Episode 739 - Deferring to Experts
May 12, 2025
When you're working on a project with other people, a comic collaboration for example, it's usually best to decide on different roles for everyone according to what they're best at (writer, artist, layout design, pencils, inks, colour, backgrounds lettering etc), and let them handle it. You don't micromanage and make decisions for them. Basically they're the “experts” on those things now so you wait and see what they do.
Topics and Show Notes
The idea for this Quackcast came to me after someone defended the super clunky Star Wars prequels with the old argument that George Lucas created them and he also created the original Star Wars so he must know best and certainly better than any “haters”. In reality though the prequels are an excellent example of why you MUST defer to people who know better. The original trilogy of Star Wars movies were created at a time when George was still a small fish in a big pond, he wasn't powerful or rich enough to have much control in the industry at that stage. He came up with great ideas (Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc), but had to rely on the studio system to get them made, which meant he had to collaborate with people who's job it was to make great movies: directors, script editors, Foley artists, casting directors, concept designers, model makers etc. As well as studio execs and producers. He had to compromise on what was feasible.
But after the massive success of the movies, making a mint off of the sale of IP and merchandising, and his SFX studio Industrial Light and Magic being the industry standard, many years later when Luca worked on the prequels he had unrivalled power. He didn't have to defer to anyone anymore, he didn't have to collaborate or make compromises. He was the last word and he knew best… Except he didn't. In the years since he made those initial movies he hadn't directed much or written many scripts and the Prequels show that all too well with bad dialogue, clunky direction, bad plot choices etc. He even got rid of his expert model makers and all the work they did and used CGI instead because it gave him more control.
TL,DR: The original Star Wars were good because they were made as collaborative projects by very experienced people while the prequels were mainly controlled by a guy who lacked a lot of expertise and it shows.
The Dunning Kruger effect makes us think we're experts in things we only know a little about, ALL of us suffer from it constantly, even me, but when you've had some success in a field: that gives you confirmation bias that “proves” you really ARE an expert. This was Lucas's position during the prequels.
I've worked in 2 collabs recently, Bottomless Waitress with Banes and Key of Dreams with Tantz and Banes. On both those projects we all have distinct roles and we stuck with them very easily! We worked within them and didn't ever bump into each other or try and take over anyone's role and so these are good examples of smooth collaborations which produce results people like. Bands are great examples of collaborative projects, especially when they're working with people who all get the chance to shine and handle their own roles. This is why I love Led zeppelin so much: back in the day Jimmy Page was the band leader and lead guitarist but he let each member handle what they were best at in their own way so it worked as a group of collaborative experts and you can really hear that in the sound!
I ramble because I'm tired and I have a headache but I think this is an interesting point: You can't be an expert at everything so when you work with others let them handle what they do best and you do what you do best. There are many examples of great collaborative projects where many people working on them are great at what they do and come together to produce something magical. Some of my faves are Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds (rock opera), Led Zeppelin, The Life of Brian, The Empire Strikes Back and more… What are yours?
This week it's another best off from Gunwallace! The Jacket Comic - Wiry, punk, gritty, shiny and cool, this one jangles in on lyrical chords, sounding indie-rock with an almost Arabian flavour at times as the strings howl and echo up and down the scales. A rocky tune it for the coolest jacket in the world.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Highly Devolved - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/may/06/featured-comic-highly-devolved/
Featured music:
The Jacket Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Jacket_Comic/ - by RTHaldeman, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 736 - Resurrection
Apr 21, 2025
Happy Easter! Well that was Sunday, but happy Easter anyway. In honour of that yearly and ancient ritual holiday that has its roots in the rebirth of spring in the northern hemisphere our Quackcast is on the theme of resurrection! The idea that people can come back to life in realty is pure fantasy but it is an essential part of all different kinds of fiction.
Episode 735 - Anime
Apr 14, 2025
Welcome to another DD Quackcast! We were going to discuss Ad Hoc rationalisations and also “what happens AFTER you take over the world” but both topics were waaaay too trumpish and we didn't feel like getting negative and ranty about that fellow's foolishness so we thought we'd talk anime instead! But what is anime? At its simplest it's just cartoons like any other but they happen to be from Japan. There's more to it though, most anime has a articular look to it: reasonably realistically drawn worlds and reasonably realistic figures but they all tend to have slightly oversized heads, huge expressive eyes, tiny noses and mouths, and very stylised hair and reactions. That's not always the case but it's pretty typical. But these days “anime” is also made in Korea, China, France, the USA and more, it's become a style rather than a country of origin thing.
Episode 733 - Watch again: Rediscovering
Mar 30, 2025
Watching, reading, and listening to things a second, third or even a million times can offer you a whole new experience. Why do we pick up the same thing to enjoy again? It could be nostalgia, it could be the need for comfort in the familiar, maybe it's research, or maybe you're rewatching the early episodes of a series so you can get more enjoyment out of new, later episodes that you haven't seen before?
Episode 732 - Meet the Parodians
Mar 24, 2025
Parody and satire are a certain kind of humour. They're VERY easy to do because you just base them off real, already existing things, then you twist it a bit to add humour and make it ridiculous. But that's where it gets tricky! Satire is a parody of a real situation rather than fictional, it tends to have a harder edge. Where it usually goes wrong is that people mistake it for something straight, i.e. NOT satire, not comedy, not exaggeration or ridicule. The two main approaches to parody are a broad satire of a genre, like Princess Bride on fairytale fantasy, or a more targeted approach like Spaceballs which satirised Star Wars, and things in between like Airplane, which made fun of the film Zero Hour but also used it as a chance to parody the disaster movie genre and include a shotgun approach to pop-cultural jokes, making fun of everything happening in the 1970s.
Episode 731 - Contrariancast
Mar 17, 2025
I love those characters who bitch and moan and want to do things differently, although they don't usually take up the leadership role themselves, they just THINK they should be leader instead, but they don't really want to be one. They become a sort of fake antagonist… they're not the REAL antagonist, they just like to spice things up and add tension because they don't want to go with what the leader or the rest of the gang says.
Episode 726 - Ego!?
Feb 10, 2025
Do you have a big ego? Do you know someone who has? This Quackcast is about utilising egos for comic characters for comedic purposes, to humanise character, or to make villains more unlikeable and or funny. Big egos are a sign of poor self esteem, people inflate their egos to cope with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. For examples of that we have a certain prominent politician and also a tech billionaire as perfect representations of every facet of that concept. :)
Episode 725 - Your fave comics as a kid
Feb 3, 2025
We're chatting about the comics you liked as a little kiddo this week! The topic was inspired by a thread in the DD forums. This is always a fun topic and I always have to mention Asterix because it was so amazing. This week Tantz had to bow out but we have Gunwallace to replace her, and Banes is back! Gunwallace is a fellow Antipodean, that means he and I share many of the same cultural touch stones, particularity the comic Footrot Flats. (Tantz is still on the Patreon only video)
