LISTEN!

This week we talk about maintaining suspension of disbelief: the way you have to convince people of the world your story is set in and keep them there. Everything you do is done for that, to convince them your characters make sense and the world works. There's a ...

Balancing detail and speed is one hell of a trick for a webcomic creator. It is common pitfall for many of us starting our webcomic. Unfortunately one cannot always have both of these qualities in the work. We go ham on all the intricacies early on and then wonder why ...

STUDIES

Recently I began two training programs: one for writing and one for drawing. Both have teachers that are very impressive.

The art program in particular is cool, because I've done almost no study of art or drawing other than some lessons in elementary and high school classes.

I ...

So last time we had talked about the Javert trope, a category of character that is very compelling and makes for excellent drama, immense suspense and often gets their own following in fandom. (Just check out Saito Hajime's hero's journey as a prime example.)

The Javert character is ...

Javert is such a stellar and powerful character in Les Miserables that he has his very own trope.

He's the skilled, dogged, unwavering locomotive of a chaser that in the name of the law, the church, the state, the cause pursues and persecutes the hero of a story, and ...

The Drunk Duck Awards have technically been running since 2007 when it was pretty bare bones and 2008 was the first year that had award winner presentations. The awards have been run by various members of the community, with Niccea taking the awards under her wing for the large majority ...

If you’re looking for a way to connect with a wider comic audience as well as fellow creators a great way to do so is fly over to Twitter and join in one the weekly chats held throughout the week.

These chats run for about an hour and it ...

A character starts in one state of being, and ends in a very different state of being.

The Character Arc in a nutshell!

Every time the subject of character arcs comes up around the site or on the Quackcast, one of the first examples that comes to my mind is ...

Earlier this week, I was given the opportunity to write a two-weeks notice/resignation letter for a coworker leaving the same company I work. It was an interesting experience and it allowed me to feel the joys of quitting without actually having to lose my employment, but it did make ...

Say My Name

There are titles that fit perfectly with their subject, titles that could fit multiple subjects/contexts, and titles that don't work at all.
Recently I've seen several titles referenced that made me say “I HAVE to see that/read that!”.

A title can be handy ...