Episode 517 - money in Scifi Utopia
Feb 8, 2021
Weird one this week! A monneyless system in a working Scifi utopia. This was based on an idea Banes came up with talking about Star Trek and how the federation has “evolved beyond money”, We discuss if this is possible, why it is and how it is. That means no need for money substitutes like credit or barter either. It's a really interesting topic and a brave choice for a world setting. The most common type of scifi world by FAR is a dystopia so the fact that Star Trek is a working utopia (at least in the original and 1990s series) is a very brave and unique choice and the idea that it functions without money is even more clever and interesting.
Topics and Show Notes
In this Quackcast we talk about how that's possible. And for those that want to do world building and SciFi futurism it's good to remember that dystopia isn't the only choice! It's quite possible to create a utopia for your action to happen in and for it not to be boring because conflict doesn't have to be based on the world falling apart, which is one of my pet peeves with modern Scifi: it's ALWAYS a dystopia with a messed up world or a spaceship where a mission has gone horribly wrong and the crew are fighting for their lives. There's more to SciFi than that and good old 90s Trek shows us how.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Next Town Over - The train’s a’commin’! Hop on and go fer a ride. Get off at the next town over if you like, it’ll be rollin’ on though soon… Just like this energetic, highly rhythmic track that pounds and thumbs along with great energy and momentum, with all the power of a fully laden steam strain!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Banes' newspost on Treckenomics! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/feb/03/star-trek-economics/
Featured comic:
The Sparrow - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/feb/02/featured-comic-the-sparrow/
Featured music:
Next Town Over - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Next_Town_Over/, by Emehlos, rated M.
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/
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Episode 511 - TENSION
Dec 28, 2020
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! Blame Mr Banes for this one, he's also the man responsible for the great cover art! Haha, he originally came up with the Quackcast topic: How do you build tension in a scene? There are a lot of ways! We talk about some of them here… Time limits on a scene, impending deadlines, a character dying but they can still be saved, misunderstandings, something the audience knows but the characters don't, decompressed scenes, closeups of faces, weird angles…
Episode 507 - Say my name again!
Nov 30, 2020
Coming up with character names isn't easy. It can actually be really, really hard! Tantz did a couple helpful Newsposts about it and we decided to spin that into a fun Quackcast about naming and names! The names behind stuff often has interesting stories, the Quackcast itself is no exception. When Wowio told us we had to do a podcast back in the day we tossed around a few names and the one they came up with was “Quackcast”, because of the whole “duck” theme we have going here. I protested because there was a highly regarded skeptical medical podcast with that name already run by Dr Mark Crislip, but I didn't have any real say and so the name stuck! When I DID have the power to change it, it was already way too entrenched.
Episode 506 - The fightcast
Nov 22, 2020
Today we chat about fight scenes! This was spurred by a post in our forums about how bad fight choreography can spoil a film. Our Patron vid was mainly about fights in our comics, while the Quackcast is more about fights in movies. One of the things about REAL fights is that they're usually very fast, ugly, stupid looking, and not very exciting. It's important to remember that boxers and UFC fighters are entertainers and sports people, those people are performing for an audience - their fights are real but they're designed to be showy and exciting, whereas true fighting on the street or in war etc is very different, it's more deadly and more stupid looking.
Episode 500 - Celebration!
Oct 12, 2020
Finally we got to the five hundredth Quackcast! Wow! That's so many. We've been doing these for 10 years now. That's a long running podcast! To celebrate we invited our DD members aboard. We had a great fun time, lots of laughs and a really good chat. We even had time to introduce special cotributions from the people who couldn't be live with us. I'm making our exclusive patreon video of this week's cast free for all to view! Just click on the youtube link bellow.
Episode 493 - Use existing IP to explore new things?
Aug 24, 2020
First up… HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TANTZ! This Quackcast is about the topic of whether it's right to change an established character just to fit with the ideas and styles of a new creator or change them in accordance with an idea or political position you want to explore, OR should you instead create a whole new character or story to do that with? Bane's newspost gave the example of the ersatz justice league created for The Boys, where Homelander =/= Superman. The series was made to look at the dark side of superheros, but it doesn't ruin established and much loved heroes to do that…
Episode 491 - Getting retro right!
Aug 10, 2020
DD member Furwerk Studios posted in our forum about how annoying it was that movies try and do an 80s retro thing often get things totally wrong and end up looking dumb because of it: Not just superficial looks-wise but stylistically too in terms of the kinds of shots they do, lighting and story structure. I thought that'd make an interesting topic for a cast! Why do people often mess up retro stuff? We're not talking about historical accuracy here, that's slightly different, what we're talking about is setting something in an era and getting the “feel” of that era right. It pays off hugely when it works, but when it doesn't it comes off as superficial, disappointing and ignorant.
Episode 476 - Tell me about your childhood
Apr 26, 2020
How does where you grew up influence your comicing? This idea interested me, so I posted about it on the DD forums and asked other people. I didn't really know about it myself: how did my childhood environment influence my later comicing? The conclusion I came to was that since my childhood experience was so alien to the worlds depicted in the media I enjoyed so much most of my comicing and creation was based on imagination out of necessity: Historical fantasy set in mountainous, cold, hazy Europe, vs my own experience of a new country without much history, with sunny weather, clear skies and a beachy lifestyle in Australia.
