Episode 383 - Slow burn
Jul 16, 2018
The idea for this Quackcast came from a rant by the irascible PitFace. She was talking about how there's a trend in modern SciFi and horror movies to bash you over the head with constant action and it doesn't allow you time to relax and take in the story, you're just bounced from one relentless scene to the next. In the biggest classics of the genre like Alien, Ghost in the Shell (animated 90's version) or Blade Runner they DO allow the viewer slow moments of reflection and it helps to make the action feel more intense by contrast as well as allowing the viewer time to assimilate and understand all the ideas and themes they've been presented with so far.
Topics and Show Notes
This applies to comics of course! We call it a “decompressed” storyline. Banes asserts that's a negative term but I see it as neutral, “slow burn” is another term (The more compressed a story is the faster the action happens). If you take things too far and extend out your “slow moments” then you'll just make your audience bored as they wait around for something to happen, so be careful of that! Don't drown them in action, but don't bore them to tears either.
One of my favourite things about slow moments in films and comics is that it allows you to look down side-paths and to get to know the characters and their world a bit better, which helps with immersion (suspension of disbelief). In a lot of TV and movie DVD commentaries you'll hear directors talk about how they cut out this or that scene because it didn't help “advance the plot” while you as a viewer internally scream because you realise that it would have filled out the story so much better and help you understand the characters more.
Basically, a story should NOT always be beholden to the plot as the main driving force. Characters are what people generally fall in love with, this is especially important with long form webcomics! Don't be afraid of having slow moments.
Gunwallace gave us a lovely theme to Stop Watchers. It’s tiiiime to go! No time to great ready, just head straight for the door, you’ve dilly-dallied around enough already. It’s down to the crunch now. Get going. Now, now, now, now NOW!!!
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Children Of The Gods - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jul/10/featured-comic-children-of-the-gods/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Stop Watchers - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Stop_Watchers/, by StopWatchers, rated E.
Episode 382 - Suspension of disbelief
Jul 9, 2018
This week we talk about maintaining suspension of disbelief: the way you have to convince people of the world your story is set in and keep them there. Everything you do is done for that, to convince them your characters make sense and the world works. There's a very mistaken idea that this ONLY applies to fantasy or SciFi. No, it applies to ALL fiction and even non-fiction in the case of stories and jokes from your friends, biographies and autobiographies. You have to maintain a suspension of disbelief in all these things in order to fully enjoy and be a part of the story.
Episode 375 - Categories, genres and rants
May 21, 2018
In this Quackcast we chat about the categorisation of work by specific genres and how it makes it easier to promote your work to people, while for fans it makes it easier to find what you're into, but it can also be a bad thing when people categorise too specifically and narrow their audience to nothing or just pointlessly confuse the crap out of people. I came to this topic because I saw a post on Facebook which was very badly explaining “Steampunk” and “Dieselpunk” while introducing the two utterly superfluous sub-genre names of “Ray-punk” and Atom-punk“.
Episode 372 - Marvel heroes and an infinity war against greyness
Apr 30, 2018
In this Quackcast we use the movie Avengers: Infinity War as an excuse to chat about grey characters and how that applies in the Marvel universe. In truth we don't touch much on that movie but we do chat about a few of the other marvel superhero movies and “grey” characters in general, Tantz is of the opinion that “grey” characters are rarely truly grey.. My favourite quote from Tantz was “It's hard to punch the bad-guy while you're punching yourself”. Do the Marvel movies follow the comics or do the comics follow the movies? We'd love to know! This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Alienated: This is as if Joni Mitchell wrote a classical adventure anthem. This tune urges you on into the vastness and glory of nature. You are Caspar David Friedrich, A Wanderer Over A sea Of Fog, with the world in all its awesomeness spread out far below you.
Episode 368 - the Blahcast!
Apr 2, 2018
Welcome to another Quackcast! in this “blahcast” we talk about a lot of different subjects. This Quackcast also sees the arival of a NEW feature! It's the Princess January Show, by VinoMas! Where all the hot gos about popularity on DD is covered. Pitface tells us that Fury is the greatest tank movie ever, I correctly state that Tankgirl owns that honour. We chat about mistaken criticism of a movie or webcomic based on what we WANTED it to be rather than what it was, Suckerpunch being a prime example, but also the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Bad promotion also sinks projects especially films like John Carter on Mars. We chat about Star Wars The Force Awakens AGAIN! Which leads us to badly written female characters: a strong character is a well defined character that drives a story, not characters that are physically strong, they CAN be, but it has nothing to do with being a “strong” character. It's like the famous “survival of the fittest”: “fittest” does not mean “strongest”, it means the best “fit” for a situation. So those are some of the pop-culture things we “blah” about. We have a university student doing a study on webcomics. Please consider filling out her survey, linked in our links section! This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Project Prince. The simple plucked wire chords introduce us to a dark future scene. Synthesised organ and gentle patter of brushes on cymbals tip us off to the action to come. Loud distorted electric guitars give us the feel of a late night 1980s SciFi action movie
Episode 365 - Fashion forum fantastic
Mar 12, 2018
Today we interview Princess January, supported by her ever dependable VinoMas! Princess January kicked off the interview in full patriotic fashion as she melded perfectly in commander in chief, wearing looks inspired by George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, and looked very fashionable doing it. The reason for US President Collection was of course to promote the DD fashion forum and the Pageant comic. You should all submit some designs to it. There's noting more fun than dressing your characters in fancy duds and getting waves of appreciation from all their admirers for the sartorial clothing choices! So what are you waiting for? Join the pageant today. Join it! Aren't you proud of how amazing your character's clothing is? Or just pop on over and admire the designs and creativity! This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Card Commander: American marching band military snare drums blast you into the the beginning of this track, closely followed by a complex interweaving of sound as it builds higher and higher towards the ultimate conclusion!
Episode 363 - The Art Of Comments
Feb 26, 2018
Jason Moon, author of Crater's Edge, messaged me about some comments he had. He was perturbed about reader reaction to his storyline and wasn't sure how to handle the comments. I told him that those sorts of comments are the very greatest compliment an author can get, because once you get them you've reached the stage where people care about your work enough to get angry: they're invested emotionally in the characters. Yes. It is initially confronting to have someone commenting like that but what you really need to do is step back for a moment and realise what a gigantic compliment it is in actuality. It means you affected them strongly, and that's quite an important thing to be able to do. It doesn't happen much but it's quite a GOOD thing when it does. It's not an easy thing to do to get people that invested. What it really means is you have succeeded as a writer and reached an important milestone. We also have a chat about getting comments in general and also GIVING comments! Hopefully our new comment notification feature will be a boon for this kind of interaction. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Kitty Kitty Bang Bang: Multilayered Chinese video-game war anthem with a modern twist! That’s how I’d describe this complex little piece. It’s the final boss battle, you’ve got no spare lives, you’re down to your last powerup and time is running out!
Episode 361 - Primordial Creations
Feb 12, 2018
Today we talk about where our characters began, not their origin stories or why we started writing them but rather what they used to look like! Pitface was inspired to create a thread based on this idea by Emma Clare's newspost series of origin stories. So we just HAD to have Emma Clare along with us to discus this too! Pit, Tantz, and Emma discuss their bishie origins and talk about maybe doing a bishie DD calendar… We HAVE to make them do that! Emma Clare of course does our Friday newsposts as well as the comic Puppets and Strings and is the artist on Constellation Chronicles. What did your character look like when you first started? This week Gunwallace has given us the theme Wolf Moon - A slow, rich acoustic beginning lulls you calmly, then we roar into a rough, electric feast, a veritable tidal wave of sound washes over you and carries you out to sea.