The other day I read a very interesting post by our very own Vickie of Used Books where she was talking about Romance. And what caught my eye the most was her description of the driving force behind romance stories as “relationship-driven conflict”- a very succinct way to put it ...

This time out I wanted to talk about superhero comics again and turn the spotlight onto the one that was responsible for me discovering Drunkduck in the first place…Dasien.

Over the years the comic has become slightly entwined with my own comic, but always they have remained the own ...

Having decided that shock value is needed in your comic and you must scare, disgust or generally traumatize your audience in some way in order to get the emotional reaction to serve your theme and your subject matter, how do you decide when and where to draw the line? (note ...

I'm indulging in what could be a problematic experiment. Bear with me…
In the history of this amazing webcomics hosting community there was a dark and interesting place in time and space, we called it “the Top Drawer”. Think about New York in the 1970s: dangerous, sexy, sleazy, unsafe ...

Let's talk figure drawing again.
We've discussed this in the past but it's ALWAYS worth talking about. In fact one of the lost Quackcasts was on this very subject.

Figure drawing isn't easy, you need constant practise to maintain the skill. If you neglect it degrades ...

WRITING A SCENE


Here are some thoughts on writing that smallest unit of a story: the scene.


First off, what is a scene? What defines that little mug?

It's Change.

Something changes between the beginning and end of a scene.

Here's a way to write one if you ...

LISTEN!

No new Quackcast this week so we're going retro.

Sorry guys… 334 didn't record correctly. I only discovered that while editing. Two Quackcasts we'd recorded didn't work, TWO in a row: the spare AND the current one! I don't check them right after I ...

When you're just starting out, coming up with good designs is pretty simple, but when you've been doing it for a while or it's your job, you run out of easy ideas- you've picked all the low hanging fruit. What do you do then?
This applies ...

Reflection Characters

When I was doing a little reading on the “Mentor” character type, I learned about something called “Reflection Characters”. It was an eye opener; I'd never heard of this before, though I could instantly see how it made sense in storytelling, and dozens of examples came to ...

One dock, three people. Una garza negra, the black dock.

It is sunset at a small pier as two men sit silently side-by-side when one of them breaks the silence. The two have an exchange of small talk when the quietest man begins a philosophical discussion about society and how ...