Episode 419 - The Rating Game
Mar 25, 2019
It's the rating game! Yeah! This Quackcast was inspired by Emma Clare's newspost on Friday about rating levels. On Drunk Duck we have 4 rating levels so they're nice and simple: “E” for everyone, “T+” for teens, “M” for mature, and “A” for Adult! We talk about why ratings exist and how to use them.
Topics and Show Notes
But why do ratings exist? Well it's complicated actually…
The main reason is that all cultures have various taboos and things they consider inappropriate to be viewed in certain situations so most countries have ratings systems set up to cater to that. Ratings are partly used to restrict access to some material (eg. stopping children from seeing violent or sexually explicit content), and partly as a way of marketing material: ratings let people have a good idea of the content, so parents will snap up any child rated material for their children to see and adults will know that higher rated things will be more appealing to them. Ratings such as “NC17” and “MA+15” were invented so content creators could sneak in more of what adults want to see in films (sex and violence) and still avoid a higher more restrictive rating which would mean they have less of a market because there are less forums to display and advertise higher rated work.
Ratings on the duck
We only have four ratings levels. These are based on old style film ratings, we do this to try and avoid confusion. Higher ratings mean you have a lot more freedom in what you can show but less freedom in who you show it to: “A” rated work is ONLY visible to adults (not kids) who are logged into the site. Theduckwebcomics is one of the few webcomic hosting sites that allow creators to post very sexually explicit material. Work is self regulated, we expect creators to be responsible adults here. The rating of a comic can be changed by us upon request, but we prefer to ask the creator to do it themselves. Here are our ratings:
E: Everyone
Open to everybody. Non-offensive material in text or imagery. Appropriate for both children and adults.
T+: Teen
Content is suitable for teens or older. Mild violence, slightly mature themes. No obscenities, graphic violence, sex, or nudity.
M: Mature
Content contains mature themes that might not be suitable for children. May contain occasional obscenities, limited graphic violence, implied sex, mild nudity. No sexually explicit material, no graphic sexual acts, no Hentai, no unrelenting violence, or non-stop obscenities.
A: Adult
Content is sexually explicit, exceedingly violent, or an excess use of obscenities. Must be logged on to view.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Blighted The Odyssey: The spirit of exploration, taking you far out into the deep black starlit ocean. St Elmo’s fire glows around the mast and yards, swirls of glowing plankton cling and drift away from the sides of the hull as you venture further into the unknown, disappearing into the darkness…
Topics and shownotes
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Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Featured comic:
Sunstrike and Bluemist An Origin Story - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/mar/18/featured-comic-sunstrike-and-bluemist-an-origin-story/
Links:
Emma Clare's ratings newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/mar/21/rating-your-comic/
DD ratings list - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/about/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Blighted The Odyssey - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Blighted_The_Odyssey/, by Alpharie, rated M.
Episode 418 - Many kinds of love
Mar 18, 2019
There are many kinds love. Love is a great thing to include in your story for all sorts of reasons: it's an easy way to develop characters, give a character something to strive for, it's universally relatable, You can use it for tension, all sorts of things! There are different kinds of relationships you can use as well, not just heterosexual or homosexual relationships and the common trope of showing the beginning of a relationship, you can show crushes, established relationships, platonic relationships, relationships collapsing and exes coming together. For this topic we were loosely inspired by Tantz and Emma's great newsposts about romance and platonic love. We chat about luuuurv and tricks like lurv triangles!
Episode 417 - Can we be better?
Mar 11, 2019
What is Social Marketing? Basically its word-of-mouth and viral marketing smashed together and weaponised: Marketing companies hijack hot-button social issues and hitch their client's brand to them in clever campaigns (“We can be better”, etc). The purpose isn't really to make a brand seem progressive, modern or new, rather it's another way of getting it trending on social media that's guaranteed to work, unlike the legion of hit or miss but mostly failed “Viral” campaigns. Whether people say negative or positive things about this issue is irrelevant to the marketer, as long as people are talking about the brand is all that matters. Free advertising is the goal, but it has a social cost.
Episode 416 - Making cuts
Mar 4, 2019
The entire team is here this time, no one was cut… So we're chatting about CUTTING, as in cutting out scenes to make a story cleaner, leaner and less flabby, but also NOT cutting because in a webcomic you don't have to, and when you cut badly you end up with a “D movie” effect where story scenes don't follow, don't make sense and plots seem to go nowhere or happen for no reason.
Episode 415 - lazy solutions cause plot-holes!
Feb 25, 2019
This Quackcast expands on my newspost from Friday about forgotten abilities causing plot holes, but now bunny Banes and Lady Tantz wade in to lend their genius to my silly ideas and we chat about what the real issues are: bad writing and laziness! This is when a character gains the ability to walk through walls or become bullet proof or go back in time and then forgets it for the rest of the story or in the sequel When basically 80% of the problems they encounter could be solved by it… And you're mentally screaming at them “Use your damn power that you got 20 pages ago… Remember that thing that would help you avoid all this trouble!?” Using easy solutions to get out of problems causes plot-holes! And your audience will hate you for it.
Episode 414 - Bad Hollywood
Feb 18, 2019
Hollywood has a tendency to simplify or completely alter stories to make them more mainstream and appealing to their idea of a popular audience. In this Quackcast we thought it'd be fun to run with that idea and re-imagine our works for “Hollywood”.
Episode 413 - Breaking structure
Feb 11, 2019
It's just Ozoneocean and bouncy Banes today. This time we're chatting about breaking and subverting structures, formulas and conventions in webcomics. Commercial creative projects need to use formulas and familiar structures because that's what audiences expect, it's also what studio executives, creative editors, publishers, producers and all the people that greenlight those projects need and expect as well. The Hero's Journey and other conventions and formulas aren't just used because they make good stories but because of the commercial realities and risk averse nature of the industry (there's a lot of money and jobs on the line). Webcomics don't have those pressures so we're talking about why webcomics shouldn't necessarily adhere to popular formulas and structures and why many don't.
Episode 412 - Hiatusssss D:
Feb 4, 2019
A huge thank you to the fantastic Amelius, creator of Charby the Vampirate! We mined her great newspost on the topic of the comic hiatus for this Quackcast. When you're reading a comic and it goes on Hiatus it's an awful thing… suddenly all progress stops and you don't know for how long it will be gone for. Some authors are great, they'll reach a point where they can't work anymore for some reason or they'll take a little break, but they will tell you they're going on a hiatus and when their comic will return- and Lo, it comes back exactly when they said it would. Crappy authors will say they're going on a hiatus and never return.
