So, no in-depth essays or anything today, but you can totally hear me talking about topics from superhero classics to forgotten Euro gems to Picturebox art books (and everything in between) right here if you want. Yep, I've got a new podcast just waiting for some ears to fill up, and I know at least some of you are wondering what my voice sounds like in real life. Or at least you are now that I mentioned it. (I gotta California accent.)
Seriously, actual reasons to go listen (in order): review of the new Bulletproof Coffin, thoughts on the forgotten ghetto-gore gem Real Deal, a look into the new Mat Brinkman book, droll comments on recent comics news items. Then I go into about a million creators of various genres and nationalities who I haven't given enough air to in my writing. Highlights include Wally Wood, Peter Milligan, Hugo Pratt, Goseki Kojima, and Frank Miller. There's way more too, seriously I talked my head off. Go listen, especially if you're bored at work right now!
I also threw in a little bouquet of hot musics to break up my voice's drone: finger-clenchin' blasts from Health and Disco Inferno. Yes. Okay, get over there. And please tell me what you think in comments, as your response will probably end up dictating whether I do another one of these.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
from what I could hear, your /u/ /ʌ/ and /oʊ/ are fronted some and your /æ/ is raised and diphthongized before nasals; your /ɑ/ is kinda fronted. Those 3 can be found in other regions, so would say you've got more a traditional california accent, but if you were talking for a modern one, you're missing a vowel shift
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_English
^_^
/linguistics nerd
and south central is not *that* bad nowadays :p at least not when i go back to visit xD
Excellent podcast Matt, I'd love to hear more!
It's a bit of an epic beginning to a show (3hrs? holy shit!) but if you keep doing these, I'll be more than happy to keep listening. The old-fashioned single-host style radio show is under-represented in comics podcasting and with your depth and breadth of knowledge as well as individual tastes and ability to explain them well, I think it'd be a shame if you didn't keep going with the endeavor in some form or another.
It's a bit difficult to pick out just a few things to comment on considering the length of the podcast, but I did want to want to say that I'm glad to here someone really really praise Ronin, DK2 and The Filth. None of those books get enough love, especially Ronin. Also loved your takes on The Bulletproof Coffin, Milligan and Vertigo in general. And fuck you for making want to track down 20/20 Visions now.
Keep up the great work man, I sincerely hope this isn't both the first and last episode of this wonderful mad little thing.
RE: the prohibitary cost of CEREBUS and long-ass comics in general.
May I recommend Interlibrary loaning it? It's done wonders for my comic literacy - I'm currently Cerebus-ing it actually (slogging my way through the Norman Mailer section of GUYS; yikes). It's how I finally got around to reading The Nikapol Trilogy and various volumes of Corto Maltese as well. Santoro's Storeyville is on it's way - yay!
Quite keen on this podcast thingy. Swell.
@ m.m. hey dude I was president of the linguistics club in high school, I've written whole papers on the idiosyncracies of my speech. you brought back the memories hard!
Also, MY BAD: Peter Milligan has TOTALLY written a commercial series that puts it all together in the same way his non-hero stuff does: X-Force/X-Statix, which is probably the best superhero comic to run more than 20 issues last decade. Sorry! Go check those issues out!
I would advise against continuing with the podcast format. Why bother talking about these things out loud? Much of it was reiterations of things said in essays. It's three hours long, consisting of a things that could easily be crafted into one-liners and tweeted. Write essays about The Filth and DK2, where you can use images. This podcast- like a lot of others- is just adding your voice to a general ether of what is essentially common knowledge. Or, a specific kind of common knowledge- a lot of the comics discussed are out of print, and so people aren't aware of them, but the sort of people that care about out of print comics and seeking things out know about Enigma and whatnot. It's cool that the Manara book you highlight as being great is one of the first books that Dark Horse is going to reprint, but why not just tweet "Manara's Indian Summer- Top 5 comic of all time" when it actually comes out? I just think the noise-to-signal ratio is so intense with a format of "three hours of talking about a lot of different things" that there's no way to make it into something manageable.
What is the point of talking about that Mat Brinkman book? Why not just link to a product description and photos of the gallery exhibit? Doesn't that make the case more effectively, and say all that needs to be said? Like, I could imagine describing it verbally to someone in real life, but you're already on the internet. Recording yourself talking out loud about it, along with other things, and then uploading it is maybe one of the least effective communication methods you can use to get across "This thing looks fucking crazy."
That said: Another great Peter Milligan comic is The Eaters. So's The Extremist, which is coming back into print in the next month or two.
I would love to read the entire podcast, reading it would be much easier than giving it a proper listen, at least for me. Thanks for answering my questions - your future's bright and intelligent.
Thanks for talking about my topic suggestions. It was interesting listening to you talk about all of those different topics, although I think it would have been just as entertaining to read about them with visual accompaniment.
Also, if you haven't read it yet, pick up Bart Beaty's book Unpopular Culture, which is a potted history of alternative European comics in the mid-90s. It gives a lot of context and history that I'm not sure if you're up on.
I haven't listened to the whole podcast yet (I'm currently at the part about Hugo Pratt) but this has to be one of the most spectacular, epic premieres of a podcast!
In case Matt continues with this audio series, I'll for sure be there to listen.
It's the breadth of Matt's interests that distinguishes him from his fellow comics podcasters and the analytic toolkit he brings to it. Unfortunately, sometimes he tries his best to hide his critical acumen by saying things such as "Dude can fucking draw". Future installments of the Deathcast without the vernacular - now that would be even more "awesome" :-)
Loved the Podcast, Matt! Keep 'em long--they're great for my long commute. I could easily listen to 3 hours of talk on The Filth and DKSA.
Another potential topic--you mentioned Frank Miller, but what other American artists show heavy European influences.
This is good keep it up!
I generally agree with what you have to say about contemporary Vertigo comics. However, I'm curious to know how you feel about Sweet Tooth, which I think is V's best title by a mile.
@ Brian: I think we just have different views on what constitutes "the general ether". Personally, I wouldn't even consider saying anything I thought was "important" on Twitter -- it'd be a truncated blip that disappears in two hours. I won't pretend that I gave an in-depth, analytic view on Indian Summer or anything (that's for later), but at least in podcast I could mention the colors, compare it to Watchmen, give a bit on the story content, et cetera. For me, just slapping an Official Matt Seneca Top 5 Comic tag on the book isn't saying much of anything at all. I can see where the desire for the polished, reduced essentialities of statements comes from; it's just not really my thing.
@ Gregory Joseph: For me, Sweet Tooth is ok to read in Barnes and Noble, but there's nothing about Jeff Lemire's art or writing that really makes me want more. Not bad quality, just not something that's ever really stunned me. Format might be a part of that -- the issues are SO slow, and even the trades feel a little thin. That's a manga series if I ever seen one.
Matt,
Keep doing these! Fun to listen to. You're well-spoken and informative, and your love for comics comes through quite nicely in your musings.
I'd suggest, though, that you make future installments shorter. If you offered a summary of the topics discussed after the podcast is posted, or offered some introductory remarks at the beginning of the podcast itself, it would make the whole thing easier to take in. I don't mind digressions and a good, rich ramble is a wonderful thing, but by choosing to discuss so many different things over the course of your podcast, I lost the feeling of forward momentum. I wondered: how many more things will he discuss? How many more starts and stops?
If you did some more, I'd listen. Just frame your podcasts a little, and keep them shorter. Better a bunch of individual podcasts about one topic each than a mammoth podcast with many topics buried inside. And if you indexed/tagged them by the topics discussed, you might build up a backlog that future listeners might enjoy combing through.
Very good first episode, Matt. Can't wait for more.
Well you have to do another one now, or at least write what you were going to say, because I simply have to know your thoughts re The Filth.
I’d advise cutting them up and posting the segments one at a time if you want to drive hits, but personally I’m more than happy to epic length podcasts.
Post a Comment