Episode 678 - Panel order!
Mar 11, 2024
Banes did a really interesting newspost about panel order and how we read comics- not just left to right or right to left but which panel flows to what and how you get the reader to go in the right direction when something isn't intuitive. We're all comic people and we host a comic site so this was perfect for us to tackle!
Topics and Show Notes
And as we talked it out we realised that clever panel layout can be employed to assist in true nonlinear storytelling. Film and TV attempt to do non-linear but can never ever truly do it, despite extreme degrees of wankiness with some writers film is simply a liner medium and will always be that way because it plays at a specific pace and that can't be changed within the medium. (you have to introduce external conventions like forcing people to skip to other parts). So whenever someone tells you a film does non-linear storytelling because of time-jumps or flashbacks, it's not true, it's always linear.
- Computer games trump both comics and film in this regard.
But I digress, comic layouts can be clever and confusing. They can enhance or hinder clear storytelling and communication in many ways. Do you experiment with layouts?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Explorer Chronicles - Prepare for a marvelous adventure! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, warm breezes tickle the air, wide green vistas spread out invitingly before you, the distance is lost in the morning haze. This is a light digital orchestra of joy, promise, and anticipation!
Topics and shownotes
Links
This was inspired by Banes' newspost about panels here - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/mar/06/how-do-i-read-this-comic-panels-flow-and-blockage/
Our own examples of strange panel layouts…
Bottomless_Waitress https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Bottomless_Waitress/5451939/
Without Moonlight - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Without_Moonlight/5719212/
Typical Strange - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Typical_Strange/5460237
Without Moonlight - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Without_Moonlight/5642287/
Without Moonlight - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Without_Moonlight/5691752/
Featured comic:
They’re Both a Kilogram - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/mar/05/featured-comic-theyre-both-a-kilogram/
Featured music:
Explorer Chronicles - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Explorer_Chronicles/ - by Aurorajames, rated T.
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/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 671 - Art Vs the Artist
Jan 22, 2024
Art VS the artist! Can you infer something about the creator from their creation? Do you think the art is an accurate reflection of the artist?
Episode 659 - Happy Halloween 2023
Oct 30, 2023
Happy Halloween! The time of spookiness and ghosts. Spooks messed up the cast so the sound quality is really bad I'm afraid, I tried to do what I could to fix it though. This week Banes, I, and Tantz are chatting about Halloween and related subjects like scary movies and things. I personally only like comedy horror, or whacky horror films where things are taken too far so I don't identify with the characters and feel bad because of it. I find I identify with characters in film far too much (if it's realistic), the genre doesn't matter, it can be comedy, horror, murder mystery, romance whatever, so that means if the tone is too tragic and depressing it usually makes me feel extremely down. For that reason a lot of horror doesn't appeal to me unless I can distance myself from the characters somehow. So comedy helps, or if it's super-over-the-top and whacky like The Nun.
Episode 652 - Physical traits that set characters apart
Sep 11, 2023
Our topic this week is making your characters individual, distinct and setting them apart through physical traits. In many mainstream superhero comics or manga the only difference between most characters is their outfit, hair, and skin tone. There are a few reasons for that but a big one is that it saves time if the artist doesn't have to change to much when they're drawing different characters. Professional arts work hard and have to work fast so things that make work faster and easier are needed.
Episode 591 - Superhero types?
Jul 11, 2022
The Superhero movie cast last week was popular, I wanted to chat to Tantz about different types of superheroes. We all know that the same kinds of superheroes seem to popup and reoccur in multiple forms all the time, even within the same worlds, i.e god-like superheros like Superman, Captain Marvel, Omni-man, Homelander, or Magical types like Doctor Strange, Zatana etc. It was a fun chat about all the categories and subcategories we could think about!
Episode 547 - Franchise fail
Sep 2, 2021
There seemed to be a lull for a while after the 1990s and the massive sequel craze of the 80s, but nowadays we're back in full swing again with sequels, reboots and reinvisioning of film and TV franchises. Banes noticed a distinct pattern of behaviour that occurred around bad or failed franchises: The makers would chose to go against what existing fans liked about the property in the fist place, usually in order to appeal to new fans. When both new fans and old ones dislike what they do, they attack the fans and blame the fans for failure of their version. Then they'll search and find a new franchise to mess up. It's rare that people own up to or admit to failures anymore, it's usually always the fault of the fans for being too “toxic”.
Episode 546 - The bad-arse dandy!
Aug 30, 2021
Why aren't there more prettyboy bad-ass characters? Pretty girl bad-asses too! This character type is often a hall-mark of Japanese and Korean fiction more than anything else though it DOES show up in Western media occasionally. There is no age-limit to the type, what distinguishes it is that the character is tough and a very good fighter while also being very obviously concerned about their appearance and looking good- they don't just look good and fashionable naturally, they actively work at it.
Episode 483 - Burnt out
Jun 15, 2020
Emma Clare posted about avoiding burnout on Friday and we thought we'd steal that subject to chat about it. Burnout is something that can affect all of us, most especially when you're stuck at home with lots of time to create, funnily enough. When there's a lot of pressure on you to create it often makes you STOP creating. But there are a lot of ways to void burn out and when it actually does happen to you there are a lot of ways to come back from it and rekindle those exhausted flames of creation. How do YOU come back after being burnt out? What was your longest burnout?
