The Comics Podcasts I Listen To

I’ve recently been sampling some comics podcasts, looking to add new voices into my ears while I’m walking the dog, driving to work, doing the dishes, etc.

The best way to discover podcasts is to follow your favorite creators on all the shows they appear.  But not every show is an interview podcast.  Mine wasn’t, back in the day.

Sometimes, you just need to run searches on iTunes or in your podcast app to see what’s out there under certain keywords.  That way lies madness, though, as the list of dead, short-lived podcasts is tremendous.

So you keep your eyes and ears open to other shows.  Other podcasts might mention them, or there might be a reference to one that comes across Twitter.  This is the internet — everything is linked together one way or another.

Without further ado, here’s a list of podcasts on my iPhone right now:

Panels

• iFanboy: One of the earlier comics podcasts, the three guys of iFanboy are up in the mid-500s with their weekly episodes and are still so much fun to listen to.  They’re often how I keep in touch with what’s going on at Marvel and DC from week to week.  I can’t read everything, so I’m happy to let them filter through it all first.
• Surviving Creativity: Cory Casoni, Scott Kurtz, and Brad Guigar discuss issues of the day or interview friendly creators from the world of comics.  This is the successor to the late, great Webcomics Weekly.  It’s also very infrequent.  As I’m writing this, the latest episode is eight months old.

That’s about it. I miss “Around Comics,” a show which featured at one point, as I recall, a younger Skottie Young going off on Smallville every week.  I do have a subscription to Comic Geek Speak, as well, but I listen to those episodes very infrequently, as the topics strike my fancy.

The Interview Shows

• The Felix Comic Art podcast is a monthly look at the world of original art. Hosted by art representative, Felix Lu, the show also includes (most months) a short video of the interviewed creator reviewing five pages from his own collection.
• Off Panel: David Harper’s interview series has interesting guests and good conversations. I’ve learned a lot about some modern creators through his show.
• Word Balloon: John Siuntres has been doing this longer than anybody. He is the Energizer Bunny of comics conversations.  I don’t listen to all of the shows, but he has a wide array of guests, so you’re likely to find someone you’d like to listen to on the show.  I’m proud to say I’ve been a guest on the show a couple of times, too.   (And he does it all without his own website, running everything just off LibSyn and a BlogSpot account.)
• Pop Culture Hound: Chris Thompson hosts another creator interview series, but he’s also gone in depth on French and British creators you don’t hear on American podcasts all that often.  It’s a nice mix, and he’s a very pleasant and receptive host.
• Coffee Table Comics Podcast: Very infrequent, but Jason Brubaker’s creator-to-creator chats are enlightening.
• The i Word: This is Image Comics’ official podcast, featuring David Brothers interviewing a different Image creator every week, It tends to focus on the new release they have coming out, and then veers off into the weeds to discuss something that creator likes.  It’s interesting to hear about other people’s side projects and the kinds of hobbies they have because you never know what you might get.

Those are the six that are currently running.  Two more podcasts that had similar formats are now on life support/podfaded out.  But for their duration, they were must-listens, and I bet a lot of them have aged well. They were a lot of careers-in-review, so the timeliness isn’t a big issue.

• Let’s Talk Comics – Hosted by my ComicBook.com boss, Jim Viscardi, it’s a career-spanning interview with some of today’s most interesting comics creators.  There’s some overlap with the next podcast I’m about to mention, but they’re all great interviews.  Once Jim became a father, the podcast never recovered.  (That’s a feeling I know all too well…)
• Stuff Said: Hosted by cartoonist Gregg Schigiel, it’s series of interviews mostly with people Schigiel had contact with through his time at Marvel as an intern or Tom Brevoort’s assistant editor.  Again, career retrospective reviews make most of them timeless.  The Robert Kirkman two-parter near the end of its run is particularly legendary.  Along the way, Schigiel has a few solo podcasts where he tells stories of his time working at the House of Ideas.
• I also enjoyed Sidebar Nation, but the feed appears to be dead since the show ended.  You’ll have to find the shows somewhere on-line. I remember really enjoying Laura Martin’s interview.

New Stuff

These are the podcasts I only recently picked up on.  It’s too early to tell if I’ll be a regular listener, but I’ve downloaded a few of each and have liked what I’ve heard so far.  They’re still on probation, though:

• Back Issue Bloodbath: Friends look back on series or creators and their histories and chat about comics for a half hour.  That’s mixed in with some short interviews.  Simple, but fun.
• Reboot Comic Book Club: Various guests come on to discuss a specific comic. It’s a fun mix.  (The podcast is now dead. Archives are gone. Link removed. – February 2018)
• The Paul List: Paul tries to do a daily podcast, reviewing a different series each day.  I don’t know where he finds the energy to keep up that kind of pace, but good luck to him.  (Oh, wait, the show’s on hiatus for a couple of weeks after making it through 75 days.  I guess that explains that.)  Peruse the list of episodes and you’ll likely find a couple of favorite series or creators who you might be interested in hearing him talk about. It’s just one guy and a mic, speaking his mind.  I like the rawness of it all.

The Internet Marketing Podcasts

• Comics Manifest: This show makes me laugh out loud.  I started cringing at it when I first heard it, but now I try to guess which bits he’ll use next.

Let me explain: There’s a podcaster by the name of John Lee Dumas.  he came out of nowhere a couple years back with “Entrepeneur on Fire,” a daily interview show covering the world of business, digital marketing, entrepeneurship, etc.  He’s been so successful that he’s making six figures a month based on that podcast and associated revenue streams, such as a podcasters mastermind group/training.

Comics Manifest isn’t just based on that model, it’s a dead-on homage to it.  A riff.  Right down to every last bit of it.  The stock questions (including the only barely slightly rephrased identical questions), the tone of voice, the cutesy nickname for the audience, the introduction to specific segments, the lightning– er, Quick  — round, the host recaps of the guest’s answers, the outro where the host claims a kinship with the guest to make you feel included, etc.

Sadly, the person who runs the podcast will inevitably discover there’s not enough money in comics to pull in six figures a year, let alone a month, in comics podcasting.

A lot of podcasts have spun out of the EOFire model.  He’s not alone.  There’s also Developer on Fire, which is a tech show that takes the name and not too much else.

But, you know, “Comics on Fire” would probably be a bad name for a podcast.

That all said, listen to the Lucy Bellwood episode from early in the show’s run.  It’s twice as long as all the others, mostly because Lucy completely takes the show over with her answers, and it’s glorious.

• ComixLaunch: I’ve been binge listening to the Patreon series on this podcast recently, for reasons which should be made more obvious in the weeks ahead… I’m guessing this show was modeled more on Pat Flynn’s podcast, if only for the URL address always being “sessionXYZ” in format.  The bulk of podcasts in this series are Kickstarter-focused, but most of the recent ones were Patreon-related.

There Are Others

They’re not included here because I don’t listen to them enough.  I only dip in when there’s a topic or a guest of special interest, which tends to be infrequent.  There are also shows I got tipped off to on Twitter by the person being interviewed who I happen to follow.  Often, I won’t listen to a second episode and eventually they’ll fall off the list.

I’m sure you have shows you can’t believe didn’t make this list.  Go ahead and sound off in the comments below.  I’m always looking for something new.

(And please be patient.  I have to manually approve your comment if this is your first one.  Give me a couple of hours in case I’m not looking at it.)

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