Red Raider Show Episode 6

aka Catch-Ups

Hey, Red Raiders, and welcome another episode of the Red Raider show. I apologize in advance if I am late in making this show. I'm just doing so much stuff. I'm not, like, overburdened now. I'm overburden. There's a lot going on, and it's not bad. It's all good because it means that I'm busy. And I don't want to make you think that I'm like some workaholic. Trust me, there's plenty of downtime in my life. But I like being busy, especially when it's for this, for what you guys enjoy. Because that's what makes me the happiest besides spending time with my family, of course. So let's get into the nitty gritty. Let's get into the behind the scenes about what's going on at Comic Pop right now. Yesterday, we dropped Daredevil Man Without Fear, and I think we cut that episode a month ago. So it's really fun to see that episode come to light, not only because it was a really funny episode, but also because it did well. It looked like the audience really responded to it. And that's a feather in my cap, so to speak. 

I was really disheartened about how that New York Comic Con episode went. And not that the episode wasn't fun. It was actually a great episode. And it was like a trimmed down, like, that represents how long we've been doing the show and how good we are at making that show at this point where it's like, we really don't have time. We really have to do this episode in like 30 minutes. And we did. We just knocked it out. Boy. And I'm really happy about how that episode was because we got some quips. We got some story, we got some laughs, and we got a Tom King cameo out of it, which I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to get a creator on back issues. And we have a studio, and there's a great opportunity for creatives to come to the studio. And we've had exactly one other YouTuber come to the studio. And shortly thereafter, he quit comicstube. So I guess, you know, take that for what you will. But, you know, I've been wanting to have somebody that we've talked about, whose work we've talked about, come on the show and give us a little bit of sass. And in fact, he was really complimentary. He was like, oh, sure. What do you want me to do? You want me to say hi? You want me to come behind the booth and we'll plug the show? And I was like, no, I want you to be like, fuck you. And he was like, yeah, I can do that. And I'm like, no, I mean, honestly, I don't want to give you notes, and I'll give you line reading. Like, I'm just gonna, you know, like, I'm going to tee you up. And then you just say whatever comes to your mind, whatever you want to say, and then we'll just cut because you're here, you're trying to work, you're busy. I get it. And he was like, I got plenty of time. You can do whatever you want. So he knocked out his line, and it actually killed the audience around him. Like you could hear a woman in the background laughing. And that's a woman who's offering him support for his whole enterprise. And she thought that was hilarious. And I think I hope the people who stuck around and actually saw that moment in the episode enjoyed it as well, and also know that it is all in good fun and there's no malice or negativity in any way on either side. So that episode came out. It didn't do great. 

And then we did The Abduction, which I was like, that's a really fun one. And we did the Abduction. And the reason why it was like Batman and then another Batman was because my plan was to have Daredevil come out. But then it was October and we really, really wanted to make, like a Halloween month of shows. And I think we've done that before where we did at least two or three Spooky episodes and we just didn't have time. And I don't know why, because we're doing fewer shows than we ever did before. But for whatever reason, we just didn't have the time to plan. And I think that had a lot to do with just availability. Ethan and Ben are busier than ever. They have advancements in their jobs, and they're taking those responsibilities very seriously. They're taking our responsibilities as well very seriously. But something's got to give. And I don't pay the most. Like, between their fulltime job with health benefits and me, they're going to beat me. But their dedication and their professionalism is never in question. 

And I hope that you haven't even noticed that they're, like, really busy and tired. Although you will notice in the upcoming Fantastic Four episode because Ethan's voice is shot. He got sick, but he had been sick, which is why he's not in the Halloween episode. And you'll see why he wasn't on it based on how he wasn't contagious anymore, but he was still wrecked and he has no voice. And so we were like, dude, Tiffany can pitch hit for you. Like, she can jump in. And he was like, no, no, I want to do the show. I want to be there, and I want to hear about this Fantastic Four book. And it's Grant Morrison's Fantastic. Four: 1234. We had a really fun time, we shot that. But so that's coming out in a couple of weeks. We had the abduction come out, and we wanted that to come out because we wanted it to at least be a little scary. Aliens are a little bit Halloween, I guess. So we had the abduction come out, but then Tiffany was like, oh, no. But I did. Arkham Asylum. Living hell. That's technically a Batman book, although Batman is only on like four pages total. Maybe we can get away with it. And I was like, it's going to be fine. The audience likes Batman, but they don't want too much Batman. It's just that they'll get it. They'll be okay. And you guys were like the audience, by and large, was like, yeah, it's fine. Alright. As a result, we're going to take a break from Batman for a little while since we basically, technically did three Batman books in a row. 

So we had Daredevil, which is very I know it's red Batman, but whatever. But Daredevil came out. And then we're going to do do more for the Black Panther release because when a Black Panther movie comes out, hey, let's do a Black Panther book. And everyone, everybody, after we did our first Black Panther story was like Doom War. And so we had it and we were like, all right, so we did Doom War and we recorded that one when Ethan was sick. So Ethan is not in that one. But it is a really fun episode. And it's really like it's got a lot of, like, great Ben and TIFF riffing in there. That if people like that kind of thing, they're going to love this. Plus, it's a really fun story overall. Then I guess it'll be Fantastic Four 1234. And then after that, it'll be the episode we shot just yesterday, which was Venom Carnage Unleashed. 

And let me tell you why we picked that one. I ordered an epic collection of Venom stories because I wanted to have Carnage Unleashed. Because I think Carnage Unleashed is a hilariously, stupid story. And I'd never read it before. Like, I had the first issue and I never picked up any following issues. It was right on the cusp of me being like, I think I'm done. Because Ben Riley took over as Spiderman spawn was getting into the weeds. It was all kind of falling apart from me. And that issue did not do much to change my mind. So I picked up cars unleashed. I read that. I was like, this sucks. And I never read anymore. So I ordered this epic collection from awhile ago. I finally finished the story and I was like and then I thought, you know, what would actually be more cool than Carnage Unleashed? She venom or the bride of venom? I thought that would be a really fun episode to do because maybe it will get some clicks. But moreover, I can't wait to see beneath the react to Anne weighing, getting the Venom symbiote and just the absolute ball to the wall nonsense that takes place. But twothirds of the way through Bride of Venom, this character shows up and she's talking about Kirsten and Clive and getting revenge for something. And I'm like, this whole plot hinges on this lady showing up and being mad about something. Well, what is she mad about? She's mad about something that happened in Carnage Unleashed. So I'm like, alright, this is Kismet. Let's do Carnage unleashed. And then if people like it or they respond to it another time, we will do The Bride of Venom and we'll pay off that dangling plot thread. But we haven't had an episode like this in a long time, not since Secret Wars Two, and we had some bullshitary go on that affects the guys in this manner. I was like, this is what I'm looking for. This is what the show is all about. Honestly, the show is at this point at this point, I think the show is hopefully about getting people to read and buy comic books, but also to entertain and delight. And this is one of those times where it is just like, I don't know if I recommend this story, but damn. So that was a really fun episode to shoot. And that I don't know if it's going to be that or Fantastic for it really depends on which one I edit first. And I've got both of them in the timeline. I'm probably about like ten minutes into Fantastic Four and I've got nothing cut for Venom. But as I think I've talked about in previous episodes, like, I edited two episodes at the same time once, and it was amazing and it allowed me to have a really nice buffer. So we're doing that, or at least I'm going to plan on doing that. 

The other thing I want to do is I have to plan because Halloween really snuck up on us and so we were not able we were at least able to do a Halloween episode, but we weren't really able to do, like, all the things that we wanted to do, like get a whole spooky month going on. But I really want to make sure I don't screw this up for Christmas and New Year's, because now there's a noble tradition of doing, like, a ridiculous book for Christmas and like, a really big book for New Year's. This means if yesterday was the second that was Daredevil Man Without Fear, then the 9th will be Fantastic 41234, and then the 16th will be Venom Carnage Unleashed, which means we have the 23rd and the 30th, which can be just any old book. Those will be a lot of fun. Then it's December and we have the 7th, the 14th, then the 21st, and the 21st is when we have to put out the Christmas episode or the holiday episode. So that means we have four episodes to shoot before we have to shoot the holiday episode. So I should be planning on recording that holiday episode right away. If I were smart, I would prep and dress the set and shoot the holiday episode, like in a week or two and just have it in the can and then just shoot any old episodes and just have some fun. That probably makes the most sense. I don't know if I'll actually end up doing it, but I hope I do. I genuinely hope I actually have the foresight to do that. But Tiffany's birthday is coming up. That's going to be on the 20 November, and so I got a plan for that as well. We've got plenty of things going on right now. 

Also, I have a new show and it's called Wake Up with Comic Pop. And you probably have checked it out at least a little bit. The idea, you know, you think it was like, oh, he was making the Red Raider show and he wanted to do that. Incidentally, it had nothing to do with the Red Raider show. Although this is straight up just a podcast that we do that is audio only. That's for a very specific audience. I was in the car. I was driving over the comic book store. I was listening to the radio. It sucked so much. I remembered being on the radio for a little while. I didn't do like, real radio. I did college. Am radio. And that was fun and a precursor to podcasting. And I wish I'd thought of that at any point. I wish I'd recorded any of it. I mean, we did record it, but I wish I had been inspired then to make podcasting because I feel like I would have started podcasting a lot sooner. But I was like, yeah, we should do a radio show. We should just do a straight up commuter morning show. So we did that a shot that well, I record that and then put it out and people responded in a really positive way. I was surprised by how much response we got. We got like, Jason inman emailed me and he was like, I want to be on the show. This is a great idea. And I was like, wow, that was very quick. We do a lot of shows and I know you watch them and this is the one you responded to. Maybe we'll have something here. Then he responded in his own way. And the guys and gals, that is to say, Ben and Ethan and Tiffany loved it and they were very pleased with it. And they promise that they'll drop in once in a while if the mood should strike us. But the convenience of it is that it's just sitting down, recording, and then being like, okay, and then just popping in the interviews and stuff like that. It's very simple. It's very bare bones, but it's also supposed to be just like an entertainment for people who are heading to work or people who just like, kind of subversive radio, I guess. I don't know. I'm not trying to build it up into anything more than it already is, but it's a lot of fun. I was able to make a new thumbnail scheme. Tiffany designed an icon for the podcast because the thing was, we were like, if people are responding to the show already. Like we should just put it out there and just get a lid on it. So it's an audio show, it's a video well, it's on YouTube, but there's no video component. But it's an audio show in every respect where it's like a podcast you can download and you can listen to it on YouTube like a lot of people do. And YouTube's automatic ad algorithm is actually kind of brilliant because it just catches the pauses and drops them in really appropriate ways. And I was like, oh wow, that's kind of amazing. Like, we have actual commercials in the show. So that was an unexpected new thing. 

I had no plans on well, actually I had a lot of plans on making different shows. This was just one of those things where the nature of the business allowed me to try something new. As far as like, new shows go, I mean, I got lots of new show ideas. We got a showmoviebreaked show, we've got a Rejuvenated elf, world's, absolute comics type show. We've got a let's watch idea. We've got our New York Comic Con covers. That needs to be its own thing. We wanted to do more collaborations. We wanted to bring back harbor patrol. There's a lot of different shows. And it's weird because we make off the Rack elseworld Exchange, sometimes back issues, GPU and very occasionally Letters page and now Wake Up, but before Wake Up, that was it. And yet it's hard to find time to do all of it. And I think I know the culprit, but I'm hesitant to do anything about it just right yet. That is of course the absolutely Marvel and DC thing because I am dedicating three days of my life, at least 2 hours a day that could be spent doing another show, planning, editing, making something for somebody else, which we ended up actually talking about. I ended up talking about a little bit over on that other show. But yeah, so that's why it's like weird that I'm like, I thought I had more time than this and I don't. So that is the big stuff. Also went to Baltimore Comic Con. I had a really fun time. I met Tyler from the Imaginary Access in person for the first time. I met the guys from Cartoonist Kayfabe, however you pronounce it, and I don't see any collaborations with anybody in the future. But it was a fun experience to meet people. And really the most important thing and the most exciting thing was meeting the audience. And there were more than a few people at Baltimore who were like, hey. And it was great to just like, sit down, say hi, take pictures and just like, shoot the breeze for a few minutes. 

And meeting creators is always a blast, of course, especially if they're like friendly and open to conversation. We met Gene Luen Yang and he is a delight. Incredibly friendly, super positive and said he'd be on the show. So I'm going to reach out to him, see what's going on. I only know his work from Shang Chi, superman smashes the Clan in. Batman, superman world's finest and Avatar. Okay. So I've actually read a bunch of his stuff. Okay. I feel confident now. I can talk to him. 

But listen, I want to thank you guys for being here. I'm so lucky to have you. Thank you for supporting us. I didn't talk about it much. I actually rerecorded this a few times because I was like, you know what? I've been really doom and gloom lately on this show because this is behind the curtain, and things are not much better than they were, but they could always be worse. And one of the biggest reasons why they're not worse is because of you and this. And so thank you, really and truly. Thank you all. See you next time.