Episode 378 - Your best work, Comicsgate, Mark Wade, Tantz comic spotlight, Twitter
Jun 11, 2018
We have community contributions for this Quackcast! Many DDers told us about their best work and we read that out and chat about in on the Quackcast. We talking about promoting comics through DD's Twitter account. The DD awards have begun, get in on them and get nominated! Tantz Aerine wants to promote comics so send stuff to her.The we had a really long and interesting chat about Comisgate and Mark Wade and then Pitface had a meltdown :D This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Completely unrelated. Slide into coooooool. This is crystal white acrylic decor, this is a level above, this is music for the sophisticated. Feel your stresses melt way as you float off with the smooth jazz. Pure pleasure.
Topics and Show Notes
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
dreamcomicbookDOTcom - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jun/05/featured-comic-dreamcomicbookdotcom/
Links:
Comicsgate - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jun/08/on-being-militant/
DD Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/drunkduck
DD Awards FYC - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Drunk_Duck_Awards_2018/5570037/
Your best work thread - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177929/
Your best work Quackcast - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jun/02/quackcast-377-your-best-work/
Banes' best work thread - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/jun/06/talk-about-your-best-work/
People's work
Ironscarf - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Awfully_Decent_Fellows/
Jerrie - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Tales_of_The_Heartless/
Avart - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Gloom/
Bravo - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Tales_of_SIG/
Usedbooks - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Used_Books/5404818/
Emevsa - https://www.facebook.com/emevsacomics/photos/a.1141599479306215.1073741828.1139380502861446/1294219277377567/?type=3&theater
Lightfoot - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Pulse_Comics/
Kim Luster- http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Godstrain/5505278/
RoberRVeith- http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Dragons_in_Civilized_Lands/5531641/
RoberRVeith- https://robertrveith.deviantart.com/art/Transit-FinalCover-407616704
Albino Ginger- http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Holy_Bible_the_Albino_Ginger_version/
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
kawaiidaigakusei - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Pitface - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/PIT_FACE/
Banes - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Ozoneocean - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Completely Unrelated - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Completely_Unrelated/, by Delicioustrifle, rated M.
Episode 374 - Selling yourself
May 14, 2018
In this Quackcast we have a chat about some ways to promote your comics and sell yourself. Emma Clare and Tantz have been doing cool stuff with the DD Twitter account. Hash tags are an important part of that, help them come up with a hash tag for DD! Who understands hash-tags on Facebook? Covers are one of my favourite ways to promote your work. They're tricky to get right but you need them to properly encompass your work and promote it, the form they take can depend on where your work is: Amazon, Drunk Duck, a convention, targeted ads etc. But be careful not to disappoint your audience with false advertising. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Coward of Valor. It's a Modern yet medieval, this tune strides in with great pomposity and deigns to dance for us. It pirouettes and swoops in all its beauty and extravagance then exits stage left with just as much flare.
Episode 373 - Stupid millennials, greedy baby-boomers and lazy Gen Xers!
May 7, 2018
Millennials are so dumb, Gen Xers are SO lazy, and those Baby-boomers are just greedy as hell aren't they? But seriously, in THIS Quackcast we chat about the different generations of webcomicers and what's changed and what we have to learn from each other. The first generation of real webcomics came in with Sluggy Freelance, 8 bit theatre and a few others. Webcomics started out in the mid 90s as the web version of “Zines”: independent creator driven personal projects. The second generation came about in the 2000s. Sites like Drunk Duck and Keen Space were a huge part of that. It made it easier for creators to make the jump online. We'd seen what those first guys did and now it was OUR turn, there were a lot of copy-cats in this generation, but a lot of experimentation and creativity too, with sound, animation, interactivity and infinite canvas being a mainstay. Later there was an explosion in hosting sites like DD and comicers moved on to other formats like Tumbler and Twitter etc. The pro comic publishers saw how things were going and tried to get in on the act with online comics too. I think the 3rd generation saw a lot of commercial focussed projects. Comicers saw it as a way to make money so we had a lot of slick, pro work flooding in. In the 4th generation I think we have people doing comics for mobile devices or ON mobile devices. A lot of the comic hosting sites have far more limitations on work than they used to in terms of content and format, a lot of stuff has a bit of a pre-packaged feel, you see almost no experimentation with format now. On the upside though quality is a lot higher and comic sites will reliably work a lot better than they used to. Styles have changed over the generations: In the old days most comics were fully drawn and scanned. Tablets were rare and very expensive and so were graphics programs. If you saw a fully digital comic back then you knew the artist was either a pro or they were at university with access to high level equipment - or it was dodgy work done with a mouse and Windows Paint. Those tools have become far more accessible now and the barriers have come right down. Most work is digital. What generation are you? This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to DreamcomicbookDOTcom! Journey into a claustrophobically narrow electronic service tunnel, filled with high voltage wires humming with unimaginable power and mysterious cables running off endlessly into the dim, dark shadows in the distance. The creepy patterings and low hum of this music will take you there!
Episode 369 - Propaganda and agendas
Apr 9, 2018
This week's Quackcast was inspired by a newspost that Banes made about propaganda. We used that as a jumping off point to talk about political messages and social agendas in creative works- when it's deliberate and when it's not. Tantz Aerine made a great point that the world of the Federation in Star Trek is like showing us the world from the perspective of a fascist regime. It's certainly NOT intended that way but that IS an unintentional message. You'll have to listen to the Quackcast to hear her argument for that idea. A movie like Starship Troopers is brilliant at subverting the whole propaganda thing. :) This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Coga nito: Slide into some retro 1970s classic disco, with a modern twist! You’ll feel like your wearing shiny white polyester stretch flares with high white leather platform shoes, then rocket back into the present with the cool techno dance feel of the synthesised beats. Get onto the dance floor and strut your stuff!
Episode 362 - Triumph der Ente
Feb 19, 2018
In this Quackcast we chat about all the different options for hosting your webcomic. At the moment it seems the fashionable new young kiddies on the block are Webtoons and Tapastic, but they're certainly NOT the only choices for webcomic hosts out there and certainly not the best choices. I think we make a good case here for why Drunk Duck is a better choice in many ways, but we also bring up other host sites like twitter, comic fury, comic Genesis (used to be Keenspace), Tumblr, Deviant Art, Smack Jeeves, Fur Affinity, self hosting on a Word Press site etc. In the early days of the millennium there were just two hosts for your comic: Drunk Duck and Keenspace. Drunk Duck was a better choice for most since it was a lot easier to customise and it had a friendlier, smaller community. Keenspace had a two tier system: the picked comics with all the best stuff were in their “keenspot” site while the rabble were stuck with the slower hosting and slower updates. The main thing they had going was a gigantic member base. But they even changed the site's name from “keenspace” to “comic genesis” to further separate KeenSpot from the rabble, which left a sour taste in the mouth. By contrast Drunk Duck was always dedicated to being fully egalitarian. One of our main strengths is that we accept all without stigma: manga, furry, adult comic, sprites, American style, superhero, slice of life comedy, photocomics, professional published comics or stick figure amateur work and we welcome them all the same with the same level of enthusiasm. The big young Webtoons and Tapastic have some of the same issues Keenspace used to have: a big community where you will be lost in the crowd. And no site has as solid and safe programming and hosting as Drunk Duck does. Plus we're community run so you're same from corporate oversight and interference in the content you're allowed to post. You can read more about comic hosting sites in Emma Clare's news posts linked bellow. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Odd Days. Sometimes you just have one of those days… or many of them in a row! Odd days. The sound here has a positive, optimistic theme overlayed with a harsh zigzag of electric guitar. This tune does well to illustrate the twisted euni, the off-balance and askew takes on everyday life and situations dealt with in this slice of life, humorous comic.
Episode 360 - How did you start in webcomics?
Feb 4, 2018
In this Quackcast I thought we'd chat about Emma Clare's great and thoughtful topic of webcomic origin stories: Basically, what was happening to make you start your webcomic on DD, all that stuff in your life back when you first began posting… Emma's newsposts are a great read and they made us all think back to how we began. Pit, Tantz and I have a long talk about our comicing origins. What were YOU doing when you started webcomics? What made you begin? This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to NanoCritters. It's a minimalist white expanse, dotted with mysterious little marks of sound. What do they mean, what do they represent, is it code? Read NanoCritters to find out! Also included in the Quackcast are extracts from a lovely Starwars themed rap that Tantz's Greek students performed in English.
Episode 350 - Scripting
Nov 27, 2017
In this Quackcast we're talking about writing scripts! But not just scripts in general, this Quackcast is about turning your webcomic into a script. As the creator of a webcomic, a story, what is your ultimate goal, your dream? Wouldn't it be marvellous if your characters and story came to life, played by real actors? Emmet, aka Surgeryhead came along to give us some pointers. He's written many scripts himself so he has a bit of experience. Ultimately we want to do performances on the Quackcast of short scripts written by DDers who've adapted parts of their comics, go to this newspost for details: http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2017/nov/16/turn-your-comics-into-movie-scripts/ Contact me directs for my email for where to send your finished script. This week Gunwallce has given us the theme to Stuffed Nature - Groove to the cool, solid bass line, with a bright lightning squiggle of keys, and the even pacing of a quiet guitar riff, this’ll get you in the mood for action!
Episode 344 - Active/Reactive characters
Oct 16, 2017
Some characters are active and others are reactive. Reactive characters mostly only react to things rather than make them happen so they can be very boring if not done right! Active characters are the ones that drive events by doing things and making stuff happen, these characters grab your interest. This idea was based on Tantz's fantastic newspost, we talk it out, coming up with some good examples of each character type. Our epiphany for this Quackcast was that if you want a “strong” female character what you REALLY want is an “active” female character. The mistake people made with the trope was that they thought the female character had to be either a main character or a kick-arse masculine style character, when in reality neither is required. Make your character “active”; making decisions, causing things to happen, having an impact, causing OTHER characters to react etc and they will be a “strong” character. She could be a minor character who never lifts a sword or fires a gun but still be the strongest character in the story if she's the most active. ;) This week Gunwallce has given us the theme to Boys Land - This one surprises you, sneaking up with a gentle beginning, then it hits like a bomb bursts of rainbows and warm breezes! Beautifully, the same tune is repeated in many different forms, there’s even a bit of Primus type bass in there. It finishes as it begins, with a gentle acoustic guitar.
