Episode 631 - Entitlements
Apr 17, 2023
What rights are people actually entitled to? That question is a lot bigger than you think! The Quackcast today is sequel to last week's about entitled people, this one is about actual entitlements- what people SHOULD be entitled to. i.e. rights and such. It's a topic that Banes and Tantz really wanted to do and my purpose was to link it to writing and comics (not just theory and politics), which I think I did ok. This topic turned out to be very interesting.
Topics and Show Notes
Why are entitlements important? Well they inform the basic structure of any relationship between two people and any imbalance in the entitlements actually received VS those that are given is cause for conflict. At a societal level the community should all expect basic rights, if those break down or are removed this can have a shocking, drastic effect- as in Maus, A Handmaid's Tale, or Persepolis.
A red flag for bad writing is when the creator doesn't understand that people in a society have basic rights, as in something like the Deathwish, or Dirty Harry franchises- those are exciting rightwing revenge films but the worlds they depict feel totally “off” and not right somehow, as in a fantasy, because people's basic rights in those movies are suspended at will. The only way they make sense is if you see them as tales by an unreliable narrator; i.e. this is the world as the protagonist sees it, a serial killer perspective.
Different sorts of worlds have different kinds of entitlements based on their structure. Fahrenheit 451 or Logan's Run depict worlds bizarre to us because they're built very differently, one around the criminalisation of recorded knowledge and wisdom, and the other based on extreme ageism, but they are believable and make sense because people have rights and entitlements within those worlds.
Superhero worlds rarely address this aspect of story, what happens to people's entitlements when there are those who have the power of a god? What would happen to the insurance industry? To rescue workers? To the legal profession?
Banes took this topic right down to the ant's eye view:
What to do if you're being bullied at work, or school? What to do when someone's being rude. When someone embarrasses you, or tries to embarrass you, or belittles you? What to do in a disagreement? What are your entitlements in those situations? All that describes the seeds of conflict and suggest action needed to address that conflict
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Guardians of Man - CHA-CHa-Cha-cha… serial killer, slasher music sounds.Echoing reverb on isolated percussion and creepy electronic, scene setting sounds all weave together to create this unsettling landscape of terror. THE KILLER IS BEHIND YOU!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Gamma Blue Smoldering of Creel - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/apr/11/featured-comic-gamma-blue-smoldering-of-creel/
Featured music:
Guardians of Man - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Guardians_of_Man/ - by Gumshoecomix, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 629 - Reevaluation cast
Apr 3, 2023
Have you ever watched a series devotedly then lost touch with it for some reason for a while and then gone back to it a couple of years later and tried to get into again but this time you look at it with a very different perspective? Or maybe you loved a movie when you were young and decided to watch it again as an adult to see if it holds up?
Episode 628 - Cover me!
Mar 27, 2023
We're talking about the importance of a good cover in this cast. Another technical comicscast! I love making coves, they're one of my fave things because I get to stretch my artistic muscles and get a little more flashy and creative with my art and graphic design. They can also be pretty dread things to work on when you've used up all your creative powers on your actual comic and have nothing left over…
Episode 626 - I didn't do nuthin'
Mar 13, 2023
Today we talk about an unusual type of villain, a secret type of bad guy and a particularly nasty one: the person who maliciously does nothing. This is a person who COULD intervene to resolve a dire situation or save someone, they could do it easily; they know how, they have the means, they're not scared or unsure, and it doesn't mean much risk to themselves, they just choose to sit back and watch the person die or the situation collapse… either because they know the result will benefit themselves or they're just curious to watch the person die or the everything turn to crap for the victim or whatever. Either way they COULD easily intervene but they choose not to.
Episode 625 - Designing Women
Mar 6, 2023
Character design is a fun process but not without its challenges. Do you design the character or their story first? I've followed both of those approaches, they have pluses and minuses. On one hand when you create the character first that can make it a real passion project, you make a cool character and then create a story for them to live in and be themselves. But that can also lead to Mary Sues, wish fulfillment and self inserts, which makes for a weak story. Creating characters to fit a story can sometimes lead to using a lot of stereotypes and ending up with fairly generic and bland characters, which can make for a dull story. So it's best to use a bit of balance and judgment.
Episode 624 - Comic panel creation
Feb 27, 2023
HPKomic is a great guy, he's been on DD since almost the beginning. He alternates the Friday newsposts with me, he focusses on the intricacies of comic panels. This time he asked people to talk about their own processes though and I thought this would be a good topic for a Quackcast! So on this comic podcast we're finally talking directly about making comic pages, who would've thought?
Episode 622 - Whaddaya take me for?
Feb 12, 2023
This is when the writer leads you to think something big has happened in the story, like a character dying or falling in love or winning a big prize or something, only to have the character alive in the next part, or the prize or love never mentioned or addressed- this is “schmuck bait”. The writer gets you invested and excited for something but cops out, leaving the audience frustrated and cynical. This was common in older episodic things where the episodes are intended to be seen in any order, so the writers couldn't have continuing arcs and development across a season. It's also common in bad writing where the writer builds things up a lot for an events but then loses their nerve or just doesn't posses the skills to properly resolve things.
Episode 620 - losers are human too
Jan 30, 2023
My idea was to talk about social pariah characters, people who it's socially acceptable to laugh at, despise, or even hate. They can be the uncool people, the dorks, the dags, the idiots, the overweight, the ugly, the old, the out of touch, the over the hill… On the extreme end they could be monsters and criminals. Generally they're written pretty two dimensionally as a collection of cliches, but when the writing goes beyond that to lend them humanity is when it goes to the next level.
