Comic Relief Podcast

probably my favorite Free Comic Book Day Podcast that we have done to date! The previous years, we had the opportunity to interview fellow artists, writers, etc., that had been in the comic book community in one way or another… But this year, we offered up free Funko pins for anyone who sat down with us and got on our podcast. As a result, we got quite a few kids to come on the podcast to talk about their favorite comics, characters, movies! And to me, that was just such an amazing experience. I was a pretty timid kid (back in the days when I had to run from dinosaurs, because I am so old! Not that you’d know it by how I act…) And to be able to be a part of something, where we could have these kids who are clearly passionate about comics (that’s why they’re at Free Comic Book Day!) and come onto our podcast and talk about their favorites – was a very magical moment for me. Very special kudos to the interview master, and my co-host on the show, Maico Moreno, for knocking out these interviews and doing such an incredible job! It was five hours of unedited audio that I had to cut my way through, and clear up dead space, fix audio issues (where some folks were not sitting close to the mic) – but in the end, it was well worth it – and I think we came out with a very magical issue of our podcast as a result of all these wonderful people!

Because we had quite a few interviews, while we were also discussing Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War I broke down the interview start times, in case you want to zip to the part where you (or your kid!) was doing an interview on the podcast. All times listed below are the start times by Hour: Minute: Second. So for example, 00:15:13 would be 15 minutes and 13 seconds into the podcast, and 01:45:10 would be one hour, forty five minutes and ten seconds into the podcast. There’s a known issue with streaming it from the site (below) where the times often don’t line up. So the times are better off if you either download the episode or listen to it on iTunes (it should be correct).

Anyway! Enough of all that! How about I run down the interview times like I promised?

Interviews:

00:07:10 – Ryan
00:18:45 – Conrad
00:21:36 – Liz
00:26:10 – Isias
00:27:40 – Alicia
00:31:23 – Lance
00:34:37 – Mario of Reality Break
00:45:20 – Dean Lecrone / Dr Peepers
00:50:10 – Ryan Of Toy Star Collectable
00:56:25 – Lena
00:59:10 – Lilly
00:59:58 – Adrian
01:01:20 – Christina
01:02:42 – Jospeh
01:08:43 – Kyle
01:10:20 – Halliard (I am probably slaughtering the spelling…)
01:13:18 – Adara (Hope I got that right…)
01:15:20 – Adelina
01:17:10 – Keira
01:18:19 – Nick

Maico and I discussing – and debating – Daredevil Season 2 – well, debating a specific thing about Daredevil Season 2. If you’ve watched Daredevil, Season 2, see whose side your own when it comes to the impasse about the one thing that we could not see eye to eye (no pun intended with the blind thing, for Daredevil).

Also in this episode, we talked to Arvin Bautista of Greasy Pig Studio. If you have not yet checked out the website for Greasy Pig Studios I would highly recommend checking it out, along with their Youtube Channel so that you can check out the awesome Dazzler video, which led to the Lila Cheney video (which is loosely based off of New Mutants Annual #1). The video takes the New Mutants (beginning with them leaving Stevie Hunter’s class)! Arvin is clearly very passionate about the subject – and knows his stuff. He digs the obscure characters, and knows how to make them shine. So check out his videos – after you listen to the podcast! Then tell him how awesome his videos are and that we sent you towards him!

… the DC movie, and while trying to be silly and find creative ways to call each episode something that relates, I called it Yawn of Justice, both Maico and I actually enjoyed the movie.

Despite the silly title of Yawn of Justice, both Maico and I agree, that the movie scored a pretty solid 7 out of 10, on the scale of movies. We both had quite a few issues with some things they did in the movie, but we felt like that was much more the writing and the directing, rather than the actors. We both felt like the actors knocked it out of the park, given what they were handed.

And maybe one of my favoritest images I put together for the podcast…

We discuss Deadpool… and I knew it had Ryan Reynolds in it (does the guy make bad movies?) – so I wasn’t surprised it was a good movie.

I was just surprised how great the movie was. Ryan Reynolds doesn’t need to act to be Deadpool – he’s an actor well known for his sarcasm in movies and how freaking well he does it. So he fit so perfectly as Deadpool.

Deadpod: Maico With The Mouth, Issue #17.Issue #17 of the Comic Relief Podcast is finally out! In this issue, we focus primarily on Deadpool. You may have heard of him? He had this beautiful, Valentine’s Day themed movie that just came out? Biggest opening for an “R” rated movie – ever? About a man’s struggle against Cancer? It’s a beautiful love story! Well, he also happens to be a smart @$$, potty mouthed, unkillable, mercenary – known as Deadpool – the Merc With The Mouth! The first half of the podcast, we recorded just before the movie came out – and we focus solely on the comic books that have featured Deadpool – the second half of the podcast, Maico discusses his thoughts about the Deadpool movie (Spoiler Alert: It’s nothing but endless raving reviews of goodness – so if you haven’t seen the movie yet – you might consider doing that now!)

A very special note – the beginning music in this podcast was done by Taylor Davis. Please check out her video right over here. She has an amazing assortment of musical pieces she’s done – so it’s probably a good idea to subscribe to her Youtube channel. And if you need more Taylor Davis – please, by all means check out her website or check out her online store! Her manager had given us permission to use the music. And I am so thankful for it.

All right – with that said and done, let me tell you – this was the funnest podcast I have had the pleasure of being a part of and editing! I had a lot of fun with this one! Throughout the podcast you will hear various Star Wars sound effects, thanks to the official Star Wars Dot Com – Soundboard (They have since gotten rid of the site). For example, normally I simply “beep” out any cuss words; this time I used the droid from Cloud City that 3PO calls “Rude.” There’s also mention, at times of when we’re talking about various ships, where you will hear them fly by in the background of the podcast! Seriously. This one was so much fun.

In this one, our good friend, Chad Cavanaugh. And he was so fun to have on here.

Things had not gone as well as we’d hoped.

Still very fun.

Free Comic Book Day at SoCal was always one of my favorite events to do because we got to actually set up a booth, which made us feel all super official…

But more importantly, because we had a booth we had all kinds of guests come onto the show and do some Q&A about their comics, what they enjoy and all of that…

Some of my favorites though were when kids agreed to come onto the podcast… because I think back to when I was a kid, before I was shy, before crowds gave me anxiety, you would not have been able to shut me up about my passion for comics (primarily the X-Books and Avengers related stuff). So being able to provide that avenue for kids was a way of me being able to step back in time for what I wish I could have done.

For 2015 we were right by the door for SoCalComics, so we caught a lot of traffic – and both Chad (who I mentioned previously) and Colleen were there (Colleen’s both was actually positioned right next to ours).

What was cool for 2015, we were also raffling off stuff – but folks had to come onto the show to enter the drawing.

… hanging out with Colleen of Wyng’d Lyon Creations and her booth.

In this episode it was really cool to talk to Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Young Justice, Star Wars Rebels, Rain of Ghosts), but we also ended up interviewing a few others – Joy Decapua (Blackjack Comics), Jason Beckwith (Taking Eden), Ray Chou (Skies of Fire), and Tanya Bjork (Havenhurst)!

I think once we interviewed Neal Adams, we felt like we could interview anyone. Interviewing a legend like Neal Adams who had such a wide span across his career in comics was crazy intimidating, because it’s difficult to narrow down just what to talk about.

Adding interviews to the podcast was also fun because it was adding a new element where it wasn’t just Maico and I coming up with content for each episode – we were getting folks (like Neal Adams and Greg Weisman) to talk about their career – and then we had aspiring people trying to make their way into the comic book world in our podcast as well. And that felt great, to help get their word out about their work.

Going through the photos, found where the wife and I had flown to New York, for work for her… but there happened to be an Avengers Station event there that we went to as well…

Neal Adams contributed so much to comics, especially to Batman. So back in April 29th, 2022, I was sad to hear that Neal had passed away. But he left such a long lasting impact and legacy throughout comics – that no one is ever going to forget him. So he will always be immortal. And he would go on to be the first really big artist/writer who has been published in major comics (in his case, Marvel and DC).