Quackcast 689 - One Big Passion and Influence

The QuackCast

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