Episode 590 - Fave Superhero Movies?
Jul 4, 2022
I wanted to do an easy and fun one this week and just chat about our fave superhero movies, starting with our firsts! For me and Banes it was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It's a real classic, full of positivity, hope, and optimism, all with bright colours and classic iconic imagery… In that way it's a bit like many of the Marvel films and the more popular DC offerings like Aquaman and WonderWoman, but without the overbuilt and over-defined muscles!
Topics and Show Notes
Reeve was handsome in an almost alien sort of way and quite well built but his muscles weren't pumped up to the extreme like they are on pretty much every single modern superhero movie character, which is quite interesting when you think about it. His suit was very simple- no crazy little irrelevant textures that are there for no clear reason, no finicky details and effects, it was just bold and flat like in the original comics. Starkly iconic!
The superhero films that do better always seem to be the ones that are completely unapologetic and unironic in their portrayals. They don't try to make their heroes “realistic”, they don't deconstruct them, layer on drama, get rid of the over the top costumes, tone down colours or superhero abilities. Superhero films that aren't ashamed to be superhero films tend to succeed. You could say that the other side of the coin is when things are taken too far as in Batman and Robin, but that was an obvious self parody rather than a film in love with the idea of superheros.
One of my own personal faves is Captain America: First Avenger, because it shows the true superhero origins in the real historical context as well as actually showing that superhero doing his day to day missions after getting his powers (fighting the Nazis and Hydra). Too many of the films just give as an origin story and then a climax, they never ever actually show us what the hero “does”: They ONLY show a simple progression from birth of the hero to challenge hero faces to hero overcoming challenge. The fact that it gives us a proper historical context can't be overstated - It means you get to see the world in which the very idea of the modern superhero was actually created, the world that gave birth to these superheros is actually on show!
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Space Pack - A gentle dancy progression, leading into more and more urgency and danger. Very Scifi and slightly spooky, with a little explosion at the very end… But is it really the end?
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
DNR - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/jun/28/featured-comic-dnr/
Featured music:
Space Pack - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Space_Pack/ - by Stingy, 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
PitFace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
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Episode 588 - Revisiting Old Ideas
Jun 20, 2022
Sometimes it's worth revisiting old ideas because you can do them better or explore them deeper. This could be in the form of a full reboot, or it could be as simple as reusing a pose in a panel or using the same theme again like Pixar does with 90% of their output i.e. “coming of age”. Like them you don't need to feel obligated to always do something totally original, revisiting old ideas is a great way to refine them, create better work, or explore different aspects of them you hadn't considered before and put new and interesting spins on things. Consider that Pixar's Turning Red, Encanto, Moana, Coco, The Incredibles 2, Ratatouille, Inside Out, Brave, Onward, and Luca all share the same “coming of age/childhood independence” theme and yet all do it in unique and original ways, exploring different aspects of the idea from all sorts of angles.
Episode 585 - Adaptation
May 30, 2022
Adaptations of one thing into another is an interesting process. What's lost, what's gained, what modifications do you have to do to make it happen? As webcomicers we do it all the time in many ways, we have to adapt our influences into ideas, adapt those to stories, and adapt those to images and comics, which isn't trivial! It's often quite difficult to transform the written word into narrative sequential art- what portion of the writing gets directly turned into images, what's cut, and what becomes dialogue? For me about 20% is cut, 78% becomes art and 2% becomes dialogue or captions.
Episode 577 - The Agony and the Ecstasy.
Apr 4, 2022
Creation is a process with a lot of ups and downs: Agony and ecstasy! The easiest way to think of it is a simple inverted parabola- you start of feeling good about your idea and its potential. As you work though you feel worse and worse about it till you get to the nadir of the curve, then things turn around and you start feeling better and better about it as it finally comes together and you finally manage to finish it!
Episode 576 - Retro Adventure heroes
Mar 28, 2022
Retro adventure heroes are an interesting and unique sort of hero. The trope was revived and crystallised by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg with Indiana Jones, but it had existed long before then and continues to persist now in many forms. They're not without their problems But I like these characters. I love their outfits, their competency, intelligence, self sufficiency, and their penchant for exploration and discovery.
Episode 575 - Fave fantasy creatures?
Mar 20, 2022
Fantasy creatures are cool and we're here to talk about our faves. One of mine is elves. I love them… Being quite elfy myself. Fantasy is pretty fun to play around with, you have the freedom to create anything but even so there are a few recognised and agreed on fantasy creatures that people stick with.
Episode 573 - Join the cult?
Mar 7, 2022
Cults are weird. Unlike normal religions (from which many cults stem), cults are usually based more around charismatic individuals rather than simple doctrine. Which means the followers of cults can often get a little crazy because they're following the whims of an individual rather than boring old text from a book. And this is why religious groups with charismatic leaders (i.e evangelical Televangelists and hardline Imams), become crazy and cultish too.
Episode 569 - Everything old is new again
Feb 7, 2022
He might not be in the Quackcast right now but he's in our hearts and in this topic! Banes did a newspost about Nostalgia the other day because so much popculture these days is openly recycled: from reboots and remakes, to stuff done in 80s styles etc. This sort of thing has always existed of course, nothing is new not even nostalgia ironically, but today there is more of it and less totally new stuff.
