Episode 726 - Ego!?
Feb 10, 2025
Do you have a big ego? Do you know someone who has? This Quackcast is about utilising egos for comic characters for comedic purposes, to humanise character, or to make villains more unlikeable and or funny. Big egos are a sign of poor self esteem, people inflate their egos to cope with feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. For examples of that we have a certain prominent politician and also a tech billionaire as perfect representations of every facet of that concept. :)
Topics and Show Notes
Personally I LOVE a protagonist with a big, inflated ego, especially if it's also illustrated that it's undeserved, and often shown punctured. It's pretty uncommon for protagonists to have big egos though unfortunately because people see that as weakness in their character and status rather than making them more interesting. Big egos are far more common in villains, mostly because it's seen as a negative trait, but also because it's an easy way to show how weak and pathetic they are, they're also a goldmine for easy laughs. The latter is the reason that the characters with the biggest egos in fiction are often not the main villain but the villain's lieutenant.
My favourite protagonists with big egos are Tank Girl, George Costanza from Seinfeld, Duckman (played by the same actor as George. Jason Alexander), Flashman from the books by George MacDonald Fraser, Space Dandy, Basil Faulty from Faulty Towers, Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping up Appearances, and Meg from the series Drifters. I'd love to name more but it's not a common trait, though you can point out a million villains with massive egos.
In the Quackcast I examine Conan the Barbarian as a story about ego: Conan acquires a massive ego as a reaction to being kidnapped as a child and living as a slave, then being trained as a gladiator and lauded with praise and women. That only increases when he gets his freedom, joins his friends and becomes a successful thief. He's then tasked with rescuing a princess from a cult and returning her to her father. His ego is so big he eschews the help of his friends and tries to do it alone. He's captured by the villain, Thulsa Doom, the same man who killed his mother and enslaved him. Thulsa lectures him on the strength of ego and manipulation before crucifying Conan on a tree. As he dies, Conan's ego dies with him. His friends find his body and take him back, reviving him without ego. In then end Conan defeats Thulsa Doom, Thulsa expects his ego to dominate Conan and save himself but Conan kills him the same way Thulsa killed his mother, and does it totally without ego. As a last gesture he burns down Thulsa's temple and his cult disbands: the last two symbols of Thulsa Doom's over inflated ego.
Do you agree with my take on Conan the Barbarian? Do you like characters to have a big ego? If so, what are your fave examples?
Gunwallace was kind enough to give us a theme inspired Therion Inside of Me - Rocky, raw, groove with a godly chorus of cool backup singers. Let this one burn into your consciousness and enjoy!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Midcard - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/feb/04/featured-comic-midcard/
Featured music:
Therion Inside of Me - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Therion_Inside_of_Me_/ - by Denverjem, rated A.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 724 - America's Plutocratic classism
Jan 26, 2025
Is there a culture of plutocratic classism in the USA? I'm inspired by Trump's America and how people think that people like Elon Musk and him are above the law because they're rich, while conversely the lowest rank in society are the homeless and the poor. But what do I mean by “Plutocratic classism”? A plutocracy is a society where people's position is determined by their wealth, classism is our tendency to discriminate based on social class, put that together and you have people determining social value by how much money a person seems to have.
Episode 722 - Main characters with main character syndrome
Jan 12, 2025
Main characters with main character syndrome? What is main character syndrome? Well the way we're dealing with it here it's normally a snide criticism you level and someone who seems to think the world revolves around them, like social media “influencers”, selfish self centred people, that sort of thing. Popular figures like Elon Musk and Donald Trump are great examples: they imagine the world should bend to their whim, and normal rules don't apply, like a main character in a fictional story.
Episode 720 - Happy New Year!
Dec 30, 2024
It's not the new year yet but this is the final Quackcast of 2024 and it's coming out on New Year's Eve! In this Quackcast we do a bit of a year in review. A bit happened this year… DD reached its 22nd year online being one of the oldest sites on the internet and definitely one of the very oldest free comic hosts next to Keenspace which doesn't really exist now. We released another DD anthology comic collection, A Flock of Dreams (linked bellow), in which your Quackcast hosts collaborated on a comic together! We were really proud of that, Key of Dreams, our story was a real work of love, and you can read that in the anthology.
Episode 718 - Dumbarses
Dec 15, 2024
This Quackcast was inspired by world renowned idiot Robert F Kennedy Jnr. We decided to talk about writing dumb characters. I keep calling him John F Kennedy Jnr because I am also an idiot. Some context: he wants to remove approval for the life saving Polio vaccine and allow dangerous unpasteurised milk to be widely sold, among other things. He's a classic idiot. This put us in mind of fictional idiots.
Episode 716 - Identify with characters?
Dec 2, 2024
Is it important to Identify with characters? This question occurred to me as I was watching a rather banal sitcom, Rules of Engagement. I love two of the stars, David Spade and Patrick Warburton, but it's not really that engaging a show, the humour is anodyne and a lot of it is based around traditional gender roles and expectations, but I forced myself to watch it anyway just to see more of the aforementioned stars. The only way I was able to get into it was because I somewhat identified with David Spade's character- being a small blonde guy with long hair and a bit of a perv, haha!
Episode 714 - Future Weapons
Nov 18, 2024
Last week we had an overview of weapons throughout history and how it's a constant game of balance and oneupmanship. Now we're looking at future weapons and Scifi stuff! There's a lot of potential and a lot of interesting ideas you can use in comics and stories. We talk about a few of these and some of our faves, as well as our own inventions.
Episode 712 - Guncast
Nov 4, 2024
This week we're talking the development of weapons, tactics and armour over the millennia. This is a fun little overview of everything from ancient stone weapons, to bronze, to iron, steel, guns, tanks, and jet-fighters and all the interesting stuff in between. Comic stories often involve literal conflict whether set in the past, the present, future, or fantasy and Scifi, so overviews are always good.
