Episode 685 - mantle
Apr 29, 2024
“Passing the mantle” is an interesting phrase. Many claim it comes from a biblical origin; the prophet Elijah was said to have passed his mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven, thereby symbolically transferring his authority… but honestly that seems a little silly and elaborate of an origin story, the sort of thing bad bible scholars in America loved to come up with in the 19th century. Mantles of office were commonly worn by kings, statesmen and even lord mayors today and the passing of those symbolises them gaining office and authority. It's a very ordinary, commonplace secular tradition.
Topics and Show Notes
But why am I even talking about it at all? Well it's a way of transitioning to a new protagonist, often with the same role and traits as the previous one, but not always. It's a great way to retire an older character and reinvigorate things with a younger successor. The greatest example I can think of in comics is The Phantom. He's one of the oldest superheroes, predating batman and superman… The Phantom (in the story), comes from an unbroken lineage of heroes dating back to the golden age of piracy when his ancestor was betrayed and shipwrecked on an African coast. He was taken in by the local people, nursed back to health and taught their secret ways, becoming “the ghost who walks”. Ever since then the sons have taken that role from their farther.
You can see a similar theme in a lot of older stories or stories set in the past, like Zorro, the pirate Doctor Syn, even The Dread Pirate Roberts from the Princess Bride. These people don the disguise of their forebear and BECOME the same character. Modern superheroes play a little with that too, though they usually revert back to the old characters again and just use the mantle passing as a sneaky way of introducing a new character. But it's been popularly done with characters like Antman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, Spiderman, and many others.
In the Quackcast we have a discussion about how this method would have been a better way of introducing Rey in the Star Wars sequels and maybe a good way to fix Indiana Jones (though I disagree).
Do you have any fave examples of a passed mantle? The Phantom still wins for me.
This week Gunwallace made up a theme inspired by Old Dogs - The burning of an old fire, glowing red hot amongst the black coals and charred, ashen, grey wood. This is a gritty ode to grizzled, aged, experience and time. It’s prickly, with a taste of rock and bourbon, like a good BBQ sauce.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Banes' mantle newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/apr/25/the-mantle-theory/
Featured comic:
The Outbreak - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/apr/22/featured-comic-the-outbreak/
Featured music:
Old Dogs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Old_Dogs/ - by JCorrachComics, rated A.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 683 - Hot for Teacher
Apr 15, 2024
This week it's a short cast because my computer broke and we wasted time trying to fix it! We're chatting about teachers in fiction, a topic inspired by Banes' newspost on the subject. There have been many memorable teacher based fictional stories, To Sir with Love most famously, The Sound of Music, Blackboard jungle, Goodbye Mister Chips, Assassination Classroom, Educating Rita, My Fair Lady, the Mighty Ducks, Dead Poets Society, Kindergarten Cop, Welcome Back Kotter, and so much more! What are your faves?
Episode 681 - Swords and armour
Apr 1, 2024
Today we're talking about swords and armour, the reality of those things and their use in fiction. I've always had a bit of an interest in swords since I was a little kid because I loved them in fairy-tales, comics and fantasy: The Three musketeers, puss in boots, Zorro, the Narnia books, Robin Hood, Errol Flynn movies, King Arthur, Conan, Asterix and more. Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Episode 679 - Correlation doesn't equal causation
Mar 18, 2024
The phrase “Correlation doesn't equal causation” is something associated with science and statistics but it really applies to EVERYTHING and that's important to understand. But was does it mean? If a bunch of things happened at the same time, those things aren't necessarily related or causal. An example Tantz gives is that statistics show in the summer there are more drownings and that people eat more ice cream. That means that those two things are correlated. We know they aren't causal though: ice ream doesn't drown people and people drowning don't cause people to eat more ice cream… the third hidden variable is that it's summer: it's the rise in temperature that causes people to want more ice cream and to swim more, which increases the chances of drowning.
Episode 670 - Wise use of influence
Jan 15, 2024
This Quackcast is about using influence wisely! I had a DD comic creator come to me, apparently a bit distressed at some of the things we'd said in our last Quackcast about drawing adult comics- they had decided to delete their entire webcomic. I checked on google and it turns out they deleted it everywhere, not just DD, even down to their twitter! I've since talked to them some more and got more of the story and made sure they were ok but it was pretty alarming at the time nevertheless.
Episode 662 - Drunkduck tales
Nov 20, 2023
Webcomic communities have different cultures, but why and where do they come from? DD's culture is pretty chill, we're reasonably neutral and accepting of a wide range of ideas and perspectives, we're egalitarian to a very high degree, we don't do cliques, we don't exclude, we don't tend to jump on culture wars… We don't like tribalism of partisanship. So why are we like that?
Episode 659 - Happy Halloween 2023
Oct 30, 2023
Happy Halloween! The time of spookiness and ghosts. Spooks messed up the cast so the sound quality is really bad I'm afraid, I tried to do what I could to fix it though. This week Banes, I, and Tantz are chatting about Halloween and related subjects like scary movies and things. I personally only like comedy horror, or whacky horror films where things are taken too far so I don't identify with the characters and feel bad because of it. I find I identify with characters in film far too much (if it's realistic), the genre doesn't matter, it can be comedy, horror, murder mystery, romance whatever, so that means if the tone is too tragic and depressing it usually makes me feel extremely down. For that reason a lot of horror doesn't appeal to me unless I can distance myself from the characters somehow. So comedy helps, or if it's super-over-the-top and whacky like The Nun.
Episode 654 - tropes vs character growth
Sep 25, 2023
Today we're chatting about characters who're mainly based on tropes VS those that grow. You see this difference quite clearly in a lot of British comedy VS American comedy where characters are set up in certain ways, e.g. the nerd, the sassy one, the mature one etc- in British stuff they tend to revert to type, which is their most important trait, while in American stuff they tend to change and grow based on interactions and experiences. There are MANY exceptions though and one way isn't inherently better than the other.
