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  • Quackcast 736 - Resurrection

    Quackcast 736 - Resurrection
    2025/04/22

    Happy Easter! Well that was Sunday, but happy Easter anyway. In honour of that yearly and ancient ritual holiday that has its roots in the rebirth of spring in the northern hemisphere our Quackcast is on the theme of resurrection! The idea that people can come back to life in realty is pure fantasy but it is an essential part of all different kinds of fiction.

    In classic time-loop stories like Groundhog Day, Palm Springs Meet Cute and others everything tends to reset at a set point. People can die and they will all come back regularly to repeat their day again. It's a very regular and understandable for of rebirth, just like spring! Contrast that with the way monsters are randomly reborn for horror movie sequels; they're killed in all sorts of ways but still tend to come back and varying points with no rhyme or reason, more like a random natural disaster.

    The place where resurrection has truly found a home is fantasy Isekai stories, usually in manga and anime. The reason for this is because extra lives and resurrection are a key part of game mechanics, originally platform games but later RPGs: you need extra lives in order to complete the games, without them it's just all too hard. Isekai stories already BEGIN with a resurrection because the protagonist usually dies crossing the road to save a kitten, small dog, young child, or schoolgirl in a short skirt, and is reborn in a fantasy land as the new hero. But now that almost all fantasy Isekais are based on the mechanics of fantasy RPGs most include regular resurrection whenever characters die IN the story. Their friends just go to a temple with some gold or a special item and bring them back.

    An honourable mention for the regular rebirths in Marvel and DC comics… They usually make use of alternative dimensions but nothing is off limits in those crazy stories. What's your fave sort of resurrection trope? Vampires? Different dimension versions? Cloning? Paying at a temple? Cyborgs? Virtual life uploads? Or magical rebirth?

    This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by Geist Gears - Follow the flow into the machine! Clunking and zapping as you traverse the circuits and electric doors inside, swelling capacitors, glowing diodes, flashes of deadly plasma from arcing conduits! It’s deadly but exciting.


    Topics and shownotes

    Links

    Tantz's back from the dead newspost! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/apr/19/back-from-the-dead/

    Featured comic:
    Turtle House Comics - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/apr/15/featured-comic-turtle-house-comics/

    Featured music:
    Geist Gears - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Geist_Gears/ - by Emma_Xross, 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
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    59 分
  • Quackcast 735 - Anime

    Quackcast 735 - Anime
    2025/04/15
    Welcome to another DD Quackcast! We were going to discuss Ad Hoc rationalisations and also “what happens AFTER you take over the world” but both topics were waaaay too trumpish and we didn't feel like getting negative and ranty about that fellow's foolishness so we thought we'd talk anime instead! But what is anime? At its simplest it's just cartoons like any other but they happen to be from Japan. There's more to it though, most anime has a articular look to it: reasonably realistically drawn worlds and reasonably realistic figures but they all tend to have slightly oversized heads, huge expressive eyes, tiny noses and mouths, and very stylised hair and reactions. That's not always the case but it's pretty typical. But these days “anime” is also made in Korea, China, France, the USA and more, it's become a style rather than a country of origin thing. What differentiates it from Western animation? Mainly that the the figures were more realistically drawn, with more realistic and detailed backgrounds, while the typical Western style was much more stylised, flat, and simplified. These differences do not denote higher quality or a lack of quality, it's just about what's being prioritised: In Western animation all that flatness and stylisation meant that facial expressions could be enhanced, animation could have more more frames and everything could look smoother and more dynamic. For anime that mean you could have much better drawn, more realistic looking figures (always with 5 fingers!), as well as things like shading, reflection, and shadows, along with much more detailed worlds that they exist in. The trade-off was less frames, jerkier animation and many simplified scenes where they repeat movements, pan and zoom over still backgrounds to fake movement, and even replace backgrounds with things like lines to indicate movement. The upshot of this was that the more realistic style in most anime can have more appeal to adults, while the much more abstract style favoured by Western animation is always seen as a bit childish so it's been harder to maintain the adult animation industry in the west and it's not anywhere near as diverse. But the real difference is that the animation industry in Japan is massive because of the culture of producing manga which gives animation a constant pipeline of massively varied and interesting material, and the insatiable appetite of the public for new series. And because so much is constantly being produced it means the diversity of story style and genre is incredible and there is something for EVERYONE, of all ages groups, rather than the mainly violence and or sex focussed adult stuff, Simpsons clones, or kid focussed stuff in the West. It's a big, fully mature industry, while the western animation industry just isn't- it's much smaller and the older teen and adult part of it is immature so that diversity of style and genre is weak and very inconsistent. Would you agree? What are your fave animes? This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Landscapes and Stick Figures - A mechanically surreal piece, like mechanised people all made of crystal glass, dancing in an intricate series of interweaving and interlocking moves. It’s quite beautiful. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: Water Lily Hight - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/apr/07/featured-comic-water-lily-high/ Featured music: Landscapes and Stick Figures - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Landscapes_and_Stick_Figures/ - by Lagoticspy, 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 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
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    1 時間 4 分
  • Quackcast 734 - When love turns to hate

    Quackcast 734 - When love turns to hate
    2025/04/08
    When love turns to hate… It's a common trope in fiction: partners split up and their once loving relationship turns to one of bitter acrimony! We see hate turning to love frequently too, that's another common trope, I saw both when I watched Willow again last night. Mad Martigan and Sorsha went from hate to love to hate to love again, and Sorsha and her mum Queen Bavmorda went from love to hate. It's a staple in fiction because it's a staple in reality. It's such a solid staple in reality that many violent crimes and even deaths are caused by it at the extreme end. It's nasty in reality, but in fiction it's used for drama, comedy, plots, and inciting factors. It's fascinating to me that two very opposite feelings can be so closely related, I'd suppose that it's because of a few factors: passion can apply to anything, once you reach a level of extreme emotion, you're turned up to 11, it's very easy to switch from love to hate and the same passion level applies regardless. When you open yourself up to love you become very vulnerable and it's easy to be betrayed and hurt because of that. There are also biological and neurological factors: if the brain becomes used to the release of things like dopamine and oxytocin due to certain interactions but those hormones are no longer associated with those activities then you could feel rage and disappointment as a reaction instead as a sort of withdrawal- obviously I am NOT a neurologist. This doesn't just apply to people but ideas and politics too. Saruman from the Lord of the Rings is a great example, his hate of the evil powers is twisted into it's own kind of love. In reality I notice that whenever a person shows a lot of passion over an idea they are apt to switch to its opposite: religious people who become atheists and vice versa. People on one side of politics (left or right) can be apt to switch if they're crazy passionate enough. Mussolini is the posterboy for that. For me I feel this with creative pursuits, when a creative partnership dissolves I can feel very badly about that person. I also feel this more with friendships than loving relationships. So what are some good stories about love turning to hate or Vice Versa? War of the Roses is a classic of this genre. The relationship between Stirling Archer and Lana Kane is this back and forward, over and over. The Anime Masumune-Kun's Revenge follows the long plot of the lead character attempting to get revenge on the person he once loved and in the process falls in love with them again. One of the prettiest folk songs in the world is a song about hate: Scarborough Fair. It sounds like a beautiful love song but if you understand the lyrics you know that it's the opposite. The singer asks a person to relay messages to a person they once loved: if they can perform a bunch of utterly impossible things then they'll be a true love again. But of course those things can never be done because the true meaning is that the relationship over and all the lovely verses actually mean “GO F*** YOURSELF!”. This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by Clint - This is a Best-off Gunwallace from way back in the day, Quackcast 215! No idea what Clint was like because it’s been deleted totally from our site, but who cares, this music is what’s important! This is heavy, atmospheric, striking, panoramic and evocative. Gunwallace is a master at work. Topics and shownotes Links Featured comic: A Wing To The Stars - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/apr/01/featured-comic-a-wing-to-the-stars/ Featured music: Clint - by 1rd2th3st. 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
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    59 分
  • Quackcast 733 - Watch again: Rediscovering

    Quackcast 733 - Watch again: Rediscovering
    2025/04/01

    Watching, reading, and listening to things a second, third or even a million times can offer you a whole new experience. Why do we pick up the same thing to enjoy again? It could be nostalgia, it could be the need for comfort in the familiar, maybe it's research, or maybe you're rewatching the early episodes of a series so you can get more enjoyment out of new, later episodes that you haven't seen before?

    Whatever the reason it can be an interesting experience, especially when you notice a whole bunch of things you never thought about before! You can see it through new eyes. And because you know how things ended up you can focus more on details, aesthetics, and character development rather than mainly on the plot.

    Since I've got lots of streaming services now I'm rewatching heaps of faves. I haven't seen the later seasons of Archer so I'm rewatching that at the moment. It's my 3rd time on these early episodes and I'm noticing new things as well as seeing things in a new light. I noticed Jessica Walter (Mallory Archer), Jeffrey Tambor (Len Trexlor), Judy Greer (Cheryl Tunt), were all in Arrested Development together. I had previously believed that Archer was an irredeemable arsehole from the get-go, and all the other characters were basically good but became arseholes as a reaction to Archer, but a rewatch shows that they were always ALL aresholes exactly as bad as him! I'm also shocked by how brutal and violent the show is and how often they don't even fully resole endings.

    When you revisit things often they're not how you remember them. Usually that's just because your memory is faulty and you have an interesting experience seeing something how it REALLY is. But it's awful when things actually HAVE changed; an old fave that's been retconned and edited... witness the stupid stormtroopers riding badly animated dinosaurs in Starwars!

    In comics like Asterix you can drink in the art and the historical and political references, find yourself noticing little side stories in panels and all sorts of character relationships going on. What are your fave things to revisit? And why do you do it? Or maybe you never revisit things?

    This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Misfits of Fandom - no need for Redbull, coffee, or Monster energy drink, the tune has all the get up and go you need! Feel that thrum in your veins! This techno blast will drag you up and get you moving.


    Topics and shownotes

    Links

    Featured comic:
    Perennial Print - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/mar/25/featured-comic-perennial-print/

    Featured music:
    Misfits of Fandom - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Misfits_of_Fandom/ - by Mattgasser, 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
    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
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    57 分
  • Quackcast 732 - Meet the Parodians

    Quackcast 732 - Meet the Parodians
    2025/03/25

    Parody and satire are a certain kind of humour. They're VERY easy to do because you just base them off real, already existing things, then you twist it a bit to add humour and make it ridiculous. But that's where it gets tricky! Satire is a parody of a real situation rather than fictional, it tends to have a harder edge. Where it usually goes wrong is that people mistake it for something straight, i.e. NOT satire, not comedy, not exaggeration or ridicule. The two main approaches to parody are a broad satire of a genre, like Princess Bride on fairytale fantasy, or a more targeted approach like Spaceballs which satirised Star Wars, and things in between like Airplane, which made fun of the film Zero Hour but also used it as a chance to parody the disaster movie genre and include a shotgun approach to pop-cultural jokes, making fun of everything happening in the 1970s.

    When I was growing up Mad Magazine movie parody comics were always a fave of mine, I'd prefer them to the actual movies they made fun off. The art was amazing with great caricatures and the humour was always very cheeky. Asterix was another comic series I enjoyed, which involved a lot of historical satirical humour. One big issue with that kind of targeted humour though is that it's often very dependent on its references for the jokes to fully work, so if you lack familiarity with them it won't bite as hard or sometimes not at all. The trick is to include enough of the context for context dependant jokes so that they can work regardless. If you do your job well enough people will not even remember the original and your satire or parody will completely stand on its own!

    In our Quackcast we even covered things that become self parodies like the Deadpool Marvel Movies, some of the Roger More James Bond films, the late horror franchise films like Nightmare on Elm street, Friday the 13th and so on. What are some of your fave parodies or satires?
    I think Princess Bride, the Life of Brian, Blazing Saddles, and Spaceballs are real standouts. But things like Lego Batman, Not Another Teen Movie, and even The Toxic Avenger have their own place. On that last one: Lloyd Kaufman is like a B-movie parody version of Mel Brooks, Mel does the A-list parodies and satires and Lloyd handles the crazier, gross and kinky low budget ones Mel wouldn't touch LOL!
    Of course Meet The Spartans is the best parody ever, so much better than The 300.


    This week Gunwallace gave us a theme inspired by Occult by lux - A heavy, heavy, distorted, fuzzy, rocking, and yet magical take on the Arabian Nights, with the brutally metal revere of chaos, and beautiful oriental groove!


    Topics and shownotes

    Links

    Featured comic:
    Excavator - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/mar/18/featured-comic-excavator/

    Featured music:
    Occult by lux - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Occult_by_lux/ - by Lux_occult, rated A.

    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
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    55 分
  • Quackcast 731 - Contrariancast

    Quackcast 731 - Contrariancast
    2025/03/18
    56 分
  • Quackcast 730 - Lighting by The Doodler

    Quackcast 730 - Lighting by The Doodler
    2025/03/11

    Today we have on a super special guest, The Doodler! This is another on our technical series about art making and this time we're talking about lighting. Tantz suggested we interview The Doodler for this because she's Tantz's go-to person for lighting issues in scenes. It was great to chat with The Doodler about her lighting techniques and the different challenges presented by different scenes. The Doodler was much better at explaining the concepts than I could have been so it was a pleasure to have her on the cast!

    You might know the Doodler for her long running comic The Second Crimean war, about an alternate history of the Russian takeover of the Crimean region after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 90s- this comic was created in 2010, before the modern takeover of Crimea in 2014. It's a popular and well drawn comic with top level artwork. It's mostly black and white with some limited use of colour. It's over 800 pages so it's a sizable chunk of comic to get into and I highly recommend it!

    Lighting is the most fundamental thing there is to visual art because it allows all things to be seen: a radiating body sheds light rays in straight lines around itself and these are absorbed or reflected off the objects they hit, in turn we see those objects because of the photons that are reflected into our eyes… It's MUCH more complex than that though. As comic artists we usually do things backwards: we draw line art, which would mean the default is that EVERYTHING is fully lit and visible, then we work out where the light comes from and what's in shadow.

    The simplest way to handle lighting in a comic is just to draw stuff as if there ware spotlights illuminating it all from the viewer perspective, like a stage play or TV sitcom- no shadows, full lighting. A more advanced, realistic approach suggested by The Doodler is to treat the image like a 3D space and work out where the light comes from (the sun, a flashlight, an overhead light etc), then ray trace from that point to work out what's in shadow and what's lit up. Listen to the interview to get a much better discussion on it than what I can write here!

    Gunwallace wasn't able to give us a theme this week so we're replaying his theme to The Second Crimean war - Heavy, grey winter skies, pregnant with snow and sadness. Cold snaps the brittle air, crystal daggers hang in the forest, a whistling breeze sings of desolation and loneliness. A thaw will be long in coming to this blighted world of war and suffering… Synth violins and cellos set the scene beautifully, touches of quiet bass and piano round out the landscape of the Second Crimean war. (Originally part of Quackcast 494)


    Topics and shownotes

    Links

    Our guest The Doodler! - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/The%20doodler/

    Featured comic:
    Black Tiger - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/mar/04/featured-comic-black-tiger/

    Featured music:
    The Second Crimean war - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Second_Crimean_War/ - by The doodler, 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
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    1 時間 1 分
  • Quackcast 729 - The Feather report

    Quackcast 729 - The Feather report
    2025/03/04

    The 3rd in our technical art-making series, we're talking hair, feathers, and fur today. How do you draw those highly complicated, textured things? Well the complicated, difficult way is to draw every single strand of hair, every follicle of fur, and every filament of feather… But that has a lot of disadvantages! So how else do you approach it?

    The simplest way is to draw the overall shape that the full thing makes up and just do an outline of the rough edges. So for a hair style that would be the full shape with some hairs sticking out at the edges, with fur that's sort of the same thing though it's a lot less smooth than hair, with feathers just draw the whole wing with a few edge feathers and for the feathers themselves draw some parting in the filaments. Then what you do is add some texture within the shape, but only enough to suggest the rest, the viewer's brain will fill in everything else.

    If you want to get more advanced and painterly then you use the colours of the thing (feathers, fur, or hair), to create impressions of texture, shape, shadow, and highlights within it. The straighter hair is the more shine it will have, and conversely the curlier it is the less it can have, the same goes for fur, unless the hairs are facing you end on, in which case it has no shine.

    How do you approach these things?

    This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Grapeshot - A charmingly, whimsical, sea themed folky tune, promising adventure, action, booty, and freely flowing grog. Dance a little jig to the joyous violin!

    Topics and shownotes

    Links


    Featured comic:
    Pos Adventure - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/feb/24/featured-comic-pos-adventure/

    Featured music:
    Grapeshot - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Grapeshot/ - by Mercuryviruscomic, 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
    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
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    1 時間 1 分