The N3RDCast: 19 January, 2008: Kelly Sue And Stuttering Feeds
Posted by Kwip on January 19th, 2008 13 Comments 
You’re not going to believe this: We had technical difficulties! Honestly, some days I just don’t know why I get out of bed. I just don’t know where the problem lies: is it Stickam? Me? Comcast? Some combination therein? Whatever it is, we had to restart the show once we got
Once again I’m sure most of you are here to listen to the lovely Kelly Sue Deconnick, so I’ll go ahead and tell you that starts at the 59:00 mark. Kelly Sue, beside having one of the most frighteningly-titled blogs out there, is a very wonderful sport and all-around interesting person. She’s done a lot of interesting things in her life and seems to be one of those people that knows a little bit about everything.
I’m all for practical jokes. But I’m a bit of a wuss and don’t think that my mother being raped in the room next door while I’m tied to a stove is a good idea. I used to think that the idiots from Jackass took things too far, but Infarto‘s an entirely new level. But as horrific as that is, I’d still rather watch that than Ex-Factor.
Yeah, I have no idea who Erik Larson is, I suck. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t get a kick out of reading his thoughts on One More Day.
I don’t see how Apple thinks their video rentals are going to do any better than the original Divx player. And I’m not the only skeptic.
It’s a safe bet that we’re already gay for Johnny Depp, but his generosity and general frood-ness is pretty damn impressive.
Jumping on couches is NOTHING. You’d better watch this before the crazies torch the building housing the servers to stop the truth from being spread!
I don’t know who designed this or who would buy it, but you can damn well bet it’s not a comic book fan.
Go here. Jump to about 1:55 in. Laugh. It’s okay, laugh.
Jim Jeffries needs to stop playing “I wonder what fits up HERE?”
This article about comic books in libraries is pretty fascinating. I wasn’t aware of the business aspect of comics in libraries, but it certainly makes sense. I’d like to see more libraries build up collections like our local library – I certainly think it’d be a smart investment for the big comic companies to get their products out there to drum up interest from new readers, but I also think it’d be great to see more indy books in libraries. Mostly so I could read them first before investing in them!
George Romero’s early work stands as a monument to awesomeness. Granted, Land of the Dead was lame, but everyone’s allowed a do-over, right? Here’s hoping that this gets him back on track.
Becker can piss and moan all he wants about us being assholes for telling the truth about what we thought about the Hamtramck Idea Men‘s offerings, but they asked us. I respect the hell out of those guys for A) actually finishing a project (make that MULTIPLE projects) and then B) offering it up for review. You can damn well bet that when (if) I ever finish a script, that bitch is getting locked away so I can say it was the greatest book ever and no one will know any different! But look man, if you ask our opinions, you’re going to get them. I think it’s a much worse disservice to suck someone off when I have serious reservations about their work. I love indie creators and want to support them, but as a creator you’ve got to be able to take criticism. If it helps you, fantastic! If it’s merely bullshit offered up by some fat blathering idiot that has never published a comic (ie, me) then ignore it and be on your merry way. But you can’t put something out there and only want to hear praises. I’d also like to think that we tried to be as constructive as possible in our critiquing (especially considering our normal criticism).
Also, I think it’s important to point out that WE have the WORLD’S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH HENRY LEO. Yeah, that’s right: that’s an N3RDCast Exclusive, baby. All you other posercasts just go ahead and be jealous. He chimes in at about 1:43:07 before his agent shuts him down for revealing possible future plot points.
I don’t know if you’ll find it helpful, but if you don’t want to listen to THIS ENTIRE EPISODE THAT YOU CAN RIGHT-CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TO YOUR COMPUTER, you can skim through it according to these notes:
Infarto (and the Ex-Factor and the lie detector) – 4:40
Erik Larson and One More Day – 12:40
Show restarts because Stickam hates us and I can’t leave it alone – 22:00
Apple video rentals – 25:40
Gay(er) for Johnny Depp – 27:00
Crazy Tom – 29:00
Comic Book Wallet – 36:30
We love the overbite shark – 38:50
Chicken McNuggets song – 40:20
Jim Jeffries and things up orifices – 41:50
Comics in the library revisited – 45:00
George Romero’s new project – 50:20
Kelly Sue – 59:00
Comics – 1:49:35
A requested review – 2:23:30
Phone calls – 2:43:10
January 20th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Eric Larsen is the writer and creator of The Savage Dragon one of the most consistantly entertaining super hero comics to come out in the last twenty years. If you enjoy Invicible then you really and truly should pick up The Savage Dragon trade paper backs. I belive they even have an Omnibus out.
Q!PAW recieves indie comics for review all the time. They choose to only review the ones that they really enjoy on the show. You can still give constructive crits through email. That being said I didn’t think your review was especially negative. You really didn’t need to preface it with all that hoopla about it being a negative review before you did the segment. That made it seem like you disliked the comic more than you actually did.
January 21st, 2008 at 10:31 am
Hey Kwip.
Eric Larson also suffers from a bit of ‘Peter Davison Syndrome’ as if memory serves, he’s the guy who took over Amazing Spider-Man after Todd McFarlane left.
As for PA and the Apple Movie Rental plan, I can see why the PA guys would exaggerate to make a humorous point, but the reality is that you have 30 days to *start* watching a movie you’ve rented — the 24-hour timer doesn’t start until you actually hit play. Which, when you think about it, makes a bit more sense:
- If you’re downloading a movie to watch later (just as you might rent a movie from Blockbuster to watch later), you can let it sit for up to a month, which gives you plenty of time to prepare your ‘movie marathon’.
- If you’re watching the movie as soon as you download it, and complaining that you can’t watch it again the next day, well, you’re not really ‘renting’ the movie now are you? You’ll be better off *purchasing* the movie, at which point you can play it as often as you like. And at the moment, every movie available for rental on iTunes is also available for purchase.
Is it better than Netflix? Perhaps not, but consider that the cheapest Netflix plan is $4.99 per month and only gives you two hours of online movie rentals per month — there are some movies out there that you can’t watch in two hours, so how does that work?
I’d say that if you only plan to watch an average of one movie per month on your computer and you’re not already a Netflix subscriber (or if you own a Mac and can’t use the Netflix online rental feature), the Apple plan will fit you perfectly well.
You can still give constructive crits through email.
If someone wants something reviewed on the show, and they send it to us: we will review it on the show, end of story.
If they want constructive feedback through e-mail, they can ask us for our opinion via e-mail.
If you don’t want your work given negative reviews at all, don’t produce work and enjoy it in a vacuum of your own choosing.
Pauper: Well, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the info! I am still curious how it’s going to play out – I’m a bit skeptical of their success, especially if they’re competing with an already-established market like Comcast. Not sure how their method is better?
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:30 am
Hi, guys, and thank you for the reviews–they were really useful and encouraging. To us, a good review is something that will help us improve our product and our storytelling. Sending a review to someone who is going to just say good things about us isn’t going to help us be anything but mediocre, and there’s enough of that out on the market. I would like to make a few corrections and a few responses to certain items in the review and on the site. 1) “Hamtramck” is pronounced “Ham-Tram-m’ck.” 2) Your link on your blog should be sending people to http://idea-men.us rather than a 404 page.
In response to the review, I am not entirely certain what caused the blurriness of the covers; we did the files at 600dpi, and the proofs came back sharp from Brenner (since we were told that they were the ones responsible for printing Image’s books, we figured they had to know something about the field). As to the lettering being a bit shaky, I am fairly sure that some of that came from the way that George’s work scanned from the boards to digital image–he and I will figure out the best way we can re-ink the projects, I’m sure.
As to the lack of subtlety in Pulp Dreams #1, the “Terra 2920″ story is an homage to the pulp adventures of the 50s and as part of the “in the style of,” I suppose we let things get a little too heavy-handed. We’ll be reining that in. I imagine PD #2′s “Portal Prime” could end up doing the same thing. The “spoon-feeding” of the background was a decision based on initial estimates of space, time, and money that we had for the books at the time, and I think we felt that we mostly wanted to push things toward Terra, the “World Gone Mad.” It was a judgement call, and from readers’ responses, we’ve had more “like” than “dislike” on it. Yes, Richard, the “protagonist” of the series, is supposed to come off as whiny and a little anti-heroic; you will find that he starts to grow as the series progresses.
As for IF-X #1: Yes, it was a bit horror-heavy this issue, and to some extent, I’ll agree with you, the stories were a little cliche, at least in the case of the first two “appetizers.” I put those first as something quick to contrast against the other two comic stories. I think one of you got a bit confused by the narration of the now-zombie biker who was still in charge of his now-undead gang. If you’ll look closely, you will see that they have remained at Club Zombie, the place that was their deathtrap. As for why the voodoo magician went elsewhere to pick them up, I’m guessing he wanted strong zombies that nobody would miss–out-of-town bikers would be perfect for that. One thing I’m surprised about is that nobody commented about the prose piece on the inside back cover, if only to hear a, “What the hell is this crap?”
Anyway, thanks again for the suggestions. With the #2s coming out soon,
I’m definitely going to see about fixing up what I can of the books. Right now, though, we’re just back from ConFusion in Troy, Michigan, where we practically made table costs just off the books alone! You can expect more review copies as long as you GET OUR LINK RIGHT!
Michael Marcus
Hamtramck Idea Men
http://idea-men.us
January 22nd, 2008 at 10:38 am
You guys touched on comics in the libraries, and wondering what it took for them to get into libraries. Dave Kellot over at Sheldon Comics (a web comic) recently made a very brief post about this:
“A lot of librarians have written me to say that they’d love to carry “Sheldon” books in their branch, but that their district’s purchasing rules only allow for book buys through approved distributors like Baker & Taylor, etc. So I’ve decided to put all four books into major distribution channels for just those situations.”
Not sure how big a difference situations like that might make when it comes to getting your books into libraries, you look at the big picture, but it’s one other thing to consider as a possible obstacle.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
“If someone wants something reviewed on the show, and they send it to us: we will review it on the show, end of story.
If they want constructive feedback through e-mail, they can ask us for our opinion via e-mail.
If you don’t want your work given negative reviews at all, don’t produce work and enjoy it in a vacuum of your own choosing.” – Dr. Sexy
Like I said I don’t actually have any objection to the review you guys gave having heard it. My problem is with five minute preamble that came before the review that sounded sort of like someone apologizing to a hotel maid because their retarded brother shat the bed. Hearing you guys apologize for the review you were about to give for a half hour made it seem like you weren’t going to give the balanced and contrutive criticism that you did… If you always say something to the effect of “I’m just keepin’ it real” right before you “keeps it real” every single time then it doesn’t count.
I have no problem putting things out into the world and having people shit on my work. I reveal in it. I love my terrible review…. I sent Justin Eger a thank you note after reading that awful review. I’m not too fond of some of the luke warm reviews my books have gotten but in those the reviewer always talks about how awesome I am and only critiques the artist so that has no bearing on my own self worth.
Wait wait wait… we dont have to kiss your ass and stroke your ego to keep you calling in? Shit negro, thats all you had to say! Get us advance copies of KP3, stat!
PS: My comic shop got in the re-orders of KP 1 and 2 for us, so we all have true, authentic, purchased copies. CHA-CHING! Supersize that next combo on us, my friend.
HJ
January 24th, 2008 at 4:23 am
HAY!
Chris wants to know is Paula’s doing anything this weekend…
Happy New Year to you kats, too–thanks for the call in!
Jen
Amazing Spider-Cast
That’s paulo’s sister, paula…I know you may be confused, but I definitely heard paulo.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Just reminding you guys that you are awesome.
Thanks for the laughs!
Gail
You are the one who is the aw3s0m3. Freaking loved WW this week.
Yeah Gail, thanks for a great read this week. WW? Interesting? A must read for all the N3rds? Yes, yes, and yes! Call back again, we’d love to talk to you about how the books doing and what you’ve got upcoming. HJ