Episode 638 - Rookie Mistakes
Jun 5, 2023
Beginners at webcomics make mistakes, rookie mistakes. In fact people tend to make a lot of the same mistakes and we're going to chat about some of those in the Quackcast, but there are certainly a LOT more!
Topics and Show Notes
A few common mistakes of first timers:
- They have too many comic panels so it takes ages to draw and artwork and text become too small.
- They plan way too much, sometimes for month or even years before starting the actual comic. Planning is good but not when it prevents you from actually starting.
- Their art or designs are too complicated so that they can't sustain it for more than a few pages and they give up.
- Their story is too complicated so that it's too hard to translate into a comic or it would take too long to draw.
- The cover art doesn't match their artwork in the comic. Great way to turn off readers.
- Too much expository text.
- They make their comic too raunchy (when it's not a sexy comic) and limit their potential audience because it needs a higher rating and can't be displayed on most comic sites.
- They think they'll get popular and famous right away.
- They think people will just “find” their comic and rely too heavily on Google and the internal promotion system of their comic host.
- Filler pages, especially generic ones are a huge turn off. If you MUST do them show a BTS thing like a rough version of your comic page.
- Aggressive marketing. Don't be a one-eyed dick when promoting your work, it can have the opposite effect and make people avoid you.
- Giving up when you don't get feedback or if you miss a few updates. Keep working at it, people will come eventually, especially if you're a bit social. And people will still come back after missed updates. Stick with it!
Did you fall victim to any of those? Tell us some of your own rookie mistakes? :)
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Mirage - light dances around the sparkling surface of a smoothly curved, shiny object. Our view shifts and we dive through its hollow centre, observing the complex geometry of this unusual three dimensional object. Overlaying synthesised sounds.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Plusum - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/may/31/featured-comic-plusum/
Featured music:
Mirage - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Mirage/ - by InkyMoondrop, Rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Episode 627 - Character consistency and speech bubbles!
Mar 20, 2023
Today its another technical comics making focused cast, suggested by Tantz Aerine! We cover our notions about how to maintain character consistency and consistency in general, plus a bit on speech bubbles and the text in them. I was SOOPER tired towards the end though so I wasn't all there mentally but the guys carried it through admirably.
Episode 617 - Adventuring we go!
Jan 8, 2023
Adventure is a fun genre! Not as many things get made for it these days but it used to be hugely popular in the past. It's one of my favourite genres and this is what we're chatting about for the Quackcast. What IS adventure? I think it usually involves a whole lot of different things like exploration, action, discovery, heroic protagonists, rivals, travel, exotic places, fights etc. It can be set in the past or in the modern day. Good examples are The Mummy, Indiana Jones, the original Tomb Raider, the two new Jumanji films, Strange World, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ducktales, Tailspin, Jungle Cruise, Uncharted and so much more. I'd love to know your faves!
Episode 615 - Happy Christmas!
Dec 26, 2022
Happy Life Day! Hahaha! Merry Christmas for 2 days ago… This week we're talking about the “Christmas specials” that populate entertainment media this time of year. No particular reason for it, it's just because it's seasonal! It's not always Christmas focused there are the occasionally hanukkah things as well, and in the northern hemisphere this is the season for traditional winter festivals afterall.
Episode 611 - Doppelgängers
Nov 28, 2022
Doppelgängers was the subject of our Quackcast today. What are they? Generally they're evil duplicates of people. Originally if you saw one it was supposed to be a portent of impending doom, but they've since evolved through pop-culture to be mirror people who envy the originals and want to kill them and replace them. There are MANY other kinds of Doppelgängers too now: Future versions of people, clones, robots, virtual copies, alternate universe versions, spirits, demons, helpful lookalikes, and more.
Episode 610 - Beauty!
Nov 21, 2022
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, so the saying goes but it's absolutely true. There is a layered subjectivity to it based on personal preference, the cultural standards of your community, the ethnic traits of you and your peers, prevailing global fashions in appearance, the dominant archetypes in the media and so on. All these things combine to form our personal subjective ideas of beauty. You can see this yourself if you look at paintings, statues, masks, frescoes and other artifacts that have been produced by all the diverse cultures on earth over thousands of years: there IS no standard, eternal, objective of beauty.
Episode 609 - The Cringe
Nov 14, 2022
So how do you like comedy that makes you cringe? You know that really awkward humour where you feel embarrassed for those involved and almost in physical pain for them? You feel really bad for them… It could be cruel pranks, or jokes based on lies or misunderstandings that are just carried way too far. Personally I find them hard to take. It CAN be great like in the original version of The Office, but even that was REALLY hard to watch at times. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Stick Figure Apocalypse - Relaxing, cool funk groove that cruises along dreamily, hitting turbulent waters hallway through, with a wildly discordant patch of sonic confusion, startling us out of our revere, before slipping back into the same quiet groove again and fading to silence.
Episode 608 - Lovers and other things
Nov 7, 2022
There are all kinds of relationships and they're great fodder for stories. The most typical is when two characters are getting INTO a relationship- all that will they/wont they stuff. But characters could also be ending a relationship, or maybe ending one in order to get into another, they could even be in a stable, long term relationship, although those aren't quite as common in media. My favourites are the ones where sex and attraction isn't a factor: relationships between family members, co-workers, friends etc. For some reason when it's platonic I find that a lot more compelling than sexual tension, especially when there would normally be the potential for sex- i.e. two unrelated compatible people with the same sexual and gender preference.