What is a character? A miserable little pile of traits! Except no, there is more to a character than a collection of likes and dislikes. There are varying opinions on the importance of character versus plot, with some authors viewing all characters as a mere tool to drive plot forward ...

So it turns out I'm quite ill this week and I don't feel I have enough focus to finish up my “Writing Mental Illness” set of articles. I promise to do that next week.

For today I'd like to talk about planning, writing and drawing a webcomic ...

Over the holidays I watched a couple of programs that made me think of “non-traditional heroes”

We've talked about antiheroes multiple times around theduckwebcomics.com of course.

One of the programs was a series called ‘Happy!’ and the other was the movie “Inside Llewyn Davis” by the Coen Brothers ...

Have you ever noticed that among the dead webcomics, a preponderance of them have “Hiatus” on their tombstone? That tombstone being, of course, the final page posted years and years ago with a promise they will be “right back” after a “short break”. There are of course a number of ...

How to Pick, Research and Implement Mental Disorder in a Character

So last time I talked in general about some basic concepts and principles about what constitutes mental illness, or, more accurately, mental disorder. The important thing to remember and keep from all of that is this set of truths ...

Writing a character with mental illness can be a very tricky thing. Writers usually go for the extremely rare, exotic and spectacular: multiple personality disorders, extreme manifestations of psychopathy or sociopathy, high functioning autism with that ever alluring ‘savant’ magic going for the character, bombastically spectacular schizophrenia… in many ways ...

Seriously Funny

I didn't have a chance last week to talk about the passing of Bob Einstein, aka Super Dave Osborne, aka Marty Funkhauser.

Hilarious as Larry David's sometimes-nemesis and sometimes-friend, Marty Funkhauser, I remember him from many years ago on an old show called “Bizarre”.

The host ...

While talking about the Golden Globes last night, my best friend tells me to stop spoiling the end results. ‘Okay, I will stay in the crisper’, I responded. I should have known! A majority of people do not like endings of books or winners of award shows revealed before it ...

Oh what a coincidence, that my newspost day should fall upon the date of my 15th year on this very site! So naturally, on this anniversary, I'd like to open up and reflect on how the Duck has left a major impact on my life and work.

Every year ...

I'm not sure how many creators do it, but I often place my original characters in different settings, writing out stories about them very much like I'd write fanfiction about some established franchise.

It's even more fun when I do it mixing them up with characters from ...