The Drunk Duck Quackcast Ozoneocean

Mister V, aka Arborcides is our guest today, doing an interview with us about his huge project “Dozer Manifesto”, now finally completed! You can read the entire thing here on DD. It's about a fellow called Marv Heemeyer, resident of the Colorado town of Granby, and his decent into craziness, resulting in him creating an armour-plated, armed bulldozer, designed to be invulnerable, so he could crush the town and destroy his enemies with impunity. You might have heard of it being call the “killdozer”.
The story was pretty sensationalised at the time and most people rooted for Marv as some sort of Robin Hood, or avenging angel, righteously taking revenge on enemies who had unfairly crossed him. There was very little consideration given to the other side, or the lives of the people he impacted. Mister V's comic really takes pains to tell the story the right way! In this age of mediated and sensationalised “reality” where fake conflict is inserted to tell better stories, people are characterised according to tropes, the truth is spun, and our very image of what is real is continually distorted, Mister V beautifully fights against that and delivers a fully balanced, nuanced view of the entire story from beginning to end and many years after.
As a resident himself of Granby where the action happened, he had special access to the locations and the witnesses involved, which makes the Dozer Manifesto fascinating reading and elevates it from a comic to an actual historical document.
Do you remember the whole Killdozer event? Have you heard about it? I'd advise you to look it up online and then come back and read the Dozer Manifesto by Arborcides!
This week Gunwallace was under the weather so we reissued an older track that fit this theme perfectly! Dozer Manifesto - Start your engine… The sound of the powerful diesel motor as it comes time life… you can smell the fumes. Dry, dusty, industrial, rocky, the guitar thrums with a mechanical rhythm, hot and fast. (from Quackcast 465)
Topics and shownotes
Links
Our intview subject today: Mister V, aka Arborcides - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/arborcides/

Featured comic:
Friendship Material - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/28/featured-comic-friendship-material/
Featured music:
Dozer Manifesto - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Dozer_Manifesto/ - by Arborcides, 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/

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What was one significant inspiring piece of pop-culture that a massive influence over your creative endeavours? All of us have had many, many different influences over the years but that's certainly NOT what we're interested in here, what we're talking about is that one thing you can remember that had a huge effect on you, why, how, and when.
For me, I picked the time I saw the Tank Girl movie. It was all the way back in the mid 1990s. The movie didn't have much promotion so I didn't see it in the cinema because I didn't even know it was being screened, I only remember some radio ads. It came out on video very quickly and that's how I saw it. I rented it out and I actually own that very video cassette now because I bought it when the shop went out of business years later. An Ex stole my DVD and I can't buy a digital copy online here
But I digress… When I saw that movie it was the perfect critical mass of creative influence for me. The story wasn't very good and it bore little relation to the comic but it was full of so much 1990s alt culture that it's a perfect time capsule and exemplar of the period; From the post-punk alt club fashions, to the alt rock and grunge soundtrack curated by Courtney Love, the aggressive alt-grrl femininity, the fantastic scenes depicted, the haircuts, and then there are the performances by Lori Petty, Tony Collette, Ice T, Malcom McDowell, Iggy Pop and more. It set off the creative bulbs in my head and I spent all evening creating a huge drawing on 3x A1 sheets of paper of a Tank covered in different incarnations of sexy Tank Girl inspired women. I was an art student at the time so I was very familiar with the alt culture depicted.
At it's core the imagery of a funky dressed, sexy woman, with an aggressive DGAF attitude, paired with heavy, custom modified and decorated military hardware is what sticks with you and has been one of the core influences in my creative pursuits from then on. There have been many others of course, but this was A significant moment.
The image in the art for this Quackcast is the drawing I made back then. I took it to class the next day and my lecturer just said that to her it just showed an “arrogance in drawing ability”, which I was a little shocked by, but this was the mid 1990s and drawing ability was NOT a priority among artists at the time. I am very serious- most 1990s fine artists lacked even rudimentary skill. It was a weird time.
Can you tell us about any significant creative influence exposure events?

This week Gunwallace made up a theme inspired by Pipeline Lizards - Oriental, old west, rock! This capers up to you in an enthusiastic, confusing, crabwalk of anachronism, bathing you in exciting rock and the plucky tones of what sounds like a shamisen played like a banjo! - I'm saying that I love it BTW.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Faeward - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/21/featured-comic-faeward/
Featured music:
Pipeline Lizards - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Pipeline_Lizards/ - by Pipeline Lizards, 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/

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The pic. Click to see a full size - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/media/users/Ozoneocean/assets/tank-girls.jpg

How and why does your creativity change over time? It “evolves”.
Evolution is often wrongly thought of as a process that leads to a goal, like the idea that humans are the pinnacle of evolution, or that we will “evolve” into something better and “more superior”, or that there is a “next level” of evolution… All of that is just silly comic-book nonsense and terrible sci-fi. Evolution has no goal or direction, it's simply how we describe change that occurs over time. Creatures don't get “better” due to evolution, rather environmental pressures influence changes that make creatures fit in and cope with those specific pressures better. And many factors influence evolution, not just environmental pressures.
With creativity the evolution influencers are things like age, experience, taste, style, family, friends, technology, culture… As you get older you have more experience but less time to spend on things because of the pressures of work, relationships, and increasing responsibilities. Your tastes change, you get smarter, you get more skilled, you change what you work with, your ideas and interests change. You begin with the influences of your parents and early childhood exposures to culture, then you break away from that and form your own ideas of popular culture in your early teens, then you try to desperately fit in with various subgroups till your mid 20s and then you mainly stick with the cultural influences you were exposed up till then as your main influences from then on -still picking up new things from time to time, but not having as big an effect.
In the professional world creators get more power and less oversight so they often produce worse stuff because they have more control and don't listen to people as much, have less collaborators and less influence by producers and editors to fix their bad ideas… that's not always the case but it's proved true all too often with musicians, film makers, and writers.
Wider environmental factors like technological change (the internet, digital photography, AI etc), culture change, and political change, all have major effects on people's creativity. Then there are internal factors like puberty, depression, happiness, grief, and more. All these things leave their mark and alter the course of our creativity over time.
And THAT is why most bands aren't producing the same good stuff now as they did when they started out, hahaha!
In this Quackcast we talk about how our own work has changed over time and why. How has your changed over time and why?

This week Gunwallace was influenced to create a theme for Craters Edge - creepy, ethereal, mysterious mist arises, deepening the enigmatic aurora of the presence… Then chaos is unleashed without warning! Rapidfire electronica overwhelms, before fading back into smoke and darkness.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Somewhere in the Universe - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/14/featured-comic-somewhere-in-the-universe
Featured music:
Craters Edge - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Craters_Edge/ - by Jason Moon, rated M.
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/

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This isn't really a special episode! It's a Quackcast about them. Not PSA episodes though. Our topic was inspired by those weird special non-sequitur episodes in anime and manga like the famous bikini episode where all the characters head off to the beach, water park, hot springs or something and get into their bathing suits. It doesn't usually forward the story too much, if at all, but it's a chance to have fun with the characters, outline and explore any underlying love themes, and show off skin.
There are other kinds of special episodes like the festival ones, Christmas etc. In American stuff Christmas and thanksgiving are popular for that, also new years. And this is reflected in comics too! On Drunk Duck we have our Secret Santa tradition where we do special Christmas art for people but we also often incorporate that into our comics. Probably the most import special episode art we do though involves our annual comic awards! At the moment people are already submitting art for the red carpet intros.
On this subject, one of our own DDers was a part of one of the most famous of these things ever: the Star Wars Holiday special. He actually helped introduce the world to Bobba Fet via the animation work he did on that project. That was the first the world ever saw of Bobba Fet, so specials are good for something afterall!
Do you like non-sequitur episodes centred around special events and things? (they're not always non-sequiturs). How about the infamous beach bikini episodes? Love ‘em or loathe ’em?
This week Gunwallace made up a theme inspired by The Magpie - Such weight! This electronic piece weighs down heavily with the super powered gravity of a neutron star, crushing down with the mass of its brilliance and beauty.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Red Carpet news https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/10/roll-out-the-red-carpet/
John Celestri - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/JohnCelestri/
Featured comic:
Jack of AllTrades - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/06/featured-comic-jack-of-alltrades/
Featured music:
The Magpie - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/The_Magpie/ - by BonesMcKay, 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/

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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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We recorded the Quackcast on the 4th of May, which of course means that it was “May the fourth”, the Star Wars celebration date! So we decided to talk about Star Wars, but instead of our usual rants about what we think could be done better we kept it to mainly positive stuff, focussing on what we loved about the films, mainly original series, which are the best ones.
My fave version of Luke is the first one with the shaggy hair and wild eyes. I Love the mecha, the costumes, the armour, and the ships, especially the awesome Star Destroyers. My fave characters are the original Boba-Fet (not the modern fat, bald version), Darth Vader, Lando Calrission, Han Solo, and C3PO, Gand Moff Tarkin. My fave Star Wars films in order are: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars (it wasn't called :new hop or episode 4 till years later), ReTrun of the Jedi, Rogue One, Solo, Caravan of Courage, and Battle For Endor. And I love the Mandalorian series. 
 
What are your fave things about Star Wars? The light sabers, the AT-AT walkers, the spaceships, the characters? Or do you dislike it all? 
 
This week Gunwallace was pressed for time so I've chose one of my favourite themes: Tomb Busters - Compelling, regal, atmospheric, steel guitar country rock, this is a triumphant epic that will swallow you whole and leave you gasping for air. 
 
Topics and shownotes  
 
Links 
 
Tantz Aerine's newspost on May the Fourth - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/may/04/may-the-4th-be-with-you/ 
 
Featured comic: 
Lonely Planets - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/apr/30/featured-comic-lonely-planets/ 
 
Featured music: 
Tomb Busters - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Tomb_Busters/ - by StorkStudio, rated T. 
 
Special thanks to: 
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com 
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 

“Passing the mantle” is an interesting phrase. Many claim it comes from a biblical origin; the prophet Elijah was said to have passed his mantle to Elisha when he ascended to heaven, thereby symbolically transferring his authority… but honestly that seems a little silly and elaborate of an origin story, the sort of thing bad bible scholars in America loved to come up with in the 19th century. Mantles of office were commonly worn by kings, statesmen and even lord mayors today and the passing of those symbolises them gaining office and authority. It's a very ordinary, commonplace secular tradition.
But why am I even talking about it at all? Well it's a way of transitioning to a new protagonist, often with the same role and traits as the previous one, but not always. It's a great way to retire an older character and reinvigorate things with a younger successor. The greatest example I can think of in comics is The Phantom. He's one of the oldest superheroes, predating batman and superman… The Phantom (in the story), comes from an unbroken lineage of heroes dating back to the golden age of piracy when his ancestor was betrayed and shipwrecked on an African coast. He was taken in by the local people, nursed back to health and taught their secret ways, becoming “the ghost who walks”. Ever since then the sons have taken that role from their farther.
You can see a similar theme in a lot of older stories or stories set in the past, like Zorro, the pirate Doctor Syn, even The Dread Pirate Roberts from the Princess Bride. These people don the disguise of their forebear and BECOME the same character. Modern superheroes play a little with that too, though they usually revert back to the old characters again and just use the mantle passing as a sneaky way of introducing a new character. But it's been popularly done with characters like Antman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, Spiderman, and many others.
In the Quackcast we have a discussion about how this method would have been a better way of introducing Rey in the Star Wars sequels and maybe a good way to fix Indiana Jones (though I disagree).
Do you have any fave examples of a passed mantle? The Phantom still wins for me.
This week Gunwallace made up a theme inspired by Old Dogs - The burning of an old fire, glowing red hot amongst the black coals and charred, ashen, grey wood. This is a gritty ode to grizzled, aged, experience and time. It’s prickly, with a taste of rock and bourbon, like a good BBQ sauce.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Banes' mantle newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/apr/25/the-mantle-theory/
Featured comic:
The Outbreak - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2024/apr/22/featured-comic-the-outbreak/
Featured music:
Old Dogs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Old_Dogs/ - by JCorrachComics, rated A.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
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!
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Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
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