After the End …and the Duck is on Patreon!



All stories must come to an end somewhere - whether it's a “just another day” ending, an “everybody dies” denouement, or the always wonderful “it was all a dream”. Or maybe it's just the end of this adventure, with another ...

In Swan Lake, the black swan Odile is transformed by her warlock father into the white swan, Odette, and posing as Odette she tricks the prince into breaking his oath to the white swan- because clearly making life-binding oaths to a woman you know so little you can mistake her ...

Trauma is such a delicious thing in writing- it gives characters their backstories, their motivation, their special slant in a narrative wrok, from novels to webcomics.

However, it's usually considered in the context of how it has made a character ‘damaged goods’. Why they are grim, why they're ...

Throughout literature and modern media, many faults and drives for leads, damsels and villians have often been motivated by a tragic backstory so much so, that to employ one for your story may appear trite or cliche. There is, however, a way to use a tragic backstory effectively and can ...

Today I got a list of stuff I want to talk to you about and remind you!

First off- USED BOOKS NEEDS OUR HELP

She has a pretty high vet bill to pay for saving the lives of her awesome rats. So please help her out whichever way you can ...

2018 marks the 80th birthday of the big guy himself - the OG superhero.

Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938.

Actually, there were precursors to Superman. But he popularized and defined the ‘Superhero’ character-type and genre. He was the template for countless characters who came later, with his ...

As children, we are more open and willing to believe the things that are presented to us as facts. We don't even question the validity of some statements, just take them as truths because that is the way it is.

One example of this was when I was sitting ...

STAKES

In a story, a Protagonist wants something, and some kind of obstacle is in the way. When the Protagonist makes a choice, good or bad, to take them to that goal, we're off and running!

But what happens if they don't get what they want? What happens ...

Whenever I read comics, I always enjoy making character voices of each character in my head. My favorite print comic has been Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley and ever since I can remember, I gave a two-bit gangster voice to the cat, Bucky and a very slow, well-mannered voice to ...

One of the toughest tropes in any kind of narrative work, from novels to comics to movies is the Sacrificial Lion - but not for what might be an obvious reason: having to axe a top tier character. It's because the trope is something that will affect and carry through ...