Geek Sites: Awesomed by Comics Podcast
Podcasts and comic books tend to have audiences that overlap more than a little, and that means that you probably have more than a few choices if you’re looking for a comics-related podcast. But you won’t find many that have the personality, wit, and sheer geekitude of “Awesomed by Comics”. This is a weekly show that provides a wrap-up of the week that was in comics, in the format of a weekly “awards show”. Each week, the New York City husband-and-wife team of Evie and Aaron (and sometimes their cat) get together and hand out awards for things like “Villain of the Week”, “Panel of the Week” (my personal favorite), and, of course, “Book of the Week”. Last month the show celebrated its 100th weekly episode, and it’s still going strong.
I have found an excuse to post the Cover of the Week winner this past week, Fables #97, because it is so pretty.
Evie describes herself as having an “adult-onset comic book habit”, not having read her first book until she was 28. She started writing about the books she was reading on her blog, which can be found at awesomedbycomics.blogspot.com. In a comic book world that is still so dominated by men, she brings a unique perspective. Would it be too pretentious to say that I think the industry needs more voices like hers?
Anyway, in June 2008 Evie and her husband Aaron, who got her into comics in the first place, started the “Awesomed by Comics Podcast”. It’s a take on the week’s comics that’s often irreverent but just as often spot-on. Both Evie and Aaron must read a crapload of comics each week, because every episode tends to run the gamut. They’ll express their love for “The Unwritten” and “Unknown Soldier” in the same show that they rip on current events in “Amazing Spider-Man” and discuss the nuances of the depiction of Stinky, Power Girl’s cat.
You would think it would be hard to turn a discussion about the art aspects of comic books every week into good podcast fodder, since it is such a visual medium. However, the ABCP team manages it, both through strong description and through posting the winners of certain categories (such as “Cover of Week”) on the show’s website. They also manage to pull of the key part of any podcast, which is that it’s just fun to hang out with these people.
Molly Hayes wants to know why you're not awesomed by her.
I found “Awesomed by Comics” only a few weeks ago, while I was doing some research for my entry in our Staff Round-Up article on our Favorite Comic Book Characters. I picked Molly Hayes from Runaways, whose angry exclamation “Why aren’t you awesomed by me?” is one of my all-time favorite comic book lines. It turns out that when you type “awesomed” into Google, this podcast is the first thing that comes up. The website’s FAQs section confirms that the site was named for Molly’s quote, which Evie goes on to say “summarizes the frustrations of every superheroine not taken seriously by her male counterparts.”
I also think it’s worthwhile to just quote the next FAQ here, for posterity: “Q: Where do you come down on the whole ‘Brian Michael Bendis is a God/self-indulgent asshole’ debate? A: Yes.”
So now I have a new addition to my weekly podcast line-up, and I’ve also been catching up on a few back episodes of the show. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is even tangentially interested in comics. You can’t read every good book every week, but you can at least hear about some of the highlights from Evie and Aaron. The “Awesomed by Comics Podcast” can be found for free on iTunes or at the show’s website.
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