Ashtree house hails from the Great White North as one of Drunk Duck's Canadian ducks. She is best known on the site for creating the webcomic Steel and Manitou, which was featured nearly one year ago on February 18, 2015. Steel and Manitou tells the tale of a young ...

There are days that challenge me. There are days that mould me. There are days that have a significant impact on my day-to-day grind. Last Wednesday was one of those days.

In addition to my duties as a webcomic blogger, I have been juggling several other “offline” jobs that are ...

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 ...

I read that a great ending should be “surprising but inevitable”. That's a tall order! To have the whole story leading to that inevitable conclusion, but not be predictable. Wow!

However, I've seen (and read…ah, let's be honest; mostly it's “seen”) several great endings that ...

Endings are hard. We all know that. We have to tie up all the loose ends, answer all the questions, and pay off all the characters. We have to give a resolution that hopefully leaves our readers satisfied.

I know of a couple ways to deconstruct a story, and to ...

If you want to decent job of it, creating and using weapons in fiction can be quite tricky. There are a lot of pitfalls that newbies and even long time veterans of creating fiction fall into.

1. Number one is simply copying what others have done without understanding it yourself ...

"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 ...

Last time, solo heroes, teams of two, and trios were the order of the day. Today let's talk quartets, quintets, sextets, septuplets, octets, and…uh…neuf-tets…?
More possibilities for self-contained drama/comedy/conflict exist with groups of four or five. There are several ways to begin building such a ...

Cast of an obscure 1970's science fiction flick. Current whereabouts unknown

One of the challenges…and maybe one of the greatest pleasures…of creating a series is populating it with a cast of heroes. I know I spend many weeks or months tinkering with characters and deciding who they ...

If you haven't noticed, 2016 is all about pitting superheroes against one another. This coming spring, we'll have Captain America facing off with Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War, and DC's two biggest heroes at odds in Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice. But forget about ...