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.
Topics and Show Notes
Kawaii and I continually search for new high quality webcomics on DD to feature. We never look for standard art style or story type, we like the featured comics to be highly varied, reflecting many types of art style, format, media and story type. Featured comics can be long form stories, comic strips, stories for all ages, comics for kids, mature comics, action horror, fantasy, covering topics like politics, conspiracy, religion, or just be pure fun. Comics can have amazing art and story, or just one or the other. As long as the comic has over 15 pages and is updating regularly, is not a A rated work and has no borrowed copyright then it's fine to feature.
What matters more than anything is the commitment and passion of the creators and giving them the recognition that they deserve, so that we can hopefully showcase their varied and interesting work to a wider audience.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Feint: A raw thrumming violin importantly intones ringing chords over and over as it sets us up for a beautifully rocky crescendo that culminates in a tumultuous sonic climax!
Topics and shownotes
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Links
Start of the 2019 featured comics list - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/comics/featured/?page=3
2019 featured comics
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ripping_Off_King_Arthur/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Legend_of_Wind_Fist/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Molly_Lusc/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Barkham_Horror/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_St_Nickolas_Conspiracy/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Feint/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Inner_Enemy/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/FULL_HOUSE_by_ProjectNutz/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Jacket_Comic/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Risk_it_for_a_Biscuit/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Wild_Wolves/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Interstellar_Dust/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Out_of_the_Blue/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Speaking_In_Tongues/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Stunlock/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_True_Face/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Limbo_Road/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Shootin/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Adventures_of_Kevin_Kid/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Mystic_From_Wanzerbe/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Frolic/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Feelings_of_a_High_School_Girl/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Great_Khan/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Caraway_Crew/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Android_Blues/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Unprecedented_Cleanup/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ice_Massacre/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Monkey_Nukes/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/QUASI_and_PSUDO/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Completely_Unrelated/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Jetpack_Jill/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Way_of_the_Waifu/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Customer_Service/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Angels_of_the_Fallen/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Operation_Boom/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Void_The_Guide_to_a_Healthy_Relationship/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Generation_Y/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Sunstrike_and_Bluemist_An_Origin_Story/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Bunni_and_Carot/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Aikonia/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ursa_Tale/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Breached/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Redneck/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/My_Cute_Wish/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Scarred_Eden/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Space_Repair_Garage_The_Comic/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Vagabonds_Waifs_and_Strays/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Cafe_on_Crepe_Island/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Percival_Pigeons_Perilous_Plan/
https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Run_Stop_Go/
Featured comic:
Ripping Off King Arthur - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/dec/24/featured-comic-ripping-off-king-arthur/
Featured music:
Feint - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Feint/, by Stonedraccoon, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Episode 449 - Star Wars 2 the franchise strikes back
Oct 21, 2019
As promised we dive right into the second half of the Star Wars chat! We cover all the Star Wars stuff besides the original trilogy and the new trilogy. There's a lot to cover and we only touch on most on it: Solo, the Star Wars Christmas special, Droids, the Ewok films, Clone Wars, the games, the books, comics, Solo, Rogue One…
Episode 442 - Death comes to all
Sep 2, 2019
How about having it so anyone in your story can die? Let me explain: It's fake. NOT just anyone can die OK? Your main character will still survive until the end and all that, but what you do is set things up so it really truly looks like they're vulnerable and can die, this way it gives the story bigger stakes. If all the other characters are obvious redshirts then who cares? You KNOW the main character or characters will make it to the end so the threat of death or even injury isn't that important… But if you set things up right and have some clever fakeouts then the story will have much more impact!
Episode 441 - Cooperation = cool
Aug 26, 2019
Cooperation Vs Competition. For decades the mantra was competition is good: it produces progress and makes things better… Well that's actually false. Competition is what you're forced into as a response to limited resources, so you do what you have to to win, which mainly involves losing everything that doesn't serve that specific objective. Competition is massively harmful to progress in general, it ONLY helps you excel in one small area to massive cost. Think of it in terms of an Olympic sprinter: they become the fastest runner in the world, but to what point? Only the artificial structure of a sporting event… they spend years training, exercising, eating right, wasting a huge portion of their lives, creative, and intellectual potential on that one meaningless goal, and IF they achieve it they might get a bit of fame and money and a footnote in history because someone else will inevitably take their spot. More likely though they won't achieve the goal and instead be forgotten.
Episode 439 - weather flavour enhancer!
Aug 12, 2019
Tantz's clever idea was that the weather isn't just a backdrop… it's an important prop in it's own right. Weather can be used to drive a plot: the wind snatches a hat and makes a person chase it, which causes them to meet another character. It can be an antagonist: people fighting a storm for example or running form a tornado. It can signal and enhance emotions: rain for a sad funeral or sun for happy for a happy event. Growing shadows can signal an ominous turn of events, wind billowing out a cloak signals a dramatic character! You can just use it for fancy visual effects if you like, snow and rain are great fun to draw, and stormy skies are the best! We chat about all things weather and give examples of how we've used it ourselves.
Episode 437 - Old Warhorse
Jul 29, 2019
Today we cover the interesting trope of the “old warrior”. This was based upon a newspost Banes came up with last week. He was thinking of Captain Picard in the latest Star Trek series and he also brought up Luke Skywalker from the latest Star Wars movie. The “Old Warrior” makes a really cool protagonist, in this Quackcast we try and discover why that is…
Episode 431 - Political messages in your work
Jun 17, 2019
This Quackcast is about having political agendas in your work and expressing them well! We're talking about deliberately putting in ideas that you want to get across to people, NOT the idea that all work has agendas and ideas no matter what. That's not relevant to this discussion. When you want to want to get your ideas across there are good ways to do it and poor ways. When you do it poorly your work either has the opposite effect (people will laugh at your agenda or despise it), or it becomes propaganda. Propaganda is for preaching to the converted, it's terrible for changing minds. The only thing it's good for is motivating people who are already on-board with you.
Episode 430 - Good beginnings!
Jun 10, 2019
At the beginning of a story how do you grab and KEEP your readers? This comes from the Friday newspost by Emma Clare. Her advice was pretty brilliant. From my own perspective it's generally characters that grab me first before anything else. Great art and a fantastic cover can hook your eyes, but without a great story or interesting characters there's zero to keep you there.
