Episode 658 - Marvelous musicals
Oct 23, 2023
We're chatting about the subject of musicals for this particular Quackcast. You might think this has nothing to do with webcomics but webcomic musicals popup from time to time, like The Black Parade on DD by Ashlee S.
Topics and Show Notes
Musicals are a type of entertainment like any other, usually in the form of a film or stage play, they evolved from Operas and operettas. Their characteristic feature is that communication of scenes is at points stylised into the form of a song, often involving a dance with detailed choreography. I personally love musicals, some people don't, which is fare enough.
But one of the silliest complaints about musicals is when people say “I don't get it, why are they suddenly bursting into song and dance”, they tend to say that this isn't “logical”, among other things.
ALL forms of entertainment are highly stylised and mediated, there is no such thing as literal reality in entertainment, nothing even approaching it, no matter how much we fool ourselves. Singing and dancing in musicals is actually no less realistic and no less valid than a super serious crime drama like Breaking Bad or The Wire, these all have heavy stylisation and artificial forms of communication in order to get their point across. You just have to get used to it.
Remember- before we had TV we were limited to comics, books, and silent films. Before that it was operas. Before that it was puppet shows, stage plays, and oral histories told in rhyming verse as epic poems and all those things were easily understood by audiences and able to fully communicate the feelings, emotions, tragedy and the plot for thousands of years- which is something to think about next time a person says they can't get their head around musicals. Taste is one thing, being ignorant is another.
Anyway, do you like musicals? If so, what are some of your faves?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Gaia Comic - Delightful, mysterious, evocative, and gentle. This is an interesting mix of styles, with a woody percussion, pizzicato on violins and a mournful chorus of cellos.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Musical webcomic - The Black Parade https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Black_Parade/
Featured comic:
Alpacomics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/oct/17/featured-comic-alpacomics/
Featured music:
Gaia Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Gaia_Comic/. - by Novil, rated T
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 655 - Alternative Character growth
Oct 2, 2023
Last week we focused on character growth VS tropes to run characters but Tantz had the idea to look at alternative growth for characters who did NOT grow well (after the original trilogy). So in this Quackcast we apply that to various Star Wars characters. Tantz tackles an alternative path and form for Anikin and Darth Vader, re-imagining them as two separate people. I tackle Han Solo and Princess Leia, thinking of them both as a happy couple who adventure and travel together in the Millennium falcon. Banes imagines Boba Fet as the head of a crime family!
Episode 618 - The grass is always Greener
Jan 15, 2023
The Saying goes that The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence. Envy and jealously are destructive, negative feelings that either lead to bad outcomes or just make you feel pretty crappy. It especially affects creators! We get down about our artwork, our writing, the popularity of someone else's comic etc and we wish WE were as good as them and wonder why we aren't… maybe we're just not as good? If we could only just have their talent, their luck, their skill then WE'D be awesome too. it's just not fair…
Episode 604 - Stylised reality
Oct 10, 2022
When creating fiction we always have to stylise experience in many and various ways in order to communicate with the viewer in a way that's meaningful to them because it's usually impossible to simply show them the exact reality of something and expect that same meaning to carry through.
Episode 472 - CoVid-19-cast
Mar 30, 2020
In this strange time of global pandemic it'd be crazy NOT to acknowledge what we're all experiencing together, so that's what we're talking about today: How the virus stuff is affecting us. Pitface joins us once again so today the quartet is complete: Pitz, Banes, Oz, and Tantz!
Episode 459 - 2019 Year in review!
Dec 30, 2019
It's been a great year! DD has continued to grow bit by bit, we've been stable and a great host for many many webcomics. DD is one of the only truly independent community focused webcomic hosting sites left. Most of the rest are commercial hubs that are not community centered. Part of our commitment to the community on DD is showcasing our best webcomics every week, which we've been doing for 17 years now, and I've personally been doing that for about 13.
Episode 438 - You just don't get it
Aug 5, 2019
Sometimes your audience just doesn't pick up on the clever symbolism, the hints, the metaphor, the underlying themes and all the artistic cleverness in writing and art that you've filled your work up with!
Episode 304 - eeeeeevil!
Jan 2, 2017
What defines evil in fiction? I say the simplest one is bad guys are selfish, good guys are selfless. That is massively over simplistic but it's a good easy template for basic hero's and villains. Basic ones I was just doing a quick thought experiment to work out an easy way to define “good” and “evil” characters in fiction. The more selfless someone is the more “good” they are: the more they think of others, want to help people, put the needs of the masses first, the more willing they are to reach across to their enemies etc. The more selfish a person is the more “evil” they are: if they don't consider the needs or feelings of others, help out their own small group and let others suffer, help themselves first. Of course there are many other more advanced aspects, especially if you consider the relative nature of these things: the idea that everyone thinks they're the good guy from their own perspective, being cruel to be kind, being too authoritarian and heavy handed in the use of power, NOT using power when you should, helping in a way that only SEEMS destructive and selfish, trying to help but causing destruction and chaos in the process, which brings us to the dreaded “unintended consequences”. BUT, the selfless/selfish equation is a nice simple starting point to build from. In the Quackcast we discuss these aspects as well as more advanced notions about what makes a good evil character, what makes a bad one, humanising evil, and weakening you evil character by humanising them too much. Gunwallace's musical theme was for The Cull: Dark, haunting, and compelling- Eastern European Jewish, country and rock, reminds me of Tracy Bonham’s later work.
