Episode 450 - happy Halloween horror franchises
Oct 28, 2019
Tantz is dressed fabulously as a queen and I'm a skull faced monstrosity… I'm also wearing a costume, hahaha! Which you can see in our Patreon video ;) Queen Tantz Bathory and prince of horror Banes join me to talk about Horror movie franchises, what makes them work and what doesn't- as franchises rather than just a stand alone movie. The problems facing a movie series about horror are different from other genres and focus more on formula than just characters the way they do in most other types of film so it's an interesting discussion.
Topics and Show Notes
When doing a horror franchise like Halloween, The conjuring, Killer Clowns from Outerspace, Friday the 13th, or Child's Play for example, do you keep repeating the formula over and over like Friday the 13th? Do you go deeper into the monster lore like Hell Raiser? Do you mix up the format or make the sequels a completely different kind of film like Army of Darkness in the Evil Dead franchise? Or even simply just change the abilities of the monsters like in Tremors? There are a limited bunch of choices you can make in horror because people don't really care too much about character development in the genre, what they want out of it are scares and visceral reactions to the on screen action. They can't become too attached to characters or it's no fun when they die and they can't learn too much about the monster lore or the monster loses its scariness.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The True Face… Tumbling, bouncing jollity, skipping ahead this tune flows like a crystal clear stream over coloured stones, winding its way past vivid viridian grass banks, joining other brooks and rills, till they all come together to disperse into the vastness of the ocean!
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Risk it for a Biscuit - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/oct/22/featured-comic-risk-it-for-a-biscuit/
Featured music:
The True Face - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_True_Face/, by Marcorossi, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 448 - King of franchises: Star Wars!
Oct 14, 2019
Continuing on our focus on movie franchises for the month of October, THIS time we focus on the king of them all: STAR WARS! This was a genre defining series, not only for movies but for space opera, “SciFi”, and science fantasy on all media! The original trilogy was quite a milestone. Predictably further instalments weren't quite as well received but it still remains popular even so! Currently it's having a resurgence in popularity once more.
Episode 443 - sticks and stones
Sep 9, 2019
Based on Banes' newspost about the latest Dave Chappelle comedy special, this Quackcast talks about the way audience reception to it has been somewhat divided based on the topics covered verses current prevailing attitudes and the so-called “outrage culture”
Episode 429 - Bad ends, not bad fans
Jun 2, 2019
This Quackcast was inspired by the fan reaction to Game of Thrones, a series that I haven't watched but Tantz and Banes have! Specifically it's about poorly written endings and gas-lighting fans rather than admitting to faults.
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 396 - Amelius and Patreon
Oct 15, 2018
Amelius of the magnificent and eternal Charby The Vampirate returns to the Quackcast today! Amelius was the first person we every interviewed and Charby the Vampirate has been on Drunk Duck exactly as long as Pinky TA: since January 2004! Tantz and I chat to her about the new Patreon she has going for Charby and all the amazing bonus perks you can get on it. If you're a Charby fan you should definitely get in on that. Amelius has also agreed to join us on DD to do newsposts every week! So you will be seeing some cool content from her regularly. She has a LOT of comic making experience to impart.
Episode 387 - History and Pastiche
Aug 7, 2018
In this Quackcast Tantz and I chat about the differences between working with historical settings and the different approaches we take. Tantz's comics (Without Moonlight and Brave Resistance), are both set in a real period of history: Nazi occupied Greece during WW2. Pinky TA is set in the 1920s in an alternative version of history, with Pinky coming from the fictional “Crimean Empire”. Tantz has to keep times, places, and details close to real history while with Pinky TA I can pick and choose the things from history I like the best and create my own idealised pastiche. The advantage of Tantz's approach is that everything is there, nothing has to be invented, just researched and reproduced, whereas my approach involves a lot of creation which slows things down and makes it harder. On the upside Pinky TA is much more flexible, I can easily fit whatever I want into the story, whereas Tantz's comics are bound by the rules of the history she's presenting.
Episode 332 - The trouble with immortality
Jul 17, 2017
In this Quast we talk about immortality, which is a common trope in literature. Who seeks immortality in stories? It's usually bad guys, and it usually has some sort of extreme price,catch or dark side, so much so that people actually believe that if immortality WAS real that it would somehow be an evil thing. The fact is that most of the possible downsides are cultural constructions or justifications for our own mortality, if immortality WAS a real thing we don't really know what the down sides would be… But this means that the trope of immortality is not as limited as we've come to believe; it's wide open to be re-written and redefined. And a not, the story mentioned in the Quackcast was The Trouble With Lichen and it was by John Wyndham, not Roald Dahl. Gunwallace's theme for the week was for The Beard. This one is creepy and magical, just the type of music you’d associate with alien hair follicles, it brings to mind strange activity on a microscopic level inside the skin… unsettling!
