Episode 190 - The Halloweencast!
Oct 26, 2014
For the Halloweencast Banes and I will be journeyed beyond the veil, down into the depths of webcomic HELL… There, we encountered the LOST and the DAMMED: the tormented souls of abandoned webcomics that were ended before their time. Deep underneath the black, soaring Gothic spires of DD HQ lie the labyrinthine catacombs, dry, dusty crypts, and ossuaries where the bones of old abandoned webcomics go to rest and moulder away, their lonely souls pining for the time when they could see the day and frolic in the sun, with viewers to keep them company. Watched over by the great demon Death Porn and harried by mischievous spriter sprites, the poor souls languish in their solitary torments, hoping to one day be reborn anew! For the Halloweencast, Banes and I asked for contributors to name some of their old lost faves so we could pay our respects to these tragic cases, give them a voice once more, and hopefully return them for a few brief moments to the sun again by sending some more viewers their way.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and Show Notes:
Featured comic:
YOUR CHOICE... - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/YOUR_CHOICE/
The Lost Soul Webcomics:
MISFIT ASSASSINS - http://theduckwebcomics.com/MISFIT_ASSASSINS/
Melaines Choles - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Melaines_Choles/
Jump - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Jump/
Our zombie comic thread - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/176584/
Our suffering contributors:
The vampiric Usedbooks - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/usedbooks/
Special thanks to:
The goulish Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
The theme song by Gunwallace this week was for:
Demon Eater - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Demon_Eater/ by Jillyfoo!
Episode 183 - Work Life balance
Aug 15, 2014
This Quackcast topic was inspired by a newspost by Kawaiidaigakusei who described a short autobiographical account of her own experiences managing the difficult work/life balance of doing webcomics online and at the same time having a normal life otherwise. How do you balance those? What do you sacrifice to keep a comic going? Is it worth it? In this Quackcast we discuss those aspects, as well as some saucy banter to begin with...
Episode 179 - Token representation in comics
Aug 11, 2014
There's no question in my opinion as to whether representation of different kinds of people in fiction matters. Having spent my childhood poring over superhero comics in which the girl's job is usually to turn invisible and press a button or something, I remember being impressed and delighted by some of the badass female characters in The Spirit. Lady-people could be cool, too?! Is it insulting when comics add token characters to their line up, or does it really make a difference? And what makes a token character anyways? -HippieVan. Banes, HippieVan and I focus on the subject of token representation in media, mainly comics. This discussion was inspired by a newspost HippieVan made in response to a new character in the Archie comic, which got a lot of interesting responses.
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 175 - Endings, part 2
Jul 14, 2014
Arrrr, this be the second part of our discussion on writing ENDINGS in stories of all kinds, particularly for webcomics! But we discuss a few movie and TV endings here, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, No Country For Old Men, True Detective, and Dexter to name a few. Writings endings is the hardest part of the writing process, so it's lucky we had some wise contributions from people on how to do a good job of it! As well as giving examples of likes and dislikes... This is the second in our 3 part series on endings! I must apologise for the low quality of the recording here, there were very weird delay and repeating effects going on, Banes seems to be singing his own little madrigal at a couple of points. There are a a few parts I had to rerecord later; just a warning about the change of style.
Episode 155 - A Moment with Modest Medusa
Feb 24, 2014
After a terrible bathroom flooding incident Modest Medusa was born. That's sort of the beginning of the story of Modest Medusa, but also how the comic began too! In this Quackcast I interview Jake Richmond, the creator of the very successful and popular Modest Medusa: a pretty amazing webcomic success story. Starting out at Drunk Duck with his comic in 2011 he's been able to quit his main day job and work on his comic full time! He does some freelancing and teaching as well, but his comic is his main source of income. That's awesome! And this wasn't by luck either, or “being in the right place at the right time” that many have leveraged much of their success from, Jake got there though hard work and dedication to his readers. A real webcomic inspiration! This is the goal that every webcomicer should be aiming for and his success shows that it IS acheiveable! - Only IF you can put in that work though. It's not easy, no short-cuts.
Episode 154 - Abandoned Webcomics Nostalgia
Feb 18, 2014
It's one of the great tragedies of webcomics the way ‘real life’ so often gets in the way of our comic work. This Quackcast was inspired by HippieVan's newspost about webcomics that disappeared into the atmosphere or deadended into nowhere... Hippie joins Ozone and Banes to discuss the topic of comics ending before their time, comics we miss, comics we need closure from! Why do they end like that? Have you got abandoned work under your belt? Will you ever come back and finish it? What are some of your forgotten faves? Bellow are a list of ours
Episode 130 - The Art of Comicbook Movies
Jun 24, 2013
Banes and I talk about some of our fave comic book movies! That is, comics that have made the creative transition to the medium of film. We missed out a LOT but what can you do? It's a popular field. We discuss many modern superhero comicbook films like Watchmen, Batman, The Phantom etc, as well as non-superhero comicbook films like Brenda Starr, Modesty Blaise, Ghost in The Shell, Tank Girl, Asterix, Conan the Barbarian and so on. We talk about the different approaches they take to represent a vast comicbook cannon in the short space of 1 and a half or two and a half hours that a film goes for: sometimes they go for the origin story approach, sometimes they'll spoor the character, sometimes they'll depict a normal everyday representative adventure to show, and sometimes they'll show a condensed version of the entire story.
