Creating a Cast - in 1-2-3

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're going to be. …And how many ...

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In this Quackcast we talk about where the line is for YOU in your work about what subjects and imagery are too far for you. What is too horrible, too controversial, too extreme for you to approach? Is it blood and gore, something controversial and political, swearing, religious, sexual ...

We all talk about the sheer necessity to create characters that don't appear cardboard, that are fleshed out, that generally feel like real flesh-and-blood, living, breathing people (regardless of your character's species or nature) with personalities that ring true to the audience.

There are several elements that contribute ...

Webcomics can take many forms and with every story comes a unique and creative style. We have talked about naming your comics, the themes one can incorporate and how you developed your own style over time. This week, we’re getting technical. This week we break out the tools!

Back ...

There was recently a Provincial Election in the part of Canada where I live, and there's a Federal Election coming up in about a year.

With the brouhaha going on in the world these days about politics and the divisions between many people that are resulting from it, I ...

We live in a world that can be exceedingly beautiful or appallingly harsh, and everything in between. And as art reflects one's experiences, emotions and questions about this world, it's unavoidable that both the themes of amazing beauty and the themes of absolute terror, disgust and horror will ...

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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 ...

A couple of days ago Banes gave us a wonderful article on the issue of who to please- yourself or the audience, and how that can go very right or very wrong.

So that got me thinking that we should also talk about the dreaded silence. You update a page ...

May the Forcefulness Be With You


I've been fascinated to watch the unfolding of the “battle” between Disney's Lucasfilm and the fandom playing out over the past few months.

If you haven't been looking at the fallout, there's too much for me to cover here; I ...

Yesterday, Mks_Monsters asked me to talk about an experience of hers, which I have seen being shared with a range of creators belonging to certain social groups (female, LGBTQ, POC, etc) if their occasional tweets on the matter are to be believed: That support for them on the basis of ...