Episode 559 - DD Fashion Spotlight
Nov 29, 2021
Today we're chatting about the NEW news feature that we're doing every Friday: The DD Fashion Spotlight. This is a new way to promote comics without all the restrictions of the featured comic system. To be eligible for a normal Wednesday feature a comic has to have at least 15 pages, be currently updating, not in the top ten, have good writing and artwork, not be adult rated, and not have been featured before. That cuts down the playing field quite a lot but it's what we have to do to make it worth a feature.
Topics and Show Notes
The fashion spotlight is quite different! All that's required is that the comic has characters with outfits that are interesting enough to talk about, It could be a one page comic that stopped updating 11 years ago, it can be adult rated, it can be in the top ten, it can have had a feature before, it can even have had a fashion spotlight feature before, whatever, as long as there are clothes to talk about it's eligible. I've done two so far.
There were a few reasons behind this new feature… One was the featured comic from a couple of weeks ago about the Halloween Fashion show comic, one was Tantz's newspost about how character's hair styles can be used to convey emotion and things, there was the fact that Emm couldn't do Friday newsposts anymore for a while, and lastly my own love of clothing. I've always been a bit of a collector of clothes, especially antique items. I also do my own sewing, do cosplay, make my own Napoleonic military uniform gear, and I love designing outfits for the characters in m comic. Initially I approached Vino Mas with the idea of running the feature because he's run many fashion events on DD in the past, but he has too may commitments so I thought I'd tackle it myself. I future we may have other reviewers though!
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Tiger Tea - Bass notes lead us on a winding little path… to a vast winding staircase built by a relentless driving synthesised tune that takes us on mysterious journey, up, down, and around, disorienting and enchanting.
Topics and shownotes
Links
DD Fashion Spotlight 1 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/18/friday-fashion-spotlight/
DD Fashion Spotlight 2 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/25/friday-fashion-spotlight-the-intrepid-torpedo/
Featured comic:
Catch22 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2021/nov/22/featured-comic-catch-22/
Featured music:
Tiger Tea - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Tiger_Tea/ - by PaddyWolfe, 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/
PitFace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
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Episode 557 - Fetishes in comics
Nov 15, 2021
Fallopiancrusader joined us as a very special guest to chat about fetishes in comics! It's really interesting and he brings his expertise with adult comics and his wide ranging knowledge of comics in general to bear on the subject. So what are fetishes? Well they're often things that people have sort of a sexual interest in but aren't always associated with sex themselves, they're peripheral to sex. Because of that they're often enjoyed and appreciated in their own right for their own sake! Think of things like body piercings, tight laced corsets, wearing fursuits, spanking, wearing S&M leather and PVC gear, shoe appreciation etc. all things associated with sex that people can also enjoy and appreciate outside of sex.
Episode 556 - That's What She Said!
Nov 8, 2021
The other day Tantz Aerine wrote a newspost about an article critical of Squid Game. The crux of things was that the Squid Game creator had said their message was anti-capitalist, while this critic was saying that the author's message with the Squid Game was an anti communist critique and not a very good one at that. The issue here is that isn't how you do criticism. At all. You can give an interesting reading of something and tell us why YOU think it's anti-Communist, or tell us how it looks through the lens of post-colonialism or new wave feminism etc, but you can't say that is what the author is saying or what the work means, especially if the author explicitly says WHAT they are saying. This may seem like a small distinction but it's actually very, very important. Bad criticism often tells us what the creator is saying. Don't do that. Don't be that person.
Episode 551 - Tropes we LOVE to hate...
Oct 4, 2021
Tantz explains why she really hates a bunch of tropes that are super commonly used in things, stuff like very obvious plot armour for the protagonist so that you KNOW nothing can seriously hurt them so you stop caring what happens to them and in the story in general, child-led stories where the adults are all useless and ineffectual because it takes away your suspension of disbelief, and amnesia where a huge bunch of the story is erased so the writers can just repeat stuff over and over. Banes and I join it to talk about stuff we hate too!
Episode 550 - Gaming
Sep 27, 2021
We decided to chat about games. Video game and computer games. They're now a huge part of pop-culture entertainment and they've influenced us in many ways creatively throughout our lives. There are many different kinds of games out there, but one of the really cool things about them is that they're able to deliver a kind of interactive narrative experience that takes things further than Film or comics can easily do. Games were also instrumental in the early days of the first big popular wave of webcomics with gamer comics (PVP, Ctrl Alt Dlt, and Penny Arcade) and sprite comics (8 bit fantasy), being some of the most popular.
Episode 547 - Franchise fail
Sep 2, 2021
There seemed to be a lull for a while after the 1990s and the massive sequel craze of the 80s, but nowadays we're back in full swing again with sequels, reboots and reinvisioning of film and TV franchises. Banes noticed a distinct pattern of behaviour that occurred around bad or failed franchises: The makers would chose to go against what existing fans liked about the property in the fist place, usually in order to appeal to new fans. When both new fans and old ones dislike what they do, they attack the fans and blame the fans for failure of their version. Then they'll search and find a new franchise to mess up. It's rare that people own up to or admit to failures anymore, it's usually always the fault of the fans for being too “toxic”.
Episode 539 - Schemers
Jul 11, 2021
Schemers can be part of some great stories when they're done well! When they're done badly though they're very annoying! Schemers, plotters and planers have become a super annoying trope in anime: at the end of the first or second episode a person will show up in the shadows and say that they're amused how things are all going as predicted and planned…. They'll appear again at the half way mark of the series and again 3 episodes before the end in the run up to their climactic battle with the protagonist. It's a trope and a formula. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't.
Episode 537 - Historicity
Jun 28, 2021
We have a chat about historicity in this Quackcast. What IS historicity? It's historical authenticity basically but a nicer way of saying it! It's pretty important for a lot of reasons to make the best effort you can with historical authenticity- it increases immersion of the audience, gives you a better understanding of the story and the world you're looking at (because things will make sense), and leads you to better understanding of your own history and where we came from. BUT, that doesn't mean you always have to be strict. As long as you as a creator properly understand historical context then you've got a lot more leeway to play without creating something stupid. Playing fast and loose with history is ok as long as you know what you're doing, not just being a moron and faking it (hey, many of us are guilty of that). Historical fantasy, myth, classics, fiction, biography etc are all different classes of story where it's more or less forgiveable to mess around.
