Episode 636 - The Cusscast
May 22, 2023
We're talking about swearing! Swearing in comics, types of swearing, the use of swearing, causing offense, taking offense, swearing used as a term of endearment, and some history behind various types of swearing. We barely even scratch the surface! We don't swear in the Quackcast if we can help it so we're talking around and about the language without using it, though we DO swear in our Patreon vid, which is free to all patrons, even the $1 level.
Topics and Show Notes
Swearing can indicate a lack of maturity, it can indicate social class, it can express things like anger, fear, triumph, pain, surprise, joy, excitement, and even awe. We use it to cause a fight, to indicate how much we love a friend (very much in Australia), it's extreme language basically, it's a very blunt, simple tool in the language toolbox. If you REALLY want to cut a person deep and make them feel small then swearing is a pretty soft and floppy tool, unless you're 12 or an idiot you don't use it for that purpose.
There are so many different kinds of swearwords in all different languages. We have the common ones in English based on various taboos involving bodily excretions, sex, genitalia, and masturbation, that are quite popular all over the world due to the dominance of the language. There are more culturally specific ones about race, ethnicity, class, religion, sexuality, and sexual practices that are more individual. Not to mention the cultural based swears or pejoratives that go in and out of fashion, like “boomer” or ‘incell“ that carry a lot of rhetorical power.
Swear words go in and out of fashion- what could have been viscous in the past can be seen as almost a quaint joke today. Or what was once a harmless mundane term in the past can be seen as vile today; don’t say Poh Bear in China because their leader finds it a mortally offensive insult! Or the weird history of the terms ”arse“ and ”ass“ and how in the early 20th century ”ass“ completely switched its meaning with ”arse“. In American English ”ass“ was used as a safe, non-swearing punny, sneaky reference to ”arse“ because they're homonyms: one calling someone a donkey and the other a bottom, but for some weird reason the safe alternative just appropriated the entire meaning it was sneakily alluding to… Which was bad for language in general because it reduced the ways you can use the term as well causing a lot of modern people to misunderstand the use of ”ass" in historical literature.
How do you use swearing in your comic or reality? Do you have a favourite term or phrase that's your go-to? Do you avoid swearing and have a whole armoury of replacement words?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Mercury Virus - Light, retro keyboards, sounding very Moogy… jazzy and quiet. They’re offset by heavier notes from an electric bass guitar, loosely thrumbing and strumming along, promising danger, action and violence, while the keys are just doing business as usual.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Captain Gold and the Robotrons - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/16/featured-comic-captain-gold-and-the-robotrons/
Featured music:
Mercury Virus - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Mercury_Virus/ - by Mercuryviruscomic, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 635 - Warcast
May 14, 2023
We're talking about WAR here! Trying to leave out politics, though that's really hard with war because it's basically ALL politics but on fire. So we're talking mainly about depictions of it or at least aspects of it, in art and the media. Both Tantz Aerine and myself work on war comics, Without Moonlight and Pinky TA respectively (plus Tantz also does Brave Resistance with Pitface), so we have some knowledge of the subject from a creator perspective.
Episode 624 - Comic panel creation
Feb 27, 2023
HPKomic is a great guy, he's been on DD since almost the beginning. He alternates the Friday newsposts with me, he focusses on the intricacies of comic panels. This time he asked people to talk about their own processes though and I thought this would be a good topic for a Quackcast! So on this comic podcast we're finally talking directly about making comic pages, who would've thought?
Episode 614 - Super groups!
Dec 19, 2022
Inspired by Banes we did a Quackcast on SUPER TEAMS! You know those groups like the Justice League, the Avengers, the Suicide Squad, or even Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy from The Journey to the West (Monkey Magic is my fave version). These are super powerful characters on their own but together they're even more awesome because their strengths and weakness complement each other in interesting ways. DD had its very own super team in the form of the Heroes Alliance, where a lot of DD creators got together to work on a shared universe. And back in the 2000s DD had a “Civil War” even with Keen Space (AKA Comic Genesis), where a huge number of our creators and theirs participated in something like a DC Vs Marvel crossover battle.
Episode 613 - 1930
Dec 12, 2022
The 1930s were quite a uniquely influential time for a number of reasons. The 1930s were the very last days of the old world before the new one was born in the apocalypse of the 1940s. Old empires, kings, colonialism- forces that had shaped the planet for decades were about to be shattered for the good, thankfully. New technologies were on a rapid rise as things were spiraling closer and closer to global war, Air travel was becoming a reality even as the old ocean liners were still the main means of transportation connecting the continents, people were building cites around the realities of car travel. Cinema had changed drastically with the advent of the talkies. and so much more!
Episode 606 - Scary writing!
Oct 24, 2022
How do you write scary scenes for comics? Banes loves horror so he come up with this subject, plus we're coming up to Halloween! Listen to find out what we come up with. How do YOU write scary scenes though, what are your tips and tricks?
Episode 601 - /rant
Sep 19, 2022
If something affects or disturbs you so much that you want to respond to it through a story that you write, that can be a pretty powerful form of inspiration! But it depends on how you handle it. For example, Stephan King's acclaimed novel Misery was inspired by nasty interactions he had with fans after he published a fantasy novel. This story was very well received and even turned into a popular movie. And then there are other ways to handle it…
Episode 599 - Badaptations
Sep 5, 2022
Source material is something that we can love and respect, but it's just as often disregarded, degenerated, and denigrated, especially these days where it seems like everything you see is an adaptation or even an adaptation OF an adaptation or worse. I think it's important to go back to the sources so you can see what was truly great about the original to begin with. It can help you see what was lost in the adaptations and to discover new and important meanings and ideas that you never would have guessed at.
