So lately there has been a repetitive sequence of events that seems to carry on until some kind of death- of the story, of the company, or of the genre for a few years or so:

1. Disney remakes a classic fairytale or animated feature (live action/3D/etc)
2 ...

So we love our clever villains, our smooth criminals, the conniving sly characters that use their brains to thwart the heroes and be a real menace. Like the riskiest game of chess, the hero has to match that kind of villain in strategy and smarts as well as determination, prowess ...

One of my favorite tropes (at least I think it's a trope. Not sure how common it is) is the “unknown hero”.

It's when a character who's known to us, the audience, maybe very well, and is at least somewhat important to us.

The character dies and ...

Ok yes. Plot armor in general is considered a mistake. With good reason. Enough plot armor and there are no stakes left in your plot, and the audience isn't worried your plot-armored characters may not make it. And if there's no suspense, there's no engagement or the ...

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Gatekeeping can be a pretty dickish practice… but not in every case.
Generally we see it as a social pop culture trend where older established fans of something will try and put down new people and ...

It goes without saying that the newly released movie, Across the Spiderverse, is one of the most popular superhero movies. The creators took one of the most divisive iterations of Spiderman, Miles Morales, and made him into a now beloved version of the titular character. They expand the Spider-lore through ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. This week I want to turn our attention to the power of small moments in time that gives comics so much poignancy and power when dealing with time. When we last talked about ...

So there are two sides to the art community. At least, as far as I've seen and as far as I've experienced- mostly online unfortunately.

One side is the AWESOME side. The side that's here on DD, and in many other niches like discord servers (like our ...

As You Like It
Character likability part 2

The great actor Jack Lemmon said about his character in Glengarry Glen Ross that he didn't want the guy to be likable. He thought Shelley Levine “isn't a nice man” and was not someone people should feel sorry for. Lemmon ...

The 90's movie “The Firm” is a good thriller. I just rewatched it and it holds up very well. Recently I picked up the book to check it out.

Even though I've watched the movie several times over the years, I got less than a third into the ...