Episode 586 - Working with disability
Jun 6, 2022
How do you keep on with your creative output when something happens to you? When you lose function or are impaired in some way, how do you adapt or relearn so you can keep on as you were before? Maybe you can't and have to change to another medium that's a better fit for your abilities? Comic creator Bravo1102 once talked about how he moved from drawing to using action figures to make his comics partially because of his eyesight. My own eyesight has suddenly started to go bad and I'm having to adapt to that, and Tantz tells us how her deteriorating eyesight forced her to work digitally.
Topics and Show Notes
The four of us have had limited experience at dealing directly with impairment, but we've had our moments and all of us know many people who've faced more significant challenges. On numerous occasions I've suffered paralysis to my thumbs lasting many months (alternating sides, not both at the same time), in order to keep on creating I had learn to used the mouse in my other hand (which I still do today), and create a brace made of bands and ties so I could hold my pens and brushes. But that was a minor inconvenience compared to the situation faced by Pitface's mum, Karen Hillard Good, a noted illustrator and artist known for her commercial work and children's books. Last year she experienced a stroke which paralyzed half of her body as well as causing some cognitive impairment. She's had to adapt to her changed physical abilities, relearn how to use her body to create and overcome the challenges facing her.
As we age and life happens to us there are many things to which we have to learn to adapt, not just physical impairment but mental too. It's just as difficult to adapt to things happening with your mind, like not being able to concentrate, memory issues, depression etc. Are there any physical or mental issues you've had to learn to adapt to so you can continue to create? If so, how did you do it?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to The Sophomore - Sparking into action, the reverent tones of a groovy church organ play us into the roiling conflagration of this dancey little tune, full of heat and glaring orange light, this sound warms you through!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Artist Karen Hillard Good - https://www.facebook.com/Karen-Hillard-Good-Studio-Art-444025792286012/
Bravo1102 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/bravo1102/
Featured comic:
The Sophomore - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/may/31/featured-comic-the-sophomore/
Featured music:
The Sophomore - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Sophomore/ - by MrPenguin, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
PitFace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 584 - Drawing gender
May 23, 2022
We start off with the idea of talking about art techniques, tips and tricks we've mastered and could help people with but the cast turned into a discussion about drawing male and female characters- also trans, androgynous, etc. There's an art to representing gender in imagery! It's super important to remember that the way we see gender in art is mainly culture based rather than an innate biological reaction and the perception of gender in art is different according to your cultural background. It's basically a visual language that everyone learns, but as an artist you have to learn to actually “speak” it, and that's not as straight forward as you think.
Episode 583 - Why is it bad?
May 16, 2022
Spoiler- we don't actually talk much about Yu-Gi-Oh! But I feel it's a good example of a pretty bad a so-bad-it's-good story, but bad nevertheless. The idea we're talking about here is that it's useful to look at bad stories and stick with them because they can really help you write better. They're a lot more useful than good stories because you'd rather just enjoy those and it's a bit harder to examine them for technical details, but with “bad” stories the faults stand out strongly. Instead of simply dismissing a bad story or making fun of it, it's more useful and valuable to try and “fix” it: try and work out why it seems bad and think about what would be needed to make it better, then think about how that applies to your own work. Maybe you're actually making many of the same mistakes?
Episode 582 - Time travel
May 9, 2022
Let's go forward in time to the past so we can get back to the future and kill our grandfather and be our own ancestor while we step on a bug and change the course of evolution 200 million years in the future and doom the Morlocks to a date with Doctor Who, while Bill and Ted drive a Delorean in the Old West and save Fry's dog as it waits out the front of the Pizza place… Time travel is fun to talk about, but it's easy to mess up because paradoxes in plots pop up all over the place as timelines intersect and cross over and over, getting tangled and logically prevent events that have already happened from happening!
Episode 580 - Fantasy worlds crossing over
Apr 25, 2022
The full team is assembled yet again! Tantz came up with the idea of having a look at hidden fantasy worlds in fiction that have strong ties with the “real world” and how they function together. Her main example was the world of Harry Potter which has many strong connections to the real world and yet manages to stay very well hidden, which stretches plausibility a bit. The World of Casandra Clare's Mortal Instruments is similar in that regard, it's deeply tied to the mundane world and yet it stays hidden from it to a degree that isn't really possible.
Episode 578 - Punching toys in the boobs
Apr 11, 2022
BANES RETURNS! …to talk about boobs with the rest of us. The topic of the discussion this week was brought to us by Tantz's newspost on the 2nd of April about bosoms and how their shape and size doesn't matter. In the crusade against “sexualisation” in comics people tend to focus too much on big or “unnaturally shaped” boobs, but the truth is that any type of boobs can be fetishized and by reacting against one type you just cause a new form of exclusion.
Episode 577 - The Agony and the Ecstasy.
Apr 4, 2022
Creation is a process with a lot of ups and downs: Agony and ecstasy! The easiest way to think of it is a simple inverted parabola- you start of feeling good about your idea and its potential. As you work though you feel worse and worse about it till you get to the nadir of the curve, then things turn around and you start feeling better and better about it as it finally comes together and you finally manage to finish it!
Episode 576 - Retro Adventure heroes
Mar 28, 2022
Retro adventure heroes are an interesting and unique sort of hero. The trope was revived and crystallised by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg with Indiana Jones, but it had existed long before then and continues to persist now in many forms. They're not without their problems But I like these characters. I love their outfits, their competency, intelligence, self sufficiency, and their penchant for exploration and discovery.
