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.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Unbroken Seal - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Unbroken_Seal/
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Links:
Quackcast 254 VIDEO - https://youtu.be/tv1shC_0KD4
/>Original thread: http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177407/?page=1
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Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
/>Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
/>Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
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The theme song by Gunwallace this week was for:
DDSR - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/DDSR/ by RazorD9 rated T.
Episode 253 - narrative order and the flashback
Jan 11, 2016
Doing stories that start with the climax, then flash back, tell what happened to get there: the old narrative style of switching the first few chapters around to make a more interesting story. Sometimes it works GREAT because it throws you right into the middle of things and you have to work your way back to that point… It works very nicely in The Hangover for example! Often it's used very badly- in anime particularly, where they use it for foreshadowing and a tease to try and get you interested in the rest of the story- but anime story structure is so formulaic that all it really does is give you a cheap spoiler. Other times it doesn't work well is when the writer isn't very good so the viewer loses their way in the plot… If the writer is GOOD though you end up with Pulp Fiction. You'll love Gunwallace's theme here- a super funky jazz track for the comic Nothing Important Happened Today. Enjoy!
Episode 250 - Tradigital art - Digital VS Traditional
Dec 21, 2015
There's not really a difference between digital and traditional art - art is art, your tools and media don't really matter, what's important is how its meant to be seen and what it's meant to be used for. But, people do like to discuss this though and so do we so that is exactly what we did! We opened the floor to people's opinions and experiences on the subject and everyone had their say. Gunwallace's theme for The Dragon Fists of Smorty Smythe reminds me strongly of The Journey of the Sorcerer by The Eagles!
Episode 241 - The Vampcast - Costumecast - Part 2
Oct 19, 2015
I vant to suck yer blud… Well Tantz Aerine does anyway. This is the second part of our Vampcast, talking about vampires in comics, lore, movies and popculture in general. We were STILL in costume, watching each other on vid at the time, getting distracted and Ozone was getting drunker and drunker on some very RED wine. Tantz was of course the vamp, Pit was a deathknight fairy princess, Banes was the scary polar werewolf, and Ozone fieldmarshal bigpants! You can see the vids of our exploits I uploaded last week. There exists an elusive 3rd vid, but we were all too drunk and tried by that stage… at least Ozone was. Gunwallace provided us the lovely Alt rock '90s style theme to the SciFi anime comic Throviria!
Episode 237 - The Songcast
Sep 21, 2015
For Quackcast 237 we asked people about the songs that inspire them when they do their comics, which songs go with which parts of their comics, what would be the ideal comic movie theme, what songs or music get you in the MOOD to do your comic, and finally; just how great are Gunwallace's fantastic comic theme tunes? And speaking of theme tunes, the masterful Gunwallace has given us a Salsa theme for Taco El Gato!
Episode 234 - Climactic Climaxes!
Aug 31, 2015
What's best? One big climax, multiple small ones, early, or delayed? How much should you work UP to a climax? What about anticlmactic events, how important are they? Climaxes are really important in stories. Often you work up to them over the course of a whole series, but each episode or chapter can have them, maybe even every single page. I find writing “up” to climaxes a bit stressful because you have a lot of preasure and expectation there. And when it's over and you've actually achieved it, it can be a bit depressing: where do you go to from there? You can feel a little lost, at least I do. TALKING ABOUT WRITING HERE. My preference is for multiple climaxes. Do you always need climaxes in stories? I don't think you do personally… there are times when things work fine without one, but it does help better with endings. Sometimes climaxes can be TOO big. Way too much of a story can be invested in a climax, it subsumes everything, everything has to tie in with that specific story flow and that can be REALLY had to pull off. If it's not done right it can be massively disappointing. Anticlimactic. Pitface Joins Banes and Ozone to chat about climaxes in stories and read out the contributions from our climactic contributors. Gunwallace gave us a gorgeous theme for Just Another Day!
Episode 231 - The importance of world building
Aug 9, 2015
You always do a bit of world building in fiction, in some types of stories like alternative histories, fantasy and Sci-Fi you have to do a bit more, in things set in the real world you don't have to do nearly as much - maybe only limited to a few rooms, character occupations and relationships etc, rather than planets and political systems, but the point is you're always doing it. There are good ways to do world building and bad ways i.e. work out as many details as you need to but have that all behind the scenes, not introduced as a wall of text or long explanations on how things work. World building should inform you story and make it work seamlessly, not prop it up like a rickety scaffold. The topic of the importance of World Building was previously touched on a few years ago by Skoolmunkee and Kroatz for Quackcast 39, but things happened at that recording was lost to history, so now we approach it again with all new contributions, strident opinions, and points of view on the subject. Gunwallace did a cool theme for Red Velvet Requiem!
Episode 228 - Conflicting conflicts conflict
Jul 19, 2015
This time we're talking about conflict in webcomic writing, and any writing in general really. Conflict is one of the main drivers of a story, so you pretty much have to have it in there somewhere! But how do you approach it? Do you set it up really carefully or just put a bunch of volatile characters together and see what happens? I think for a lot of us we don't think too much about the science of our conflicts, rather we approach it artistically and develop things by feel and instinct because conflict is such an intrinsic trait. But understanding how you use it can be very useful when you're writing satisfying resolutions and climaxes. A good understanding of the types of conflict in your story is also pretty essential when you're writing a good comedy (it's a great source of humour!), and also when you're explaining or selling your work to the public: It's all very well to chat about your clever setting and your funky characters, but conflict is the reason they're IN a story to begin with and that's really what will get people wanting to read out it. I hope you enjoy Gunwallace's great porn style music type theme for Tales of Two Tiny Titty bars!