Tag: indiespinnerrack

Comics On The Horizon

This is kind of a pointer to myself but hopefully others find it useful. I’ve heard a few interviews with comic creators that interested me in their work:

  • Today I heard the Inkstuds interview with Derf. I’ve never heard of this guy before but I’m really interested in his graphic novel Punk Rock and Trailer Parks. I’m a fan of the punk rock and am a kid from a small town. When I lived in my small town in the late 70s and early 80s we were still catching up to Black Sabbath and T. Rex and early Rush more so than punk rock. I did my catchup when I got to Atlanta in 1985 and saw the Circle Jerks and Jody Foster Army and Suicidal Tendencies and Gang Green, et al. I’m really interested in this graphic novel. Having recently seen Julien Temple’s The Future Is Unwritten I’ve had Joe Strummer on the brain. I’d love to read this GN with him as a character. I think I’ll be popping for this one.
  • A long time ago I heard Miss Lasko-Gross get interviewed on Indie Spinner Rack. At the time she was talking about her book Escape from “Special” which was the first of a trilogy. The second, A Mess of Everything, is coming out this week. She sounds like she might be a little on the nuts side, but I like that. These books sound really interesting to me and I think I will pick them up.

Liz Baillie Minicomic of the Month

For a complete lark, I just joined the Liz Baillie Minicomic of the Month Club. It seems like an interesting experiment in spurring creativity, throwing a bone to an interesting artist and getting some good stuff in the bargain. I heard about this deal on Indie Spinner Rack #146 and on a whim I decided to fire it up. I’m looking forward to getting my first package.

Check Your Recordings Early

Today I listened to Indie Spinner Rack podcast #127 which was basically a tale of woe about sending a portable audio recorder to Stumptown with some correspondents. Charlie tells of having the recorder in his jacket pocket and a few days later when he went to get the audio off of it, the device was lost. I too have learned the hard way this lesson: when you do field recordings, get them off of your device absolutely at the earliest possible opportunity. Don’t wait a few days to sync up to your computer, do it in the first minute you can. It can avoid disaster in some cases, and if your field recordings were already ruined it gives you longer to get over it.

Podcasting Use Case for Comics

Here’s an example of what podcasting can do that normal media just couldn’t. Derek Coward turned me on to Indie Spinner Rack. In a recent show, they had some correspondents at the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo who did a freakish level of coverage of the Howard E. “Gene” Day Prize. They recorded the presentation ceremony conducted by Dave Sim, and then did a short interview with every single nominee and winner. They caught as many people as they could at the show for the interview and those not at the show they interviewed on the phone. In the final show, they cut in the interviews immediately following the acceptance speech and it worked very well.

It was really fascinating stuff and has me scrambling to find out how to buy some of this stuff, especially the Mike Dawson comic about his love of Queen and Freddie Mercury. I had never heard of any of these people before listening to this show, and now I’m probably going to become a customer and fan of several of them. That’s what the production and distribution cost structure of new media does for you. With a little bit of energy and time and very little money, you can do any kind of hyper-local or hyper-niche programming. This is awesome stuff and I’m glad it exists.

Update: I should also mention for those in the “keep podcasts short” crowd, this is probably the damn longest podcast original show I regularly listen to. Episodes range between one and two hours. Wowza! The thing is, it works at that length and I enjoy it. I never find myself checking to see “how much more of this crap is there?”