Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for Nov 19 2020 – Supporting the SubGenius

In this episode, I play a song from Rocket City Riot; the film lifecycle makes crowd-funding movies awful; why are the film backers who rise to the occasion of support always last in line? all that said, the documentary is good; Dr Hal is the first postal correspondent of the Box of Rocks zine; I supported Precursor on Crowd Supply then changed my mind; boy did I love the Sharp Zaurus; I no longer want to do personal travel with a laptop in my bag; I have envy for the next generation of Galago Pro; inSync is my new solution for syncing password files from Linux to OneDrive.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, November 19 2020.

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Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for April 18 2015 – Gimme the Bits

In this episode, I play a song about Empty Hearts; I talk about not being at New Media Expo; I discuss implementing my “principle of least regrets”; I talk about Christiana Ellis’ video about Netflix and binge watching; I talk about Kickstarter and not wanting any more physical rewards; I reminisce about the Writers’ Strike Chronicles podcast.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, April 18 2015

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Kickstarter Hatred

I am currently listening to Episode #2 of Ditchdiggers with Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace. They are discussing the Stacey Jay Kickstarter fiasco and how the YA community gave her enormous grief about asking for readers to support the creation of her work. Which is the basis of EVERY KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN EVER!

On Thursday evening at 9 PM EDT (or whenever I get there after child bedtime) I am going to be a part of a roundtable for the Nutty Bites podcast talking about these issues. I am really looking forward to the conversation and hearing what everyone else has to say. I will just note here that although I didn’t know about the Stacey Jay situation when I recorded my Patreon video, there is a reason why it was done with me pretending to smoke a pipe and affecting a highly exaggerated pomposity. I was trying to preemptively short circuit exactly that line of thinking.

SciFi Tavern in Charlotte

Here is a Kickstarter I can get behind, even though I am not a direct beneficiary of it. A guy is trying to raise money to start a science fiction and fantasy bookstore tavern in Charlotte NC. Even as Borderlands in San Francisco is planning to shut down, that some crazy bastard is willing to tilt at this windmill all over makes me happy.

I would like the idea of this place getting off the ground. I try to get to Charlotte for Heroescon as often as I can so if it does open, I will need to put this on the agenda. Fellow members of the SF tribe, do what you can. Especially as I have so many friends located around the south, please support this if you have the means and at least spread this if you don’t. Let’s see it happen!

Two Projects to Support

Here are a few interesting projects in the fundosphere (emphasis on “fun”.) I talked about the first on the podcast I released today and played a song by the band, but Cats Laughing – a Minneapolis based SF/fantasy supergroup – has a Kickstarter to fund their reunion show at Minicon 50. I have long loved this band and am excited to see this happen. The project is already funded and is now reaching for the stretch goals. Adam Stemple, Emma Bull, Steven Brust and Lojo Russo. There is a lot of good music and fiction produced by this crowd, and you can be part of this. This Kickstarter closes January 18th.

The currently running Humble Bundle for books is a set of digital graphic novels from Image Comics. This is truly a treasure trove. The highest level is $18, and if you pay that it will unlock the East of West special, the first 18 issues of Saga and the first 48 of The Walking Dead. That is a complete steal. Even just Saga by itself is a good deal. Considering you get hundreds of other issues in addition is phenomenal.

This includes the first collection of one of my current favorite series, Velvet. Also, Sex Criminals, Satellite Sam, The Manhattan Projects, The Fuse. These are all things I buy in paper at full price, I don’t think you can go wrong here.

In fact, here are series in the bundles that I have reviewed for Pull Box Picks:

Of every Humble Bundle I’ve ever seen, this might be the best value. I can attest to about half of the issues contained in here that they are well worth reading. If you support it, there is no reason to not go straight to $18. Unless, like me, you already own everything in that tier. The Humble Bundle closes January 20th.

I highly recommend both of these projects. Go, money! Fly and be free!

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for January 12 2015 – Patreon and Videos

In this episode, I return to the old format! I play a song by the Gentle Readers; I discuss the differences between Flattr and Patreon and why I am thinking hard about going with the latter; I talk about my experience as a fan of Cats Laughing and their current Kickstarter; what the heck, let’s play some Cats Laughing too; I talk about my experiences with doing video interviews; I discuss the late 70s/early 80s Athens GA bands better than REM; I close out with a song from Glass Eye.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, January 12 2015

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Stripped Documentary on Sale until September 19 2014

Stripped Documentary

I was a Kickstarter backer of the documentary Stripped about the history and future of the comic strip and the business behind it. I backed it because as a listener of the then active Webcomics Weekly podcast and reader of the Sheldon webcomic, I wanted to support Dave Kellett. Having seen the movie, I will state that it is fantastic. I think Kellett and Fred Schroeder did a good job being fair to all sides of the issues even though they have a serious horse in the race coming from the webcomics world.

For a short time, the mega-package is on sale. This gets you all the movie stuff I got from my Kickstarter package as well as access to 26 hours of raw interview footage for $40. I will state unequivocally that if you are interested in the comic strip world, this is a steal. The sale only lasts a short time, so you need to act soon if you want it. Don’t be like I usually am, when I dawdle and then forget to pull the trigger. This is the real deal.

Also, this is Kickstarter is the reference I give to people that get huffy about delays in their projects. It took a full three years past the originally projected delivery date. I waited patiently and what I got was fantastic. Chill people, sometimes making actual projects in the real world takes extra time. If you can’t stand the risk of that, don’t commit your Kickstarter money.

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for March 15, 2014 – “Microcast: Tiny Money”

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, March 15, 2014.

In this microcast I talk about Kickstarter, Patreon and Flattr. You can do one of the three for me.

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

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Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for October 14 2013 – “Charlatan, Martyr, Hustler”

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, October 14, 2013.

In this episode, I talk about a concept I heard on the In Beta podcast about how to approach self-promotion; I talk about “appeal burnout” and being overwhelmed by calls to action; I talk about famous people using crowdfunding, and how the concern is less that they are subtracting money from the system and more that they are subtracting goodwill; I talk about Ben Franklin and his self-improvement regimens and how I might be trying to change too much stuff all at once in my life;

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

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Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for July 11, 2013 – “Too Much Of A Good Thing”

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, July 11 2013. I once again praise Auphonic as a friction reducer for podcast production; I talk about “blockbusteritis” and how I think it harms all media from large to small, old to new, Kickstarter projects and about anything; I rail against reporting about the process rather than the facts; I talk about social media and weight loss and the 7 minute workout and how that compares to NaNoWriMo and videobloggers. “Do something that is not nothing!”

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

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The Way of the Gun

Over on Kickstarter is a fundraiser coming down to the wire for The Way of the Gun, an anthology project for fiction that crosses the western genre with the Bushido samurai code. Although Scott Roche lives in North Carolina one state away, I first met him in Baltimore at Balticon.

Check out the description of the project and if you are so inclined, please kick in a few dollars. Scott’s a good guy and this is a cool sounding book.

Kick Start My Heart

At CREATE South last week, we had an informal pitch session at which I primed the pump by going public with some of my skunkworks projects, one of which is an independent documentary idea that I’ve been kicking around for years. In it, I mentioned that I thought I could bring the project in for around $5,000 (mainly by NOT PAYING THE CREW!) From the floor, Mur Lafferty asked if I had considered Kickstarter as a fund raising mechanism for the seed money. I admitted that I had not and wasn’t sure if it would be worth it. I did file the idea away for future reference though.

In a bit of coincidence, earlier today I saw this post on the Comics Reporter that references Patrick Farley’s attempt to raise money for his webcomic project via Kickstarter. I have seen Farley’s work before and liked it. It seemed like a webcomic version of what I liked best about the cyberpunk work of George Alec Effinger. I am interested in seeing his nearly successful fundraising campaign succeed (90% there with 6 days to go at this writing) and am considering kicking in a few bucks. I was looking at the particulars of his project and noticed that Brendan McCarthy is one of the contributors. Yes, THE Brendan McCarthy. That part truly rocks the house, that one might be supported in a project by someone cool whose work you admire. That seems like a rare but awesome case.

If I’m going to do this via Kickstarter it makes more sense to do it sooner than later, so I might well set this up in a day or three. If so, I’ll be posting here shortly. Keep watching the skies, radar rangers!