Episode 654 - tropes vs character growth
Sep 25, 2023
Today we're chatting about characters who're mainly based on tropes VS those that grow. You see this difference quite clearly in a lot of British comedy VS American comedy where characters are set up in certain ways, e.g. the nerd, the sassy one, the mature one etc- in British stuff they tend to revert to type, which is their most important trait, while in American stuff they tend to change and grow based on interactions and experiences. There are MANY exceptions though and one way isn't inherently better than the other.
Topics and Show Notes
There seems to be a few reasons for that: a huge established history of it in Britain and the BBC being a massively influential engine of creation that people emulate without even thinking, but mainly I think it's because most British stuff always used to have a single writer or a pair of writers working on something at a time and often changing them episode to episode, while American stuff often tends to be written by team. This means there's more continuity on American projects because when part of the team leaves they're replaced by others who join the existing team, while with British stuff you'll often have a full replacement. This means that with the single writer approach it's much easier to simply rely on tropes rather than keep track of what all the previous people who worked on it were thinking, but when you have a team people will remember from episode to episode so it's easier to build on characters and change them.
The original British Office Vs the American adaptation is a good illustration of the tendency of tropes VS change. Both sets of characters were based on certain tropes but over the course of the 2 seasons and the special episodes the characters in the original didn't really change or grow at all (Gareth is still a knob, David Brent never changes from being a sad wanker, Tim always thinks he's better than everyone despite hating himself), while as soon as the US episodes stopped directly copying the originals the characters began to grow (way before it went off into its multi season run). The British version had the same two writers, but they were following the popular British style. Both versions are great in their own very different ways and despite being trope based the British version is more serious and realistic, while the growing characters of the US version are cartoony and stylised.
There are other factors though and a lot of exceptions - show-runners can make sure things go in certain ways, The Simpsons have been going for a million years with many different writers and barely change, and things made with the same one or two writers episode to episode can still change and grow because you have creative continuity. Then you have creators who simply force characters to reset and revert to type regardless of the growth and experiences they've had,which is a terrible betrayal of the audience, but that's how bad writers roll. Related to that is the opposite version; where characters score unearned growth that just comes out of nowhere, which is another betrayal of the audience.
Do your characters grow and change or are they informed by the way they were originally setup? Which style do you prefer?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Beg - Platforming pixels in the deep, dark, scream haunted depths of a magical video game dungeon where only the bravest are able to carefully creep.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Lauren Ipsum - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/sep/19/featured-comic-lauren-ipsum/
Featured music:
Beg - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Beg/ - by BettyTeaHorse, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 640 - Aliens
Jun 19, 2023
We base our images of aliens in comics on aliens in TV shows and movies mostly, because those are the ones we all know. But movie aliens have been generally based on humans because it's less expensive, easier to come up with a costume and makeup for an actor, and it's also easier to make those aliens relatable. “Aliens” even THINK the same as we do, have the same motivations, wants, needs, prejudices, opinions… Almost 100% of the time aliens in media are US, just a weird version of us: distorted reflection.
Episode 599 - Badaptations
Sep 5, 2022
Source material is something that we can love and respect, but it's just as often disregarded, degenerated, and denigrated, especially these days where it seems like everything you see is an adaptation or even an adaptation OF an adaptation or worse. I think it's important to go back to the sources so you can see what was truly great about the original to begin with. It can help you see what was lost in the adaptations and to discover new and important meanings and ideas that you never would have guessed at.
Episode 585 - Adaptation
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Adaptations of one thing into another is an interesting process. What's lost, what's gained, what modifications do you have to do to make it happen? As webcomicers we do it all the time in many ways, we have to adapt our influences into ideas, adapt those to stories, and adapt those to images and comics, which isn't trivial! It's often quite difficult to transform the written word into narrative sequential art- what portion of the writing gets directly turned into images, what's cut, and what becomes dialogue? For me about 20% is cut, 78% becomes art and 2% becomes dialogue or captions.
Episode 467 - Adaptions and Transmogrification!
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The process of adaptation is quite interesting. Stories go through all sorts of changes when they're transferred from one medium to another. A lot of the time we bemoan that as “not staying true to the original” or “the book was better”, but there are many times where the adaption is really interesting in its own right, even though it's quite different from what it started out as.
Episode 197 - The sidekicks take over the QC
Dec 14, 2014
Carrying on from last weeks Quackcast inspired by Kawaiidaigakusei's Thoughtful newspost article "An Ode to Sidekicks", this time the DD community weighs in on the subject and they give us their wise, educated and highly considered expert opinions on the subject of the sidekick in stories! Again Kawaii joins Banes and I, but this time she practices her amazing talent for amusing voices, so for the first time since Skoolmunkee there's someone other than Banes and I doing a voice. Rachel Maddow drops in and even Matt Foley to tell us about his VAN down by the RIVER! All in all what people have to say about the different aspects of sidekicks in fiction is really quite interesting, have a listen and see! Oh, and Gunwallace's epic theme for Harkovast is fantastic, I can't wait for a Peter Jackson Movie adaptation!
Episode 194 - Adapted Adaptations
Nov 24, 2014
This week the topic of our Quackcast was inspired buy my Friday newspost where I talked about how we relate to adaptions of created properties (fave comics or books turned into movies etc), and some of the challenges involved in creating adaptions. i.e. Hollywood will often try to create a sure fire hit by adapting an already successful property (like Lord Of The Rings) into a movie. That property has massive fame and name recognition plus a lot of fan love and popularity. The challenge is to try and create a vision that appeals to the fans while also translating the books into films in such a way that it will easily appeal to the wider population outside of those fans and it can be a tricky process. In this Drunk Duck community webcomic podcast Banes and I discuss some of the pitfalls, cases when it's been done right, wrong, and extra-special!
