Episode 256 - Using and creating weapons in fiction
Feb 1, 2016
Tantz Aerine, Banes and Ozoneocean discuss the topic of using and creating weapons in fiction and some of the pitfalls involved- all the things you can easily do wrong and do better! Stuff like using overly specialised weapons in too general a role, like giant swords where they'd be next to useless, or tricked out assault rifles with way too many things hooked onto them so they're oversized and weight a ton- also copying ideas and tropes about weapons usage without understanding why the exist and in the process making many of the same mistakes as others have in the past.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
XTIN - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/XTIN/
Links:
Quackcast 256 VIDEO - https://youtu.be/4lPSTIwehv8
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Please contribute to help DD - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/drunk-duck-webcomics-improvement-drive/x/4410947#/
The theme song by Gunwallace this week was for:
The Understanding - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Understanding/ by Call Me Tom, rated M.
- See more at: http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2016/feb/01/quackcast-256-using-and-creating-weapons-in-fiction/
Episode 245 - fiction influencing reality and the myth of the friendzone
Nov 16, 2015
In Quackcast 245 we TRY to talk about my idea that fictional characters, stereotypes, tropes and situations in media have influenced their counterparts in reality, and in a lot of ways helped to create them. Fictional stereotypes and tropes are made out of simplified models of things that happen in reality, usually by pulling together all the most dramatic, big, bold versions and then turning them up to 11 to make a new, more exciting fictional caricature, that NEW image is then spread far and wide and influences people to imitate it- a good example being the modern “cowboy”. This idea was kicked off by Pitface suggesting one of my characters looked like a douchey friendzoned character. I thought about it and realised that a real life version of this character (who's mooning over a girl in a relationship with another guy), WOULD be exactly as she described, also those characters are common to relationship comedies and so often friendzoned… SO that got me thinking: could the current crop of “nice guy” fedora friendzone exponents have based their crazy theories about relationships on images in the media? -since they don't have much relationship to reality yet they so closely match pre-existing tropes in movies and TV shows. Then we expanded the idea to other examples of media representations influencing reality. Pitface, Banes, and Tantz Aerine join me on the Quackcast. Gunwallace does a lovely theme for Entanglement.
Quackcast 239 - Draw your world, community edition
Oct 5, 2015
Last week Tantz Aerine and Pitface told us about how they came up with a visual look for their comic worlds. THIS week members of the community weigh in and give us THEIR perspective on their perspective… views of their comic environments. We have very interesting views from al of them! Oh, I apologise for the saucy repartee between Banes and I at the start of the Quackcast. We're very bad people. Gunwallace's theme this week was for Trevor Mueller's Award Winning Albert The Alien! With lyrics by Gunwallace and spoken by an Alien, not Albert.
Episode 230 - Getting the formula RIGHT
Aug 3, 2015
We've talked about formulas before, but mostly in the context of escaping formulas and reinventing them. NOW however we're talking about using existing formulas to create a story, or creating new formulas and sticking to them to come up with your stories. Formulas can be a good tool to write with, along with their close sibling “the trope” they take elements that are proven to work and stick them on a solid framework for you to more easily create your story around. All you need to do is plug in your characters and situation and see how it all fits. Formulas are comfortable for people and make it easier for a writer to structure their story faster AND in a way they know should appeal to people. Enjoy Gunwallace's lovely theme for Rismo!
Episode 212 - Gateway Comics
Mar 30, 2015
Tantz Aerine, Pit Face and Abt Nhil join Banes and Ozone to discuss the kinds of comics that are good intros into the medium for people who aren't into them: Gateway comics! You know the sorts of people; "Comics are for kids", that sort of thing. Well the idea here is to show them different! What comics would convince someone to give the medium a second glance? What comic or strategy could possibly convent people to the glorious cause of comics? Tantz, Pit, and Abt tell us what they think, we also read what HippieVan suggests (the topic creator), and the people who contributed to HippieVan's original newspost.
Episode 208 - Testing Your Writing
Mar 1, 2015
In this Quackcast Banes and I discuss some methods for testing your writing, well mainly your characters, to see how well you really know them. We use a comedic character creation template that we have found is perfect for testing and learning more about your established characters, no matter how serious they are. It consists of four interrelated elements: Point of view; Exaggeration of the point of view; Faults; Relatability / Humanity. We also talk a little about the dreaded dangers of the Mary Sue... you never want your writing to fall in that putrid, cancerous hole of smelly excrement where your main character is perfect and all the others worship them. And lastly the very useful Bechdel test for seeing how rounded your female characters are. There are 3 rules: You have to have at least two named women; They who talk to each other; It's about something besides a man. We were both a bit sad about the death of Leonard Nimoy. R.I.P. Mister Spock.
Episode 176 - Endings, part 3
Jul 21, 2014
For our FINAL part of our discussion of story endings we talk about yet MORE ending tropes, methods and styles. In a fit of towering arrogance and indefensible pomposity we even trash the mighty Shakespeare for his ending of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet! Our contributors offered up some truly interesting perspectives on the matter or constructing story endings and we give them their due respect by reading them out in strange voices... As I've said in all of these so far: writing the end of a story is the hardest part so we hope to provide some clues on how to write a good one. Ad with that we reach the END of our exploration of ends! Next week we interview AMY and Nick from CHARBY THE VAMPIRATE!!!
Episode 55 - Genres Revisited
Dec 13, 2011
My attractive assistant Skoolmunkee agreed to another guest appearance in order to re-adress this topic. I asked people about their favourite webcomic genres, why they like them and what makes them so cool and interesting, whether it's the genre they like to read or create in. The genres we covered chiefly in your previous genre Quackcast (number 29, http://www.drunkduck.com/quackcast/episode-29-genres-generally-speaking/), were fantasy, slice of life, post apocalypse, and spiritual, and declared that post apocalypse the winner. This time we all decide that steam/diesel/cyberpunk is best! We briefly try and tackle superheros, but nothing much comes out of it except the brown Lantern...
