The Drunk Duck Quackcast

Storytelling styles change over time for various reasons: fashion, audience expectations, competition for audience attention due to increased choice and availability of media, technological limitations and abilities, and culture. We chat about the reasons for the changes and how styles have changed. Technology is the easiest factor to point to: with the rise of Netflix offering binge watching more and more TV series turned to long story arcs and minimised the episodic aspects. This in turn influenced other media because audiences were primed to expect longer story arcs: comics, book series, games and even movies like the Marvel Universe have a focus on long story arcs over the course of several films. For digital comics Scott McCloud talked about the idea of “infinite canvas” because comics on a screen are not limited by the area OF the screen but can move outside of it. No one really picked that up seriously, there were experiments made but nothing really took till Webtoons started to force creators to use their vertical scrolling format (for mobile phones), this in turn influenced a new style of storytelling: an entire chapter released as one continuous scroll made up of many connected single panels. You can listen to us chat about that on our Patreon only video :) https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Although I think the TRUE genesis of the continuous scrolling chapter release was actually the sites that pirate and release manga titles. These were massively popular well before Webtoons came about. They'd release full manga issues with every page in one scrolling stream rather than single panels. It worked very well, whether reading it on a phone or full computer, despite the need to zoom in when using smaller screens (a single panel column is a silly, arbitrary limitation). Another huge influence for storytelling styles has been choice: there is now a huge range of easily accessible media available so stories need to be able to grab their audience quickly and keep them, or they just move on to the next thing. This goes for all formats (movies, books etc). This means that most stories start off rather fast now, often dropping you in the action and quickly introducing characters, as opposed to the much slower pace of older styles. Listen to the full cast to find out more! This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Jacket Comic: Wiry, punk, gritty, shiny and cool, this one jangles in on lyrical chords, sounding indie-rock with an almost Arabian flavour at times as the strings howl and echo up and down the scales. A rocky tune it for the coolest jacket in the world. Topics and shownotes Featured comic: Full House by Projectnutz - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/nov/06/featured-comic-full-house-by-projectnutz/ Featured music: The Jacket Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Jacket_Comic/, by RTHaldeman, rated M. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/ 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!

“Toxic fans” is a bit of a catch cry now and that has seemed to turn into the idea that any fan who is critical of something or doesn't like it isn't a “true fan”, fans must should love everything. I find this a dangerously silly notion and one clearly driven by business interests with only a limited relationship to reality. It's quite similar to the idea that you're “either for us or against us”, the twisted idea of “patriotism” that says you must agree with and love everything your country and your leader does no matter what or you're a traitor.

The truth is that trolls have always been a minority force. They exist and they are nasty, often sexist, racist pigs, but they're certainly not fans and don't characterise real critical voices. Using the existence of trolls to justify shutting down criticism is silly. In reference to this Tantz and Banes bring up big budget mass media productions like Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Ghost Busters, but I was thinking along more general lines: Good fans are people that love something but also care enough about it to think about storylines, characters and deeper aspects of that thing (it doesn't matter what it is), to have constructive opinions or to be upset when they see their characters misused etc.

People who are not fans and who really shouldn't get involved in the discussion are the “it's not for you” or “it's just a movie” crowd. Everyone knows it's not real life, and a creative product is “for” anyone that cares enough about it to consume it and form an opinion.

As Vickie Boutwell said “the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy”.

Fans who care are the best fans: it's these people who become creators in their own right while others simply consume. The greatest minds in pop-culture all started out as critical, thinking, fans. Name any successful, big series in any format (TV, movies, books, comics, games), and you're likely to uncover a fan that cared enough to let their opinions of their fandom show and then get in and have a go for themselves. By encouraging criticism and involvement we encourage creativity, by shutting that down all we get are consumers -which gives you a clue where that pressure is mainly coming from. ;)

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Ripping off King Arthur: We’re all preparing for the big event here with this theme. It’s a weird mixture of a Rocky theme, fantasy epic, and 8 bit video game music… as if were were about to see a pixelated, medieval fantasy themed version of Mortal Kombat! The fight showdown to end all fight showdowns!

Topics and shownotes

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Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
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Game of Thrones writer gossip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-rCuVtj7GA

Featured comic:
The jacket Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/oct/29/featured-comic-the-jacket-comic/

Featured music:
Ripping off King Arthur - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ripping_Off_King_Arthur/, by Arspitzer, rated M.

LINKS

Previous Star Wars Episode - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-448-king-of-franchises-star-wars

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/

“Toxic fans” is a bit of a catch cry now and that has seemed to turn into the idea that any fan who is critical of something or doesn't like it isn't a “true fan”, fans must should love everything. I find this a dangerously silly notion and one clearly driven by business interests with only a limited relationship to reality. It's quite similar to the idea that you're “either for us or against us”, the twisted idea of “patriotism” that says you must agree with and love everything your country and your leader does no matter what or you're a traitor. The truth is that trolls have always been a minority force. They exist and they are nasty, often sexist, racist pigs, but they're certainly not fans and don't characterise real critical voices. Using the existence of trolls to justify shutting down criticism is silly. In reference to this Tantz and Banes bring up big budget mass media productions like Star Wars, Game of Thrones and Ghost Busters, but I was thinking along more general lines: Good fans are people that love something but also care enough about it to think about storylines, characters and deeper aspects of that thing (it doesn't matter what it is), to have constructive opinions or to be upset when they see their characters misused etc. People who are not fans and who really shouldn't get involved in the discussion are the “it's not for you” or “it's just a movie” crowd. Everyone knows it's not real life, and a creative product is “for” anyone that cares enough about it to consume it and form an opinion. As Vickie Boutwell said “the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy”. Fans who care are the best fans: it's these people who become creators in their own right while others simply consume. The greatest minds in pop-culture all started out as critical, thinking, fans. Name any successful, big series in any format (TV, movies, books, comics, games), and you're likely to uncover a fan that cared enough to let their opinions of their fandom show and then get in and have a go for themselves. By encouraging criticism and involvement we encourage creativity, by shutting that down all we get are consumers -which gives you a clue where that pressure is mainly coming from. ;) This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Ripping off King Arthur: We’re all preparing for the big event here with this theme. It’s a weird mixture of a Rocky theme, fantasy epic, and 8 bit video game music… as if were were about to see a pixelated, medieval fantasy themed version of Mortal Kombat! The fight showdown to end all fight showdowns! Topics and shownotes 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! Game of Thrones writer gossip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-rCuVtj7GA Featured comic: The jacket Comic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/oct/29/featured-comic-the-jacket-comic/ Featured music: Ripping off King Arthur - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Ripping_Off_King_Arthur/, by Arspitzer, rated M. LINKS Previous Star Wars Episode - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-448-king-of-franchises-star-wars Special thanks to: Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/

Tantz is dressed fabulously as a queen and I'm a skull faced monstrosity… I'm also wearing a costume, hahaha! Which you can see in our Patreon video ;) Queen Tantz Bathory and prince of horror Banes join me to talk about Horror movie franchises, what makes them work and what doesn't- as franchises rather than just a stand alone movie. The problems facing a movie series about horror are different from other genres and focus more on formula than just characters the way they do in most other types of film so it's an interesting discussion. When doing a horror franchise like Halloween, The conjuring, Killer Clowns from Outerspace, Friday the 13th, or Child's Play for example, do you keep repeating the formula over and over like Friday the 13th? Do you go deeper into the monster lore like Hell Raiser? Do you mix up the format or make the sequels a completely different kind of film like Army of Darkness in the Evil Dead franchise? Or even simply just change the abilities of the monsters like in Tremors? There are a limited bunch of choices you can make in horror because people don't really care too much about character development in the genre, what they want out of it are scares and visceral reactions to the on screen action. They can't become too attached to characters or it's no fun when they die and they can't learn too much about the monster lore or the monster loses its scariness. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The True Face… Tumbling, bouncing jollity, skipping ahead this tune flows like a crystal clear stream over coloured stones, winding its way past vivid viridian grass banks, joining other brooks and rills, till they all come together to disperse into the vastness of the ocean! Topics and shownotes Featured comic: Risk it for a Biscuit - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/oct/22/featured-comic-risk-it-for-a-biscuit/ Featured music: The True Face - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_True_Face/, by Marcorossi, rated E. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/ 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!

As promised we dive right into the second half of the Star Wars chat! We cover all the Star Wars stuff besides the original trilogy and the new trilogy. There's a lot to cover and we only touch on most on it: Solo, the Star Wars Christmas special, Droids, the Ewok films, Clone Wars, the games, the books, comics, Solo, Rogue One… For October we're having a look at various popular film franchises because understanding of them has a lot to offer webcomic creators. Last week we looked at the original Star Wars trilogy and talked about that in relation to the latest one. Before that it was Indiana Jones. Personally I think the main strength of the Star Wars franchise has nothing to do with the Force, the Jedi, Vader or any of that story stuff: At its heart Star Wars has always been a triumph of aesthetics, aesthetics that are done so well they grab and hold the audience! When the first film blasted onto the screen in the late 70s it was really like nothing before it. It was the perfect synthesis of so many elements; fantasy, Sci-Fi, space opera, western, samurai, ww2 war film, and classic Hollywood blockbuster. We always get too caught up in the ridiculous story and script writing to realise what's so good about Star Wars and what is ALWAYS good about it: Amazing sets, great music, costumes, props, effects, lighting, sound design, models and so on. All those elements come together to make an imaginative, imersive, cool and unusual evocative experience. It's a mythic image that never fails to grab our attention. Yes the stories are often terrible, the dialogue can be stupid, the themes are basic, plots full of holes etc but we still love it enough to care BECAUSE it looks and feels great, so we think it's worth saving. In spite of everything we still love to go back to the Star Wars universe. It's not easy to write a good sci-fi fantasy space opera. The first trilogy succeeded because it kept to a very simple hero's journey template, it was new and original so we gave it the benefit of the doubt, and it threw in a lot of fun classic tropes from westerns, Samurai movies, and war films. Defending the franchise on plot or story is a fool's task and saying “it's for kids” is a moronic defence, and it's all unnecessary because those aspects don't really matter. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Spacefighters: Run to your spcefighters, leap in, rev up your proton engines, blast into high earth atmosphere at 9 times the speed of sound and shoot into orbit to hunt the baddies! This dynamic, cool tune is the perfect sound track to defend the earth to! It’s groovy and classic. Staring Tantz Solo and Banes 3P0! Topics and shownotes 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! Featured comic: Wild Wolves - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/oct/15/featured-comic-wild-wolves/ Featured music: Spacefighters - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Spacefighters/, by Cbacolo, rated E. LINKS Previous Star Wars Episode - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-448-king-of-franchises-star-wars Special thanks to: Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/

Continuing on our focus on fmovie franchises for the month of October, THIS time we focus on the king of them all: STAR WARS! This was a genre defining series, not only for movies but for space opera, “SciFi”, and science fantasy on all media! The original trilogy was quite a milestone. Predictably further installments weren't quite as well received but it still remains popular even so! Currently it's having a resurgence in popularity once more. We on the Quackcast LOVE Star Wars because it's a beautiful teaching example for so many things about story creation: the hero's journey, story beats, plotting, world building, suspension of disbelief, lore building, climax, ending, beginnings, heroes, good, evil, villains, influences, inspiration, drawing from history and the classics, costume and prop design etc. The original trilogy were not clever, advanced, intellectual films, rather they are very simplified in their structure and themes and this makes them perfect for looking at in terms of technique. Conversely, the later Ja-Ja Binks trilogy is a great teaching piece for how not to make a story. It's muddled, without a clear direction, filled with poor dialogue, uneven plotting, too much deus Ex machina and coincidence, bad use of cliché, and just generally poor writing. The newer films make great talking points but the entire series is great for our purposes because its reach is ubiquitous: most people have seen the films. This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to The Shootin': Futuristic, down home country… echoes of Journey of the Sorcerer by The Eagles… This track brings to mind figures relaxing around a warm cheary campfire, lit by its feeble orange glow as they marvel at the vastness of the star filled blackness above them. Topics and shownotes Link: Holst, Mars, inspiration for The Imperial March in Star Wars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmk5frp6-3Q Featured comic: Interstellar Dust - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/oct/08/featured-comic-interstellar-dust/ Featured music: The Shootin' - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Shootin/, by Arborcides, rated E. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/ 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!

For the month of October we've decided to look at a different movie franchise each week, starting with Indiana Jones! Banes and Tantz have way more knowledge about the films than I, having watched them much more, but we all have a fondness for the character.

Who is Indiana Jones? He's a 1930s style pulp fiction adventure hero archaeologist. Based on a mixture of things, from the hoax Grand Canyon adventurer G.E. Kinkaid to the characters of Edgar Rice Burroughs, you can even see a bit of Herge's Tintin and Robert E Howard's El Borak in him. But he's cynical and clever in a way that's solidly 1980s. He's an action hero who takes damage, he's not entirely pure and he doesn't always fight fair, but he uses his brain, which is why we love him.

Movie franchises relate well to the structure of long form comics- characters stay much the same while their worlds change and develop over a long period of time. Movie franchises are developed over the course of years or even decades, much like webcomics, and they usually focus on big, bombastic characters or worlds, again very much like comics.

This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Out of the Blue: Retro futurism! Setting the scene for a white, minimal space, full of the coolest furniture made out of chrome and smooth white vinyl, lit with soft pastel neon glows slowly cycling through the rainbow from pink to red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and back to pink again!


Topics and shownotes

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!

Featured comic:
Out of the Blue - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/sep/29/featured-comic-out-of-the-blue/

Featured music:
Out of the Blue - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Out_of_the_Blue/, by Shelmnop on, rated T

LINKS

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/