Episode 602 - It's my turn now bitches!
Sep 26, 2022
What happens when the victim becomes the victor? Most of the time it's like the classic line from The Who “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”, typically revolutions (and elections), that promise change don't really deliver, the new people use it as a chance to get revenge on their enemies, take advantage of things the same as the last guys, and do everything they can to cling to power. The true exceptions are rare and special, i.e. Vaclav Havel and the Velvet revolution.
Topics and Show Notes
We decided to apply this to fiction and characters- What happens when the underdog gets the upper hand? Do they use it as a chance to take revenge, are they gracious and magnanimous, do they become the bully themselves, do they betray their ideals? How they handle their power is very interesting and says a lot about them. There are characters like Walter white, a downtrodden highschool teacher, who rises to power and becomes a crime boss. A similar story is told in Scarface, 711 Ocean Drive, and The Godfather. The new Netflix series “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” has a smaller scale take on it with a bullied youth becoming a super powered cyber-warrior criminal. In these stories the character arc is well portrayed and it's interesting to watch their moral fall even as they rise through the ranks of evil.
However, it can become a little more muddy when a character is written as honourable and good and yet they still use their sudden power to get revenge in a petty way. This simple act can be a powerful indication of hypocrisy and moral weakness, or just really bad writing. Of course that doesn't apply to all acts of revenge, only when it betrays a character's ideals or is OUT of character.
How do your characters handle a turnabout in fortunes? Do they use it as a chance to take what they can get and bet the bad guy themselves, do they get revenge, do they throw away their ideals, do they stay true to their character, are they magnanimous?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Crimson Stars - A creepy, gothic horror techno landscape of winking red stars and the pale blue trailing lights of ion drives in deep space. This is a cold world of blackness, danger, and vampires! The music really sets the scene.
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Dave Skunk Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/sep/20/featured-comic-dave-skunk-comic/
Featured music:
Crimson Stars - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Crimson_Stars/ - by Commissar_Tarkin, rated T.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Kawaiidaigakusei- https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 592 - Back in MY day!
Jul 18, 2022
History is happening faster now. With the growth of universal high speed communication and cheap world travel, culture and technology move at unprecedented speeds. Because of these factors the rate of change is different to what it was at any time in the past. This is an objective and verifiable truth rather than subjective perception: the current speed and quality of global communication has never been possible before and that has ramifications for how the world changes.
Episode 590 - Fave Superhero Movies?
Jul 4, 2022
I wanted to do an easy and fun one this week and just chat about our fave superhero movies, starting with our firsts! For me and Banes it was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It's a real classic, full of positivity, hope, and optimism, all with bright colours and classic iconic imagery… In that way it's a bit like many of the Marvel films and the more popular DC offerings like Aquaman and WonderWoman, but without the overbuilt and over-defined muscles!
Episode 588 - Revisiting Old Ideas
Jun 20, 2022
Sometimes it's worth revisiting old ideas because you can do them better or explore them deeper. This could be in the form of a full reboot, or it could be as simple as reusing a pose in a panel or using the same theme again like Pixar does with 90% of their output i.e. “coming of age”. Like them you don't need to feel obligated to always do something totally original, revisiting old ideas is a great way to refine them, create better work, or explore different aspects of them you hadn't considered before and put new and interesting spins on things. Consider that Pixar's Turning Red, Encanto, Moana, Coco, The Incredibles 2, Ratatouille, Inside Out, Brave, Onward, and Luca all share the same “coming of age/childhood independence” theme and yet all do it in unique and original ways, exploring different aspects of the idea from all sorts of angles.
Episode 586 - Working with disability
Jun 6, 2022
How do you keep on with your creative output when something happens to you? When you lose function or are impaired in some way, how do you adapt or relearn so you can keep on as you were before? Maybe you can't and have to change to another medium that's a better fit for your abilities? Comic creator Bravo1102 once talked about how he moved from drawing to using action figures to make his comics partially because of his eyesight. My own eyesight has suddenly started to go bad and I'm having to adapt to that, and Tantz tells us how her deteriorating eyesight forced her to work digitally.
Episode 583 - Why is it bad?
May 16, 2022
Spoiler- we don't actually talk much about Yu-Gi-Oh! But I feel it's a good example of a pretty bad a so-bad-it's-good story, but bad nevertheless. The idea we're talking about here is that it's useful to look at bad stories and stick with them because they can really help you write better. They're a lot more useful than good stories because you'd rather just enjoy those and it's a bit harder to examine them for technical details, but with “bad” stories the faults stand out strongly. Instead of simply dismissing a bad story or making fun of it, it's more useful and valuable to try and “fix” it: try and work out why it seems bad and think about what would be needed to make it better, then think about how that applies to your own work. Maybe you're actually making many of the same mistakes?
Episode 575 - Fave fantasy creatures?
Mar 20, 2022
Fantasy creatures are cool and we're here to talk about our faves. One of mine is elves. I love them… Being quite elfy myself. Fantasy is pretty fun to play around with, you have the freedom to create anything but even so there are a few recognised and agreed on fantasy creatures that people stick with.
Episode 573 - Join the cult?
Mar 7, 2022
Cults are weird. Unlike normal religions (from which many cults stem), cults are usually based more around charismatic individuals rather than simple doctrine. Which means the followers of cults can often get a little crazy because they're following the whims of an individual rather than boring old text from a book. And this is why religious groups with charismatic leaders (i.e evangelical Televangelists and hardline Imams), become crazy and cultish too.