The term “Mary Sue” became a lot more mainstream a few years ago - but around comic book websites like ours, and circles that were into writing and deeper fandom have been well versed with this for much longer.

The Mary Sue is a character who has abilities or positive qualities ...

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Character design is a fun process but not without its challenges. Do you design the character or their story first? I've followed both of those approaches ...

Site redesign update, NEWS!

Alexey will now begin to tackle comic page templates, making them conform to the new style. Em has come up with two templates for us to start to work with (compact and standard size). These will be the standard default, unedited templates, but they will also ...

I was supposed to write the last post on my ‘toxic’ character design series, but I've been deep cleaning the house all day and I'm exhausted. My brain refuses to think so that post will need to wait till next time. Instead, I'd like to talk about ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. This week I wanted to try something different. I'd like to ask you all some questions. I have plenty more panel analysis articles, but I also want to mix things up.

I ...

Tough love is so cool, eh? It's going to magic the “whining” right out of you, won't it? You just need to stick out through the harshness, and then when you reap the benefits, you'll realize your tough loving benefactor had the right idea. You'll be ...

Site redesign update, NEWS!

The 3 main things we have in this update are pagination of comments on newsposts (will apply to comments on comics etc too), themed placeholder thumbnails for comics that don't have them, and the implementation of a logo that resizes dynamically with the screensize! I ...

So last time, in Part 1 of this discussion of …sunnier villains or antagonists, we had left off talking about how toxic positivity is all about the toxic person's comfort. And that this need to impose a certain behavior, dogma, and/or approach to reality in their environment leads ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. This week's topic is special, covering an ending to a popular comic on The Duck. It is also unique, as I will not show the page for spoiler reasons. I'll be ...

There is a plane on a runway ready to take off at fifteen hundred hours. Emily Stedman, a university student identified as a genius protege by her professor, is introduced to Major Blue, an Air Force liaison, interested in her cognitive abilities. A bit clumsy at times, Stedman is able ...