When Superman returned to the big screen ten years ago or so in “Superman Returns”, the movie was intended to be a direct sequel to the two original movies with Christopher Reeve. I was surprised at how mopey and depressing the movie felt.

Which is to say, the movie felt ...

The other day while I was crocheting, I noticed that a lot of the yarn colors I had picked out over the years had a lot of grays, warm neutrals, and toned-down, muted shades of color. They were all lovely colors, but my eyes needed something more vibrant and stimulating ...

Move over Cathy and Luann and even that Jeremy kid from Zits. Here is a comic about a modern day teenager after she gets a new set of braces and gets through the day to day with way more than angst. This comic hits the mark on how the younger ...

LISTEN!

This Quackcast was based on an idea from Banes. We chat about designing a group of characters with complementary temperaments. In Banes' own words:
“I like the idea of the line between a logical, left brained person and a creative, right brained person, crossed with a spectrum of a ...

There's nothing more intense than subverting the audience's expectations: The righteous character that always says the truth says a lie. The character that values all life ends up murdering someone. The bad sort, the punk that's always terrible ends up saving the day or doing something decent ...

STAKES

In a story, a Protagonist wants something, and some kind of obstacle is in the way. When the Protagonist makes a choice, good or bad, to take them to that goal, we're off and running!

But what happens if they don't get what they want? What happens ...

LISTEN!

We nicked the idea for this Quackcast from a newspost by Emma Clare. What we chat about is the unintentional process of giving your characters you own traits or even traits of people you know without realising it: Every time you draw an expression for your character you're ...

One of the toughest tropes in any kind of narrative work, from novels to comics to movies is the Sacrificial Lion - but not for what might be an obvious reason: having to axe a top tier character. It's because the trope is something that will affect and carry through ...

You’ve gone through the arduous process of fleshing out your world, the themes and the lore and you’re standing back looking at your shining new playground; but there is a blight standing right in the centre that you can no longer ignore. You hate your characters. Maybe it ...

A big hello from Greece! I'm here with Tantz. It's very warm and picturesque.
It's always interesting going on holiday to a new country, especially one that's quite different from your own and you don't speak the language. You have to find your feet and ...