Sequential Opinions

Creative Voices

I’ve been reading comic books since I was a wee lad. Until I started reading superhero comics when I was around 13 or 14 years old I didn’t actually put two and two together regarding the people behind comic books and the illustrations. That there was someone behind the story, the pencils and the inks, and the letters. I thought the pictures were made by magic or machines and made pretty good stencils for me to learn how to draw.

So after discovering superhero comics I finally became aware of the comic book creators behind the scenes. For the next 10 or so years I would read the words of these creators however I could NEVER hear them. The hobby that I was obsessed with just didn’t have anything on TV where creators could chit chat and talk about the latest releases. That’s a show I would watch EVERY SINGLE WEEK. So I had to contend to reading interviews and imagining their voices in my head. Now thanks to Podcasts I don’t have to do that.

With the advent of podcasts and seeing that format be cuddled by the comic book industry is a fantastic series of events. Loads of creators have been popping up in podcasts and I for one think it’s one of single most brilliant addition to the comic book industry. When I first discovered podcasting, not so much discovered but actually embraced the format, I had Augie De Blieck podcast, which I didn’t fancy very much. Nothing personnal to Augie as I’m a big fan of his Pipeline column. I’ve had a couple of email exchanges with Augie to explain myself further. I then latched onto Comic Geek Speak. Which seriously reminds me of the times in the comic book stores.

However I’ll be critical of the boys now as well. I really like their rants and raves, but I’m sorry their interviews lack a certain direction, a certain amount of professionalism. They’re getting better at it all, but there doesn’t seem to be a real coherent plan of attack and I think it shows. Also they’ve seriously got to get some better equipment because their phone thingy really doesn’t work. The quality is arguable at best.

So you ask why the hell am I bringing this up, just to slag the boys off, seems I’m pretty good at getting people’s attention like that. No the reason is because I want to point out how you should be doing a comic book interview. Do I think I know how a podcast interview should be conducted? Absolutely not, but John Siuntres seems to be seriously very good at it in ways the CGS boys haven’t really mastered.

I think even they’ll agree with me here, but his Word Balloon Podcasts, from the way he asks the questions to the flow of the entire thing, it just comes off in a spectacular fashion. He leads you in and out of the podcast in a great little way and it comes of in an extremely professional manner. The questions are coherent and seem to spark some great responses from the recipients.

Go check it out if you’d like to hear your favourite creators because 2 years ago you couldn’t.