Photo: Life-Sized, Modern Sculpture Adaptation based on the Oil Painting “Yellow Hat Woman” by Edward Hopper. Created by Mr. Brainwash. Mr. Brainwash Museum. Beverly Hills, California. (August 2023)

Nestled in a non-descript corner where Santa Monica Boulevard and Beverly Boulevard intersect, steps away from Rodeo Drive in the city of ...

Poor young Sam is having a very rough time at his new school! He just doesn't fit in, no matter how hard he tries. He's a target for bullying and he's definitely not enjoying himself. That is until he makes an unlikely new friend and finally things ...

If you look up Wikipedia on apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction it will be described as a subgenre in which the earth’s (or another planet’s) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. It can be due to the cause of nuclear war, or climate change, a pandemic (maybe one that ...

The sheer power of a good team is so defining that it's a trope. Some of the most iconic characters and beloved personalities have emerged from stories featuring teams of main characters.

Each of them are vital to the story, each of them contribute both in terms of the ...

Redlettermedia, in an old review of Michael Bay's Pain and Gain, contrasted that movie to The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese.

In the Wolf of Wall Street, the RLM guys say, there's a subtext that we're ALL capable of the mistakes the main character ...

LISTEN on our player!
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

We're chatting about a couple of things today: the DD 2023 Awards which are in their completion faze now, and “strong” characters of any gender.
The DD awards are finding up now and presentations will be ...

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 ...

I was thinking about the power of books in fiction - like, secret journals, diaries, and such.

In the show Supernatural, the brothers found a lot of information, help, and intrigue in their father's journal of his monster hunting exploits. I will say that it got harder to believe later ...

In this month’s installment of Character Deep Dive, we’re looking at Grenadine Luncher from the comic Ripping Off King Arthur by Arthur Spitzer!

Before I do any dive, I have to say that due to the unique concept and approach of this comic, I had to really think ...

I think many of us who make comics or write stories or are interested in writing can agree that mistake number one in writing is to front-load a story with a long-winded backstory. We've talked about it here on the site plenty of times.

There is an opposite mistake ...