The QuackCast

Non-linear stories are a different way of telling a tale. There are many famous examples (Pulp fiction, Mulholland Drive etc), where the sequence of events isn't in strict chronological order. This style has gained a false reputation of being superior or more advanced or challenging to an audience than linear stories. That is of course false, the nonlinear style as been around since storytelling existed are more closely mirrors the way we think about stories and tell them to each other : We often tell people about the end of a story first and then back track (“I had a terrible day today”, “I broke my leg”, “I won a thousand dollars!” etc) , we also jump to important parts , introduce other figures and give them back stories (“Then I saw Gene! You remember Gene? The lady with the sleepy eye, she used to look after you when you were a baby…”), and so on and on. Pure Linear story-stelling is actually much harder to do because it isn't natural to us, though a lot of non-linear stories are made by people constructing liner stories first and then going back and rearranging them. Life and time are linear but our thinking and awareness is not. I would posit that the reason we sometimes seem to find non-liner stories a bit more difficult isn't because of the style, rather it's because those examples are not well constructed. When they are, you don't even notice the form! Neither linear nor non-linear is a more advanced form, they're both simply different ways to tell a story. Have you made a non-linear story? What is you fave example of the style? This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Secret Agent British Intelligence II - A cross between classic Spanish guitar by Rodrigo, and those cool wiry guitar riffs from James Bond Dr No, all mixed up into a little hacienda party melange! Topics and shownotes Links Inspired by Banes's newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/dec/04/im-out-of-order-youre-out-of-order/ Featured comic: Saga of the Wide Winged World - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/dec/02/featured-comic-saga-of-the-wide-winged-world/ Featured music: Secret Agent British Intelligence II - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Secret_Agent_British_Intelligence_II/ - by Dpat57, rated M. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Is it important to Identify with characters? This question occurred to me as I was watching a rather banal sitcom, Rules of Engagement. I love two of the stars, David Spade and Patrick Warburton, but it's not really that engaging a show, the humour is anodyne and a lot of it is based around traditional gender roles and expectations, but I forced myself to watch it anyway just to see more of the aforementioned stars. The only way I was able to get into it was because I somewhat identified with David Spade's character- being a small blonde guy with long hair and a bit of a perv, haha! We discussed the idea long and hard in this Quackcast and came to some interesting conclusions. One of the ideas floated was that you don't have to identify with any of the characters at all as long as the story is good enough. Another idea is that there are ways to make the audience identify with ANY character regardless of who they are; first person writing is the easiest, making them the main POV character can work, making them an underdog, or giving characters a relatable feeling, experience or situation works too. The classic way of doing it is to make the character somehow similar to the audience it's intended for. This is a banal, amateurish, and basic way of doing things, but it makes up for basic writing. It's why most action films have traditionally have average, bland male stars, usually white and looking between 20-40, and “chick-flicks have the same thing but with a woman. It's why animes often have an extremely bland male star as the main character, especially for harem anime. And this is also the reason for the current fad of gender-swapping and ”race-swapping“ in everything, though through that they're attempting to broaden appeal. I think representation is a related factor (But NOT the same thing),  and that IS important: to be able to see that people like you are ”seen" by the rest of the world and represented in the stories you consume is essential for a sense of self and how you fit into the world. It's something that's needed: people who look like you, talk like you, with lives like you, the same sexuality, gender etc. being represented positively in the stories you consume. That will never not be important! But main character doesn't need that unless the writing is super thin. I rationalise this because even though I'm a straight, white, middle-aged, Australian man I easily identify with any main character regardless of age, gender, sexuality, nationality or ethnicity when the writing is good. But when it's not you cling to what you know: Anything familiar. What do you think? Should main characters always be made to be audience proxies? And if so how should that be done? Can you name things where you identify with none of the characters but still enjoy it anyway? This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by the Railroad of the Wallachian Library - Creepily atmospheric… grey twilit mists swirl and eddy, tensions build, electricity crackles the air as your hackles rise… a ghostly locomotive charges out of the billowing fog only to disappear into the darkness. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: the Railroad of the Wallachian Library - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/nov/26/featured-comic-the-railroad-of-the-wallachian-library/ Featured music: the Railroad of the Wallachian Library - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Railroad_of_the_Wallachian_Library/ - by thehereticlocomotive, 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 Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

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. If you want to go riiiiight back there were the different mass extinction events that ended almost all life a few times on this planet. In the history of humanity we have the fall of Rome, an event that was felt for almost 1000 years in Western Europe! It ended technological development, scientific research, the progress of culture, communication, trade, and production were shut down. Development atrophied and technology reversed and reverted. Meanwhile in Northern Africa, the middle east, South America and China advanced empires flourished, but that didn't stem the rot in Europe because there was little contact, communication or trade. There are other examples of this but that's the main one that comes to mind. Modern fiction is replete with a lot of different apocalypse and post apocalypse stories in many different forms (both natural, man made, and mythological). After the second world war the major influence was the idea of nuclear annihilation. A famous early example was On The Beach, a chilling film about American sailors on a submarine who survive the initial Apocalypse. They come to Australia in the Southern hemisphere and try and rally because life seems almost normal there, but when they travel back to the US to find survivors they learn everyone is dead that and the nuclear fallout will eventually even kill the people in the southern hemisphere down in Australia. The whole planet has an inescapable death sentence so all that's left is to choose how and when they will die. 20 years later 1979 famously gave us Mad Max! Which was a beginning of a whole genre of crazy low budget ultra violent deiselpunk post-apocalypse SciFi with muscle cars and torn leather. In this first movie it's pretty tame, we assume that society is slowly breaking down after an apocalypse but people are still keeping things going nevertheless. Max is a leather-clad highway policeman with a wife and child. Pretty soon though a road gang ends his little slice of normalcy and the Road Warrior is born. After that the world of the Mad Max films becomes more and more chaotic and alien, totally divorced from any connection to our present day society. This spawned many imitators, usually terrible but sometimes strangely amazing. What are some of your fave stories in the genre? The cover of this Quackcast is inspired by the 1985 Canadian film Defcon 4 (an image originally created in 1976 by Angus McKie). A Canticle for Lebowitz is a seminal story in the genre, about the preservation of culture and technology after an Apocalypse and how that can help rebuild things and that humans will inevitably repeat the same mistakes… Hell comes to Frogtown is an amazing and fun take on the dieselpunk post-apocalypse genre and definitely a fave of mine. But I think my faves would have to be The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham. Often thought of as “cozy catastrophes” because even though the world as we know it ends and the characters have to re-adapt they do it in a very level-headed way and they find a new normal- that is actually one of the very few absolutely accurate and realistic takes on what happens during and after a real Apocalypse which is why I appreciate it so much: life goes on, it's not the same but you do what you can to make it that way. What do you think? A fan of Waterworld, Fallout, Terminator 2, The Walking Dead, The End, Radioactive dreams, Don't look up, something more fun or more depressing? This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The KAMics - Relaxed, the coolest of the cool. Kick back and let go to this breezy, slow track with a killer, bopping beat! You could listen to this forever, it’s so soothing and calming. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Plague Rat - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/nov/18/featured-comic-plague-rat/ Featured music: The KAMics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/KAMics_Kast/ - by Kam, rated T. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

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. Future weapons can take all different forms, many kinds of directed energy weapons, energy propelled projectiles, satellite based weapons, drone and robot technology, autonomous weapons systems etc. Biological and chemical weapons are super scary but generally pretty useless in reality, even as terrorist weapons because they're so imprecise and uncontrollable and take a lot of work to set up and deploy. This means they will hit people who aren't your target and they also have an excellent chance of not even working at all despite all the preparation and cost, so we're not even bothering with these in the discussion. One future Scifi weapon concept that always comes up are “plasma” weapons. These are super undefined and no one really knows what they are because they can be so many things. When it comes to weapons what we mean by “plasma” is the very hot gas that has free ions so that it's electrically conductive like metal. We know dangerous plasma mostly from its use as a cutting torch in welding and also the gigantic planet sized solar flares that seem to erupt from the surface of the sun are plasma that's following the huge loop of a magnetic field projecting from the sun, because it can be controlled by magnetic fields. Given this it can be used in a few different ways as a weapon: you can use it like an explosive chemical propellant for firing bullets, you can use it as a sort of flame thrower (especially effective if you can direct it with a magnetic field), you can contain balls of plasma with magnetic fields and throw them like canon shells, or you can use the plasma as an electrically conductive medium to direct lightning bolts. Directed energy weapons are very traditionally SciFi but have only ever seen limited practical usage despite the old popularity of the “Death Ray” and lasers as weapons. They're attractive because the only limiting factor is your energy source, you don't need to carry ammunition so theoretically you can have unlimited shots, they travel at the speed of light so you can't miss, they're not affected by friction or gravity so there are no ballistics to work out either, there's also no loss in energy like there is with traditional guns where the propulsive explosion badly transfers energy to the projectile. The trouble is that they don't work very well as weapons because you need to put in a LOT of energy to do any damage over a distance because they don't work well in an atmosphere, you also have to hold it on a target for a long time. This category includes the aforementioned lasers, microwave weapons, electron beams, particle beams etc They have a lot more potential as space weapons where atmosphere isn't an issue and their lack of recoil is a huge advantage. Electrically accelerated projective weapons known as “mass drivers” are another category. They are capable to much higher speeds than traditional guns or missiles because they're not limited by the compression of gasses. In this group we have Gauss guns aka coil guns, rail guns and some other variations. They use magnetic or electrical fields to accelerate projectiles. The main advantage is speed, increased safety because they don't need dangerous propellant, and shots only limited by your electrical capacity. The disadvantages of these systems is that they're very complicated, they can't use explosive projectiles, and they have a high failure rate- Railguns are the most promising system but each time they fire they produce clouds of burning fire, which is caused by layers of metal being stripped from the rails inside them, which means they degrade very quickly and the rails have to be replaced constantly. We all know the potential of drones, but the use of autonomous self directed weapons where the drones can pick their own targets is where they become scary. Autonomous weapons are already a reality in large defence turrets on ships, around army bases, and important buildings (like the Whitehouse). They can be set to radar directed target acquisition, which they need for defence against fast moving missiles. Machine gun turrets on the defences along the DMZ between North and South Korea also work like this. Even cruise missiles are somewhat autonomous in that they can find their own way to their targets. What we're really worried about though are things like predator drones or tracked bomb disposal robots coming after us with weapons like mounted machine guns, both are possible and have been tested. Satellites have limited weapon capability, none have enough power onboard to carry useful energy weapons, while mass drivers and traditional projectile weapons introduce the problem of recoil which is extremely hard to cope with for a satellite in orbit. They can carry missiles like nuclear weapons be they're extremely vulnerable to attack for such an expensive weapon. successful experiments have been made using traditional guns against other satellites but they're very messy and dangerous to everything in orbit. A stupid idea that was proposed were the “rods of god”: giant tungsten poles which the satellite could drop as destructive gravity driven bombs, The trouble is that would be super expensive to get into space, the accuracy is extremely bad and the energy needed to aim them would be too costly. It would only be useful as a “sword of Damocles” if you had them always hanging over specific targets, but even then they'd be very easy to disable. We came up with our own future weapons. Mine was a marshmallow gun that would spray masses of harmless sugary marshmallow fluff all over your enemies, then use a microwave emitter to massively expand the marshmallow and heat it to debilitating levels. This would envelop people in masses of injurious, burning gooey muck, which would then harden on them and any surface it touched. It would also be terrible for the insides of electronics and machinery. I could talk about a LOT more but let's leave it for now. Listen to the cast! What are YOUR fave future weapons and how do they work? This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by Kaiju Valentine - Stomp meets a big stomping monster woman as she bops and bounces heavily to this cool, percussive and yet somewhat ethereal sound. It’s party time here is Kaiju land! This is an infectious dance number! A comic by our very own Banes! Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Hell Monkey - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/nov/12/featured-comic-hell-monkey/ Featured music: Kaiju Valentine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Kaiju_Valentine/ - by Banes, 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 Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS Next Week - Post Apocalyptic stuff.

Today we have onboard with us our resident theme maker, our classic composer and musical genius! He does all the DD comic inspired themes that regularly appear on the Quackcast and has done so for the last 10 years! In that time he's done almost 600 musical themes. At the moment Gunwallace is the games-master of a Star Trek roleplay thing that Tantz, Banes, and I all do after the cast. He's based an illustrated story on it called “On the Edge” with art by Banes and Genejoke, and some by Tantz and me, Ozoneocean. Gunwallace is a multi-talented creator, artist, writer, musician, composer, author, cook, and mixologist! This hale and hearty, towering example of a New Zealander has been posting comics here forever, notably the author of the very popular Playmobile art comic “Character Development” and the popular one panel strip “All Unicorns to Battle Stations”, among many others. He was a zine writer from way back in the day and he's STILL in the Zine-Scene now, having met many popular creators in that field as well and being one himself, he was even in talks to work with the world famous Lord of The Rings Director Peter Jackson at one point! In his free time he has written cookbooks based on bizarre old recipes, and books of cocktail recipes based on drinks he's devised himself and with friends. In this cast we have a long meandering chat with him about a whole bunch of things and by the by we also include many of the themes he's composed over the years. In order of appearance they are: Bruno harm, Life and death, Clint, Joe pop, Pinky TA, Typical Strange, Without Moonlight, Ginger and shadow, God's Revelation, and Super Temps. If you would like a copy of a theme Gunwallace has done he's more than happy to send it to you! Just contact him and ask! Our Patreon members ($5 and up) get to see us talking to Gunwallace on video. A message from Tantz: Join the fun, get more people to know you, and interact with more artists on Blue Sky! Follow us on - https://bsky.app/profile/theduckwebcomics.bsky.social (@theduckwebcomics.bsky.social) where the Quackchat continues every Sunday! This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by A SuperActionGirl - This starts off with a weird stuttering electronica synth sound that echoes and vibrates as it stammers its repeating yet evolving chorus of notes in way evocative of fractal patterns or blooming flowers, finally ending with a phrase that seems to reference a similar sound from the start of Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who Topics and shownotes Links Gunwallce's latest project, On The Edge - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/On_The_Edge/ Featured comic: Echo And Boltz Halloween Special - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/nov/04/featured-comic-echo-and-boltz-halloween-special/ Featured music: A SuperActionGirl - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/A_SuperActionGirl/ - by Loststartraveler0, rated T. The comics with themes played in the cast: Bruno harm - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Bruno_Harm/ Life and death - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Life_and_Death/ Clint - not on the site now. Joe pop - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Joe_Pop/ Pinky TA - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Pinky_TA/ Typical Strange - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Typical_Strange/ Without Moonlight - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Without_Moonlight/ Ginger and Shadow - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ginger_and_Shadow/ God's Revelation - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Gods_Revelation/ Super Temps - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Super_Temps/ THRUD Goddess Of Thunder - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/THRUD_Goddess_Of_Thunder/ Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

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. There are a LOT of misconceptions when it comes to this stuff, we tried to address a few and correct them in the cast. Like people didn't go from bronze to iron because iron was a better material. People had to move to using iron because bronze is made of tin and copper and those two materials are not found in the same place, changes in empires and wars disrupted trade routes so badly that supplies of the raw materials were no longer viable. Iron was a substitute because it's common and doesn't need any other components, though it's inferior because it's more difficult to work, not as hard so it doesn't make as good blades or armour, and it rusts easily. It wasn't till people finally discovered steel that iron became better than bronze. Some other misconceptions: -The idea that major military development only happened in Europe is false, all societies had it all over the planet but in different ways according to their needs and the materials available to them. -Full plate armour was available to the ancient Greeks, it's not just a mediaeval thing. -Gunpowder did not spell the end of the fully armoured knight, no, fully plate armoured “knights” fought it out with hand guns on horseback and people still wore armour and fought with swords as well as guns even in WW1! -The German army still mainly used horses for transport even in WW2. -Aeroplanes did not spell the end of the battleship, rather it was the torpedo that eventually took the toll (anything can deliver one, boats, planes, subs, even other battleships). -The nuclear weapons dropped on Japan were not horrifying because of the people they killed or the damage they did (far more death and destruction had been committed in many other bombing raids), they were so scary because the death and destruction they did cause was only with single bombs from single planes rather than fleets with tons of ordinance. -Rotary “gatling” guns have extremely limited use and only have something like less than a minute of total fire time, they're only meant to be used in very quick bursts. -Lasers are not a “unlimited amo” weapons and they don't make visible beams of light usually or make zapping noises, the shots are very limited by power output, chemical lasers might only have 3 or four shots, and electrical lasers need to wait on capacitor charges after each shot, a battery power weapon grade laser would be out of charge in about 5 to 10 shots… -Drones and autonomous weapons systems don't spell the end for modern warships and tanks, newer weapons systems will evolve to counter and exceed them. There has never ever been an “ultimate weapon”, rather it's always a balancing game. As one thing starts to help people dominate in a particular field other things develop to counter them and so on forever into the future. Do you know any misconceptions? How do you think weaponry will evolve to counter drones? This week Gunwallace wasn't able to give us a them so we're doing another best of! So I picked Kitty Kitty Bang Bang - Multilayered Chinese video-game war anthem with a modern twist! That’s how I’d describe this complex little piece. It’s the final boss battle, you’ve got no spare lives, you’re down to your last powerup and time is running out! Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Alfie’s World - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/oct/29/featured-comic-alfies-world/ Featured music: Kitty Kitty Bang Bang - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Kitty_Kitty_Bang_Bang/ - by MoeAlmighty, rated T. 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 Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS Futurecast - Post Apocalyptic stuff. Next Week - Interview with Gunwallace!

Halloween is on the way and we always do something different for it. This time we're doing a commentary for the 1987 vampire movie The Lost Boys! We even dressed in Lost Boys themed outfits for the Patreon vid which we will make available to ALL Patrons (even free ones), as a treat. The Lost Boys is an interesting comedy horror vampire film, it distils a LOT of really big 1980s style trends and yet it doesn't seem old fashioned or twee because it takes the viewer to the era and accepts you rather than keeping you at a distance as an outsider. You see punks, the surfer beach culture, metal-heads, new romantics and more. It's just a great showcase and super exaggeration of the styles. The movie starts off with the awesome Cry Little Sister theme by Gerard McMann which is 80s but also has a timeless creepy gothic feel, it's the perfect intro to the movie, setting the slightly edgy, creepy tone and coolness factor at the same time. But it also contains the perfect summary of the theme of film to come. McMann wrote the song after reading the script rather than seeing the film so he was able to get at the central things that are easy to miss with all the cool visuals: it's a film about families and loyalty. Two families compete for survival, one are the Emersons who have just moved to Santa Clara to be with their grandpa, the patriarch, the other is the vampire clan led by its patriarch. The vampire clan wants to absorb the Emersons, starting with the oldest son Michael, but youngest Sam doesn't want that to happen! Cry Little Sister is from the perspective of the Vamps alone though while the film is from the perspective of the Emersons. This is a fun, stylish movie and we had a lot of fun watching it all over again and doing this reaction cast! Comics even have a prominent place in the film with the vampire slaying Frog brothers working at a comic shop and using comics as a way of bonding with Sam as well as finding out how to deal with the vampires. Have a listen and maybe go and watch the movie again. We made this week's Patreon video free to all Patreons, so go on over there and join for free to watch it! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck This week Gunwallace has given us a Halloween sounding theme inspired by The Deadlys ReVamped - Haunting, hollow, creepy intro into a rather more friendly and charming old house with a lovely friendly, ghostly party going on… till you find out that everybody there is dead and you’re all alone amongst these fleeting apparitions who fade away, leaving the house dark and desolate once more! Topics and shownotes Links Great music from Lost Boys: Cry Little Sister - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrMLMV6E4CM I Still Believe Tim Capello - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzXuuxnp08o Featured comic: The Side Characters - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/oct/22/featured-comic-the-side-characters/ Featured music: The Deadlys ReVamped - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Deadlys_ReVamped/ - by Paneltastic, rated T.. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

-Cover image: female Sagittarius silhouette pic by Tantz that only took a moment to create but its impact was way larger! The fleeting greatness ducks of in the wind! This is a weird one based on a notion I had: Life and experience isn't typically based on long moments, rather it's all based on very short, lightning quick highlights: a song that lasts 3 minutes is massively striking and important and its impact can reverberate down through the decades, despite only lasting such a short amount of time. Things like comics can take days, weeks or years to make and yet each page is consumed in no more than seconds! But even so, it can have a huge effect. This goes into all aspects of life and creation because it's how the brain of most adult neurotypical people works: we don't experience the world as a real time 24 hour, 86400 second long drag, taking in every instant as it happens, rather we phase all that out and only focus on a highlight real of interesting moments- those get expanded in importance and we think they take up more time and space than they actually do, this is why you constantly forget routine things that you do during the day (did I put sugar in my tea? What did I come in here for?), because your brain is on autopilot for the unimportant routine things. And this is why we think time slows down when something scary happens: because our brains actually start taking in awareness in real time and noticing everything! In reality any fight only lasts a few seconds or a minute or two at most, most things in sex are like that too, and the old adage with war is that it's a few minutes of action and many hours of boredom… And yet when we depict those things in stories for comics or film or whatever we always massively stretch out those moments of action far longer than they could ever last because that is the only way to make them realistically relatable to the viewer: Because when you experience those things your awareness is extremely focussed and so they seem to last much, much longer. It's not always like that- When you're a child your brain (for a neurotypical) still needs experience in order to understand how things work so it has to be constantly taking in everything, which is why it's so easy for children to get painfully bored and why time seems to last SO much longer. There are also unfortunate people who's brains are always stuck in that mode so all life and experience to them is absolutely interminable. I feel like I have the opposite issue where I have very little awarenesses of anything specific and time zips past at a breakneck pace, like the Rolling Stones song Rock Off “I'm zipping through the days at lightning speed” but change “days” to “decades”. To get back to the point of this- Things that take hours, days, or years to create but only a few seconds to enjoy and experience, can STILL create an impact that lasts forever. Even a movie which can go for 2 hours or more is usually only enjoyed as a few import but very short scenes that we increase in importance in our own brains - Which is why we often remember things differently to how they really were. I think it's extremely important for creator to understand this: how people take things in and consume media and reality as a “best off” compilation of important moments, but also that even though something might take forever to make and most people will only take a few a seconds to experience it, its impact can be huge and last much longer. This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by Nose Bleed - A fiery raw blast of hot rocky goodness spewed forth like a cloud of burning super hot plasma, excited electrons contained by a powerful magnetic field as they race far and wide, spreading hellish red illumination and destruction. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Geist Gears - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/oct/15/featured-comic-geist-gears/ Featured music: Nose Bleed - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Nose_Bleed_/ - by Skudsink 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 Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Dragons are cool, aren't they? That's our subject for today, specifically the giant, monstrous beasties of myth, fantasy, and legend. They can be evil, they can be clever, they can be animalistic and wild, they can be friendly, they can be wise and all knowing, there's absolutely no common personality to dragons at all. There's this old idea that there are “Western” and “Eastern” dragons in myth, that is simply nonsense and just a relic of an older way of looking at the world. The truth is that dragons are present in most cultures in some form. Famous dragons in myth are the ancient Germanic creatures like Jörmungand, Níðhöggr, or the dragons fought by Beowulf and Siegfried. There's the famous dragon that was slain by Saint George, the godly Celtic dragon that adorns the Welsh flag, there are many wise demigod Greek dragons, as well as the more animalistic Hydra. There's Tiamat from Mesopotamia, a more godly creature, and speaking of gods there's the Rainbow serpent from the Australian indigenous cultures who created all the world! The Mayans had Quetzalcoatl with its rainbow body and beautiful feathered wings. Then we have all the dragons from East Asia and Southeast Asia who can be outright godly and imperial or simply associated with elemental aspects of the landscape but this is barely scratching the surface. Dragons in culture are FAR richer than “East Vs West”. What from do they take though, what defines are dragon? Well most dragons are serpentine and reptilian in form, with scales, large teeth, and an elongated body. they often have four limbs with claws, a pointed tail, and sometimes even wings, usually bat style but sometimes feathered. Those are not needed for a creature to BE a dragon though, the long serpentine form is enough. Dragons in modern pop-culture fantasy tend to have a long tail long neck, scales, a head covered in horns and or fins, a big body with four limbs, and a large pair of bat wings. They can be anything from cat sized to the size of a continent but are usually the size of a big house. Fantasy gave us many notable dragons and fantasy art really lit my young brain aflame, with the wonderful imagery by the likes of Michael Whelen, David Roe, and so many more. As a child I was captivated by an image of “Smaug” on the cover of an ‘80s printing of Lord of the Rings. Later I was fascinated by the dragons in the stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffery, Katherine Kerr, Terry Patchett, Gordon R Dickson and more. I’m sure many have fond memories of Dungeons and Dragons and the book series Dragonlance. Not to mention the great movies like Dragonslayer, How to train your Dragon, Dragonheart, A flight of Dragons, Raya the Last Dragon, The Hobbit, Reign of Fire, Jabberwocky, Game of Thrones and more. Then of course there are human dragons! There were some dragons in myth that could take human form. Draco, who we get the name of “draconian” laws from was a Greek fellow with a draconian name. Vlad the Impaler's dad is supposed to have earned the title of “Dragon”, which is why we call him Dracula (son of the dragon) and where we get the fantasy horror vampire creature's name “Count Dracula”. A “dragon” in modern Greece is a particularly evil type of criminal (which I won't discuss here). A Dragon in US business language is a powerful investor. And a dragon-lady is usually a very intimidating and powerful Chinese woman. But my favourite human dragon is Haku from Spirited Away. What is YOUR fave dragon? Is it from myth or fantasy? Do you even like dragons at all? This week we have another best off from Gunwallace. Due to the dragon topic I selected Gunwallace's them to Dragonet from Quackcast 251! - It's best described as “Royal, commanding, and bleak”. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: GUZ - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/oct/07/featured-comic-guz/ Featured music: Dragonet - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Dragonet/ - by Willgun, rated E. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

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. Punks plus computers signalled a more universal use of the new technology of computers in the near future world especially as imagined by Willian Gibson with his novel Neuromancer. There were other influential cyberpunk writers like Neal Stephenson with SnowCrash and many more. My fave was Manga creator Masamune Shirow with his books like Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed and more which tackle subjects like trans-humanisim as humans evolve with technology and then INTO technology itself. In the late 80s and early 90s cyberpunk was very influential in anime with the likes of the Ghost in the Shell movie, Bubblegum crisis, AD police, and the amazing milestone that is Akira! A very formative game in the world of cyberpunk was the RPG Shadowrun, which was near future urban fantasy plus cyberpunk in all its pure glory. These days we have the computer game Cyberpunk 2020, but it's an extremely derivative and pale shadow of what had gone before it, it functions as a sort of a retro “greatest hits” of the genre, but it's a good intro into it and that goes for the Netflix anime of the same name. There were various unrelated genres inspired by cyberpunk- Steampunk, Dieselpunk, and the later dubious genres raypunk and atompunk which are just rebranded early standard SciFi. What is your fave example of cyberpunk? Do you know what cyberpunk is? When did you first come to cyberpunk? This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by The Return of Jake Sunrise - A desolate red dirt desert, a wind whistles through and carries with it a torrent of sound and energy, flooding in like a sudden rainstorm, bringing with it life, colour, and revitalisation! The desert blooms. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: The Books of Avo - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/oct/01/featured-comic-the-books-of-avo/ Featured music: The Return of Jake Sunrise - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Return_of_Jake_Sunrise/ - by Picture_Books, rated E. 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 Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Fight choreography is tricky. We have it in comics, plays, movies and TV. When it's in full motion the trick is that you cant usually show things connecting so you have to work around the safety aspects in various ways. In comics you can show things connecting but how do you make the movement and the narrative believable and exciting just by using still images? It takes a lot of skill! Animation has to be the easiest way to depict fights because you can show the results of hits AND you can easily make moment believable but there are always challenges. There are 3 main types of fights: duels, brawls, and battles, though there are a million combos and variations between those. Duel: one against one. Brawl: everyone against everyone. Battle: a big group against another big group. Fights usually involve a character that wants something and another trying to prevent them from getting it so the narrative of your fight has to include that dynamic, not simply action for its own sake. I've worked at drawing a few fight scenes myself for my comics and I think I do a pretty decent job at it. I visualise the fight progress in my mind, work out the beginning, middle and end of it (treating it like a mini story), and then visualise cool images that depict parts of the progress and action in the most dynamic and sexily interesting way possible. That works well for duels. Battles are more chaotic and it helps just to focus on a few key parts while leaving the main fighting in the background. Trying to show the overall clash on a larger scale is very easy to mess up: look at the stupid battles in the later Lord of the Rings movies, the troop moments make no sense at all, they're just running from here to there to everywhere pretty pointlessly, but when things focus down on individuals at a smaller scale it works much better! What are your fave fight scenes? And how do you go about choreographing a fight in your comic? One of my faves is the duel between Inigo Montoya and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride and the first fight in the movie the Duellists. This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Cork and Blotto - Hill street bluesish 80s sounding TV drama action theme mixed with a holly reverential choir. Tasty, spiky red hot lashings of electric guitar splashed thoroughly through it, counterbalancing the more thoughtful and staid piano. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Shiortsighted - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/sep/24/featured-comic-shiortsighted/ Featured music: Cork and Blotto - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Cork_and_Blotto/ - by Stever_Blotto, rated M. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Being right on the internet is Sooo important… Being right in life and at all times is essential too! At least that's how a lot of us tend to think. Being told we're wrong, especially on the internet, can be so embarrassing and shameful that we try and avoid it at all costs. But realising you're wrong and being able to admit it and to learn from your mistakes is actually more empowering, powerful, and fulfilling than any amount of rightness can ever be. Being right in relationships is a much older thing than the internet and a far harder and more destructive issue. There's an old meme that goes along the lines of “if you're a man you're always wrong”, so the idea is that you say something like “yes dear, you're right” every time there's a disagreement and that's the key to a happy relationship… which is of course harmful meaningless nonsense which infantilises both people. THAT is NOT admitting you're wrong, it's literally just pretending, it's insincere and doesn't help anyone. The approach you should take is to understand WHY something is wrong. Among my many favourite films is Scott Pilgrim Vs the world. In it he has many cartoonish, exciting, and exaggerated battles with the exes of his new girlfriend Ramona Flowers, but underneath and besides that, more powerfully and interestingly he resolves with his own exes and it's only when he does that, that he can truly move forward. Instead of a flashy, crazy battles like with Ramona's exes, Scott simply realises what he did wrong and owns up to it with each of them. That makes you respect the character far more and really helped tidy up the resolution of the story. Villains coming to a self realisation and admitting they're wrong can make for a very powerful ending. How do you go with this, do you remember a story where a character admits they're wrong or have you been able able to come to the realisation that you're wrong about something and accept the correction? This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by Somewhere in the Universe - Driving beat taking us on a road trip to hot and heavy, fiery groovetown in a muscle car under the bright sun on burning vinyl seats, windows wound down and blasting us with oven air but we don’t care because we’re rocking all the way. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Imago, Nebraska - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/sep/17/featured-comic-imago-nebraska/ Featured music: Somewhere in the Universe - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Somewhere_In_The_Universe/ - by Marchy_D, rated T. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Today we're talking about setting the scene and communication through the art on the panel. It's a simple yet complex subject- how do you compose the scene to better communicate all the stuff like which character is more important, who's to be feared, if a person is coming or going, fight scenes etc. How do you compose stuff? Movie directors are a good thing to follow because it's a related art form. We mention the compositions of Spielberg, Sergio Leone, Wes Anderson and more. I came from a fine art background so I used to often try to emulate the compositions of classical art. Banes recommends reading “Framed Ink” by Marcos Mateu-Mestre. What inspires you with your art direction? Do you think deeply about it or do you just depict the characters in the most efficient way possible to tell the story? This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by It’s my turn to save the world - High energy, purposeful, cute and full of stars, twinkles, and lines as straight as glowing laser beams, burning through with fearsome power and heat! Topics and shownotes Links The cover image is from a Banes choreographed panel from our sexy horror comic Key of Dreams that was part of the DD anthology!  Get a copy here for $25 - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck/shop/drunk-duck-anthology-flock-of-dreams-276787?source=storefront  Featured comic: Pigeons - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/sep/09/featured-comic-pigeons/ Featured music: It’s my turn to save the world - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Its_My_Turn_to_Save_the_World/ - by Nanji, rated E. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

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. The really bad ones will pretend to channel “chi” (a fake energy) and knock down their students without even trying! The thing is that often the teachers actually believe they can really DO this stuff because the reactions of their students make them believe that it's real. And the students believe it too because of motivated reasoning (they WANT to believe), and they are influenced by each other. It's all one self reinforcing bubble echo-chamber of belief. There are two reasons I'm talking about this in terms of webcomics: 1. Bullshido is the origin of the amazing and silly martial arts and superhero moves and techniques in comics and animation and it's interesting to know where it comes from. and 2. this sort of stuff is why we have preconceived ideas about why a lot of pop-culture is good or bad: We fall for a sort of tribal thinking that's created by our tendency to follow the beliefs of others without examining them for ourselves. It's the sort of thing that results in cults, conspiracy belief, and our opinions on political figures. It's even why we believe that valve amps, Les Paul guitars, Stradivarius violins, and vinyl records sound magically better than the alternatives. It's a fascinating and fun topic and we go deep into it! This week Gunwallace wasn't able to make a new theme so I re-issued the theme to Kirsha Brackets - A warm rush of frenetic activity! Modern, bright, shiny, new, fun, action, happening, moving, going, bouncing, bubbling, hopping, motivation! Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Jalek and the Starbook - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/sep/03/featured-comic-jalek-and-the-starbook/ Featured music: Kirsha Brackets - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Kirsha_Brackets/ - by DrawingGenius, rated T. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ 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/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Cross cultural influence is a marvellous thing and very enriching to creativity! It's lovely when you can see multiple cultural influences in things, whether comics, movies, art, fashion, music or anything else. It's inspiring and leads to new and more interesting things. I picked promo images from some recent Pixar movies Turning Red, Encanto, Coco, and Moana, because they're good examples of the process and what it can result in. The flip-side of that is “cultural appropriation”. That's where you take something that's important, sacred or representative of another culture and you claim ownership of it or use it in an inappropriate way, not giving the true source any respect and not seeking permission. unfortunately this is often used as a false accusation by people who either try and white-knight or are just trying to weaponise the idea in order to gain status or make a point, which has a number of very negative effects: It drives people toward monoculuralisim in their expression, makes people afraid to experiment, it can make people less likely to see ACTUAL examples of cultural appropriation and more likely to discount or ignore real examples of it. In the Quackcast we mention Big Trouble in Little China, which was a wonderful blend of American action film and Hong Kong kung-fu movie. The Clint Eastwood Western A Fist Full Of Dollars is a version of the Japanese samurai film Yojimbo, made by Italians. And then of course the Samurai films of that era were inspired by America westerns anyway, so there was all sorts of deep cultural mixing. What are some of your own fave examples of cross cultural influence? This week another re-release of an older theme by Gunwallace, this one inspired by Thrud Goddess Of Thunder - Big fat beats and an epic sound! This one really brings the thunder! It’d be great as the intro tune to a professional wrestling match. It builds anticipation perfectly and really slams home and delivers on its promises. Epic sounds! This is the theme that became our Quackcast theme! Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: The Sloggs Gang Go To Comic Con - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/26/featured-comic-the-sloggs-gang-go-to-comic-con/ Featured music: Thrud Goddess Of Thunder - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/THRUD_Goddess_Of_Thunder/ - by takoyama, rated T. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Following on from last week with our Quackcast on faces, this week we're chatting about expressions, which is a very natural progression! expressions are a great way to enhance communication in comics. they can be fun to play with but tricky to master. Though when you get them right they really help lift your game. Exaggerated expressions are seen more in cartoony work rather than realistic styles but drawing good expressive faces still works well regardless, even if they ARE more subtle. One of the funniest things about drawing facial expressions is how your own face tends to mirror what you're drawing at the time, so you can look like a freak! When it comes to expression I think anime took it to a new level with their range of expressions using eyes, sweat drops, and hovering vein symbols. I've never seen western art that has such a facility when it comes to the variety in Manga, like characters who seem to be smiling and good natured but are broken and dead inside, or secretly evil- all done simply with the eyes and mouth. One of the big myths about non-verbal communication is that it comprises the vast majority of communication, which is pretty silly and easily debunk-able, but the fact that myth is still so popular shows how important expressions are to us, at least in our perception. Obviously the vast majority of communication is primarily through language alone, but body-language and expression do help. For our Patreon video we all tried drawing facial expressions real time, that's where the cover image comes from. Banes and Tantz were great! I wasn't. Are you any good at drawing expressions? Do you make silly faces when you do? What's your fave expression? This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by The Gimblians - Introspective, considered and thoughtful. A short little compact track that leads us down a silent snowy path through a dark forest in the moonlight… and into a bouncy castle filled with clowns! Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Carpe Doodle - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/20/featured-comic-carpe-doodle/ Featured music: The Gimblians - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Gimblians/ - by Mattgasser, rated E. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ 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/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Drawing faces is one of the most natural things for us to do, and they're very easy for people to see that they're faces because animals are evolved especially to be able to see faces- people mistakenly think this is just a human thing but it's clearly something that happened much earlier. We're so good at seeing faces we see them where they don't exist (paradolia). So drawing them for comics should be super simple, should it? Well it is and it isn't. You can always get better at things and drawing faces is something that has a vast range of difficulties. They can be as simple as a circle with minimal features, or more advanced attempts with everything clearly laid out with shading and a perfect expression, and everything in between… How I do it is something in between: Sort of realistic but still pretty cartoony. The easiest way to do more realistic faces is to understand the rules: The eyes go roughly halfway on the face. The eyebrows go up above and create a shaded line, the mouth and bottom of the nose divide the bottom of the face into thirds. And that's you average face. Drawing different ethnic traits though is very tricky without being racist! So practise those a lot before coming out with anything publicly. An important thing to know is the myth of symmetry. The myth is that perfectly symmetrical faces are more beautiful, this idea was put forward a few years ago by a plastic surgeon of all people and many ate it up. The reality though that very symmetrical faces can actually give you an "uncanny valley" feel so that the face can start to look unnatural and alien. It's VERY easy to make perfectly symmetrical faces in art, now moreso than ever. You simply draw one side of a face, copy, paste, flip and join them. It's a good technique to use to quickly draw a portrait but a smart move is to rough up either side and remove some of that symmetry subtly. Beauty is about being average (not too far outside norms) and the cultural standards of that particular point in time, symmetry is a small and basic part of that, NOT the prime component: a good clue as to why this is the case is the fact that humans don't all look the same, people from different ethnicities have very different facial traits and beauty standards, and we can very easily see that beauty standards throughout time varied massively and constantly. Saying that beauty is based on symmetry is like saying cars are based on wheels- in one sense yes but in all other senses no. How are you with drawing faces? What's your secret? Can you draw people of different ethnicities without being racist? What style of faces do you draw? NEXT WEEK- The expression cast This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The Hotel - Trapped in a never ending loop inside an elevator. Are you going up, down, or… sideways? Ring the bell for service. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave. Topics and shownotes Links Please consider purchasing a copy of our latest DD anthology A Flock of Dreams to help DD https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/20/quackcast-697-the-dd-anthology-comic/ Featured comic: It's My Turn to Save the World - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/12/featured-comic-its-my-turn-to-save-the-world/ Featured music: The Hotel - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Hotel/ - by Pinupcitizen, rated T. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

We chatted about Greek Myths last week and found the subject so interesting that we thought we'd do a part two! So even MORE Greek myth stuff for Quackcast 700. There are just so many great stories like the myth of the Hydra and how it was so hard to kill because when one of its many heads were cut off it would just grow another one. Or the Minotaur that was trapped in a labyrinth under the palace of Minos in Crete in order to imprison him because he was a monster. The labyrinth was of course built by Daedalus. I love all the stories about Daedalus who was a genius inventor and architect, basically an engineer and a scientist, and I love that he as an inventor is a celebrated character of myth. Not many cultures have myths about such characters. Odysseus is another favourite of mine, he was a genius strategist and just an all round clever man who could always come up with plans and amazing solutions to problems… a bit of a MacGyver if you will. And he's another interesting character to be celebrated in myth. My favourite gods are the siblings Artemis and Apollo. Apollo only because he's a sun god and he's an arrogant, pretty fellow so he's fun to draw. Artemis is a fave because she's so capable, competent, and driven, plus she has an awesome name. she's seen as a virgin, maiden hunter goddess and another aspect of Athena. The Roman version was Diana and our modern version is Wonder Woman. Who are your fave gods or humans in Greek myth? This week Gunwallace wasn't able to do a Quackcast so since this is Quackcast 700 I decided to reissue our theme to Quackcast 500! - This was an awesome rocky anthem for the DD Quackcast. It’s all hard guitars and loud stonkin’ sound! With the super-duper added contribution of us all shouting “500”! Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Amell: A Grey Warden is Born - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/aug/06/featured-comic-amell-a-grey-warden-is-born/ Featured music: Five hundred! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-500-celebration by All of us, rated E Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ 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/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

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. Many of us find our own way into the myths. For me it was the astronomy books I loved as a child because I adored the images of the planets, stars, and nebulae. They had names from Greek and Roman myth and there were stories explaining where the names came from. Aspects of Greek myth would pop up all through culture; the naiads, dryads, and fauns in CS Lewis's Narnia books, the plays and music based on the love story of Orpheus and Eurydice… Hercules was always everywhere, and one of my favourite cartoons as a child was Ulysses 31, a French Scifi show based on the Odyssey. Then there are all the classic sword and sandal movie epics like Clash of the Titans! The Greek gods even show up in the musical Xanadu, a childhood fave of mine. These days people have have many animes, video games like God of War and Assassins Creed, movie and book series like Percy Jackson, the 300 and even Wonder Woman. I'm sure the 90s Kevin Sorbo series Hercules the Legendary journeys and its sister series Xena Warrior Princess were big inspirations for many! Even the Disney cartoon about Hercules. Not to mention all the secondary and tertiary influences like He-man who has more than his share of Hercules in him, even carrying a sword inspired by Greek weapons (though he's also based on Conan, who has Hercules in him too). It's funny where Greek myth references pop up- a lot of them in the names for technology and technical computer things because the scientists and engineers who created them were a little pretentious and wanted to show their classical learning. One of my faves is the name for the days of the week- In English most of them are the names of Germanic gods- Tuesday = Tir, god of war: Wednesday = Odin, Wodan, Wotan, god of wisdom: Thursday = Thor, god of thunder: Friday = Frigg and or Freyja, one a mother god he other a goddess of fertility. They were named that as a translation of the original Latin names because of course those days were named for Roman Gods: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus… which were of course translations of Greek gods: Aries, Hermes, Zeus, and Aphrodite. So what are your fave characters from Greek myth, fave Greek myths or fave pop-culture things with Greek mythic influence? How did you come to learn of the Greek myths? (Every culture has ancient, important, and highly influential myths but we're not talking about those here, just the Greek ones). This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by On the Edge - Borg showtunes!!! You WILL be assimilated, resistance is futile. Fazing, fading mechanical vocals with a suspiciously New Zealand lilt. You've never heard his classic in THIS form. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Cork and Blotto - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/30/featured-comic-cork-and-blotto/ Featured music: On the Edge - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/On_The_Edge/ - by Gunwallace, rated T. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Hair is a weird thing isn't it? It's just a bunch of thin filaments that stand out and hang from the body, most visibly from the head. Everyone is bald as an egg underneath this coating of head-fur, but the floof on top takes on a life, body, and shape of its own even though the truth is that it's just thin threads all buffed up with a lot of air. Hairstyles can indicate class, status, wealth, occupation, style, coolness, lack of cool, age, date, and any number of other factors about a person and where and when they fit in society. We also have strong reactions to hair: love, hate, revulsion, or disgust. It can indicate whether a person belongs to a community, a society, a religion or a sect. It's a gigantic subject, so lets limit it down to just a few things… In the 20th century the biggest events with hair were caused by the 2 world wars. World War one gave us the beginnings of female emancipation: in the 1920s after WW1 we had young “flappers” with their short, boyish haircuts, much to the shock of some people. But it was also the first beginnings of mass military service for millions of young men who were introduced to the mass enforced conformity of the military haircuts. In the years between wars fashion fought back and other styles prevailed, but World War 2 bought millions more men and women into military service and THIS time those fashions stuck. It wasn't till the late 1950s and early 1960s the the first reactions to post war ultra-conservatism started to show up with what eventually became the counter culture movement exemplified by hippies. Long hair on men was seen as an act of revolution. Their conservative parents somehow forgot that their own parents and grandparents before them had long shaggy hair and beards (if they wanted them), and treated the long haired youth like something new and weird, when in reality it was their own conservative war traumatised generation that were the weird ones. That aside, what hairstyles do you like? What do you gravitate towards? Do you like particular styles on characters that you draw or read about in comics? I love big hair and long hair on my characters because short hair is really hard to draw. But these days I experiment with my styles, even bald styles which are interesting, though not full bald because that's just easy mode. This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by The DD Anthology: A Flock of Dreams - A very dream-like cruise on a sea of somnambulance…drifting off into dreamland with piano and soft sounds. Floating on waters of heavy, dully shining mercury. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Tuk and His Dinosaur - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/23/featured-comic-tuk-and-his-dinosaur/ Featured music: The DD Anthology: A Flock of Dreams - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/jul/20/quackcast-697-the-dd-anthology-comic/ Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ 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/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS