Episode 274 - development of main characters
Jun 6, 2016
Our Quackcast topic was a discussion about how our main characters evolved and changed over time, both in terms of characterisation but also artistically. stylistically and their own looks. Then we chatted about ways to help that along and accelerate it: How do you get to KNOW your character better? How do you help them grow? We toyed with some exercises but eventually came up with a cool one- Swapping a comic page/scene with someone else and redrawing it with your character in there instead of the original main character, and also have your character handling their new situation in the the way that best suits them, the way THEY would handle it. Link bellow… The music this week by Gunwallace was a theme to DELIA- it's a cold, thoughtful tune with a note of unease below, like an icily perfect woman.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
We did a Quackcast VIDEO again - https://youtu.be/ADSESnKYcp0
Featured comic:
Little Fir Cone - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Little_Fir_Cone/
Character and scene swapping! http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177517/?page=1#latest
The evolution of Pinky And Cc - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177516/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Featured music:
DELIA - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/DELIA/, by Hansrickheit, rated M.
See more at: - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2016/jun/06/quackcast-274-development-of-main-characters/
Episode 273 - Promoting Side Characters
May 30, 2016
After last week's massive DD meetup (Next one is on the 18th, BE THERE!), we're back to the core group… me and my side characters, hahaha! Banes, Pitface, and Tantz Aerine join me to discuss the topic of promoting from within the ranks. I did a newspost about this last Thursday (linked bellow), the thrust of which was that when you need new main characters it's so much better and more fun to mine them from earlier in your stories rather than introducing them whole and new minted. This doesn't have to be an unplanned thing though- you can do like Banes or Amelius and have it all designed in advance. What they do is lightly introduce main characters AS side characters initially, knowing they'll be promoted to main status later on, either way it works the same- they fit better in the world of the story, the have more “history” and the audience finds them easier to accept, as we discuss in the Quackcast. Still though, when things aren't so planed, it can be so rewarding when creations grow and find their own voices. This week's theme by Gunwallace is for XTIN , it's weirdly Indian and mournful in a beautiful way that is PERFECT for Xitin!
Episode 269 - Historical Accuracy VS Story Needs
May 2, 2016
Never let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story… at least that's what Bravo proposes. We stole his thought provoking forum post subject for the topic of this Quackcast. This is how Bravo goes on to explain it: “So how do feel about that? Should exact adherence to the historical record be allowed to wreck your wonderful fiction? If so how much dramatic license is too much? What are your favorite examples of how they got it wrong and how they got it right? And what if just a touch more research would have revealed that the historical story was better than what the fiction writers concocted? How tragic is that? And what about the usage of known historical mythology/hoax as in the Da Vinci code?” The frisson between story requirements and known historical record is pretty interesting. In Hollywood the former wins out EVERY single time and usually it doesn't result in a better story anyway, but as we discuss in the Quackcast there are OTHER reasons than simple bad writing choices for not sticking to the real story and trying to hammer everything into the Hero's Journey template.
Episode 268 - the antagonist-cast
Apr 25, 2016
On the Quackcast we've talked about villains plenty of times before. This time it's very different though… I wanted people to talk about their OWN villains, to promote their comic as if the antagonist was the main character, to give their antagonists the time in the sun that they so desperately CRAVE! And well it sort of worked out, not as well as I hoped but it was a good idea. We have many good contributors and they're read out by Pitface, Banes and myself. I must apologise for the audio quality though- very sorry about that, Skype kept on cutting out. Gunwallace gave us a theme to Cataclysm, a comic that I keep on trying to feature over and over again for some mysterious reason XD It's a very jaunty and modern, a good positive take on the Scifi.
Episode 266 - An evening with Banes
Apr 11, 2016
Banes, in case you were unaware, is the gold plated titanium platinum alloyed anchor of the Quackcast. This stand-up Canadian gent has been a solid part of DD for a while now, without his great humour, jovial personality, great talent, and lightning wit this podcast would have died out long ago. Not only that but he's super adaptable and always willing to spend his valuable time to go above and beyond to help members of DD in whatever's going on, always there to be a part of the DD awards and other community projects. Banes donated a great big sum of money to the DD Indiegogo campaign and his reward is this very interview! Tantz Aerine, Pitface and me, Ozoneocean delve into the man behind the mystery that is BANES. Who IS this jovial, friendly, helpful Canadian guy? Well here we try and find out! Of you'd like to know more about Mr Banes yourself, please ask a question here and we'll put it to him in the next Quackcast!
Episode 265 - Drunk Duck updates and the future
Apr 4, 2016
For Quackcast 265 I wanted to steer the direction toward the idea of future fixes and features for Drunk Duck! We talked a bit about the 2nd wave of fixes that will be happening now- HippieVan worked to gather people's suggestions for the most important bugs that needed fixing (with our limited funds), and features people want added, and then did a survey to find what people though were the highest priority. It was a lot of work and took a few weeks to come up with the results. Bellow is a summery of what she learned:
Episode 264 - How to improve your online presence
Mar 27, 2016
In this Quackcast we interview Marie Tary, AKA ShadowsMyst. We haven't talked to her since Quackcast 32 and 33 way back in 2011 when Skoolmunkee and I interviewed her about The art of analytics and how to market your webcomics properly. Now Banes and I talk to her about the changed landscape of website marketing, brand management, SEO and how it applies to comics and most particularly Drunk Duck itself. Brand management and marketing is Marie's job, as a senior graphic designer for a major university. She gives us some invaluable information about how we can put Drunk Duck back on top and return it to its former glory- very useful information that applies just the same to any online property, especially webcomics! So this will give you a clue what's in store for Drunk Ducks future and the sort of thing the future 3rd wave of fixes and features will entail. We also have the presentation of a lovely track by Gunwallace, the theme to Tangled river!
Episode 263 - WHY do a webcomic?
Mar 21, 2016
Why do you do the kind of webcomic you do? Why? Why? WRRRRRRRRHHHHYYYYY? This was the question asked by Genejoke, one of our favourite DDers. This jolly gent asked a whole possy of posers related to that subject and I thought that it provoked some interesting responses, and so it became fodder ad a half for Quackcast 263. Banes, myself, Pitface and Tantz Aerine all approach the questions ourselves and then hand the floor over to our DD contributors, so to speak. I find that it's really important to be able to come up with answers to questions like these, and even more interesting is just how those answers change depending on when you ask them. I find that these days I have a MUCH better idea of why I do my comics and why I make the creative choices that I do.
