Episode 601 - /rant
Sep 19, 2022
If something affects or disturbs you so much that you want to respond to it through a story that you write, that can be a pretty powerful form of inspiration! But it depends on how you handle it. For example, Stephan King's acclaimed novel Misery was inspired by nasty interactions he had with fans after he published a fantasy novel. This story was very well received and even turned into a popular movie. And then there are other ways to handle it…
Topics and Show Notes
Popular fantasy author JK Rowling felt personally attacked by responses to her public stance on social media that transwomen aren't really women, so she incorporated the episode into a fictional story (a detective series she writes), where a creator had to deal with unfair and extreme criticism. This isn't necessarily a bad thing to do, but the way she handled it was less inspiration and more just a rant about her own experiences only slightly fictionalised. It was so poorly done that it even disappointed fans of her detective series that have no stake in her social media battles.
There are good ways to handle rants like this in fiction and bad ways, and we're going to talk about both! Have you ever used a negative real world expereince as inspiration for a story? I know I have, but I always keep it subtle, unlike some.
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to GOP Nuts - Gunwallace note: “With apologies to Vince Guaraldi” - Why? Because this is such a cool, jazzy “Peanuts” sounding theme and Vince Guaraldi was the master behind the themes for the animated version of Peanuts… which is what the “GOP Nuts” is stylistic parodying in its spoof of the American Republican party!
It’s an easygoing theme driven by the low notes of a piano, a breathy flute, brush tapping on the drums, a cheeky, warbling trumpet, a plucked double bass, and a zoo full of goats!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Tantz's newspost about elegant rants - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/sep/02/venting-your-frustrations-needs-elegance/
Featured comic:
Brittany Hyperstyle - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/sep/13/featured-comic-brittany-hyperstyle/
Featured music:
GOP Nuts - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/GOP_Nuts/ - by Rawdale, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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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 316 - The Quirkcast!
Mar 27, 2017
For this Quackcast we decided to chat about quirks- the things that stand out about a character, help you remember them, get interested in them, traits that pick them out as individuals and can ALSO be used to point at deeper character traits! These are so useful in so many ways and really help to define a character as well as giving them a handle for the audience to latch on to. The idea was nicked from a newspost where Tantz goes into it with a lot more depth, so check that out too if you can! the cover image is from the Nazi General sketch by Smith a Jones- it's all based on quirks. This was Tantz's fantastic idea for a newspost. Speaking of Tantz, this newspost was recorded around the time of Greek independence day! Happy independence day to Greece!
Episode 291 - The philosophy and politics of comics
Oct 3, 2016
This week's Quackcast is brought to us by Tantz Ariene! Tantz is a very political creature, seeing as she comes from Athens which is pretty much the birthplace of politics AND philosophy, that's hardly surprising. Clever Tantz in her tantzglasses, dudeman Banes, and me,Ozoneocean all talk about this interesting subject: what are the politics and philosophy involved in YOUR webcomic? Even though we don't realise it, there's ALWAYS politics of some sort in a comic, as well as philosophy. If your writing is pretty clever you might have multiple political view points in your comic and a whole range of different philosophies! Consider something as basic as Peanuts. Those characters have all sorts of political viewpoints! Peppermint Pattie is very forthright in her feminist views, but she's also pretty left wing, Lucy is rather domineering and and right off centre in the way she thinks, Charlie Brown is a bit of a fatalist blank slate for the audience to project themselves onto, Linus is a quiet intellectual… etc, I don't know, it's been years since I've read Peanuts! Gimmee a break! In superhero comics it's the same; most of them are pretty right wing, libertarian, individualist sorts of characters- Batman for example, Iron man, etc. There's a good argument for Superman being somewhat more Socialist since he's an ordinary man with an ordinary job most of the time and works out in the open for the good of all humanity, while Batman is a super rich guy most of the time and when he's doing hero stuff it's usually smaller scale vigilante type stuff against people who threaten his city, or commerce in his city like thieves and the Mafia. Try it yourself! Examining the politics and philosophy of your OWN characters as well as classic ones is pretty interesting. Gunwallace's theme this week is for Krasnosvit, a subtle, careful, fairytale theme, inducing you into the dark forest strangeness of Krasnosvit.
Episode 193 - Representing inner turmoil in comics
Nov 17, 2014
The idea for this Quackcast came from a newspost by HippieVan. She had just read a comic version of Frankenstein and was disappointed at the simplistic way that the character's inner turmoil was rendered. She wondered about the different ways that "inner turmoil" is portrayed in comics. The lovely and highly intellectual duo of Tantz Aerine and Pitface join Banes and I to discuss farts... and after that we tackle the subject of portraying inner turmoil in comics. Each person brought some rather interesting examples to the table, and we all talked about the many different ways such internal emotional and intellectual changes can be visually depicted on the page for the reader without being stupidly obvious about it.
