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In which Miles finally makes it to Battlepod; we delve into our favorite continuity snarls for the benefit of the Beyonder; Kang is everyone; weâre really grateful that the D.C. Multiverse is out of our usual scope; someone gets a new costume; and the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts reaches its shocking conclusion!
Featuring Paul OâBrien of House to Astonish and Kieran Shiach of Journey Into Misery; with Greg Rucka as the voice of the Beyonder!
X-PLAINED:
Kang
The Third Summers Brother
The D.C. Multiverse
Cable
This is the final episode of the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts, a nine-part crossover event featuring the bravest and boldest of comics podcasts. You can find a list of the previous #SCOIP episodesâand where to jump into participating podcastsâon our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% ad-free and listener supported. If you want to help support the podcastâand unlock more cool stuffâyou can do that right here!
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BASE OF OPERATIONS: Castle Sexy Dracula, Portland, Oregon, United States
SECRET ORIGIN: Ten years ago, Miles carefully placed his psychology degree in a drawer and went to work IT because it was way easier. These days, he x-pounds endlessly on mutant continuity and fixes broken things for a non-mutant-related comic-book publisher. Buy him a drink and heâll spend the next two hours telling you about how Chris Claremont made him a feminist and that come on, guys, Gambitâs â90s costume isnât that bad.
ALIGNMENT: Lawful Good, but really wishes he was Chaotic Good
HAIR: Magnificent
PREFERRED METAL SUBGENRE: Power, or anything with fast guitars and lyrics about dragons and friendship
Jay here! I canât believe weâre going to be wrapping up the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts this coming weekend! The crossover has been such a constant for the last many months, and seeing it take life over the course of November has been amazing.
Our episode will be up on Sunday, November 29. Meanwhile, weâve put together a field guide to the Convergence so farâand what to listen to if you fall in love with any of the podcasts involved!
Click through for the whole index at rachelandmiles.com!
Weâve been teleported to Battlepod! The Beyonder has forced us to talk about comics culture for his benefit, but, you know what, we donât mind it all that much, because weâre getting to chat with two great podcasters, Elle Collins of Into It and DJ Benhameen of FanBros, about the characters with whom we best identify. Plus, a last-minute cliffhanger as we head into the SCOIP finale!
While the Secret Convergence continues, we thought it would be fun to give listeners an insight into how the participating podcasts plan, record, edit and publish their show. Today, Ty from FanBros talks about their process.
Hi everyone. Iâm Ty, the editor for the Fanbros Show podcast. I also tweet on behalf of the Fanbros Show occasionally. (And god bless twitter because thatâs how this wonderful crossover came to be. Hooray for the social media ether!) Following in the footsteps of Kieran of Journey Into Misery, Iâm going to walk you guys what itâs like for me as an editor to go from absolutely nothing to a fully finished podcast that shows up on your iTunes feed. Letâs get started on pipeline of creating an episode of the Fanbros Show.
On any given week I edit the Fanbros Show twice. Thereâs the regular show that airs every Thursday, and a mini episode that airs every Monday that exclusively covers the week in television. For now, weâre going to focus on the main show.
Before the team records the actual show, they prep with an outline of things theyâd like to talk about for the week. Ben has âComics I Coppedâ, thereâs âTech Talk With Tatianaâ and Chico will have his âNetflix Pick Of The Week.â Also included is pop culture news relevant to the show, as well as movie news, and a controversial segment called âThis Week In The N Word.â Unfortunately, the content for that segment creates itself. The last part of the outline for week, is grabbing questions from our audience for the segment, 'Geekquently Asked Questions.' Separate to the outline of that weekâs show, is the acquisition of guests. The Fanbros Show has guests on relatively often, so we try to book weeks in advance. This gives time for the hosts, if unfamiliar with the guestâs work, time to do some research and gain a better understanding of why that guest was booked for The Fanbros Show. As we all know, an uninformed host interviewing a guest makes for a really terrible time for everyone. Guest booking & scheduling is usually handled by Kimson, the producer of the Fanbros show, or myself if Kimson is unavailable.
The Fanbros Show is blessed enough to have access to a REALLY good studio. Our sound engineers are able to make sure that hosts sound balanced, and that our guests can ease into our setup so that our session can flow as smoothly as possible. The goal is to aim for an hourâs worth of material that can make a good show. More often than not, we go over an hour. But itâs better to have too much than not enough. After the episode is recorded, the engineers send the audio to me via a cloud service from the studio. Now that Iâve got the files in front of me, I listen through the episode and note down parts that should be cut out, swapped, or altered in any way, shape or form. I do all of this before mastering the levels. Next Iâll add in sound effects where they should be, transitions, sound effects, guest drops and advertisements. A lot of that is done to break up the monotony of people talking for a solid hour. It jars the audience back, and makes sure that we have your attention. But I cap off that process with the music I choose for the show.
Before I get to the next step I want to talk about the difference between recording in studio and recording at home/skype/non-studio environments. This was the case with our episode of the SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS! When you have multiple raw files of varying quality, itâs best to take your time working on those files. Itâs impossible to turn something that sounds like it was done in a basement with a ton of background noise, to making it sound like it was done in soundproofed studio. However it is possible to improve the quality of the audio you are given. This all depends on the level of quality you want to present to the world, the tools you have to work with, and your skill level. Last of which can be improved with study and practice (I am a living testament to this.) So for those of you who have a desire to start a podcast and donât have the best audio equipment or editing programs, donât worry. Do your research and figure out whatâs best for the content you want to create. Or hire a producer to push you in the right direction. (Seriously, a good producer can help you in ways you didnât even think possible.)
If youâve listened to the Fanbros show within the past year youâll be able to tell that the music sounds VASTLY different from when the show started. We publish our show to an RSS feed through Soundcloud which has a very severe copyright system. Since I have no desire to get a cease and desist letter, I use remixes. In the vain of all things hip-hop and nerdy, I have chosen to use remixes of television show theme songs. For now Iâve kept it towards cartoons, which seems to resonate most with the audience. Iâll attach a link below for examples. And man, are they great examples.
Once Iâve got edits, transitions, sound bites, sound effects and music, I listen to the show once more to make sure everything flows smoothly. The Fanbros Show does have a format that it follows from week to week, however variety is the spice of life. Iâm able to make small tweaks that benefit listening experience for the audience; using a dynamic song instead the typical transition. Adding a jazzy sound effect to a funny moment to illicit not just a laugh, but a CACKLE. I master the audio to make sure nothing is overwhelmingly louder or softer than it should be. Some people shout when they talk and donât even realize it. Some people are naturally soft spoken. I do my best to make sure they sound like theyâre having a good conversation. Once the mastering is complete, I render the project into an mp3 file, and publish. The longest part of this process, for me, is finding new music each week. But overall itâs a thrill. I work on a few different podcasts and they each have their own format. Fanbros keeps me challenged in a variety of ways, which I prefer. A challenge means that my skills are constantly tested, which makes me want to be better each week.
Thank you for taking the time to read how I approach an episode of The Fanbros Show podcast. If you have any questions donât hesitate to tweet me at @tytherobot or send me an email at [email protected]. And if youâd like to hire me to edit your show we can discuss that too. No seriously, Iâm happy to help. ;)
Hereâs an example of all the elements working together to create a cohesive experience for the listener. Also Iâm on this episode. Enjoy!
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While the Secret Convergence continues, we thought it would be fun to give listeners an insight into how the participating podcasts plan, record, edit and publish their show. Today, Kieran Shiach from Journey Into Misery talks about his process.
With Journey Into Misery, weâre kinda blessed and cursed because we know exactly what weâre doing week by week until next summer. We have Patreon supporters who get to choose episodes by supporting us at a certain level, and I have a big spreadsheet that lets me keep track of everything. That means thereâs not much room to budge, but I give myself some wiggle room for special episodes, like when a movie or a TV show happens, like the upcoming Jessica Jones episode.
We generally record a week before the episode goes up, so planning for it begins two weeks before then. At the moment Iâm working on Power Man and Iron Fist, which is due out the first week in December. The first thing I do is I create a Google Doc and block out the structure of the episodes with headers, so for this one it has headers like
LUKE CAGE: HERO FOR HIRE
IRON FIST
POWER MAN AND IRON FIST
NEW AVENGERS
IMMORTAL IRON FIST
and so on. This helps me know how much space I have, and how much time I can give each section. For an episode this big, weâre not going to be able to talk about every issue of POWER MAN & IRON FIST, but for something like the Jessica Jones episode, we could take the time and talk about ALIAS and THE PULSE issue by issue.
I try and read as many comics as I can, but I rely on places like the Marvel and DC Wikis, as well as Comicvine, as resources, especially when time is tight or I just canât get my hands on a comic to read. I often lean on friends like Chris Sims, Elle Collins or Al Kennedy to help me fill in some gaps that I might need help with.
When the episode is written up, I go through the notes and create a gallery of images for characters that Helena might not know who they are or what they look like, and when we record, I go through those as the characters come up, to give her a better understanding of what weâre talking about. When everything is done, Iâll put the call out for questions just before we record and weâll record from my notes, then do the Good Egg/Bad Egg segment, then do listener questions.
I donât edit the podcast too much, because I just donât have the time. I run it through Audacityâs truncate silence feature which tends to cut out ten minutes or so of pauses, before moving it over to Adobe Audition. I tend to turn it up a little bit, while being wary of not making it too loud to the point that it peaks. I add in the opening music first, then the episode itself, then I find the point where we do Good Egg/Bad Egg and cut the sound file so I can insert the transition song. Thatâs always my favourite bit, because thereâs nothing funnier to me than something only I find funny, and I like to make them thematic with the episode. Recently we had a Hawkman episode and I used Time After Time as a reference to Hawkman and Hawkgirlâs constant reincarnation, and I hope people found that as funny as I did.
When the episode is done and Iâve put in the closing music, I save it, then move it back over to Audacity, because for some reason saving it again in Audacity brings the file size way down. Iâm sure thereâs an easier way to do that, but thatâs the way Iâve fallen into doing. I create two versions of the featured image, a thin one for the website and a larger one for Twitter and Facebook, and I edit the metadata of the episode before uploading it to Libsyn and scheduling it for Wednesday at 00:00 GMT. I create the Wordpress post as well, and schedule that for the same time, as well as uploading the image gallery to Imgur and linking to that from Wordpress.
Then, when the episode goes up, I spend the next twenty-four hours obsessively refreshing Libsyn to see how that stats are doing before starting work on the next weekâs episode!
Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts Episode 7: House To Astonish
Itâs part seven of Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts, and Iâm joined by Elle Collins (of Into It with Elle Collins), Helena Hart (of Journey Into Misery) and Jeff Lester (of Wait, What?) to talk about the comics, characters and creators from the bottom of the barrel whom we love despite their occasionally ostensibly awful nature, those whoâve never had a fair shake, and those we just feel sorry for.
SECRET HANDBOOK OF THE SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS
ENTRY #15: HELENA HART (JOURNEY INTO MISERY)
NAME: Helena Hart
SECRET CONVERGENCE EPISODES: House To Astonish
QUOTE: âOnce you've been a hand, your baby career is overâ
KNOWN ALIASES: H, Hachiee
PODCAST: Journey Into Misery
OTHER TEAM AFFILIATIONS: University of Salford, A Facebook group chat titled âKNITTING?â
POWERS: You know the vegan super-powers in Scott Pilgrim? Basically that.
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Salford, United Kingdom
SECRET ORIGIN: Although born in the wealthy and pleasant land of St. Albans, H moved to the desolate winter that is The North of England to pursue her passion of animal husbandry. She was seduced by a local, and together she spends her nights learning the ways of comic book continuity, and men with babies for hands.
FAVOURITE GOOD EGGS: Big Barda, Starman (Jack Knight), The Flash (Wally West)
FAVOURITE BAD EGGS: Stilt-Man, Darkseid, Professor Zoom
SECRET HANDBOOK OF THE SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS
ENTRY #14: PAUL OâBRIEN (HOUSE TO ASTONISH)
NAME: Paul O'Brien
SECRET CONVERGENCE EPISODES: Wait, What?; Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men
QUOTE: âBut to be fairâŚ"
KNOWN ALIASES: @ifdestroyed (Twitter)
PODCAST: House to Astonish
OTHER TEAM AFFILIATIONS: Comics Should Be Good, formerly Ninth Art, The Beat
POWERS: Paul is able to maintain focus on a single franchise for decades at a time. Â He has an average level of interest in the Inhumans for a man of his age, height and build who is not on the Marvel payroll.
BASE OF OPERATIONS: House to Astonish (oak-panelled study)
SECRET ORIGIN: Raised in a suburb that hadnât been so near the bypass when his parents moved in, Paul entered comics through DC Thomson and the Eagle before encountering the period gateway drug of Marvel UKâs Transformers. Â Discovering inexplicable monthly leaflet things in scattered newsagents, he was slowly dragged into a hidden world of back street shops and nascent online dialogue. Â Reviewing the X-Men for longer than he likes to contemplate, he now podcasts with Al Kennedy in the House to Astonish.Â
FAVOURITE MR BLOOM: The gardener.
FAVOURITE SPOTIFY PRESET PLAYLIST: Pulse of Americana. Â
Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts Episode 6: Wait, What?
Hello, hello, hello! Â Today youâre in for something out of the ordinary, as Gary Lactus (from Silence!), Chico Leo (of Fan Bros), and Paul OâBrien of House To Astonish join Jeff Lester on Battlepod for an infinite secret podcast crossover! Â Yes, Graeme was whisked away by the Beyonder to another part of the strange dimension known as Battlepod, leaving me to fend for myself against three of the sharpest knives in the comic book podcasting drawer.Â
This episodeâs theme (yes, a themed Wait, What? episodeâthe stakes get higher by the minute!): âThe Worm Turns:  Characters, Creators and Books that we used to hate but now love or vice-versa.âÂ
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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SECRET HANDBOOK OF THE SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS
ENTRY #13: JEFF LESTER (WAIT, WHAT?)
NAME: Jeff Lester
SECRET CONVERGENCE EPISODES: Wait, What?, House to Astonish
QUOTE: "Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm. Â Interesting..."
KNOWN ALIASES: @lazybastid (Twitter), airportbooks, waitwhatpod (Tumblr), âHey, Beardo!â
PODCAST: Â Wait, What?
OTHER TEAM AFFILIATIONS: Club Wouldnât Belong to Any Club That Would Have Me as a Memberâ Member, The Car Acrobatic Team (auxiliary league).
POWERS: +2 to Stun when using Digress; +5 to Alan Moore Impressions; -5 to all saving throws against Jack Kirby.
BASE OF OPERATIONS: The City That Shouted âDisrupt!â At The Heart of the Aton, a.k.a. San Francisco, California.
SECRET ORIGIN: It was the late Sixties, and swinginâ Marvel Comics was blowing up like a bomb, true believer! Â But your man Stan, and his right hand Roy, knew superhero comics were only a fad, so they started looking for the next big thing in pictorial entertainment and in the popular underground comics of the day, they were sure they had found it! Â So one weekend the Rascally One banged out the full first issue of âHey, Beardo!â a rollicking romp through the San Francisco streets with hirsute hepcat, Beardo, and his buddies, the Free Love Friends, as they found themselves thrown into wild hijinks and out of crazy cold water flops, jamminâ java houses, and sensimilla-scented speakeasies! (After much reworking, this script was published years later as Marvel Premiere #31, Featuring the Man-Brute Called Woodgod.)
WHAT'S IN THE FLASK: Everything Iâve saved for retirement.
Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts Episode 5:Â Journey Into Misery
Welcome to Journey Into Misery, where I explain complicated comics characters, continuity and concepts to the patient and perpetually perplexed Helena Hart.
Weâre at the halfway mark of the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts, and The Beyonder still isnât satisfied!
On this very special Journey Into Misery, Kieran is joined by Graeme McMillan (Wait, What?), Jay Rachel Edidin (Rachel and Miles X-Plain The X-Men) and The Beast Must Die (SILENCE!) to discuss their favourite D-List heroes and villains, or in JiM parlance, the best Good Eggs and Bad Eggs!
POWERS: The Beast Must Die can form opinions on comics he hasn't read at 20 paces. He also has fist rockets that shoot out of his eye lazersÂ
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Haunted Castle in the heart of Olde Londone Towne
SECRET ORIGIN: When he got bored of hunting horny teenagers through graveyards, evading capture by eccentric big game hunters, howling at the moon on the Moors, and waking up in strange places covered in blood without knowing why or how he got there, The Beast Must Die decided that his time would be better spent talking about comics every week with his good pal Gary Lactus and recording the shambolic results. When not doing this he writes and draws the adventures of CINDY & BISCUIT. He still thinks about spurting arteries and the taste of human flesh occasionally though.Â
FORMATIVE CULTURAL MOMENT: Watching Chuck Jones' 'Duck Amuck' as a 5 year old
MOST UNDERRATED JOHN CARPENTER FILM: Prince of Darkness
Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts Episode 4: Less Than Live With Kate or Die
Listen to LESS THAN LIVE with KATE OR DIE episodes free, on demand. This special episode is part of a crossover that spans 9 different comic book podcasts! Guests include: Elle Collins from "Into It With Elle Collins", Al Kennedy of 'House To Astonish',and Graeme McMillan of 'Wait, What?'
SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS EPISODE 3: SILENCE!
Thatâs right!  In this third in the #SCOIP series of podcast crossovers, The Beyonder has gathered together Gary Lactus with Kieran Shiach from Journey Into Misery, Chico Leo from Fan Bros and Al Kennedy from House To Astonish to ponder the impossibly specific question, ARE THINGS BETTER OR WORSE.
Unsurprisingly things turn pretty ramblesome pretty quickly as our cosmic castaways talk about Comic Book Movies, Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada and The Changing Face Of The Industry In General. Thereâs some laughs, some sagely nods and some lovely Moral messages at the end.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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SECRET HANDBOOK OF THE SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS
ENTRY #11: KATE LETH (LESS THAN LIVE WITH KATE OR DIE)
NAME: KATE LETH
SECRET CONVERGENCE EPISODE: Less Than Live with Kate or Die
QUOTE: "Mulder, it's me."
KNOWN ALIASES: @kateleth (tweets, instagram) @kateordie (tumblr)
PODCAST: Less Than Live with Kate or Die
OTHER TEAM AFFILIATIONS: Marvel, IDW, Boom, Oni, ComicsAlliance, The Internet
POWERS: Haircut, eyeliner, right hook.
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Medieval Times. Also, Canada.
SECRET ORIGIN: A college drop-out and former makeup artist, Kate took to making comics after getting fired from a dress shop and hasn't looked back. She is the founder of The Valkyries, a not-so-secret society of women working in comics retail.
FAVOURITE EMOJIS: The sparkly heart, the eggplantÂ
SECRET HANDBOOK OF THE SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS
ENTRY #10: AL KENNEDY (HOUSE TO ASTONISH)
NAME: Al Kennedy
SECRET CONVERGENCE EPISODES: SILENCE!, Less than Live with Kate or Die, House to Astonish
QUOTE: "Oh yeah, we were doing a podcast about comics, werenât we?â
KNOWN ALIASES: @housetoastonish (Twitter), @comicsfacts (Twitter), @springheeltech (Twitter), basically a lot of Twitter accounts living and dead
PODCAST: House to Astonish
OTHER TEAM AFFILIATIONS: Speedball Revenge Squad, Comics Should Be Good, formerly Ninth Art
POWERS: Bad puns, good puns, freakish double-jointedness, really dancing, cat-herding
BASE OF OPERATIONS: the House to Astonish, the wilds of Scotland.
SECRET ORIGIN: Raised in Scotland on a diet of Simon Furmanâs Transformers, Al grew up loving comics from all across the spectrum of the artform. When he was sent to prison for a crime he didnât commit, he took part in an experiment that gave him steel-hard taste in comics, allowing him to absorb hits from 1990s Marvel series without injury. Seven years ago, he moved into the House to Astonish with his co-podcaster, martial arts master Paul OâBrien, where they maintain a lifestyle as an odd-couple team of podcasting heroes for hire.
FAVOURITE RPG: TSR Marvel FASERIP system
LAST MEAL: Just, like, an entire baked Camembert with a mountain of bread and crackers
