Episode 381 - site upgrades and messing with creators
Jul 2, 2018
We talk about all the new upgrades that DD has just gotten: the new comment notification and reply features (a huge thank you to all who donated and helped out with that!!!), our new notification icons, getting HTTPS on the site, moving to the new ad system after the fall of Project wonderful, maybe starting a Patreon for DD, and Tantz's Sunday Twitter features. We also chat about Tantz's latest newspost and Mks Monster's thread that it was based on: basically the idea of forcing creators into boxes. The idea that women should create certain kinds of work and men should create others. Gunwallace gave us a lovely theme to Sky Commander. This is a very futuristic sounding track, at first glance it’s a little modern for the 1940s set comic but I like to think of it as the flight theme of the Sky Commander as he zooms through the clouds in his shiny metal Streamline Moderne gear, producing an expanding vapour trail behind him, crisp and white against the eggshell blue sky.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Bob and Rob - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jun/26/featured-comic-bob-and-rob/
Links:
Site upgrades! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jun/28/upgrades/
Tantz's Twitter Features - https://twitter.com/DrunkDuck/status/1013540066390667264
Proving your Progressiveness (Tantz newspost) - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jun/29/proving-your-progressiveness/
Messing with creators (thread) - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177940/?page=1#latest
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Sky Commander - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Sky_Commander/, by Coydog, rated T.
Episode 276 - Time management, Deadlines and Organisation
Jun 20, 2016
For Quackcast 276 we had a discussion about the topics of time management, organisation and deadlines- all things essential to the practitioners of webcomics, and even more-so to people involved in webcomic collaborations! This is tricky stuff to handle, you have to balance your webcomicing with your other life activities as well as audience expectation for updates! And as you go on it gets harder and harder to stick with self imposed deadlines, so how do you combat that? Well one way is to make a Patreon account so people will put money towards you updating, That can make an excellent incentive to stick to a deadline, when there's money involved! Collaborations can be easy or hard to keep alive, as long as everyone is equally eager to take part and everyone wants it to succeed then you're good, if not then your group project needs a good leader: not someone who WANTS to be a leader, rather someone who's dedicated to getting the project DONE and needs to be the leader to make that happened, sort of like my role at Drunk Duck. They need to be willing and able to coordinate people and tell them what to do, handle their strengths and weaknesses right to get the work done. The last part to remember is contingencies for when things go wrong! What are your safeguards? i.e. buffers, finishing early so you've got extra time to work on the project if it needs it, have backup people lined up to do work for you, filler art at the ready, guest strips, maybe even simplified techniques or just posting line art instead. How do YOU stick to deadlines (if you do), how do you handle time management and organisation with your comics and collaborators? Gunwallace's theme music this week was Z74's Star Knights. It's An operatic swarm of hornets on a massed bombing run over enemy territory.
Episode 264 - How to improve your online presence
Mar 27, 2016
In this Quackcast we interview Marie Tary, AKA ShadowsMyst. We haven't talked to her since Quackcast 32 and 33 way back in 2011 when Skoolmunkee and I interviewed her about The art of analytics and how to market your webcomics properly. Now Banes and I talk to her about the changed landscape of website marketing, brand management, SEO and how it applies to comics and most particularly Drunk Duck itself. Brand management and marketing is Marie's job, as a senior graphic designer for a major university. She gives us some invaluable information about how we can put Drunk Duck back on top and return it to its former glory- very useful information that applies just the same to any online property, especially webcomics! So this will give you a clue what's in store for Drunk Ducks future and the sort of thing the future 3rd wave of fixes and features will entail. We also have the presentation of a lovely track by Gunwallace, the theme to Tangled river!
Episode 248 - Interview with Dario Di Donato of Barbarian Adventure
Dec 6, 2015
Today we interview Dario Di Donato, the creator of the great webcomic Barbarian Adventure! You may recall that Gunwallace did an amazing theme to Barbarian adventure that we played in Quackcast 244, AND the comic was featured a few weeks ago too! Anyway, this time around, Banes, Pitface and I interview the creator of this fine work and he fills us in on his many classic 1980s pop culture sources of inspiration. Dario brims with a positivity, dedication and enthusiasm that is infectious! And you can listen to Gunwallace's dark punky theme to Monster Soup!
Episode 158 - A Very Modern Modest Medusa: Part 2
Mar 17, 2014
In the second part of our interview with Jake Richmond of Modest Medusa Banes and I discuss with him topics like the use of gradients in comic art, background details, simplifying your artwork, cell shading, and the perils of covering up art with speech bubbles! This was not originally intended as a two parter but we chatted on with Jake after the Quackcast was over and he was so interesting, insightful, and on-topic that we didn't want to waste any of the chat we had with him.
Episode 157 - A very modern Modest Medusa
Mar 11, 2014
Banes returns to the Quackcast to join me on another interview with Jake Richmond of the very popular Modest Medusa! This time we get to find out more about Jake's comic making technique, his writing style, character creation, colour technique, drawing materials, programs and his whole work flow. I had wanted to get into this last time as well on Quackcast 155 but we had a great chat about the things you can do to make money from your webcomics instead. So now we get a full picture of what goes into the making of Modest Medusa! For example; did you know it's all drawn on paper and scanned? Neither did I! This is part one, part two will come out next week. Stay tuned!
Episode 155 - A Moment with Modest Medusa
Feb 24, 2014
After a terrible bathroom flooding incident Modest Medusa was born. That's sort of the beginning of the story of Modest Medusa, but also how the comic began too! In this Quackcast I interview Jake Richmond, the creator of the very successful and popular Modest Medusa: a pretty amazing webcomic success story. Starting out at Drunk Duck with his comic in 2011 he's been able to quit his main day job and work on his comic full time! He does some freelancing and teaching as well, but his comic is his main source of income. That's awesome! And this wasn't by luck either, or “being in the right place at the right time” that many have leveraged much of their success from, Jake got there though hard work and dedication to his readers. A real webcomic inspiration! This is the goal that every webcomicer should be aiming for and his success shows that it IS acheiveable! - Only IF you can put in that work though. It's not easy, no short-cuts.
