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Tag: Conventions

Posts related to major geeky/nerdy conventions.

Drinking From a Firehose

Drinking From a Firehose

SDCC 2022: San Diego Comic Con actually happened this year after a long period of COVID-based dormancy, and it returned with a fury, dropping all kinds of news and sneak peeks and trailers…of comic book movies and tv more than anything else. Our hosts dissect the announcements that interested them the most.

CHAPTERS:

  • (00:00) Intro
  • (04:29) Quick overview of Marvel Studio’s Phase 5 plans
  • (05:28) She-Hulk: Attorney at Law trailer & Daredevil’s return
  • (12:59) The teaser trailer for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever asks more questions than it answers––as can be expected from a teaser trailer.
  • (19:45) Star Trek: Picard announcements & character posters.
  • (22:47) Star Trek: Strange New Worlds & Star Trek: Lower Decks announcements and…crossover?
  • (27:17) DC announcements? Not so much, aside from a trailer for Shazam: Fury of the Gods.
  • (28:06) The Dungeons & Dragons movie gets a trailer and a controversial poster.
  • (38:43) Outro – RIP David Warner
  • (42:48) Outtakes

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • We Don’t Know $#!&” (29 May 2014): In our first episode, our hosts discuss some controversy surrounding comments made by David Goyer about She-Hulk.
  • Magic Beer” (23 January 2015): Where, when discussing the David E. Kelley’s legal comedy-drama, Boston Legal, our hosts mention how he would be the perfect person to bring a She-Hulk show to life (audio is quoted from this episode).
  • Multiverse Averse” (20 May 2022): Where our hosts discuss their excitement after seeing the first trailer for Disney+’s She Hulk: Attorney at Law.

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

  • “Be Prepared” by Tim Rice & Elton John, performed by Jeremy Irons
Disco McCoy

Disco McCoy

FIRST CONTACT DAY: April 5 is celebrated by Star Trek fans as “First Contact Day.” While the day is fictional, the celebration is real as Paramount releases a bunch of Star Trek news, sneak peeks, and trailers. Our hosts dive into all the news that’s fit to beam up.

RELEVANT LINKS:

CrockerCon 2022 poster. Art by Nooligan

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Eloquent as Ever

Eloquent as Ever

WEEK IN GEEK: Andrew continues to get excited by recent Star Trek offerings, specifically the conclusion of season 2 of Star Trek: The Lower Decks and the premiere of the Paramount+/Nickelodeon joint, Star Trek: Prodigy. D. Bethel finally offers his thoughts on Metroid: Dread (aka Metroid 5) after completing it, uh, three times.

RELEVANT EPISODES:

  • I Am the State” (26 February 2021): Where D. Bethel rants about Nintendo not respecting Metroid on its 35th anniversary.
  • Butt Magic” (16 October 2021): Where Andrew discusses the first season of the animated comedy, Star Trek: The Lower Decks.
  • Con Artists #7: Return of the Con” (29 October 2021): The most recent episode of Con Artists where D. Bethel and Kyrun Silva of Taurus Comics talk about making and selling comics amidst a global pandemic.

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Con Artists #07 – Return of the Con

Con Artists #07 – Return of the Con

In the world of 2021, not much has changed. Hope and optimism dares to tread across the jamb as COVID vaccines get into the arms of people across the world and, for independent comickers, conventions start to return…kind of.

After attending only a few shows in 2021––their first in nearly two years––D. Bethel (of the webcomic, Long John) and Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics and the 4 Tales Podcast) reconvene to share their experiences, fears, and surprises with the fact that comic shows and conventions have become very different beasts from what they were before, and how difficult it may be to adapt.

RELEVANT INFORMATION:

OTHER EPISODES:

Con Artists #06 – Tickets & Tables

Con Artists #06 – Tickets & Tables

As the pandemic rages on, more and more independent artists are left figuring out how to manage their careers in the absence of in-person events, specifically exhibiting at conventions.

The pandemic is also a time for reflection. As the big conventions struggle to give fans some semblance of the con experience through digital-only replacements, independent comickers D. Bethel (of the webcomic, Long John) and Kyrun Silva (of Taurus Comics) come together to discuss the difference in experiences, expectations, and realities of what going to a convention means for fans versus what it means to creators and how the chasm between the two experiences may be larger than they thought.

RELEVANT LINKS:

RELEVANT INFORMATION:

OTHER EPISODES:

Con Artists #05 – No Con 2020

Con Artists #05 – No Con 2020

Everything has changed in the wake of COVID-19. This applies, of course, to indie comic creators, for whom the pandemic hit especially hard in terms of income. With gatherings of people not likely to happen in any safe capacity for awhile, it has many creators asking, “What do we do in a world without comic conventions?”

D. Bethel and Taurus Comics’ Kyrun Silva sit down to talk about creating comics during a pandemic. While a dour topic generally, they manage to find the laughs amid the serious discussion of the future of indie comics and the conventions they hold so dear.

RELEVANT LINKS:

OTHER EPISODES:

REFERENCES:

  • The infamous “Sweet Justice” poster:
art by D. Bethel.
  • The YouTube playlist of the short videos D. Bethel made for Chapter 4 of his webcomic (the music changes regularly after the fourth or so video; he was playing catch-up):

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Road Music” by D. Bethel
-“Bounce” by D. Bethel

Elbow Five

Elbow Five

DON’T DIE: With the rising threat of the coronavirus and its impact on nerd conventions––especially Emerald City Comic Con and the Game Developer’s Conference––Andrew and D. Bethel investigate all the ways this pandemic can impact not only fans of nerdy things but makers of nerdy things.

RELEVANT EPISODES:

RELEVANT LINKS:

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Start With Doom

Start With Doom

CAN YOU SDCC ME NOW?: Though San Diego Comic Con is ostensibly about comic books, the biggest announcements that seem to come out of the show revolve around cinematic and televised properties. Andrew and D. Bethel focus on the announcements that not only ignited their excitement but also triggered their critical processes, from the Cats trailer to the next big DC/CW “Arrowverse” crossover event to the new Star Trek show to Marvel’s Phase 4 lineup.

RELEVANT LINKS:

Image Credit: Pocket Books/Marvel/CBS

RELEVANT EPISODES:

INFO:

FEATURED MUSIC:

Con Artists #04 – StocktonCon Winter 2019

Con Artists #04 – StocktonCon Winter 2019

The lauded limited podcast series returns with a new episode as well as a fan-favorite co-host, Kyrun Silva of Taurus Comics as he and D. Bethel (check out his webcomic, Long John, and his podcast, A Podcast [ , ] For All Intents and Purposes) pair up to take on the first StocktonCon Winter show. This episode focuses on the strange space that indie creators inhabit, that realm between fan and professional and how those waters can get muddied, especially when it comes to reading and respecting creators from your childhood (there is a lot of Rob Liefeld talk in these conversations) to meeting your heroes as a creator in your own right.

CORRECTION: D. Bethel said that one of the Uncanny X-Men issues he had Jim Lee sign was #249; he meant to say it was #248. All apologies.

OTHER EPISODES:

  • Con Artists #01 – StocktonCon, pt. 1 : The drive home from the first day of the show. Kyrun and D. discuss making sales, confidence, and the comics they grew up reading and enjoying.
  • Con Artists #02 – StocktonCon, pt. 2 : The drive to StocktonCon to start Day 2 of the show. They discuss the importance of continuity, the level of fan engagement and ownership over continuity, and Dan’s strange reading habits growing up.
  • Con Artists #03 – StocktonCon, pt. 3 : Where Kyrun and D. talk about the breadth of indie comics, writing comics, and dive headfirst into personal nostalgia.

REFERENCES:

Art by Kyrun Silva.

  • The panel from Frank Miller’s Rōnin that Rob Liefeld homaged in New Mutants #100:

Top: Frank Miller’s Ronin (source: DC Comics)/ Bottom: Rob Liefeld’s New Mutants #100 (source: Marvel Comics)

  • And, for what it’s worth, here is a photograph of a 13 year-old D. Bethel at 1994’s San Diego Comic Con showing Jim Lee the mysterious foil card in its snug plastic case:

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Special thanks to Kyrun Silva for agreeing to being recorded and for driving us to and from the convention.

FEATURED GUEST:

-Kyrun Silva of Taurus Comics

FEATURED RECORDING EQUIPMENT:

-Tascam DR-40

FEATURED EXISTENTIAL WESTERN WEBCOMIC:

Long John

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“Road Music” by D. Bethel
-“Bounce” by D. Bethel

Shortcast 73 – English Major Math

Shortcast 73 – English Major Math

Image Source: Blizzard

OPPORTUNITY DIABLOWN: At the end of the keynote presentation for this year’s BlizzCon––a convention devoted to game developer, Blizzard, created by game developer, Blizzard––the wildly successful PC developer announced a new entry into its long-running and beloved Diablo franchise: Diablo: Immortal. While ostensibly a new Diablo game, Diablo: Immortal is a phone game made not by Blizzard but by Chinese mobile developer, NetEase, and it was decidedly not the game fans wanted news about: Diablo IV. In a backlash of epic proportions, Blizzard has tried to course-correct which only dug them in deeper, D. Bethel and Andrew investigate the aloofness of Blizzard, the entitlement of fandom, and the hazy trouble in-between.

RELEVANT LINKS:

  • Bethel, D. “The Week – 26 October 2018.Long John. ––Where D. Bethel wrote about people judging texts based on news, images, previews without actually seeing the final content.

Image: BBC. Text: D. Bethel

INFO:

For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“District Four” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
-“Disco Medusae” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
*Tracks are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/