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 ...

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. I have met many young men who have joined the military and each time I look into their eyes, I see a brave person who is able to confront fears I never had to face at that age. Some of them may ...

Hey there, gang! Here we are again, another Friday, another ramshackle collection of anecdotes and tangents in the guise of comix-related blogging from yours truly! This week we're gonna jump right into another exciting episode of “aw, crap, well lemme think… what have I been up to recently? I ...

Hello again!

I'm gonna continue for the next two or three weeks about “The Comedy Toolbox” approach to comedy structure.

There is quite a bit of crossover between this method and other methods you've heard of. But that's probably a good thing; there should be some similarity ...

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Banes has been doing a series of very intelligent newsposts focusing on the mechanics of comedy over the past few weeks. Today in this Quackcast we go over the first three parts of these reports: Comedic Premise, Comedic Characters, and Good and Bad character traits! This one is just ...

Howdy!

I was going to go over the structure of a comedy story, based on the fine book “The Comic Toolbox” by Jason Voorhees.

If you have the interest, I can go into the structure outlined by Jason; he lays out a few different options that you may find useful ...

Welcome back, friends! Today we're gonna talk about deadlines!

When I took over this here Friday blog from my (much more capable) predecessor, I asked Oz, I says, “Oz- I can write whatever I want to, huh?” And he may or may not have actually greenlighted that but if ...

I’ll start today by talking a bit about one of the superstars in the field of Psychology (please don’t groan, it’s for a good cause):

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist (the super sayan combo in our field). He is considered the founder of analytical ...

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Today we interview Hannagrid Wright aka 5thezombie! She's the creator of the great Sci-Fi webcomic To The Galaxy And BACK! -featured by Kawaii last year. To the Galaxy and back features Kat and Zoey, two girls that have been drawn together by fate, across the universe, to have ...

So last time I talked about the little extras that can go into dialogue and how that dialogue can be presented on the page of your comic, so I was thinking today might be good to continue in that general trajectory and talk about little extras in your character design ...