The funny thing about time is that it only goes in one direction and it goes faster and faster as you age. What at first seems like a broad, deep, slowly meandering river becomes a narrow, fast flowing, gushing torrent the older you get: there's just never enough time ...

Emotional Charges and Diminishing Returns

Many writing methodologies suggest mapping out the emotional change of each scene. The scene either starts positive, and goes to either negative or “extra positive”, or starts negative and goes to positive or “extra negative” by the end of the scene.

So if a lovelorn ...

LISTEN!

This week we interview the artist and creator of the comic Kings Club, AmeliaP! Her comic was featured and Gunwallace also gave it a theme tune that was featured in Quackcast 335. AmeliaP is a talented professional comic creator and game designer. We couldn't interview her directly because ...

Having decided that shock value is needed in your comic and you must scare, disgust or generally traumatize your audience in some way in order to get the emotional reaction to serve your theme and your subject matter, how do you decide when and where to draw the line? (note ...

Let's talk figure drawing again.
We've discussed this in the past but it's ALWAYS worth talking about. In fact one of the lost Quackcasts was on this very subject.

Figure drawing isn't easy, you need constant practise to maintain the skill. If you neglect it degrades ...

When you're just starting out, coming up with good designs is pretty simple, but when you've been doing it for a while or it's your job, you run out of easy ideas- you've picked all the low hanging fruit. What do you do then?
This applies ...

Reflection Characters

When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...

There are several ways to make a series interesting. I've been working on a new one for the past few months and endeavoring to make it something people will be compelled to read (or watch, if it ends up being animated).

To hook people in, you know? How does ...

CATHARSIS
from the Best of Banes Collection


A writing instructor once gave me brief advice on how to write a story, structurally speaking. It was 1/4 Act One setup, 1/2 Act Two complications and rising stakes (I think), and about 1/4 An Act Three “cathartic ending”.

I ...

PART THREE!
“I wouldn't give this guy's problems to a monkey on a rock!”
-David Letterman

Part One:
http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/may/10/the-comedy-plot-toolbox-edition-part-one/

Part Two:
http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/may/17/the-comedy-plot-toolbox-edition-part-two/

The Story so far…

Who is the Hero
What Does ...