I was surprised and saddened to learn just the other day that Rene Auberjonois passed away at the end of last year. Even before the upheaval of the pandemic hit us, I think life was busy and a bit chaotic, and I just missed it.

I'd been a fan ...

I have been a fan of the writer Peter David for many years. After being away from comics for some years, I discovered his run on the Hulk, and also found his work on the Star Trek novels. He was the best writer for those, for my taste anyway. There ...

Guest post by Genejoke

—

In the time I've been making comics, until recently that is, I'd never made a fan comic. It's something I've considered but always felt more comfortable doing my own thing, much like Banes talked about in his newspost a couple of weeks ...

LISTEN on our new player!
Listen on Stitcher ​​- https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/adarunkduck-quackcast
Or TuneinRadio - https://tunein.com/podcasts/Books–Literature/Drunkduck-Quackcast-p1150194/

Does a story always need an antagonist embodied in the form of an active character? I don't think they do! We chat about examples of stories ...

I grabbed the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey 2-pack and rewatched then after many years. I knew those movies well when I was a youngster, especially the first one. Many, many repeat viewings. Both movies held up REALLY well, and feature “Fool ...

don't i know you people from somewhere?


oh yeah!


I realize it's not true of everyone, but there is a good chunk of various fandoms who are not happy with the condition of their favorite franchises these days. We've talked about the Star Wars of it all ...

Pixar has had one of the most dedicated story teams in the business. Here are the Pixar rules of storytelling. I find them to be powerful and sensible! If you haven't seen this list before (I hadn't), here they are!


1. You admire a character for trying more ...

We interpret things differently.

I'll give an example from the 2000's version of The Hills Have Eyes (spoilers ahead).

There's a scene early in that movie, when the family is stranded but they haven't realized how much trouble they're really in. The husband of the ...

Many stories feature some kind of underdog in the beginning. This is a standard approach to a Protagonist. They may be very capable and bright, but have a lower status or disadvantage of some kind. This helps make them relatable and helps people root for them to win. Most mainstream ...

Preserving continuity is difficult with any writing project of length - with the weeks, months or more it might take to write a single novel or screenplay, it can be easy to forget things. So the problem is compounded if writing an extended series comic, TV or web series, movies or ...