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

1 like, 2 comments

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 734 - When love turns to hate

Apr 7, 2025

1 like, 0 comments

When love turns to hate… It's a common trope in fiction: partners split up and their once loving relationship turns to one of bitter acrimony! We see hate turning to love frequently too, that's another common trope, I saw both when I watched Willow again last night. Mad Martigan and Sorsha went from hate to love to hate to love again, and Sorsha and her mum Queen Bavmorda went from love to hate. It's a staple in fiction because it's a staple in reality.

Episode 730 - Lighting by The Doodler

Mar 10, 2025

4 likes, 0 comments

Today we have on a super special guest, The Doodler! This is another on our technical series about art making and this time we're talking about lighting. Tantz suggested we interview The Doodler for this because she's Tantz's go-to person for lighting issues in scenes. It was great to chat with The Doodler about her lighting techniques and the different challenges presented by different scenes. The Doodler was much better at explaining the concepts than I could have been so it was a pleasure to have her on the cast!

Episode 726 - Ego!?

Feb 10, 2025

3 likes, 3 comments

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 723 - Changing tech and design

Jan 20, 2025

1 like, 0 comments

We're talking about how technology and design changes so much over the years and how that can change things with plot in story and it can also help pinpoint the date of something sometimes better than other things like fashion. The biggest one we talked about were phones, which have changed so much over the last few decades. Universally connected smartphones mean huge story changes- characters can all look up whatever they need at any time, communicate with people instantly, entertain themselves, take photos and videos etc. That can massively affect plots!

Episode 720 - Happy New Year!

Dec 30, 2024

3 likes, 2 comments

It's not the new year yet but this is the final Quackcast of 2024 and it's coming out on New Year's Eve! In this Quackcast we do a bit of a year in review. A bit happened this year… DD reached its 22nd year online being one of the oldest sites on the internet and definitely one of the very oldest free comic hosts next to Keenspace which doesn't really exist now. We released another DD anthology comic collection, A Flock of Dreams (linked bellow), in which your Quackcast hosts collaborated on a comic together! We were really proud of that, Key of Dreams, our story was a real work of love, and you can read that in the anthology.

Episode 719 - Merry Christmas!

Dec 22, 2024

2 likes, 2 comments

Happy Christmas eve! In this penultimate Quackcast of the year we decided to have a free day and just chat about any subject that interested us at the time. Next week will be our final cast of the year when we'll do a year in review. We even went back to our roots and did some silly accents, mine were of course A-mazing! (they were pretty crap TBH)


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