The Podge Cast is a podcast that focuses heavily on the subject of tabletop role-playing games, such as Burning Wheel, Savage Worlds, and — yes — even Dungeons & Dragons. The Podge also covers movies, TV, books and comics. Essentially, whatever the hosts are geeking over today is what they’re going to be talking about.
This week’s episode, titled “Childish Things,” covers the topic of gamer shame, that bit of embarrassment some feel for playing “pretend” in our adult years. That’s a subject folks like you and me know a little bit about. I mean, how many times have you talked around the issue of your hobby?
You and your wife are at a dinner party with your spouse’s co-workers and somebody asks what you’re reading right now. How likely are you to answer truthfully? Something like, “Guardians of the Galaxy. I loves me some Rocket Raccoon, yo!”
Or do you punch it up with some flowery words to make it sound a little less geekish than it actually is? “I am studying an illustrated narrative exploring modern heroism in a nihilist society.”
That works real well until asked for the title and you have to reveal you’re reading Howard The Duck (the Gerber stuff, not that other crap).
This week’s Podge Cast also addresses growing out of comics. Or in their case, growing out of supers comics. Interesting discussion. They are fairly well unified on their dislike of the traditional Marvel and DC universes, but love books like Walking Dead and Preacher.
I am totally going to have to hook them up with the Guardians of the Galaxy trade.
Rocket Raccoon is the frakkin’ shizzle.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:03 am
I know that my mother tells people I’m an ‘illustrator’ as opposed to telling them that her 29 year-old son still spends most of his time with comic books.
The best thing though is when you are at a dinner party and you realise that you are not the only undercover geek. We should have a handshake like the freemasons or such…
September 9th, 2008 at 10:20 am
That is brilliant, Adam!
I’m gonna guess that the Vulcan splayed finger salute is a little too on the nose, tho.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Saying you’re tired or you’re not that into Marvel and DC anymore seems to be the trendy thing to say nowadays. I guess I’ll start saying how I’m not into mainstream Hollywood anymore. What about book publishers? Are there indie book publishers? If there are I’ll only read those too. None of that mainstream crap for me. Same with games. I refuse to play big budget games made with +60 man teams.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Based on our age ranges, most of the group didn’t read Image or indy supers titles so it makes sense that when talking about our changing tastes in supers that we would refer to DC and Marvel. I can tell you the exact moment I stopped reading comics. I was reading X-Men–which had been flagging in its quality following the Onslaught storyline–and Professor X gives his monthly monologue of not using mutant powers against humans, even though he did it every issue. This time Wolverine called him on it and I was bouncing and down on my bed with excitement. To prove his point, Logan lunges at Charles with his claws and the Prof takes over his mind and shuts him down mid-jump. Point proven! Now they have to deal with it. Except BOP, they’re transported to another galaxy to fight for an alien race. Storyline discarded. They had already canned Deadpool’s genius writer, announced the restart of the Incredible Hulk and an earthquake had destroyed Gotham. This was the last straw. With the exception of the first 7 issues of Buffy season 8 (which I’ve also stopped collecting), I have not purchased a comic since that issue of X-Men.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Rocket Raccoon is the shizzle, fo rizzle. A small cosmic mammal flying at you with space guns blazing? SWEET.
September 9th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
@ Joe Selby
“Logan lunges at Charles with his claws and the Prof takes over his mind and shuts him down mid-jump. Point proven!”
Wait, how does that prove Wolverine’s point about Xavier using his powers against humans? Wolverine is a mutant; a mutant that just lunged at Xavier. That doesn’t prove anything! Ugh, this is why Wolverine is stupid.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I truncated the summary for space. It wasn’t a human or mutant distinction, only a “don’t use your powers against others’ will.” Prof X had found a reason in every issue previously to “violate” his own rule and it was getting extremely frustrating. It was thrilling to see a character voice my frustration and disappointing to see the ethical confrontation pushed forward only to be discarded immediately. Certainly if the other changes hadn’t been happening at the same time, I might not have quit outright, but it was just the last straw.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
@Joe Selby
If you remember that Uncanny issue, then you should remember my user name as well, I been using it as a joke since the issue came out, on various sites. You know who I’m talking about? I hated him for his lameness-plot device usage on keeping the X-men away from some of the cool plots that had been building up in uncanny till “he” and Alan Davis dumped the X-Men into a horribly less interesting storyline.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I was quit excited during that issue too, till the ending…then it was a year of tepidness.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
@Joe Shelby again
I think they dealt with the issue of Xavier a bit more, in an upcoming issue Wolverine and Xavier had to share a mind-body or something, and came to some kind of understanding, though tension with Xavier continued, leading into Divided we Stand…I mean THE SHATTERING, it ends up being a trick, because Xavier is trying to find which of his group are Skrulls in Secret Invasion…I mean Uncanny X-men 375 and a previous storyline with the Skrull homeworld, lol.
September 10th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Nobody’s allowed to have hobbies because they like them anymore. People collect comics as an investment, they fish to commune with nature, they watch television to get an idea of what’s going on in the world. Comics are fun to read, end of story.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Thank you Vinnie.
September 10th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Sad thing…when a movie like 300 comes out, I tell people that “I read the book,” instead of “I read the comic.” But that’s pretty much the only instance in which I disguise it. Seth Cohen made it cool to read comics again! At least when everyone still watched The OC.