Episode 651 - Strong characters of any gender and DD awards stuff
Sep 3, 2023
We're chatting about a couple of things today: the DD 2023 Awards which are in their completion faze now, and “strong” characters of any gender.
Topics and Show Notes
The DD awards are finding up now and presentations will be happening so it's a good time now to be able to see who actually won and to be able to get a look at some really good comics you might not have seen before.
The latter topic was inspired by something Tantz wrote about. There's a trend of people trying really hard to make “strong” female“ characters and in the process botching it because they're focusing on the wrong things. They try to combat a sexist trend of weak female characters in the the process ironically commit a worse sexist mistake… ”Strong“ characters are the same no matter the gender because it's never gender traits that make them weak or strong. If you know what makes a strong character that skill is equally useful for male, female, trans, or genderless characters.
Some people mistakenly think that so called ”male“ traits make a character strong: physical strength, anger, power, leadership, height, muscles, meanness etc not realising that none of these are male traits, they're JUST traits. The masculinity or femininity we assign them is all cultural. By combining a lot of these traits you often just end up making an unlikable dickhead. Character strength has more to do with how well realised the character is, how well they fit into their world, the effect they have on other characters, weather they're ”active“ or ”passive“ in a story.
It's a complex subject and we go much deeper into it during the cast! How do you write ”strong" characters?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Boxdog - A contemplative, reflective, serious piano driven intro leads into a happy, pleasant pop-song, first as drums and a bass take over, then the process completes as lead duties are handed off to an electric guitar and the tune fully opens up!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Some inspiration from Tantz's newspost:
Writing Strong Characters of Any Gender - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/25/writing-strong-characters-of-any-gender/
The 2023 DD Awards - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Drunk_Duck_Awards_2023/
Featured comic:
Oblique -
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/29/featured-comic-oblique/
Featured music:
Boxdog -
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Boxdog/ - By Boxdog, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Special thanks to -
- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Soushiyo/
-For the addition of the new “other gender” part of our sign up forms.
Episode 645 - AI-cast
Jul 24, 2023
We're chatting about the current state of AI, it's use, abuse, and the moronic way it's typically being utalised by mid-level businesses to screw over creative people and save money in the short term.
Episode 644 - Psychocast
Jul 17, 2023
We're talking about the pop-culture myth of psychopaths and sociopaths and other stuff like serial killers. Yes those conditions do exist, well sort of (not exactly with those names), but the pop-culture versions we know from the media are mostly myths. The real things aren't as exciting or flashy as the versions we know and love/hate from movies, comic, books, TV shows and podcasts.
Episode 640 - Aliens
Jun 19, 2023
We base our images of aliens in comics on aliens in TV shows and movies mostly, because those are the ones we all know. But movie aliens have been generally based on humans because it's less expensive, easier to come up with a costume and makeup for an actor, and it's also easier to make those aliens relatable. “Aliens” even THINK the same as we do, have the same motivations, wants, needs, prejudices, opinions… Almost 100% of the time aliens in media are US, just a weird version of us: distorted reflection.
Episode 639 - Nudity
Jun 12, 2023
Today's topic is Nudity: Nudity in comics, censorship, self censoring, what you can get away with on DD, ratings, nudity on other platforms and how it affects the reach of your work, and more!
Episode 634 - Boomer-myth
May 8, 2023
Generational tensions are a cultural constant. It's popular to pick on the young and say they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid, changing things in silly ways etc, but it's also just as popular too defend them and debunk myths associated with younger people, we don't have that with older people and I find that a bit sad and disturbing. This cast tackles the myths associated with “boomers”.
Episode 603 - Players, Cads, and "fun" boys
Oct 3, 2022
We are talking about the trope of the Cad, AKA the Player. F***boys are their little scrappydoo kid-brothers, we call them “fun” boys for obvious reasons… It's a fun trope which is often exaggerated for comedic effect but actually comes from a very real thing! There are a lot of famous pop-culture versions though like Barney Stinson, Pepe Le Pew, James Bond, and The Continental.
Episode 596 - Leadership!
Aug 15, 2022
Leaders are not born, they're created… literally in the case of fiction, created by creators of comics, books, movies, and other media! For this Quackcast I was inspired by two things: a video on Leader Characters by the satirical YouTube channel Terrible Writing Advice, and the Disney movie Lightyear, in which the lone wolf classical hero figure learns how to lead.