Anyone that has written or read fanfiction knows that the AU is the Alternate Universe: the placement of a given set of characters that come from a specific IP or franchise or book or movie into a completely different setting, timeline, or even genre.

The LOTR cast might be thrown ...

Hello and welcome to Panel by Panel, an analysis of panels from comics right here on The Duck and exploring what they do, how they work, and what we can learn from them.

This week's panel comes from the Ghastley Heights strip “Pamphlets.” This comic is by IronScarf. Let ...

Pets are intimate companions that get us through the day. Cats, dogs, rabbits, rats, snakes, fish, you name it- they help us in their own way. And yet not many characters in fiction or comics tend to have them. I for one don't include animals at all in my ...

Welcome to…
The DD Fashion Spotlight!
Number 25.

Hpkomic is sharing the load with Friday newsposts, so we alternate each week. My turn this week!

Kumiko, Maria, and Elda are all dressed as maids, in a very typically manga style. This is solidly a manga trope which comes from a ...

A million things have already been said and talked about regarding an artist's inspiration. A million more will be. From debates on what constitutes inspiration vs. poaching or plagiarism to what makes an artist inspired by other artists' work.

But what I want to talk about is not exactly ...

Hello and welcome to Panel by Panel, an analysis of panels from comics right here on The Duck and exploring what they do, how they work, and what we can learn from them.

Let's start with our panel in question this week. This one comes from the webcomic of ...

No, this article isn't about the mythological beings. I wouldn't want to steal any single one from Andreas Helixfinger's awesome Sunday article series.

What I want to talk about is the metaphorical unicorn: a character that is too good to be true, too unlikely to be found ...

Welcome to…
The DD Fashion Spotlight!
Number 24.



Lilith and Eve are two interesting people with a special relationship budding between the two of them. Both are trans and they have very individual styles. Lilith is proud, confident, aggressive and dressy with a masculine spice. Eve is a lot less ...

Our world seems drab, grey, mundane. But some escape it through a magic portal that transports them into a colorful, beautiful, adventurous magic world.

A world that is secret, known only to the select few as everyone else lives on unaware in the real world. And yet, the secret magic ...

Welcome to…
The DD Fashion Spotlight!
Number 23.



Meet Sarah from Simply Sarah. We've got quite a change here! Usually characters are in rather fantastic clothes, even when they're realistic they're still generally aspirational. Sarah actually wears every day realistic clothes! This is quite interesting, it's ...