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 729 - The Feather report
Mar 3, 2025
The 3rd in our technical art-making series, we're talking hair, feathers, and fur today. How do you draw those highly complicated, textured things? Well the complicated, difficult way is to draw every single strand of hair, every follicle of fur, and every filament of feather… But that has a lot of disadvantages! So how else do you approach it?
Episode 725 - Your fave comics as a kid
Feb 3, 2025
We're chatting about the comics you liked as a little kiddo this week! The topic was inspired by a thread in the DD forums. This is always a fun topic and I always have to mention Asterix because it was so amazing. This week Tantz had to bow out but we have Gunwallace to replace her, and Banes is back! Gunwallace is a fellow Antipodean, that means he and I share many of the same cultural touch stones, particularity the comic Footrot Flats. (Tantz is still on the Patreon only video)
Episode 724 - America's Plutocratic classism
Jan 26, 2025
Is there a culture of plutocratic classism in the USA? I'm inspired by Trump's America and how people think that people like Elon Musk and him are above the law because they're rich, while conversely the lowest rank in society are the homeless and the poor. But what do I mean by “Plutocratic classism”? A plutocracy is a society where people's position is determined by their wealth, classism is our tendency to discriminate based on social class, put that together and you have people determining social value by how much money a person seems to have.
Episode 723 - Changing tech and design
Jan 20, 2025
We're talking about how technology and design changes so much over the years and how that can change things with plot in story and it can also help pinpoint the date of something sometimes better than other things like fashion. The biggest one we talked about were phones, which have changed so much over the last few decades. Universally connected smartphones mean huge story changes- characters can all look up whatever they need at any time, communicate with people instantly, entertain themselves, take photos and videos etc. That can massively affect plots!
Episode 704 - The Cultcast
Sep 8, 2024
The topic we're talking about today was inspired by my ruminations on Bullshido martial arts promo demonstration videos. These are the videos where a martial arts master shows off their skill in a patently fake demonstration, usually starting with breaking concrete slabs or wood and then progressing to a performance where they show how easily they can defeat all of their students who try and attack them.
Episode 692 - Benevolent racism and other isms!
Jun 17, 2024
Benevolent racism, sexism, ableism, and whatever other “isim” is an interesting aspect of those otherwise negative things. It's not as obvious in its negativity, it's well-meaning and yet quite misguided. So what is it? The term “Benevolent” makes it seem nice and harmless and that IS how people mean it, but that's because they're a bit clueless and ignorant. Benevolent sexism, ableism, and racism is basically using a “positive” stereotype to characterise someone based on their ethnicity, gender rather than as a real person etc, like “all black people have natural rhythm”, or “women are more sensitive and in touch with nature”, or “blind people have all their other senses massively heightened”.
Episode 691 - Thirst Trap
Jun 10, 2024
Thirst trap is the topic of today's Quackcast! What is a thirst trap? It's basically someone presenting themselves as very sexy in order to get attention for some sort of reason, rather than just happening to look attractive. So it's usually used for some sort of advertising purpose, to sell their OnlyFans, to get a date, or more conventional advertising. Today we're talking about it it terms of comics :)
