2. How Did Star Quack Come To Be?

Way back in the late eighties, I was in graduate school at Louisiana Tech University in the graphic design program. One of my most enjoyable experiences there was being a teaching assistant in a class on cartooning taught by then Tech photography professor and comics connoisseur Dan Younger. The culmination of the class was the actual printing of a 32 page black and white comic book with a color cover entitled “Burn This Comic”. Most people took the title literally, and so few of the original 1000 copies exist today.

Each member of the class contributed pages and my contribution was a 4-page story entitled “Star Quack”. This story was a much-abbreviated version of “None Are So (Duck) Blind” which is featured in the first issue. Needing an idea quickly, I had started with the pun of “Dr. DeCoy” and progressed from there in a fevered frenzy of creation until Star Quack was born.

This all occurred in early 1988, and there weren’t many Star Trek parodies yet. In fact, the only ones I knew of were the Saturday Night Live version and “Pigs in Space”. Since then, of course, there have been more parodies created than can be counted, some even involving ducks (much to my heartache and sorrow). These have included episodes of Duckman, Tiny Toon Adventures, and a very funny web comic called Melonpool.

I went on to follow my career of being a college professor of graphic design when in 1993 a contest in Animation Magazine caught my eye. It was the first annual Cartoon Network/Animation Magazine Storyboard Contest, open to both professional animators and amateurs alike. I thought it would be a good chance to build up my storyboarding skills and revisit a concept I loved, so I revamped my original 4-page story, adding in new sequences. Out of over 700 entries, Star Quack won one of the 7 honorable mentions. Star Quack was also awarded the highest individual score by any one judge, so I felt encouraged to develop the idea further. You can see this storyboard art here.

Other projects got in the way for several years, but I eventually completed a black and white version of the entire first issue with the intention of self-publishing. Then I read Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud and everything changed. If you haven’t read this book yet, please do so. I also recommend Scott’s first book, Understanding Comics. They are the most scholarly works on the art form of comics yet produced.

Anyway, Reinventing Comics got me excited about the possibilities of online publication of Star Quack. I had decided that self-publishing was a fairly expensive and risky proposition and Scott’s vision of the future of the comics industry online was very enticing. The internet, with almost no overhead costs or financial risk, offered the capability of working in color, and seemed a perfect home for Star Quack. In his references McCloud mentioned a site called Comicon.com, which I explored and eventually learned of the site wowio.com. Amazingly, here was a company actually trying to implement some of McCloud’s visions of comics’ future; diversity of genre, direct connection between creators and readers, and creator control. I submitted my work to them and the rest is history!

I’m very excited about the issues to come. If you’ve read this far, you can see that I’ve had 14 years for story ideas to percolate! I really think that the story possibilities for Star Quack are endless and I can’t wait to spring them on you! Boldly waddle with me in the upcoming months to see worlds and phenomena that no waterfowl has yet imagined.....