CGS Presents: Comic Timing Episode 150 Talkback
i_am_scifi
Posts: 784
The Comic Timing podcast, hosted by our old friends Ian Levenstein and Brent Kossina, has reached the big One-Five-Oh, and to help Brent and Ian celebrate, the CGS guys join them in doing what we all love most: talking comics! The topic is 'Team Books': our personal favorites, our criteria of quality, our guilty pleasures, and so on. Happy Sesquicentennial, CT!
Listen here, as there's always time for comics!
Listen here, as there's always time for comics!
Comments
Comic Timing is how I found CGS.
I moved from using Mail Order Comics to HeroesCorner a few years back. Comic Timing, PKD, and others made comic recommendations on the site and I ended up listening to CT's podcast. I heard Ian talk about CGS and ended up downloading my first episode back in 2010.
When YJ and GL:TAS debuted, action figure lines were planned for both as merchandise is a huge component of the cartoon business. Prototypes were made for GL:TAS however no stores would take a chance on the line, as their isles were already clogged with GL movie merch. YJ had a line that ran over a year, but died off soon after in clearance. Mattel released figures at two scales with increased prices and didn't complete either team in either scale. Also neither scale synched up with the massive JLU property and many of us JLU collectors found it the perfect time to jump ship. So at the time, we believed this was the main cause for the seres' demise.
However, there was a recent interview with Paul Dini on Kevin Smith's Fat man on Batman podcast where the action figure gender issue came up. Dini recounted how long it took for Harley Quinn to get her own figure in the B:TAS series days. However what he said of Young Justice was that CN executives frowned upon the long form convoluted storytelling and wanted more simpler, funnier fare for younger children. The reincarnation of Teen Titans seems to affirm this report.
So to summarize, our gender ideals are certainly evolving to the point where there won't be separate girl and boy isles in Toys R Us as some point. However YJ got the ax because the toy line sold poorly and CN wanted more juvenile programming. There were multiple female action figures in the YJ toy line
In fact, it got me thinking about something and I wanted to get some thoughts about it. I was going to create a thread in the main forum about it, but I didn't want to upset people by posting a thread that some might think didn't belong.
A podcast team-up lottery.
Here's how it'd work. EVERY podcast that want's to participate would throw their name in the hat. Each podcast would then be assigned ANOTHER podcast (like a Secret Santa works). Those two podcast teams would record an episode that attempts to combine their topics into one episode. (Example: LanternCast [my show] could team up with a show about Marvel and cover the Silver Surfer/Green Lantern issue. Etc.)
Each podcast appears twice. Once in their OWN show, once on someone else's. It would give a fantastic break for those of us sick of doing current issue reviews after current issue reviews AND would help cross promote each other WHILE having some fun.
I concur with the rest, the audio quality was at a level where I was surprised when Murd indicated you weren't all together in a studio. any chance CGS can start sounding like this?
The show's audio quality all has to do with how I do my setup. I have a Peavey PVi2 Dynamic Cardioid Microphone hooked directly into my ten year old computer's soundcard's mic port. Hooray for a high quality Creative sound cards on a system that runs Windows XP! :)
I don't use a mixer at all because it's usually just me in the studio and everyone else on Skype. If that ever changes I'll probably upgrade my setup a bit.
I then have a sound wire running directly from the computer's speaker port to my Zoom H2 portable recorder's Line In. The Input Monitor is turned on for my microphone, allowing the Line In to pick up both my sound and the sound coming straight from Skype. I record the show in stereo to a 320kbps mp3. I then take the recording, turn it into a wav, and run that through The Levelator to boost sound levels and even out everyone's audio. I then edit the show either in Adobe Audition if I'm home, or Audacity if I'm on the road.
Most importantly, I make sure to mix the episode to Mono before it goes out. That way the final mp3 can be of high quality but also be small enough to fit on most devices. In Audacity, I mix down to a Level 5 Quality VBR mp3 which comes out to about 75kbps in the end. My Audition settings are similar, although there I use the Fraunhofer mp3 codec to mix down to a Level 1 VBR file.
When working entirely in person either for a convention or when I have friends over to record, I use the Zoom H2 as my mics for the show and then follow the same steps for editing listed above. The result is what you hear each and every episode!
Adam, you are not alone in wanting to see Visionaries make a come back. I always felt that was an 80s property that had great potential, especially to be brought back for today's audience (with Lord of the Rings and Masters of the Universe in the public eye). It had a great blend of magic and science.
Shane, you are also not alone in wanting M.A.S.K. to come back. Don't listen to the ney sayers. Keep preaching its return. I think there is enough of a fan base that it would be a great success. I have that Matt Trakker Joe figure you mentioned. They gave a glimpse of a possible return in a NYCC comic call Unit:E. This one-shot comic had little glimpses into a lot of properties, including M.A.S.K. and Micronauts. I didn't care for the new spin on M.A.S.K. that they did, so I'm glad that they didn't do it, but it was exciting to see someone was thinking about it.
My top teams are:
1) X-Men (especially the Blue & Gold team era like Shane mentioned)
2) Teen Titans (The Wolfman & Perez era, but I loved the Johns run also)
3) Justice League (especially the Morrison run because he did what I always wanted in a JL comic)
The guilty pleasure for me I share with Adam: Secret Defenders. I really enjoyed that series when it was out, but it did get odd near the end. I think the concept could work today if they stuck with the original concept.
Teams I would like to see make a comeback to comics, and I'm going to focus on the 80's properties I love that were comics and need a comeback because they haven't had one yet):
1) M.A.S.K.
2) Visionaries
3) Starriors
There are some that were teams that I would like to see retried again because I think they could be done well:
1) Battle Beasts (IDW tried a mini-series, but they took away some of the basic ideas of the original concept)
2) Thundercats (Wildstorm did a great set of minis for a while, but then it went south after the first few minis)
3) Voltron (Dynamite tried to bring it back, but the creative team, in my eyes, screwed it up big time....hopefully the new Robotech/Voltron crossover can reset a good Voltron starting point)
I love team books for the same reason that Jamie D mentioned, more bang for your buck. In recent years I have been reading a lot more Avengers, and loving it (old and new stuff). I miss the Legion of Super-Heroes. I was reading it ever since Zero Hour and loving it right up until the new 52 reboot. I know it pretty much just continued the same story, but for some reason it just didn't feel the same and didn't keep my interest to keep reading it. I agree the Abnett and Lanning stuff was probably the best time of Legion reading for me.
Great show guys. Would love to hear you guys do more crossover shows as the year goes on.