Episode 414 - Bad Hollywood
Feb 18, 2019
Hollywood has a tendency to simplify or completely alter stories to make them more mainstream and appealing to their idea of a popular audience. In this Quackcast we thought it'd be fun to run with that idea and re-imagine our works for “Hollywood”.
Topics and Show Notes
Need examples? Take Carmen Sandiego: From a mysterious woman and master thief she has now been rebooted as a teen girl who only looks like a thief, she's really a good guy. Hollywood is replete with far worse examples though: “Run Lola Run”, a high action German movie about a woman desperately trying to get to a reality where she and her drug dealer criminal boyfriend stay alive after a routine drug deal spirals horribly out of control, all themed around her desperate run to be on time! Turned into “And Then Cam Lola”… Now a romance film and instead of a scruffy ner-do-well in love with a drug-dealer BF, Lola is now a talented photographer who's trying to make things right for her job and her girlfriend: Hollywood ;)
Ironically, the treatments we give our comics probably makes them more commercially saleable IPs XD
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to GRIND: Raw, slutty vocals and a slow sleazy tune… perfect for a burlesque show. This music evokes the acid colours and sensual, hardcore, comical imagery of Lothar’s GRIND perfectly!
Topics and shownotes
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Featured comic:
Ursa Tale - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/feb/12/featured-comic-ursa-tale/
Link
Hollywood Treatments… - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/178108/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Pit Face - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Grind - WARNING NSFW - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/lothar/, by Lothar, rated A.
*the cover pic is me and the other winner of best costume at a masquerade ball on Saturday. No reason, I'm just happy with it :D
Episode 412 - Hiatusssss D:
Feb 4, 2019
A huge thank you to the fantastic Amelius, creator of Charby the Vampirate! We mined her great newspost on the topic of the comic hiatus for this Quackcast. When you're reading a comic and it goes on Hiatus it's an awful thing… suddenly all progress stops and you don't know for how long it will be gone for. Some authors are great, they'll reach a point where they can't work anymore for some reason or they'll take a little break, but they will tell you they're going on a hiatus and when their comic will return- and Lo, it comes back exactly when they said it would. Crappy authors will say they're going on a hiatus and never return.
Episode 411 - The Right to Copy!
Jan 28, 2019
Copyright is a huge thing! It allows us to make money from our creations and stops other people from stealing them. But culture isn't about a series of billions of totally original ideas invented from nothing- absolutely NOT. Culture grows from ideas that are recycled, reiterated, and reinvented. It's all quite derivative and mixed. So there has to be a balance between respect for rigid copyright and some flexibility to work with existing ideas.
Episode 410 - Say My Name
Jan 20, 2019
Coming up with character names can be a real challenge because once you settle on one they can define the character just as much as their personality and looks! Names also affect how you name other characters: are they too similar, like Betty and Barney? Will it be an unintentionally meaningful combo like George and Washington? There are so many things to consider, it can be daunting. In this Quackcast we talk about some of the methods that duckers have used to come up with character names. It's pretty novel and interesting, anything from using friend's names, names that have special meaning to them, names that have inerrant meaning, names that deliberately have NO meaning, place-holder names, names from the phonebook and more. Your options, methods, and reasons are endless! Tell us what's behind YOUR character names!
Episode 408 - The imitation game
Jan 6, 2019
Happy new year! This is the first Quackcast recorded in 2019! Pitface is back too, can you believe it? In this Quackcast we chat about Imitation, based on Amelius's newspost from last Sunday. How do you know if someone has copied your work, just been influenced by it or influenced from the same sources as you, or has actually stolen your work wholesale? And what do you DO about it? Is imitation or someone doing the same thing as your “original” idea, always a bad thing?
Episode 406 - Amateur Vs Pros Merry Christmas DD!
Dec 23, 2018
Merry Christmas one and all! And all that stuff. This year our release date falls exactly on the 25th! It was a busy year for us, lots happened. But in this Quackcast what we chat about is something rather different: the difference between pros and amateurs, specifically when it comes to comics. There's this common misconception that an amateur is a novice that will produce work of a lower quality, while a professional is an experienced person who knows what they're doing and will always produce things of the highest quality… The REAL story is more complex than that.
Episode 404 - Strong characters
Dec 10, 2018
We mined Tantz's Saturday newspost for our discussion topic: Strong characters and how to write GOOD ones! What is a strong character? Well it has nothing to do with physical ability, power, command, or anything so obvious and trite. Strong characters are well rounded and well realised, they're often active and opposed to reactive, they make things happen, the story hinges on them. Failed attempts at “strong” characters or obvious and often result in Mary Sues, whether male or female. People hand them traits that they THINK will make the character strong: make them a general, make them a great fighter, make them royalty etc. The problem comes when none of that is ever logically backed up in the story. You can't just title a character something or have other characters talk about how great they are without having them demonstrate a reason for it, or else all you have is a pathetic paper tiger and a really shizzy failed part of your story.
Episode 402 - Audience expectations with characters
Nov 25, 2018
We're all back together this week and we're chatting about audience expectations for characters versus the intentions of the creator. Which is more important? Well it's a bit of a balancing act… You don't want to pander to your audience because that's not fun and they won't enjoy it anyway, but by the same token you shouldn't just do whatever you feel like regardless. As a creator you build up a contract between yourself and the audience; if you betray that by subverting their expectations with characters in ways that are very “OUT of character” just because you feel like it then you can start to lose their respect and attention. Killing off characters all of a sudden can be a big responsibility too, try not to take that lightly.
