Episode 731 - Contrariancast
Mar 17, 2025
I love those characters who bitch and moan and want to do things differently, although they don't usually take up the leadership role themselves, they just THINK they should be leader instead, but they don't really want to be one. They become a sort of fake antagonist… they're not the REAL antagonist, they just like to spice things up and add tension because they don't want to go with what the leader or the rest of the gang says.
Topics and Show Notes
This was inspired by Banes' Thursday Newspost “Against the Grain”. There are so many good examples of these characters, Will Scarlet in Kevin Costner's Prince of Thieves, and Rufio in Hook are some of my faves. You can count Hans Solo and Mr Spock in there too actually! Most police chiefs and captains in procedural cop shows fit into this role, though they ARE the leaders they're not the protagonists so they don't lead the story. J. Jonah Jameson in Spiderman is another great example.
As a little kid my fave examples were Jason in Battle of the Planets (anime), and Doctor Smith in the old black and white Lost in Space. Ones I grew up with were Endora, the mother-in-law in Bewitched, Colonel Alfred Bellows, the psychiatrist in I Dream of Genie, Frank Burns and major Charles Emerson in Mash, Colonel Klink in Hogan's Heroes and many more. They were characters you'd almost hate… but not quite.
Not all stories have these characters and many use them in other, cleverer ways. my fave example of that is Farscape, the US Australian Scifi show on the late 90s and early 2000s. It featured a cast of renegade characters where ALL of them took turns being the contrarian! Even the two chief protagonists, John Crichton and Aeryn Sun! That really mixes things up. Though the most usual contrarian was Dominar Rygel XVI who was always extremely selfish, sneaky and underhanded.
Who is your fave example of this sort of character? Do you agree with my picks? And do you use one in your own work?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by TEMPERAMENTAL - A funky Latin beat coupled with a chaotic, burning fire of scrabbly strings all over a heavily distorted electric guitar… an emotional conflagration paired with a calm, measured, phlegmatic rhythm.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Based on Banes' newspost:
Against the Grain - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/mar/08/against-the-grain/
Featured comic:
A Rallian Chronicles - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/mar/10/featured-comic-a-rallian-chronicles/
Featured music:
TEMPERAMENTAL - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/TEMPERAMENTAL/ - by swordheart, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 728 - Skinship
Feb 24, 2025
Today we're going into another aspect of creating artwork for webcomics! This time it's painting skin, a topic that Tantz suggested. How do you render skin? It's a super common thing in comics and there are many, many ways to do it! We're not experts on all the methods so we just cover what WE do. We all have different approaches and you'll have to listen to the cast to see what Tantz and Banes say.
Episode 715 - Apocalypse
Nov 25, 2024
This is the third in our weapons trilogy and it's about what happens AFTER the ultimate weapons have done their work: Apocalypse! The end of all things… This term comes from the bible, with the Book of Revelations which talks about what happens during the end of the world, but aside from the myth it's a pretty real concept- there are a LOT of ways the world can end and has indeed ended for various civilisations throughout history.
Episode 714 - Future Weapons
Nov 18, 2024
Last week we had an overview of weapons throughout history and how it's a constant game of balance and oneupmanship. Now we're looking at future weapons and Scifi stuff! There's a lot of potential and a lot of interesting ideas you can use in comics and stories. We talk about a few of these and some of our faves, as well as our own inventions.
Episode 712 - Guncast
Nov 4, 2024
This week we're talking the development of weapons, tactics and armour over the millennia. This is a fun little overview of everything from ancient stone weapons, to bronze, to iron, steel, guns, tanks, and jet-fighters and all the interesting stuff in between. Comic stories often involve literal conflict whether set in the past, the present, future, or fantasy and Scifi, so overviews are always good.
Episode 708 - Cyberpunk
Oct 7, 2024
Cyberpunk is a cool genre we have never covered exclusively on a Quackcast before. But what IS cyberpunk? It's a subset of SciFi, it's usually near future, involves body modifications, grittiness, street level computer use, techno body modification, and hacking. At least that's the way it started. Formative influences on the cyberpunk genre were the first Tron movie, Bladerunner, and Escape from New York. Tron showed us what cyberspace was, while Bladerunner and Escape from New York gave us gritty near future dystopias with cool tech, modified humans, and most importantly the punk aesthetic which was the gritty street youth fashion of the late 70s and early 80s.
Episode 699 - Greek Myths!
Aug 5, 2024
We're chatting about our fave Greek myths! Greek myths are foundational to a lot of Western culture, they're what superheroes are based on as well as all sorts of epic stories. Lots of scientific concepts and ideas are based on things from mythology. The stories resonate down through the millennia because they're so relatable and human- rather than being about stodgy perfect beings who live in a magical realm and guide their mortal charges like children, the Greek gods of myth have the same emotional drives, lusts, jealousies, and personal problems of any modern person living today.
Episode 664 - Parody and satire
Dec 4, 2023
We're talking about parody and its evil twin satire. There are good parodies and bad ones but we feel the better parodies are the indirect ones that make fun of and exaggerate the theme or the vibe of something rather that simply doing a direct copy but with jokes; For example, Austin Powers and Kingsmen are indirect parodies of spy films, Blazing saddles is an indirect parody of Westerns, The Princess Bride and Shrek are indirect parodies of fairy tales, Galaxy Quest and the Orville (first season) are indirect parodies of TV SciFi shows etc.
