Because It's About Time Someone Did
In which Rachel and Miles realize they scheduled the first video review for a week with no X-books, but blaze on nonetheless!
Reviewed:
If you want to see a more detailed breakdown of why page 19 of Cyclops #3 is so awesome, Rachel wrote one up over here.
Our producer, Bobby Roberts, is fucking awesome. Long ago, when we first moved to Portland, he was half of the only local DJ team we have ever not only voluntarily listened to but actively sought out. These days, Bobby is the warm, beating heart of local geek culture, and somehow manages to be both the coolest and the nicest person we know.
You know that Bobby is awesome, because you’ve been complimenting his work for months now. He’s the man behind the curtain: the guy who takes the podcast from a couple jerks rambling about funnybooks to a pretty tight, professional-sounding show.
Since week one, you’ve been asking us for more info about the production-and-editing end of things, so this week, Rachel sat down with Bobby to learn his dark eldritch secrets. Read on for production tips, mic talk, favorite X-Men, and more; then go binge-listen to Welcome to That Whole Thing, which is, frankly, way better than what we do here.
Last week, our kickass Patreon subscribers unlocked monthly illustrations as a milestone goal, and we are tremendously pleased to present the first of those, in which David Wynne brings us the Starjammers as they were always meant to be seen: a musical extravaganza!
Patreon subscribers get a high-res desktop background version of the image. If you want one you can hold, frame, lick, &c., David will have the original for sale here, and prints and cards will be available for the rest of August in our Redbubble shop.
(And if you want the desktop, you can subscribe to the Patreon here!)
UPDATE: WINNERS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED HERE.
Hey, listeners, we have a treat for you!
As we mentioned a few episodes back, Glitchsoft was kind enough to send us a download code so we could try out their Days of Future Past mobile game, which we’ve been enjoying immensely. It’s not exactly Days of Future Past, but–as far as we’re concerned–it’s something better: X-Men Easter Eggs the Game. It plays fast and loose with continuity, but with an obvious eye to the source material–and the same things that differentiate it from canon make it a really fun platformer in ways that evoke–albeit single-player–the classic-for-a-reason beat ’em up. Rachel, who didn’t grow up playing platformers and so never developed Ninja Gaiden reflexes, was particularly impressed with the learning curve: it’s genuinely challenging, but never frustrating to the point of impossibility.
There’s also a lot of unlockable content–characters, costumes, abilities, and bonus materials–and the first three add a lot of replay value, because you can do different things in different levels with different characters. Note also that we said unlockable, not purchaseable: there are no in-app purchases in Days of Future Past, which, as far as we’re concerned, is a huge point in its favor. It probably won’t win any awards, but it’s an awfully enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.
We’re posting about this here not just to recommend Days of Future Past–which we do–but because, in addition to a copy for us to review, Glitchsoft sent us two additional download codes to give away to listeners.
Here’s the skinny:
If you want to win a copy of Days of Future Past, comment on this post BY 10 PM PST ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, with three things:
UPDATE: WINNERS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED in the Episode 18 “As Mentioned” post.
FINE PRINT:
Listen to the episode here!
Links and additional reading:
Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men makes its official Comics Alliance debut with Episode 17: The Island of Dr. Corbeau!
A quick note on what this means going forward:
If you listen to the podcast here, or via iTunes or Stitcher, nothing’s changing. New episodes and visual companions will continue to go up at rachelandmiles.com every Sunday.
BUT new episodes will also be up a few days eariler–Thursdays–at Comics Alliance and on their YouTube channel.
CA is one of our favorite comics sites (full disclosure: Rachel’s a regular contributor, but we’ve been reading it since long before), and we’re really, really excited to be joining badasses like War Rocket Ajax and the Arkham Sessions in its lineup.
For CA listeners who’ve made their way back to us, here are some links to help you get started:
Thanks for listening!
Since it’s already come up on Twitter, we want to take a minute to address Sunday’s announcement that writer Greg Rucka will be leaving Cyclops after issue five.
If you’ve been following this podcast–or Rachel elsewhere–for any length of time, you know that we love Greg, we love Cyclops, and we love Greg’s work on the Cyclops ongoing. We are of course sorry to see him leave–but we absolutely support his decision.
More, we are so glad to have seen one of our favorite writers (and human beings) set the tone and bar for a title that’s come to mean a lot to both of us. We’re looking forward to reading the remaining three issues of his run–and we fervently hope oncoming writer John Layman will continue in the same spirit.
We also want to take this opportunity to address something that’s likely to come up again as we delve into more series and creators come and go:
As far as we are concerned, it is never, ever cool to hassle or guilt-trip a creator for leaving a company-owned book, and–assuming they’ve not been disclosed publicly–their reasons for doing so are nobody else’s business.
Some of the discretion we choose to exercise here is a matter of professional courtesy or necessity–we’re both comics-industry professionals, and one of us is an employee at a publisher. Mostly, though, it’s a matter of basic human decency. Comics creators are people, and it’s important to us to respect their personal/professional boundaries, just as we want and expect others to respect ours. Gossip and speculation about other people’s intentions are really, really not welcome here.
Greg is a friend, so in this case it’s a little more personal than usual–but as far as we’re concerned, that’s a hard line, one we’ll be both observing in the podcast and enforcing in the comments.
TL;DR – If you want to complain about Greg Rucka leaving Cyclops or speculate about his reasons for doing so, you need to take that shit elsewhere.
Listen to the episode here!
Links:
Listener Josh Daniel sent us a drawing of Xavier having a J. Walter Weatherman moment (although given Xavier’s history, it’s a lesson he could probably stand to learn as well)!
We mentioned this on the podcast yesterday, but we want to talk a little more about how the Rachel and Miles X-Plains the X-Men Patreon works, and what it is and isn’t.
Patreon is a crowdfunding site designed specifically for serial works. Kickstarter is a great way to raise funds for one big thing; Patreon is better suited to people making a lot of little things over a longer period of time–like podcasts. Patrons pledge a given amount per unit–that can be per item made, or per month (ours is per month, not per podcast)–and can also do things like set monthly maximums to keep from going over budget.
So, what does this mean for the podcast?
We’re solidly committed to keeping Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men both free to download and free of outside advertising. Neither of those things is contingent on the relative success of the Patreon. Neither of those things ever will be.
Then why are you asking for money?
Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men takes a lot of time and an increasing amount of money to make happen. As our listener base has grown (awesome!), so has the cost of hosting (not awesome!). We also use a lot of varyingly accessible source material, and we do our best to get it all through legitimate means–which adds up pretty fast, even with a pretty good industry discount at our local comics shop, and services like Marvel Unlimited (which is great but far from comprehensive).
But the real issue is time. Every episode takes about 6-10 hours of work, between research, writing, recording, and things like the write-up and visual companion. There are a lot of things we’d love to do on the podcast or offer on the site that we don’t currently have the bandwidth to put together.
That’s where the Patreon comes in. Rachel is a freelance writer and editor, and the main goal of the Patreon is to let her fold more of the X-Plain the X-Men stuff into her professional workload, as a paid gig. That’ll mean being able to devote more time and energy to more features–things like long-form written posts, giant-size annual episodes, weekly video reviews of current X-books, and more.
What about other stuff, like a one-time Donate button or a bookstore affiliate?
We’ve talked about setting those up, too, and we probably will eventually. Right now, it’s mostly a matter of how much time we have to invest, and where it’ll be best spent, and neither of those was as high on our list of priorities as the Patreon.
If the podcast is staying free, what do we get for donating?
The warm, fuzzy feeling of supporting media you care about!
WAIT, NO. There’s also STUFF!
In no particular order, here are some (but not all) of the incentives we’re offering:
-Fancy foil-variant stickers, because it’s always 1996 in here.
-Tote bags, for lugging around those huge Omnibus hardcovers.
-Semiannual comic-book care packages, featuring semi-random backissues, weird comics-related ephemera, and personal notes (AKA the “No one in Portland buys backissues and we’re running out of box space” reward.)
-Bespoke answers–hand-written and wax-sealed–to your burning X-questions.
-Access to a secret backstage blog, where we’ll be posting scripts, show notes, and other behind-the-scenes stuff.
There are also a series of Milestone goals, based on the total amount pledged–think of them as the badass team-up moves of Patreon. Those are things like additions to the site, video reviews, regular text posts, giant-size annual or semiannual episodes.
Whether or not you choose to pitch in to the Patreon–thank you for listening, and thank you for your support!
Many, many thanks to Graeme McMillan, who helped us a huge amount with navigating Patreon; and to Anne Moloney, Ben Coleman, and Scotty Iseri, who collectively made the video happen.
