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…
Topics and Show Notes
Changing an established character or story to fit with what you want to do with them is tricky. Frank Miller did it well with Batman, going back to his dark, gritty noir beginnings and changing him from the campy, light character he'd evolved into. This was done poorly with Thundercats, the most recent adaption changing them into a stupid stylised cartoon. Another interesting example is James Bond Vs Austin Powers. Austin Powers is a James Bond spoof and it works, it makes fun of the character and the genre without ruining that character. Contrast that with the first Casino Royal film which was a spoof made using the character of James Bond, It's terrible and harms the IP.
I think the conclusion we came to is that generally when you want to go in another direction with things it's best to make a new character or story to do that with rather than piggyback on existing IP. You can use an existing IP to do it with but it's a lot more difficult to do a good job and most people fail at it.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Mousetrap - Bass leads the way, stomping through and leading this down-beat rock sound, Another bass guitar burrs in to take the mantle of the Melody and keyboards do their thing with a fun, driving sound, even the drums try and take over the rhythm, but no one can usurp the mighty bass! It’s a clash of the bass.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Banes' newspost on the subject - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/aug/19/expies-fandoms-disappointment-and-hope/
Featured comic:
Gumshoe - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/aug/18/featured-comic-gumshoe/
Featured music:
MouseTrap - - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/MouseTrap/, by Onoi, rated A.
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/
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Episode 492 - Impermanence of the new digital age
Aug 17, 2020
This Quackcast is about the impermanence of online services and the lie that services are provided for fee and providers have no responsibility to the creators and viewers that use them. Hushicho posted in our forum about Tapas newly restricting nudity in comics which suddenly disenfranchises hundreds of creators who've built up followings on that site with comics that were well within the the Tapas content rules. With that one change these comics have been wiped out, destroying all the hard work by creators to build up their audiences over a long period of time. That can happen with ANY digital service, we are at the mercy of the corporations that provide them.
Episode 490 - Genres of webcomics!
Aug 3, 2020
Aren't genres great? They're so useful for categorising what we like and selling our work. Today we're chatting about all the genres that are popular in webcomics now, that we know of. Back in the day webcomics were mainly defined by TWO genres: slice of life, and gaming. And out of those two gaming was king! Actually a lot of comics combined the two. The biggest were things like 8 Bit Fantasy, PVP, Penny Arcade, and Ctrl Alt Delete.
Episode 475 - Tropeagedden! overuse of fashionable tropes...
Apr 20, 2020
Certain tropes or stylistic ways of telling a story can get really, really popular and trendy very quickly and it seems like they're everywhere! Suddenly many story are all told with the same sort of stylistic flourishes. The first few times it's done that way it's clever and meaningful but after that people just use the same thing without understanding it properly and consequently usually do a really crappy job!
Episode 472 - CoVid-19-cast
Mar 30, 2020
In this strange time of global pandemic it'd be crazy NOT to acknowledge what we're all experiencing together, so that's what we're talking about today: How the virus stuff is affecting us. Pitface joins us once again so today the quartet is complete: Pitz, Banes, Oz, and Tantz!
Episode 471 - Fantasy
Mar 23, 2020
Today we're having a chat about fantasy fiction! Mainly books and the fantasy writing that inspired us and that we love! Faves like Tolkien, Fritz Leiber and Piers Anthony! Just to define, we're talking swords, elves, armour, dragons etc, in a “medieval” context, generally European. As a subset there's native, Arabian, Asian, Mayan etc, also high fantasy, low fantasy, sword and sorcery, historical fantasy and even mythology…. And then techno fantasy, contemporary fantasy, steampunk, fantasy cyberpunk and so on… but we mainly stick to the mainstream stuff and only just touch on the weird little variations for now.
Episode 470 - What stirred your creative juices?
Mar 15, 2020
For this cast I'd thought we'd go through with our promise of last week and talk about things that have made us have a reaction as a creator. This expands on “The Cartoons that Date us” from last week. So today we're talking the creative media that gave you a reaction: Books, movies, comics, TV shows… Not what specifically inspired the comics you do now, but what drove you to create and why.
Episode 469 - The cartoons that date us and Discord
Mar 9, 2020
We're talking about the cartoons that made us! This was inspired by kawaiidaigakusei's newspost from last week about Daria. Daria was a really cool cartoon from the late 90s. It was influential to her, to me as well, and I thought it would be a great idea for a Quackcast to talk about the other cartoons that were influential to us at certain points in our lives.
