Episode 344 - Active/Reactive characters
Oct 16, 2017
Some characters are active and others are reactive. Reactive characters mostly only react to things rather than make them happen so they can be very boring if not done right! Active characters are the ones that drive events by doing things and making stuff happen, these characters grab your interest. This idea was based on Tantz's fantastic newspost, we talk it out, coming up with some good examples of each character type. Our epiphany for this Quackcast was that if you want a “strong” female character what you REALLY want is an “active” female character. The mistake people made with the trope was that they thought the female character had to be either a main character or a kick-arse masculine style character, when in reality neither is required. Make your character “active”; making decisions, causing things to happen, having an impact, causing OTHER characters to react etc and they will be a “strong” character. She could be a minor character who never lifts a sword or fires a gun but still be the strongest character in the story if she's the most active. ;) This week Gunwallce has given us the theme to Boys Land - This one surprises you, sneaking up with a gentle beginning, then it hits like a bomb bursts of rainbows and warm breezes! Beautifully, the same tune is repeated in many different forms, there’s even a bit of Primus type bass in there. It finishes as it begins, with a gentle acoustic guitar.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Lexi's Fight Against the Dead - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Lexis_Fight_Against_the_Dead/
Tantz's newspost on Active/Reactive characters http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/oct/13/active-vs-reactive-characters/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Kawaiidaigakusei, - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
PitFace - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Boys Land - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Boys_Land/, by Boysland_crew, rated T.
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 300 - 3rd DD meetup!
Dec 5, 2016
We finally did it! We got to 300 Quackcasts! We've been doing these non-stop for SIX years! Wow… That's pretty incredible. We couldn't think of anything clever do do so we had another DD electronic meetup. The 3rd DD meetup on the 3rd of December on the 300th Quackcast. So the DD family got together, which is what families do around Christmas, well a few of us anyway! In this Quackcast you can listen to an hour of our blather and carrying on and vicariously experience what it was like if you missed it or listen again if you were a part of it. It's always a blast to have the DD community together, we're spread out all the way across the planet so this is really the only practical way for us to come together. We tried doing it with DD hangouts this time instead of Skype, which was interesting but there were way too many hoops to jump through for people to get into it. We could only have 10 people on the call at the time, With Skype we could have 10 people on video chat and others with voice only and chat was so much better… So NEXT time we will go BACK to Skype. Screw you Google hangouts! It was so nice to see people! I tried to stay up for 10 hours from 11am EST (New York time), to 9pm, but I didn't make it. I fell asleep 2 hours short. :( Gunwallace's musical theme was for Lady Unlucky: a minimal white landscape, furnished with electronica, hints of piano and subtle grandeur.
Episode 254 - Sexism in your OWN work?k
Jan 18, 2016
OMFG you sexist PIG! Heh… today we talk about trying to recognise sexism in your OWN work, what to do about it, and WHY. It turns out it can be very hard to do, and if you DO acknowledged it the instinct is to rationalise it away, justify it, or just try and brazen it out in some kind of old fashioned, largely embarrassing, display. I frequently do all three. How do we spot it? Well the Bechdel test isn't that useful, that's better for looking at broad trends not giving specific works a pass/fail - sexy outfits is one thing, if females are dressed minimally or in tight gear in CONTRAST to the males or vice versa - females ONLY having old stereotype roles (maiden/mother/whore archetypes, secretary, nurse, victim, maid etc), though this is context sensitive, i.e. it's more forgiveable if you're doing a historical story or something stylised like a fairytale or a noire story - Gender balance is another thing, it's context sensitive because certain stories will naturally have more of one gender (WW2 submarine crew, Girl's school, a prison story etc), and you don't have to have an exact balance anyway but it's definitely something to THINK about because there is no reason most stories should feature a majority of male characters and a minority of females. WHY should you think about it? Why should you care? Well the audience for almost ALL types of stories, be they action adventure, romance, Scifi, fantasy, historical, even porn, is getting close to 50/50 between men and women these days (maybe it always was?), it really doesn't make sense to alienate or belittle half your audience just because you like to cling to older ways of doing stuff. Gunwallace's theme this week reminds me of a cross between the Knightrider theme and Gunship- it's VERY retro-future. It's the theme to DDSR, a comic with cool custom “sprites”, AKA pixel-art.
Episode 204 - Talisman returns from exile
Feb 2, 2015
Way back in 2012 Ozone interviewed the marvellously talented and professional Barb Myers about her art and her fantastic comics. Well it's 2015 now and Barb has finally been able to put out the whole of her comic "Talisman: Return of the Exile" for sale on Amazon! So of course now was the perfect time to catch up for another chat. I first came across her lovely comic on Drunk Duck years and years ago when it was called "Return to Donelly", it was a beautiful looking piece of work and it rightly brought her to the attention of the pros. It was picked up for Keen spot and then a publisher wanted to sell it in bookshops everywhere. Well things went screwy after that and it never really reached its full potential unfortunately. It disappeared from radar totally. Well now it's BACK! You can buy this great 108 full colour fantasy comic book story for only $10 US dollars. Mine should get to me on about the 10th of February. ^_^
Episode 192 - Voyage of the Broken Promise
Nov 9, 2014
This week on the DD Quackcast, I, Ozoneocean the High Exalted Grand Fleet Admiral of the 5th Quarter of the Galactic Central star system and Emperor of the 15 non-aligned beach planets, am interrogating the vicious space pirate Patrick Bradley of PBandJ. He was beamed aboard my flagship after my troops captured him and his wily bikini-clad crew of buxom vixens in a clever ambush! PB works as the husband part of a husband and wife team to produce the "erotic" poser comic Voyage of the Broken Promise: a space opera about pirates, revenge, and sex! Imagine Star Trek, Farscape, or Babylon 5, except they don't cut away for the erotic bits. Space love unbowdlerized! PB cites Milo Manara, Richard Moore, and Star trek, among other things, as his influences. PB is a very interesting and talented guy, primarily a writer he's done professional work on table top RPGs, published radio plays, and even written for The Matrix Online game! Please listen along while we explore the mind of the creator of an adult poser comic. - I think this is the very first interview we've ever done with the creator of an Adult comic!
