Episode 492 - Impermanence of the new digital age
Aug 17, 2020
This Quackcast is about the impermanence of online services and the lie that services are provided for fee and providers have no responsibility to the creators and viewers that use them. Hushicho posted in our forum about Tapas newly restricting nudity in comics which suddenly disenfranchises hundreds of creators who've built up followings on that site with comics that were well within the the Tapas content rules. With that one change these comics have been wiped out, destroying all the hard work by creators to build up their audiences over a long period of time. That can happen with ANY digital service, we are at the mercy of the corporations that provide them.
Topics and Show Notes
One might say that these things are “free” services and that the hosts have a right to do whatever they like, they provide it all for us and we just use it, but that's not actually true. ALL digital services are completely dependent on their users and content creators for their existence. Sites like YouTube would not exist if it wasn't for the users that content creators bring in through their own hard work and money. And those passive audiences themselves are also responsible for YouTube existing because it's them who bring in the ad revenue and use the services google sells through the site, as well as exploiting them by onselling statistics about their online viewing habits and information about their other online behaviors. Even us on DD, who make no money of off our users and collect zero information about people, we STILL rely on content creators and their audiences for out existence because if there were no people to post comics on our site and no one to read them then we'd have no point and we'd shut down.
What we chat about here is the fact that you can't rely on any one service, no matter how big the company (i.e. Facebook, Google, Apple) to respect your content and to always be around. Services aren't as free as they seem and they're more than happy to exploit you and then discard you. So the answer is to diversify and use as many different ones as possible! Don't be loyal to them because they're not loyal to you! I'd say the one exception is Drunk Duck because we really DO care about and respect our members but the the reality is that no online service is completely safe: even though we are one of the longest running comic sites (18 years and counting), there have been times in our distant past where our service was unreliable and we were even down for almost 3 months once. So mirror your work and do not become reliant on subscription services.
The musical feature this week that Gunwallace has given us is theme to Ingenimia Aus - The start reminds me a bit of Cowboy by Bon Jovi, It has an awesome mystical, exotic medieval guitar sound. This one really takes you away to another place and time with its atmospheric synths, hand drum percussion, and delicate guitar sounds. I love it when the rhythm is taken over by tapping on the guitar strings, it’s a very pretty sound.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Join the Discord server to chat in real time with other DD comics people - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Death-knell for Tapas, by Hushicho - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/178480/
Featured comic:
Filaments a KerBop Story - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/aug/11/featured-comic-filaments-a-kerbop-story/
Featured music:
Ingenimia Aus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ingenimia_Aus/, by DFlimbingo, rated T,
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Pit Face - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 490 - Genres of webcomics!
Aug 3, 2020
Aren't genres great? They're so useful for categorising what we like and selling our work. Today we're chatting about all the genres that are popular in webcomics now, that we know of. Back in the day webcomics were mainly defined by TWO genres: slice of life, and gaming. And out of those two gaming was king! Actually a lot of comics combined the two. The biggest were things like 8 Bit Fantasy, PVP, Penny Arcade, and Ctrl Alt Delete.
Episode 488 - DD Anthology details!
Jul 20, 2020
This week the brilliant Damehelsing (aka Agiebun), comes on to tell us the details of the DD anthology! Last week Boundbun gave us a general overview but now we're having a look at exactly HOW it's going to be done and how YOU can contribute to it. We'll have details and discussion on the DD Discord server as well as in our Twitter and on the forums. Currently there are 5 themes that we're deciding between: Urban fantasy, Noir, Community, Horror and Halloween. We'll have to decide which of those we like best to tie together the whole thing!
Episode 486 - Discordia! Chatting real time
Jul 6, 2020
Today we chat with BoundBun, Damehelsing, and Bluecuts34. Who are they? Well they're 3 Drunk-Duckers and they manage our Discord server! Yes, we do have a Discord! You can visit it and chat with them in person! - or become a patron and see them on video ;)
Episode 484 - Background styles
Jun 22, 2020
Backgrounds are part of a choice you make about to best show off your characters and how to present your comic. Plain white backgrounds aren't a very good choice for most comics but they are for some. Random, sketchy lines, pixel art tiles, fully drawn highly detailed landscapes, copy and pasted photos, halftone dots, speedlines etc, the choices are endless but it's important to know what works for you own particular comic! That's what we're talking about this week. Yes, an actual ART based subject on a webcomic site, who'd a guessed?
Episode 482 - 2n Guess
Jun 7, 2020
Tantz's newspost on Saturday about the problems of second guessing yourself and the issues that can arise from that was the inspiration for this week's newspost. Second guessing yourself can have GOOD possibilities and negative ones. The good: it forces you to hone your creative work and improve it, you don't just put things out there, you evaluate them and improve them! The bad: you can get stuck in a loop where you keep on thinking your stuff is not good enough, you might get hung up on one little thing and never move past it.
Episode 480 - In Style!
May 25, 2020
Styles are a very individual thing. Emma Clare did a great newspost on them last week featuring a pic of Sailor Moon that she drew in her own style. The cover image here features my own version. Pit, Tantz, Banes and I had a good long chat about all the different aspects of style and how you develop them.
Episode 478 - Pity da fool!
May 11, 2020
Fools are an iconic character trope and I wanted to explore them. They're a lot more varied and interesting than is readily apparent. There's a LOT more too a fool than what something like TV tropes suggests, unless you get into the subtypes… And that's what we explored in this free-form discussion. I introduced the idea in the Patreon only video where Tantz, Banes, Pt and I try and get a handle on the idea for the first time, so that's a good behind the scenes insight into what goes on!
