Episode 205 - What about bodyshape?
Feb 9, 2015
This week Banes and I were inspired to talk about body shape in the depiction of figures in comics, inspired by some famous images from photographer Howard Schatz's 2002 book, Athlete. In it there are photos of many athletes who're at the peak of their sports and yet their bodyshapes are vastly different, subverting the idea of an "ideal" bodyshape or what it means to be a top athlete or even fit. too often bodyshapes in comics follow a very narrow range, not getting much past what we think of as the current popculture ideal. We all know that idealised model shape is a problem and yet we all still perpetuate it, most of the time you can only tell most "realistic" characters apart by their hairstyle or costume, especially in superhero comics. And that invents a second problem: the myth of the "normal" shaped body as opposed to the ideal- there IS no such thing as normal, and even the ideal is always changing throughout the ages. There's even a lot more to body shape than the famous categories: Mesomorph, Ectomorph, and Endomorph, or Skinny, Pear, Athletic, Hourglass and Apple. We also have a beif mention of how stylised characters (Sponge Bob, Calvin and Hobbes etc) are exaggerations of these shapes and differences.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and Show Notes:
Featured comic:
Onward - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Onward/
Links:
Some of the athlete photos here - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2502477/Can-guess-sport-shape-Olympians-body.html
Bodyshape pics taken from here - http://bonytobombshell.com/the-scientific-reasons-why-some-women-are-naturally-skinny/
Typical DC superheros - http://s3.media.squarespace.com/production/465215/5366925/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/dc.jpg
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace, guitar shaped musician - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
The theme song by Gunwallace this week was for:
YOUR CHOICE - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/YOUR_CHOICE/ - by VinoMas
Episode 185 - Mean Joe Genejoke
Sep 22, 2014
In this episode, Banes and Genejoke are the sole and only hosts! They work diligently to review a couple of Drunk Duck comics: Utterly Rucked aaaaaaaaaand Pinky TA! (oh yeah, we went there!) "Ocean Ozone does enjoy drawing the ass!". Banes and Genejoke give us hilarious and in-depth overviews of both Gunwallace's Rugby themed whodunnit and Ozoneocean's TA themed action adventure story, along with a bonus Texan style satirical roasting of Pinky TA just for laughs. Kawaii delivers a slick, professional review of the featured comic Hello Albertosaurus, and Gunwallce give us a spot on '80s videogame musical theme for the comic The Chronicles of Bucky O'Neill by Demongrinder.
Episode 182 - Biggest mistakes made in starting a webcomic
Aug 14, 2014
This Quackcast came about in response to an article that was supposed to be about the biggest mistakes in starting out with a webcomic, I felt it was incredibly superficial and that it was mainly focussed on someone who wanted to go straight for the “pro” side, jump right in and make it BIG right away… The trouble is that there's WAAAAAAY more to the subject than that! Hence this Quackcast on the subject. I've seen thousands of webcomics come and go over the years, most fizzle out in the first few weeks or months for a whole lot of reasons, but even the ones that have staying power still run into many issues at the beginning. Here we cover a lot of the big mistakes webcomic creators make early on. We've also got some great contributions too!
Episode 178 - thematical thematology
Aug 4, 2014
For this DD webcomics podcast, Quackcast 178, we talk about THEMES. And no, we're not talking about those fine musical tracks that Gunwallace has been making for our comics. Theme is what's happening below the surface plot of a story. Plot is the events that happen, and theme is what it all means. We asked people What they thought about themes in their work, how they approach them, do you put themes in there on purpose, or does it happen by accident? Is a theme even necessary? We also asked people to talk about some of the themes in their work. We had some very interesting contributions. Themes in stories in comics, movies, TV shows and books are not things we tend to think about that much unless we're trying to be clever but they're an all pervasive and important part of any story nevertheless!
Episode 163 - Hip to be shark!
Apr 21, 2014
HippieVan, one of our wonderful news admins, made a newspost about the latest Archie comic sales tactic/plot device, killing off Archie, in the context of "Jumping The Shark", and it was quite a popular topic of discussion. Jumping the Shark is the term we use for a TV Series (but it could be anything), that has reached a bit of a creative desert so the writers attempt a silly stun or the introduction of a new character or theme or something that breaks the narrative and the story dynamic, all in an attempt to re-energize the failing series. Sometimes it works, but often it's a sign that the thing is on its deathbed. And that's what Hippie joined us to talk about: Shark jumping! In the meantime, we find a shark of our own...
Episode 124 - 60 Challenges in 60 Minutes
May 6, 2013
With ozoneocean away having fun this week, it falls to Banes and skoolmunkee to pick up the slack! Our chosen topic is "Challenges" - those longer-term thematic projects you see around, meant to get you off your drawing/writing duff and doing stuff that makes you better. They can be fun though! From the simple DeviantArt meme sheet to the gruelling Pokemonathon, we mention all kinds (although I'm not sure we mention sixty different ones...) for drawing, writing, and even a few for comic-making. Some are more famous than others, and some you might even just make up on your own! We do agree it's more fun to do them with other people, though. Don't forget you can find lots/get good ideas by searching for a likely challenge and adding 'tumblr' to the search.
Episode 118 - The Industry Standard
Mar 25, 2013
In Quackcast 118 Banes and I approach the subject of Photoshop, attempting to give a quick intro to the dark, mysterious, primordial creator god of webcomics... in our own rambling way, well in MY own rambling way since I'm the on bumbling through pretending to know what I'm talking about while Banes asks sensible questions to prod me along onto the correct lines again. We chat about layers, setting stuff to "multiply" and what that means, mention short-cuts, pallets etc. One of the conclusions we come to is that good old Photoshop is such a gigantic behemoth that as a webcomic artist you don't really need it anyway since it's massive overkill and there are many specialised art programs that are more streamlined and more clearly focussed on the art skills you need, BUT if you really MUST have a pro photo-editing tool like Photoshop hopefully this gives you at least some brief info on it- as much as you can without screen-shots and stuff. :)
Episode 113 - Never Been Better 23
Feb 19, 2013
Banes and I interview TheJimmy! TheJimmy is the Authour of the very popular and very long standing autobiographical comic Been Better! This is our second try at Quackcast 113, the first try didn't record so we came back another day to try again and it worked, hooray!!!! TheJimmy gives us a deep inside look on what it's like and also what it means to be the writer of a long standing autobiographical comics strip, where you can look back on pages and see significant events of your life rendered in a comedy fashion. Been Better has been witness to his many relationships, old friends, numerous valentines, career changes and a lot of growing up. But he also tells us about how he uses real life events as jumping off points to surreally humorous flights of fancy. It's an interesting chat! Also, the number 23 is watching you.
