Episode 292 - Separating the art from the artists
Oct 5, 2016
Separating the art from the artist, the message from the messenger… Can you do this? You know, when you find out an actor, musician, comic artist or whatever is an arsehole or says things you disagree with or is a criminal, can you separate that from their work and STILL manage to enjoy it? Or does it taint everything they've ever made? I've thought about this a lot. I think I can usually separate the art from the artist and I DON'T think that consuming the work of that artist in any way legitimises what I disagree with about them personally or endorses their criminal behaviour unless the art is specifically about that. But it can really depend on how personally you're affected by whatever it was about the artist that offended you; A Jewish person could have a far more negative reaction, understandably, to the watercolours of Adolph Hitler than most other people, to use an extreme example. What about you? Can you separate the message from the messenger, the art from the artist? The comic chosen for a marvellous theme THIS week was Cybertech. You'll hear the sounds of apocalyptic destruction and burning plasma in a dark future, epic world.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Story of the Soul - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Story_of_the_Soul/
Links:
Forum thread - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177567/
Contributors:
KimLuster - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/KimLuster/
Bravo - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/bravo1102/
Usedbooks - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/usedbooks/
Genejoke - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Genejoke/
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine
kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Featured music:
Cybertech - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Cybertech/ by superzentredi, rated T.
Episode 286 - Offence, walking on eggshells
Aug 29, 2016
Do you worry about offending specific people with your writing? Where's your line between honest expression and regard for other people's feelings? This was Bane's brilliant idea for a Quackcast. We touch a little on the idea of a “culture of offence”, where it seems that people look for things to be offended by, perhaps on behalf of others, but also about things that really CAN cause offence and how to avoid that. On one hand you have people complaining that everything is too “PC” these days, but on the other it's really not OK to be a dick to people just because you like to cling to the old days when it was fine to put down people on the basis of ethnicity, skin-colour, gender, or sexuality… But we can also cause offence accidentally, unintentionally, unknowingly… Should you compromise your vision to appease people, or should you forge ahead regardless? Keep in mind that some things that are fine for SOME audiences are offensive to others, so rather than fight with your audience or appease them perhaps it's better to try and actively direct your work at the CORRECT audience it's intended for? - speaking in terms of sex scenes, politics, etc. Listen to the theme Gunwallace concocted for us THIS time! Geminni: Get down to the bad sounds of this classic funk rock tune! Danceable!
Episode 272 - DD electric people, community meetup
May 22, 2016
State your business! Venerable Drunkducker Ayesinback suggested we have an open electronic meetup of DD people, so that's exactly what we did! We all met up in a long Skype session that lasted 10 hours- various DDers dropped in and out over that time and we chatted away about everything and nothing on videochat, meanwhile I tried on a never ending series of antique and novelty hats, one after another… It was really lovely to see old and new DDers all together, to see their faces and hear their voices. A big thankyou to everyone who took part! It was a big success! We will try it again and again in the coming months. The proposed date is the 3rd Saturday of every month, so the next one will be the 18th of June. The session starts at 11am New York time and runs for 10 hours until 9 pm New York time, so you can drop in any time during that! You can get Skype for free here: www.skype.com. It works on all computers, phones and tablets. It can even work just in your web browser alone! You just sign up and install it. Then make sure you add “ozoneocean” as a friend. Gunwallace's track this week was for Darklings. It's nice and long one with a good progressive rhythm. Some of the genius things we discussed: The measure of distance is time. Inbreeding leads to contagious genetic deformity. Direct democracy VS Harkovast. We beet the sugar! Pineapple and artichoke, why eat them?
Episode 269 - Historical Accuracy VS Story Needs
May 2, 2016
Never let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story… at least that's what Bravo proposes. We stole his thought provoking forum post subject for the topic of this Quackcast. This is how Bravo goes on to explain it: “So how do feel about that? Should exact adherence to the historical record be allowed to wreck your wonderful fiction? If so how much dramatic license is too much? What are your favorite examples of how they got it wrong and how they got it right? And what if just a touch more research would have revealed that the historical story was better than what the fiction writers concocted? How tragic is that? And what about the usage of known historical mythology/hoax as in the Da Vinci code?” The frisson between story requirements and known historical record is pretty interesting. In Hollywood the former wins out EVERY single time and usually it doesn't result in a better story anyway, but as we discuss in the Quackcast there are OTHER reasons than simple bad writing choices for not sticking to the real story and trying to hammer everything into the Hero's Journey template.
Episode 234 - Climactic Climaxes!
Aug 31, 2015
What's best? One big climax, multiple small ones, early, or delayed? How much should you work UP to a climax? What about anticlmactic events, how important are they? Climaxes are really important in stories. Often you work up to them over the course of a whole series, but each episode or chapter can have them, maybe even every single page. I find writing “up” to climaxes a bit stressful because you have a lot of preasure and expectation there. And when it's over and you've actually achieved it, it can be a bit depressing: where do you go to from there? You can feel a little lost, at least I do. TALKING ABOUT WRITING HERE. My preference is for multiple climaxes. Do you always need climaxes in stories? I don't think you do personally… there are times when things work fine without one, but it does help better with endings. Sometimes climaxes can be TOO big. Way too much of a story can be invested in a climax, it subsumes everything, everything has to tie in with that specific story flow and that can be REALLY had to pull off. If it's not done right it can be massively disappointing. Anticlimactic. Pitface Joins Banes and Ozone to chat about climaxes in stories and read out the contributions from our climactic contributors. Gunwallace gave us a gorgeous theme for Just Another Day!
Episode 215 - A guide to Good characters, part 3
Apr 20, 2015
OMG! This is the third part in our long running series of discussing good and bad character traits in webcomics and everything else. Bravo, Tantz and Pit are all along with Banes and I for another go around and doing their best German accents as a tribute to Abt Nhil to start off. As usual we read out some very enlightening contributions and then discuss them jointly afterwards. This Quackcast ran a little long because of it- we had a LOT to say! And do not forget Gunwallace's great musical theme, this time it's for Clint which also happens to be that week's featured comic!
Episode 145 - The Third Duck, 2013 DD Radio Play
Dec 11, 2013
Finally! The 2013 DD Radio play is complete! It was a long time in coming but it's out now and still within 2013, despite everything that has happened. The radio plays were started by Ayesinback and have been going for 3 years now, begining with The Karaoke Caper, then last year it was The Duck Always Quacks Twice, and now this year we're proud to bring you The Third Duck! Many great people contributed towards this, our voice actors, producers, writer and musician... and let's not forget all the great comic artists who did the lovely illustrated version! So please enjoy our radio play. -The first one was written by Ally Heart*
Episode 135 - Dem Bones
Jul 29, 2013
For Quackcast 135 the devastatingly attractive war-goddess Pitface takes over! Pitface, the author of the ever popular and very disgusting Putrid Meat, fills Ozoneocean's stinky shoes this week to have an interview with two of her main characters; Bones and Puke. Bones is somewhat contrite after his behaviour during Ozone's interview with him during Quackcast 134... Well, his lawyer says he is anyway. If you don't know about Putrid meat then I'll tell you: It's a comic about the anarchistic, thrash metal loving Bones and his gloriously gross adventures in the disgusting city of Septica with serial killers, prostitutes, soldiers, mutants and scum. There's strong inspiration from everything from Judge Dredd in Mega City to the music of Anthrax, Megadeath and more. Much more! READ
