Episode 618 - The grass is always Greener
Jan 15, 2023
The Saying goes that The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence. Envy and jealously are destructive, negative feelings that either lead to bad outcomes or just make you feel pretty crappy. It especially affects creators! We get down about our artwork, our writing, the popularity of someone else's comic etc and we wish WE were as good as them and wonder why we aren't… maybe we're just not as good? If we could only just have their talent, their luck, their skill then WE'D be awesome too. it's just not fair…
Topics and Show Notes
Banes heard a pretty cool solution to this on a podcast once. The idea is that you CAN have those things you're envious off, you can have all of their cool traits, popularity, all the good stuff, but ONLY if you're also willing to accept all the crap in those person's lives as well. Would it really be worth it? To swap your life completely with theirs and not to be yourself any longer?
Or in a more realistic sense, you can look at those people who're beautiful and thin, or big and buff and muscular, those people with fantastic guitar skills, parkour champions, amazing athletes and dancers, and envy what they have… But YOU can have that as well, YOU can be like that, you just have to put in the thousands of hours of work it requires to have those skills, the thousands of dollars of beauty products, training and surgery, physical complications, the injuries, all the struggle and privation, all the denying yourself of life's many pleasures, tasty foods, TV watching time, time with friends and family… Because that's usually the true cost of the things with envy in others. The difference is that they're prepared to pay it.
Even super wealthy people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos paid a cost to get where they are: would you be prepared to make those bad deals, to cheat and scam strangers, friends, family, exploit others for your own personal gain again and again and again, are you prepared to wear that on your conscious and your soul? If so then the billionaire life is for you. :)
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Silences Echo - A sophisticated piano jazz bar, with a faint touch of latin rhythm… almost a tango. People dancing close, tension in the air, the energy is crisp and flowing with this short, punchy tune!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Banes' excellent and encouraging newspost on his Cure for Jealously - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/11/the-cure-for-jealousy/
Featured comic:
Meatware - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/10/featured-comic-meatware/
Featured music:
Silences Echo - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Silences_Echo_/ - by Hykarige, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 562 - the plots the themes - The space between
Dec 20, 2021
Merry Christmas and whatever you celebrate :) Interesting topic from Banes! It's his idea that sometimes the literal elements of a story (the plot etc.) are simply too weak to properly support the theme. He gives the example of The Truman show, where the idea is that a person is living a fake life under constant surveillance as the star of one of the most popular real life TV shows ever and he doesn't know anything about it… The themes are the power of the media, commercialism, the American dream, obsession with reality TV etc. Banes felt that although these themes were very strong the practical setup of the world and story weren't quite strong enough to support it.
Episode 552 - Tropes we like
Oct 11, 2021
Last time we covered tropes we hated! This time we're talking about clichés we actually like. It's quite a bit trickier because clichés are clichés for a reason (overuse) so it's not easy to like them, except in some cases… For me it's Isekai. That's a Japanese word for “another world”. This is a very old genre, it's basically a story where a person from our normal world goes to a magical world, we see this in ancient fairy stories, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and many others. until the mid 20th century it was the default way of writing any fantasy story. It has always been around, the Japanese were just the first to come up with a popular name for it.
Episode 202 - The Lady is a Stranger
Jan 19, 2015
Howdy Pardner, is you ready fer a western adventure? For Quackcast 202 we decided to build on the experiment we started in Quackcast 201. We constructed a play quickly with four people all working together. It took us all 3 hours to write, collaborating on a Google doc and over skype to make a half hour play, and it seems to have turned out pretty nicely! This is the last for now in our writing exercises. We only really show the play here and not the 3 hours of umming and ah-ing as we worked on it, because that was too much to edit down, but if it's something people would like to hear maybe we'll make a condensed version available some time in the future. For now please enjoy our little Western romance, train and bank heist adventure! And Bane's great piano playing! Oh, and the great intro music by Gunwallace called "Solosteel"!
Episode 71 - Institutionalised Superheros, Screenwriting: Part 4
Apr 2, 2012
This is the 4th and last of Banes' screenwriting tutorials. We round up here with the final two story genres; "Superhero" and "Institutionalised", rounded out with some more useful time and tricks on writing in general! This series has been part of the Quackcast screenwriting month, beginning with Quackcast 68 and ending with Quackcast 71. Aaaaand we also have all the voice tryouts for the aspiring actors that want to be a part of the 2012 DD radio play! We'd love you to vote on your faves for each role- just write down the number you like for each and email your vote to drunkduck100@yahoo.com, or PQ them to http://www.drunkduck.com/quack/compose/?user=ayesinback or just write it here in the QC comments!
Episode 70 - The Love Between Two Buddies, Screenwriting: Part 3
Mar 27, 2012
In the 3rd part of our 4 part focus on the art of story and screenwriting we have a look at some more interesting and popular story genres; Buddy Love, Fool Triumphant, and Whydunnit! We learn further tricks of the trade and gain more insights into the secret and amazing world of story writing, all from the mind of the genius screenwriting prodigy Banes! We also have episode 11 of our continuing nonsense comedy soap opera tale, now with improved sound effects!!-defects-effect-effectsss... and yet more idiocy. Lister discretion is advised; may contain violence, smelly farts, and passionate kissing.
Episode 41 - The Best Laid Plans, Awry and A Wreck
Sep 6, 2011
ozoneocean had big plans for his trip to San Diego Comic Con to promote his comic, which basically went completely wrong in almost every way possible. He tells his story and what he did to try and recover. What could go wrong for you and what would you do?
