Episode 333 - Retcon the retcon
Jul 24, 2017
The thing with retcons is that the author tends to get an idea which makes them want to go back over their story and redo or tweak the whole thing again, that's what's happened here… well sort off. Banes had some more ideas on the subject that he wanted to share, so we dove into the whole thing again! We were helped by a Websnark article on the subject linked to us by Kam in a comment on the last retcon Quackcast. It's a useful guide, breaking down the different kinds of retcon into five types: Category One: Now Revealed! A Lost Tale of the Hero! Category Two: The Story You Thought You Knew! Category Three: The Real Story You Thought You Knew! Category Four: The Story You Thought You Knew Was Right, But Now There's Been A Change! Category Five: Meet the New Hero, Not The Same As The Old Hero Because That Never Happened! In this Quackcast we expand upon those concepts. Gunwallace's theme for the week was for Lego Space - It’s Block time! The sound here brings to mind the techno-mechanistic world of Lego, and especially the bright and glittering transparent blocky world of SPACE lego, vectors, angles, and joins!
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Una Garza Negra - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/18/featured-comic-una-garza-negra/
Links:
Great Websnark article about retconning - http://www.websnark.com/archives/2008/01/retconning_just_1.html
Bane's newspost on retcons - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/08/wheres-chuck/
Our first retcon Quackcast - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/jul/08/quackcast-331-retconning-your-work/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Lego Space - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Lego_Space/, by KDog, rated E.
Episode 330 - A feature on features!
Jul 3, 2017
Following on from my newspost about features last week, now we have a whole Quackcast on the subject, tell you what features are and how we do them at DD. Refer to the links bellow to learn about how to get a feature. In this Quackcast Banes and Pitface join me! Pitface, who has been absent for weeks and weeks! No Tantz though, since she was off giving speeches at universities in the UK. Poor Pit was afflicted by a severe case of poison Ivy but joined in with the feature-cast anyway. What a trooper! And in other news Pitface has agreed to be a featurer! But she'll need training… Features are tricky things to do, first you have to find a great comic with good art, or writing or both, it has to have at least 15 pages, be updating regularly, it can't feature already copyrighted art (sprite comics, fan comics etc.), be A rated or have been featured before. That's sometimes harder than you'd think. Anyway, listen on and learn about features. Gunwallace's theme for the week was Motivational Housecat. It's Motivational, energetic, this music makes you want to move and gyrate to the driving rhythm and feel the sound with your body. This sound is going places!
Episode 327 - Flashback heart-attack!
Jun 12, 2017
FLASHbacks… you have to do them right or they will screw up the flow of your story. That's the theme of the newspost by Tantz Aerine that we stole this podcast topic from. :) Flashbacks can be expository, they can explain story elements and plot to you, they can push the narrative forward in a (seemingly) non-linear way, they can do all sorts of things, but one of the very worst is when they ruin the flow of your story and irritate your audience! That's what we're chatting about today, the poorly handled flashback and how to avoid it! Now let me tell you about that time… JUST KIDDING! Our music theme by Gunwallace this week was Galactic Nebula Race. This is all about speed! Racing, acceleration, hyper-velocity!! Watch those lights fly past faster and faster until they become just a single coloured blurred line… only to see your rival speed past as if you were standing still.
Episode 313 - Technical techniques
Mar 6, 2017
Carrying on from last week's Quackcast discussion on tips and tricks for drawing and artwork, we jump again into the topic and THIS time we have Tantz Aerine on board to lend her perspective and tell us about even MORE little techniques to use to draw better. It's an interesting, technical cast and bellow I've kisted some examples from our own work of what we talk about. Details discussed in this episode: Establishing shots, Facial lines, Scars, Wounds, Snow, Rain, Smoke, Fire, Explosions, Gold, Fur, and Eyes. Gunwallace has given us the music to the Fading World this time, it's an oriental procession into a snowy, twilit, exotic world, unbalanced, and dangerous.
Episode 310 - Where to begin
Feb 13, 2017
Where to start; in the past, present, or future? Will you structure your story in a linear way or do something more complex? This was the topic of Hyena Hell's newspost on Friday and in this Quackcast Pitface, Banes, Tantz, and I discuss and mull over the ideas ourselves, along with the responses of the clever commenters. Gunwallace has given us a theme to The Archer and the Squirrel, which just so happens to ALSO be our featured comic! - The theme launches abruptly, like an arrow springing from a bow, this tune follows a beautiful arching path against a bright blue sky of melodic, rhythmic flute that begs you to dance a jig with a great big grin on your face!
Episode 307 - The jerks
Jan 23, 2017
Jerky, jerk, jerks! Let's talk about this type of character… This topic is based on Banes' newspost from Thursday, he based it on characters like Reggie from the Archie comics. Jerks can be pretty good characters in their own right. They can be villains, heroes, antagonists or protagonists, they can even be unintentional jerks like Scrappy do from Scooby Do, Alf from Alf, or Jar Jar Binks from that horrible movie he was in. My favourite jerks are Flashman from the Flashman novels by George MacDonald (you should read them!), Blackadder (particularly the second season), and Zaphod Beeblebrox who I'm cosplaying in the cover pic. Who are your fave and least fave jerks? Gunwallace's musical theme was for The Epic of Blitzov. It's Riff based hard rock, driving beat, heavy, distorted guitars layered over and over with a thunderous yet lyrical lead floating over the top. Orange and black sound.
Episode 304 - eeeeeevil!
Jan 2, 2017
What defines evil in fiction? I say the simplest one is bad guys are selfish, good guys are selfless. That is massively over simplistic but it's a good easy template for basic hero's and villains. Basic ones I was just doing a quick thought experiment to work out an easy way to define “good” and “evil” characters in fiction. The more selfless someone is the more “good” they are: the more they think of others, want to help people, put the needs of the masses first, the more willing they are to reach across to their enemies etc. The more selfish a person is the more “evil” they are: if they don't consider the needs or feelings of others, help out their own small group and let others suffer, help themselves first. Of course there are many other more advanced aspects, especially if you consider the relative nature of these things: the idea that everyone thinks they're the good guy from their own perspective, being cruel to be kind, being too authoritarian and heavy handed in the use of power, NOT using power when you should, helping in a way that only SEEMS destructive and selfish, trying to help but causing destruction and chaos in the process, which brings us to the dreaded “unintended consequences”. BUT, the selfless/selfish equation is a nice simple starting point to build from. In the Quackcast we discuss these aspects as well as more advanced notions about what makes a good evil character, what makes a bad one, humanising evil, and weakening you evil character by humanising them too much. Gunwallace's musical theme was for The Cull: Dark, haunting, and compelling- Eastern European Jewish, country and rock, reminds me of Tracy Bonham’s later work.
Episode 301 - Let it snow!
Dec 12, 2016
Banes and Pitface live in a parallel world to me where this time of year involves water falling from the sky in the form of fluffy white crystals. When it hits the ground it piles up on top of itself into huge white piles! Freaky, I know, but they tell me this actually happens. For me December is a time for heatwaves and the beach. So Banes and Pit enlighten me and all you out there on the beauty of snow. The idea for this Quackcast was based on a newspost by Banes. He talked about the use of snow in comic stories as a plot device. We talk a bit about that here, along with all the different visual aspects of it and how you can use it in imagery. I apologise for the sound quality here, something strange happened with my microphone settings. Gunwallace's musical theme was for Man Bun: Heavy, bass driven funk rock, with dark chocolatey, bluesy lyrics. Classic, cool, and hot!