This week Bane's bright idea was to talk about our favourite stories and explain just WHY they're our faves, telling about what we take away from them or how they've changed us or formed us, what resonated in those stories with us. I talk about books, Banes draws from a book, movie and comic, because he's cleverer and came up with the idea in the first place. Quackcast 100 in 2 weeks will be on the same subject but this time asking YOU what YOUR fave stories are, so don't forget to tell us in the thread in the General Discussion forum!
This Quackcast is a grab-bag of things. Mostly newsy stuff and chats with Skoolmunkee! We talk about how Wowio is dying to promote DD artist's stuff through all sorts of social networking stuff like Twitter, a Youtube vid chanel, tumblr, Facebook, Google + etc, HUNGRY for user news!!! We also talk about this new thing we want to try with DD: Hangouts on Google+ with DD people- basically video get togethers that will be broadcast at the same time on Youtube, we can all draw, do comics, learn, teach, whatever. AND we want vids for the Wowio-Duck-Popgalaxy Youtube channel. They could promote your comic, be a short tute on your methods, a comic review, anything DD comic related.
Fact one, BANES invented Freals! In this Quackcast that we recorded weeks and weeks ago, Banes and I read out many of the funny and interesting facts from the Cool Facts thread in the Random Discussion part of our forum. Then we added lots of funny asides. We thought it was hilarious and we hope you do to. The Cool Facts thread was started by Subcultured, one of our original and best mods ever on DD, and has been contributed to by many DDers over the years.
Our very special guest this week is the lovely Claire Leona, known as kawaiidaigakusei on DD, she's the author and artist behind the long-running comic Kawaii Daigakusei that was recently featured! Kawai Daigakusei is about a young woman growing up and finding her place in the world. Learning how to have relationships, learning about the world of art, and indulging in her passion for videogames and fast cars. In this interview we get into some behind the scenes info about leona's comic, we learn what inspired her, where real life ends and the comic begins, what it's like to produce such a large body of work, and how what she's learned in her comic has helped her in her proffessional life and vice versa! We also have Bane's wonderful rendition of Gunwallace's Character Development song. You must not miss it.
Banes and I give the webcomics of Drunk Duck a chance to shine! For Quackcast 94 we asked our webcomic creators to write short intros to their comics from their comic character's point of view as a way to creatively advertise their comic in a really fun and entertaining way, as well as giving us a short little Haiku inspired by their comic. We had lots of great contributions from many creators which we had acted out by various people who did amazing performances- Don't miss Bravo as Grey guy Hank, Abt_Nihil doing Holon, Ayesinback doing Tao of Kenji, Pit Face doing Gretchen from Putrid Meat, Usedbooks' friend doing Usedbooks, and Skoolmunkee, Banes and I acting the rest. We'll put Gunwallace's song in NEXT week, promise!
Banes and I chat with Tantz Aerine and Pitface, two talented and beautiful web-comicing women who are authors of their own great individual works (Without Moonlight and Putrid Meat to name a few) as well as their amazing collaborative WW2 Greek resistance war comic Brave Resistance, featuring dastardly Nazis, a brave native American pilot, and the heroic Greek resistance fighters. We chat about collaborative working styles that involve people working together halfway around the world - Tantz in Greece and Pit in the States - as well as all aspects of the story of Brave Resistance and up coming plot points.
For the 92nd Quackcast we return we return to Australian heroine and flying ace Noelle Dreves and and international bon vivant and professional wine taster Skoolmunkee chatting with me about women in webcomics! This is the second part of the two-parter that began with Quackcast 90. We begin with Discussion Pinky TA, as you do!
As before: These two ladies are on to talk about women in webcomics and popular culture in general from an ever so slightly feminist point of view.
Banes introduces the 2012 DD radio play! Maxwell McDuff must face his most diabolical trial yet in… THE DUCK ALWAYS QUACKS TWICE! He's joined by many other notable and fiendish characters in this new and epic adventure involving anvils, Maltese quails, crocodiles, and terrifying torture! This fine story was written by Gunwallace, organised heroically by Ayesinback and edited together by Banes. This story of the amazing Maxwell McDuff and many other characters was the product of many hours work and organisation by many different participants. Before the play there are some great interviews with members of the cast, but if you’d like to jump to the play, that starts at 38.41 minutes.
For the 90th Quackcast we have two special guests: Skoolmunkee and Noelle Dreves! These two ladies are on to talk about women in webcomics and popular culture in general from an ever so slightly feminist point of view, with me along just agreeing with everything. We discuss a bunch of topics rape, sexuality, sexy outfits and more. You should know Noelle from her amazing featured comics, Strange Case and Dangermoth! This is the first part of a two parter. The DD play will be next week and the second part will come on after that!
For Quackcast 89 we wanted to know people's ideas on Feedback! How do you get it? Do you want it? How do you take it? How SHOULD you take it? How do you give it? What do you prefer, praise, abuse, critisism or advice? Banes and I discuss feedback in all its variations and incarnations, using the wise, learned and experienced words of our valued contributors. There were some really interesting and insightful things said by our contributors about advice, criticism, praise, abuse, and sycophancy.
This is a Quackcast segment that visits old forum threads… funny ones. Well, at least ones that Banes and I found amusing; Gems like "how does your brain say people's usernames?", "cool facts", "UFO stories". Banes and I read these wired and funny thing and try to BE funny as we do it… that's harder than it seems, and I don't think we always manage too well, but at least SOME of the time there's SOMEthing to laugh at! - even if it's just the two idiots yammering away on the podcast.
What are the Do's and Do Not Do's when it comes to creating protagonists and antagonists??? For Quackcast 87 we asked for people's opinions on making heroes and villains, we asked who are some of your fave heroes and villains? What makes your own characters such good heroes or villains? What are YOUR Do's and Donts, how do YOU prefer to construct your heroes and villains? Is the hero just a hero because they're the protagonist? Or are they a classic hero? What's the difference between heroes an protagonists? Villains and antagonists? etc. Some clever and intelligent people weighed in on this and shared their opinions on it with us.
Our idea was to revisit some of the interesting featured comics from the past years… We picked features that appeal to us and that are still on the site, commenting about what we like and don't like about the art, writing, design, style of humour, type of story, and the genre.We hope this will be an interesting topic to revisit in future Quackcasts too. The feature spotlight is fleeting and only happens once to a comic, then they sink away again, so it's worth having another look at the great and wonderful glories of the past to see just how great and wonderful they were! I'm joined again on the Quackcast by my personable and friendly voiced co-host Banes!
Today lba/Alex Groh is the subject of Quackcast 85. He speaks about how webcomics had a part in his higher education and his transition to his working life as a professional illustrator and graphic artist. This Quackcast was troublesome to setup: on the day it was slated for I was deathly ill with a severe migraine. Alex was kind enough to wait another day. But in the end I had to call Alex/lba on his cell phone to make the skype call,because the net and his comp weren’t too reliable. Fortunately it was pretty cheap, but the quality isn’t that great, so please bear with us! Alex had some fascinating and very useful things to say about working as a professional artist!
This week we have an interview with another of my webcomic heroes: the fabulously talented Barb Jacobs, Author of the very popular webcomics Xylia and Talisman/Return to Donnely/Return of the Exile - yes, it had each of those names at one stage. Here she shares with us what makes a professional tick, the ups and downs of an independent webcomicer making money from her art and taking her stuff onto bigger and better things, as well as the constant struggle all webcomicers face: trying to maintain the drive to create in the face of all real life throws at you. Barb started at Drunk Duck, got picked up by Keenspot, got picked up by a real publisher and then other things happened from there- listen to find out!