Well hell, long time no see huh? I'd like to say I'm back from my, er, break all rejuvenated and refreshed and what have ya but honestly it's damn near midnight and I'm running on three hours of sleep that I managed to eek out on ...

Cinematic Universes are the big thing these days. Or they're trying to be.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is expanding to further-flung corners all the time: I couldn't believe some of the “cosmic” characters who appeared in the Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2. Characters I would have thought ...

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 ...

So here we are after the brief intermission, back to talking about archetypes from our friend Jung.
As of course is natural, all stories have to have a plot in order to be engaging and be in a position to make their points and get them across because the alternative ...

Spread the word to thousands of readers.

Thank you everyone for making QUACKUP #1 a success with over 4 thousand copies released!

I will be sending Quackup #2 to the printers in about a week (May 13) and was checking to see if anyone else wants to advertise before I ...

Comedic Characters - You Take the Good, you Take the Bad…

This week we continue talking comedy. Last time we started creating characters by choosing a “STRONG COMIC PERSPECTIVE”…like greed, innocence, obseque–obquestri–obteq– uh, weasellishness, and then EXAGGERATING that perspective to the extreme.

Now we finish creating our characters ...

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 ...

LISTEN!

Photocomics don't get nearly enough love. A while ago Banes did a great newspost on the subject where he did some great little promotional reviews of some prominent photocomics on DD. I thought that was a cool idea and I've been meaning to return to the subject ...

image from The Art of Veiling, by yours truly

There have been posts before (I think) about how to go about creating a world, especially when it comes to fantasy settings. You’re supposed, if you want to do it right, to build everything that makes up the world in ...