Have you ever noticed that among the dead webcomics, a preponderance of them have “Hiatus” on their tombstone? That tombstone being, of course, the final page posted years and years ago with a promise they will be “right back” after a “short break”. There are of course a number of ...

Giving Mythic Scale to your Stories



Dexter and the Trinity Killer - this may not look like an epic confrontation…but it sure as heck was!


The classic Star Wars trilogy was a phenomenon and a triumph on multiple levels. One of the things it's famous for is it's ...

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Coming up with character names can be a real challenge because once you settle on one they can define the character just as much as their personality ...

Let's be honest, we don't always appreciate someone pointing out our mistakes. Criticism may be important for artists growing into their craft to find the right areas to focus on improving through a little outside guidance, but not all critique is made equal. Frankly speaking, a lot of ...

How to Pick, Research and Implement Mental Disorder in a Character

So last time I talked in general about some basic concepts and principles about what constitutes mental illness, or, more accurately, mental disorder. The important thing to remember and keep from all of that is this set of truths ...

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*The topic we discussed in this Quackcast was looking for symbolism, meaning and intention in comics: The English literature approach! Deeper meanings and all that. It's ...

Writing a character with mental illness can be a very tricky thing. Writers usually go for the extremely rare, exotic and spectacular: multiple personality disorders, extreme manifestations of psychopathy or sociopathy, high functioning autism with that ever alluring ‘savant’ magic going for the character, bombastically spectacular schizophrenia… in many ways ...

In a nutshell, exposition is a big ole mound of information that the author wants the reader to know before they move on in the plot. It often gets a bad rap but that is usually due to it being used incorrectly. There is definitely a place for exposition so ...

Seriously Funny

I didn't have a chance last week to talk about the passing of Bob Einstein, aka Super Dave Osborne, aka Marty Funkhauser.

Hilarious as Larry David's sometimes-nemesis and sometimes-friend, Marty Funkhauser, I remember him from many years ago on an old show called “Bizarre”.

The host ...

I'm not sure how many creators do it, but I often place my original characters in different settings, writing out stories about them very much like I'd write fanfiction about some established franchise.

It's even more fun when I do it mixing them up with characters from ...