Photo: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Paul Gauguin. Oil on Canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (1897-98)

A somber recollection carries me back twenty-two years ago on this day when I walked into a class where an inconsolable history teacher delivered a line ...

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. One common technique we've not devoted time to is the iconic shot/reverse shot, but thankfully, we have a strong example thanks to this week's webcomic. This week, we are looking ...

Last time I'd written about gender toxicity and what a trap it can be for creators seeking to write powerful characters. It is not something that only plagues the “strong female character” attempt, but also the “strong male character” and definitely the “strong LGBTQ+ character”.

Too many of these ...

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. This week I am going to be looking at a panel from the webcomic FCL55 that I think does a great job developing an aesthetic through balancing details within the design. FCL55 is ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. This week I am tackling a reader request! I was pleased to find a message in my inbox here on the Duck from J_Scarbrough asking me to look at and share some thoughts ...

One of my favorite tropes (at least I think it's a trope. Not sure how common it is) is the “unknown hero”.

It's when a character who's known to us, the audience, maybe very well, and is at least somewhat important to us.

The character dies and ...

In the whole “show don't tell” thing that is the holy grail of ‘good storytelling’ (yes but not always, this is for a newspost of another time) what they usually don't tell you is that behavioral patterns are your friend.

To show rather than tell, you need to ...

It never really occurred to me how many of our heroes are orphans.

Superman was the last survivor of a planet that perished. He was adopted by loving Earth parents, but he's one of the iconic orphans in fiction.

His counterpart Batman, of course, lost his parents at an ...

Photo: "The True Face: 267”. Drawn by Marcorossi. (April 2023)

Hear ye, hear ye! The final page of The True Face by Marcorossi went Live on The Duck on Sunday, May 21, 2023.

Here is a message from the creator of The True Face:

Marcorossi writes:

Hi!

I just finished ...

Hello everyone, and welcome to Panel by Panel, a periodic exploration of comic panels around The Duck. This week we are checking in with the scavenger hunt launch in the last post, where I asked you to find specific examples of a panel in your work, and we have some ...