It’s something so often encountered and/or mentioned in stories (be they comics or novels or film) that it’s becoming in itself a cliché: Heroes aren’t interesting because they’re straight arrows. Villains are fun because they’re the ‘bad boys’, the ones that can do all ...

The old frenetic push to any creator to be ‘original’- especially, though not limited, in literature, in comics and the arts in general is nothing new. It pretty much is the first question anyone has when trying to assess a work of art: is it original?

Often, for the answer ...

I continue to be an occasional fan of true scary stories found online. The “realistic” ones are cautionary tales, and might even give an important reminder to be on guard and keep one's eyes open…and the more unusual/“unexplained” stories are pretty darned entertaining and addictive!

Anyway, I ...

Pop culture is being visited by its own past. There's no denying the excitement surrounding the reappearance of the original Star Wars and X-Files characters after an absence of years.

We all know our mainstream entertainment is stuffed with more and more sequels, remakes, reboots, soft reboots, reimaginings, reintegrated ...

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And ...

Two-thousand fifteen started off with Kroatz wishing everyone in the Drunk Duck forums “growth, satisfaction, and purpose, even if it comes with an almost equal amount of suffering and loss.” I do not believe any statement made in this last year comes as close to this to sum up the ...

LISTEN!

In Quackcast 245 we TRY to talk about my idea that fictional characters, stereotypes, tropes and situations in media have influenced their counterparts in reality, and in a lot of ways helped to create them. Fictional stereotypes and tropes are made out of simplified models of things that happen ...

Apparently the difference between “terror” and “horror” was first expressed by writer Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), who said that Terror is the dread and apprehension about something happening, while Horror is the actual encountering the frightening thing.
Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about “suspense” vs. “horror”. Have ...

I usually write comic scripts with a pretty specific idea of what each panel will look like when drawn: the setting, who’s doing what, facial expressions, and so on. What I almost never do is write any of that down. Except for specific actions that characters have to respond ...

LISTEN!


Tantz and Pitface join Banes and Ozone to talk about comic book stores and the experience of going into them… Yes, that's right: webcomicers actually going into REAL bricks and mortar places that sell comics printed on PAPER! o_O It turns out that none of us really do ...