience in ...

Bill Paxton, 1955-2017

Bill Paxton was a regular presence in my prime movie-loving years. As the punk in The Terminator, the Marine having a meltdown in Aliens (“no way, mian!”), and the nasty older brother in Weird Science, he could be tough, scary, AND funny. He was always memorable, even ...

Failure is the stepping stone to success. That’s what I teach my students and my clients, and it is true, right up there with “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”: If you learn why you failed, you won’t fail again the same way- and that brings ...