I like mentor characters.

This is not just me of course; the mentor and protagonist relationship is powerful. Some of the best moments in many stories are the first encounter with the mentor, the training and sense of discovery for the protagonist, and the eventual loss of the mentor character ...

In the depths of eternal darkness, a young man makes a sacrifice in exchange for his father but there is an even darker force in charge of his fate. His wish might have been granted, but it was accompanied by much dire consequences.

The story is set in a small ...

Hi all, for those of you who are regular users of the site but don't frequent the forums, I just wanted to draw your attention to this. We've been talking about doing basically a big group skype “meet-up.” If you're interested, the thread is here: http://www ...

In many parts of the world, this Sunday is Mother's Day. So I thought we'd take a look at some of my favourite Mothers in fiction.

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii25/Banes500/moms.png

How many of these Moms and their shows/movies/comics can you identify ...

JOHN BYRNE

When I first became seriously interested in comics, John Byrne was at the top of my favorite artist list. He drew many of the classic “new” X-Men books, and was the artist on that series when it first became massively popular. The stories Byrne drew (and co-plotted along ...

Lately I've been spending some time doing some light renovations on my house. I'm under some pressure with this stuff, and it's been very difficult, mentally.

For the most part, things are working out so far. These are renos that some people could pull off with barely ...

(This exclusive front page article was written entirely by DD's very own Whirlwynd!)

Hey all! My name's Whirlwynd. I've been producing webcomics since the late 90's and I've been a member of the Duck since 2004. Thanks for reading this thinly-veiled attempt to promote my ...

Rather than write about something I'm good at I thought I write about something I'm struggling with, and my attempts to resolve it. Writing characters with distinct voices.

Comics are usually conversations between characters. Speech bubbles are the preferred way to tell comic stories, as opposed to large ...

It's that time of year again, the big blockbuster movies are coming and Marvels first movie of the year and contestant in this years superhero smack down is Captain America: Civil war.
Based on the massive Marvel crossover comic that saw Marvels superheroes taking sides over a controversial government ...

Today we'll talk sequel and series character arcs, and focus on the cinematic portrayal of Iron Man

Last Week we talked about character arcs. They're an important element of fiction writing…although a lot of the time, there is no arc! But a strong, unpredictable character arc can ...