Episode 635 - Warcast
May 14, 2023
We're talking about WAR here! Trying to leave out politics, though that's really hard with war because it's basically ALL politics but on fire. So we're talking mainly about depictions of it or at least aspects of it, in art and the media. Both Tantz Aerine and myself work on war comics, Without Moonlight and Pinky TA respectively (plus Tantz also does Brave Resistance with Pitface), so we have some knowledge of the subject from a creator perspective.
Topics and Show Notes
There are a lot of approaches you can take from glorifying war to showing the horrible cost of it, you can show jumbled scenes and impressions or you can show purposeful actions where there's real strategy on show. Tantz depicts a the real historical events of WW2 in Greece using fictional characters (and real historical ones), while I depict totally fictional events with fictional characters.
Showing jumbled impressions and cool scenes to give you an idea of a battle being fought, as in a movie like The Return of The King, is a very poor way to do things. In that case it's an epic fantasy, so you're supposed to see the bigger picture; the movement of troops and the purpose of battles, movements and actions etc which you don't in that film. Rather it's just stylised action from a small scale and jumbled impressions from a large scale. In all the original Star Wars films we have great battle depictions because you can see exactly what the purpose of them is as well as looking cool, they don't need meaningless jumbled impressions to fool you into thinking continuity has happened while we transition to the character next scene.
Depicting war and battle in a comic is not easy, especially when you're trying to show it from a strategic perspective. You have to think about things very carefully so you can communicate the actions and the purposes behind them. It's far easier to go the jumbled impression route, which is why so many do it, but I would advise against it unless you specifically need to- i.e. the flashback scenes, or the chaotic first hand experience from a person involved in the conflict.
Depictions of war and battle don't have to make full logical sense, as long as it FEELS logical for the scene. Like the Battle for Hoth in the Empire Strikes Back - Giant war walker APCs are a silly idea but they seem to make perfect sense in the scene. The dog-fighting scenes with little space-fighters against giant space warships in Return of the Jedi are ridiculous; huge space battleships should have enough weaponry to wipe everything out of the surrounding space for thousands of kilometers in all directions and would never get closer to each other than a blip on radar, and yet when we see that movie the question never coccus to us.
Do you depict war and battle, if so how do you do it? What are your tips and tricks? And what are your fave depictions in the media and art? Can be positive or negative.
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Elmwych - Mysterious, scene setting, classical, plotting, probing and prompting. This is a grand entrance into a cold, lofty manor house where all is not exactly as it seems… simulated strings and electronica spice.
Topics and shownotes
Future Quackcast: The cussing swearcast.
Links
Featured comic:
Mercury Virus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/09/featured-comic-mercury-virus/
Featured music:
Elmwych - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Elmwych/ - by Ironscarf, rated M.
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 626 - I didn't do nuthin'
Mar 13, 2023
Today we talk about an unusual type of villain, a secret type of bad guy and a particularly nasty one: the person who maliciously does nothing. This is a person who COULD intervene to resolve a dire situation or save someone, they could do it easily; they know how, they have the means, they're not scared or unsure, and it doesn't mean much risk to themselves, they just choose to sit back and watch the person die or the situation collapse… either because they know the result will benefit themselves or they're just curious to watch the person die or the everything turn to crap for the victim or whatever. Either way they COULD easily intervene but they choose not to.
Episode 622 - Whaddaya take me for?
Feb 12, 2023
This is when the writer leads you to think something big has happened in the story, like a character dying or falling in love or winning a big prize or something, only to have the character alive in the next part, or the prize or love never mentioned or addressed- this is “schmuck bait”. The writer gets you invested and excited for something but cops out, leaving the audience frustrated and cynical. This was common in older episodic things where the episodes are intended to be seen in any order, so the writers couldn't have continuing arcs and development across a season. It's also common in bad writing where the writer builds things up a lot for an events but then loses their nerve or just doesn't posses the skills to properly resolve things.
Episode 612 - Comfort food for the brain
Dec 5, 2022
There are times when you need to give your brain a bit of a break, that's when comfort shows come in handy! Movies and TV shows you can watch again and again- you can appreciate them every time and they don't get old. The tension never gets too much for you because you already know what's going to happen. You can just relax and enjoy the familiar story, revelling in the company of characters you know and visiting their world once more. They're great for creating to as well because you don't have to worry about missing anything important.
Episode 593 - Risky Business
Jul 25, 2022
The risks of online creative success We live in a wonderful time where you're able to turn your creative passion into a job that can support you just by using freely available online services like YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Patreon, Ebay, Paypal, Etsy, Webtoons etc. You can start with nothing more than your computer or phone and end up with a thriving business based on your passion project. It's not easy, achieving enough success where you can quit your day job still tends to take a lot of work, but once you get there it can be amazing. However, that's not the end of the story unfortunately.
Episode 584 - Drawing gender
May 23, 2022
We start off with the idea of talking about art techniques, tips and tricks we've mastered and could help people with but the cast turned into a discussion about drawing male and female characters- also trans, androgynous, etc. There's an art to representing gender in imagery! It's super important to remember that the way we see gender in art is mainly culture based rather than an innate biological reaction and the perception of gender in art is different according to your cultural background. It's basically a visual language that everyone learns, but as an artist you have to learn to actually “speak” it, and that's not as straight forward as you think.
Episode 578 - Punching toys in the boobs
Apr 11, 2022
BANES RETURNS! …to talk about boobs with the rest of us. The topic of the discussion this week was brought to us by Tantz's newspost on the 2nd of April about bosoms and how their shape and size doesn't matter. In the crusade against “sexualisation” in comics people tend to focus too much on big or “unnaturally shaped” boobs, but the truth is that any type of boobs can be fetishized and by reacting against one type you just cause a new form of exclusion.
Episode 577 - The Agony and the Ecstasy.
Apr 4, 2022
Creation is a process with a lot of ups and downs: Agony and ecstasy! The easiest way to think of it is a simple inverted parabola- you start of feeling good about your idea and its potential. As you work though you feel worse and worse about it till you get to the nadir of the curve, then things turn around and you start feeling better and better about it as it finally comes together and you finally manage to finish it!
