Geek Syndicate - episode 126, with special guest starAtomic Robo Artist Scott Wegener Options

[paladinb]

Welcome to another fifty five minute tour through the geekdom.
In the this week's News: We find out what exactly is a SFX weekender and chat about a new way of recording TV ratings.

Week that was: Robin Hood series finale,The Black Beetle, Ghost Zero, Doc Monster, Detective Comics 854, The Good The Bad and The Weird and the Ghostbusters game. Helping us with our week that was is none other Scott Wegener, artist on the awesome Atomic Robo from Red 5 Comics.

Main: The first half of our interview with Scott. We cover his geek credentials, some of his fave comics, how he became involved with Atomic Robo and how the comic was picked up by Red 5 Comics.

Coming soon part 2 of the interview

Enjoy!

Direct Download: Episode 126

[jimmy x]

Francesco Francavilla pronounced franCHesco. last name is pronounced franKaviLLa with the "villa" said like "killa". awesome dude. who else lets me mimic his thick italian accent and think it's funny? he's a great guy and an amazing artist. Black Beetle is his first big creator owned series that will be coming soon enough. he worked on Dyamite's Zorro (like scott said) and made his bones on Ape Entertainment's first series of The Black Coat. he and his just as sweet wife, lisa, are always so great to chat/hang out with at cons. go to his website and be awed by his art!

a quick sample for you guys and especially bluemeanie. probably one of my fave sketches of Harley.

[WedgeDoc]

Robin Hood - Yeah. Really came together this year with an excellent finale. Nice as a season or series one too - very clever! I'm like Dave. Thought season 1 was OK, second one I stopped watching and then caught up this year in time to watch eps 12 and 13 back to back. So glad I did. Rewatching Season 2 I'm not quite sure what my problem was either...

Detective Comics #854 - Just had a scan of the preview on DC site - looks nice. Good to have a clear jumping on point in such a long running series too. Totally agree about the panel layout though - I remember when I started reading comics I pretty much had to read each page twice. Once for the words and once for the art. And sometimes odd panel progression was jarring.

Scott - Love love love Atomic Robo Volume one. I really need to pick up more though! Enjoyed it so much I did a wee Robo sketch after reading it in the lunch time. Nice to get some background and hear thoughts.

Dave - don't use the term "librarian" like it's not cool. I'm a qualified Librarian, doncher know. Case for coolness proven. No?

Look forward to more from Scott!

TTFN.

[Two-Fisted Scien...]

Jimmy- Y'know, I know how to say Francesco's name. Barry and Dave just put out some weird vibe or something. It was like my mouth filled up with marbles all of a sudden and I couldn't make my tongue work.

WedgeDoc -Thanks! Please feel free to purchase more of our quality Atomic Robo literature. We need to eat! Also for both Free Comic Book Day stories you can go to NuklearPower and click on the Robo link.

I'm curious about something. Robo was on some national Librarian's Top Ten list last year. Is that how you found out about it?

[WedgeDoc]

I'm curious about something. Robo was on some national Librarian's Top Ten list last year. Is that how you found out about it?

I've actually not been a librarian since I qualified ... I was a public Librarian in holidays and such then went to University with the intention of doing it properly... Course things change and i wound up working in a Nuclear Power Station doing data work / change and comms stuff on a massive project, decided I wanted to do web stuff - went BACK to uni to do an Electronic Publishing Masters then wound up being a consultant in the Nuclear Industry writing database applications and technical authoring before finally (last year) getting something related to web / design work!

I found out about Atomic Robo from Mr. Nugent who suggested it to me. And boy was he right!

[Two-Fisted Scien...]

I've actually not been a librarian since I qualified ... I was a public Librarian in holidays and such then went to University with the intention of doing it properly... Course things change and i wound up working in a Nuclear Power Station doing data work / change and comms stuff on a massive project, decided I wanted to do web stuff - went BACK to uni to do an Electronic Publishing Masters then wound up being a consultant in the Nuclear Industry writing database applications and technical authoring before finally (last year) getting something related to web / design work!

I found out about Atomic Robo from Mr. Nugent who suggested it to me. And boy was he right!

So it was his nuclear reactor that drew you in then.

[paladinb]

I found out about Atomic Robo from Mr. Nugent who suggested it to me. And boy was he right!

Seriously Red 5 comics should pay me for the amount of pimping I do for Atomic Robo.

[Bluemeanie]

ok.... have this on the player for the drive home.
It better be good, thats all I'm sayin'

[paladinb]

ok.... have this on the player for the drive home.
It better be good, thats all I'm sayin'

It's good that's all I'm sayin' hope you like scott cause you got another hour of him when I put out part two!

[Bluemeanie]

It's good that's all I'm sayin' hope you like scott cause you got another hour of him when I put out part two!

aaahhhh shit, I gotta listen to TWO of them?

motherf....

[paladinb]

aaahhhh shit, I gotta listen to TWO of them?

motherf....

yep just like we planned...*cues up evil laughter track*

[Two-Fisted Scien...]

I don't like the new 55 minute time frame. and not just because I wanted to talk your faces off all afternoon.

It feels like they end too soon. I press play, I start working, and then BAM I have to fuck with iTunes again.

What bout 90 minutes. That's a nice length.

[Luke]

I haven't picked up a Batman monthly in years, but with all of the good stuff I've heard about "Detective" and "Batman and Robin," I really think I should.

Good first part of the interview with Scott. It's no secret how much I love "Atomic Robo," so I'm really looking forward to the Q&A part of the show.

[VichusSmith]

I liked your interview with Scott Wamalamadingdong because it was so atypical of interviews I hear. I don't know if Scott wants to hear this, but I almost forgot that he was a guest who works on a comic!

I'm glad to hear he dug Appleseed. I liked the new Anime, haven't read the manga nor have I seen the old Anime. That's in my Queue.

If Scott liked Appleseed, I hope he's tried out the Ghost in The Shell manga/movies/tv shows. To put it basically, it's a police procedural set in future Japan. That's criminally underselling it, because this isn't just Vincent D'Nofrio wisecracking for an hour.

The main theme is the nature of a soul; whether a machine can have a soul (or ghost), whether your soul is lost when you merge with machine, and how many parts you can replace before you are no longer considered human.

Hell, everyone check it out! If you rent, buy DVDs, put that on your list.

[Two-Fisted Scien...]

VichusSmith -that sounded like a compliment to me.

The old Appleseed Anime is HORRIBLE. Don't bother. Bother new CGI Anime's are beautifully done. Neither one is all that good compared to the original comics though, and they only have some superficial similarities. I've enjoyed both GiTS movies and the animated series as well. I think they were much better than their Appleseed counterparts. But again, they are pretty lame in comparison to the original comics.

I guess its the difference between one man's vision and working in a much larger studio environment.

There is a more recent GiTS mini-series from the 2000-something I think. It was terrible though. It was boarderline porn and Matsamune did a lot of really weird and ugly computer graphics.

I always point anime/manga haters at Ghost in The Shell and Appleseed. Not every book from Japan is a Naruto-Balls lame-fest or stuffed with gay vampire porn.

[GreenSkeletonII]

Great show, guys. As a fan of pulp, Tesla and robots, I hate to admit that I'm not as well versed in Atomic Robo as I should be. I have started reading the new mini-series and I really like it. I WILL go back and catch up.

Can't wait to listen to Part Two!

[Bluemeanie]

Cool episode, only had to shout at the car mp3 player twice which is quite good going for me listening to a full podcast.

And I read the first 30 or 40 Excalibur as well. Well, I say read, more struggled through Claremonts HORRIBLE over-wordy writing for Alan Davis' beautiful art.

[Two-Fisted Scien...]

Cool episode, only had to shout at the car mp3 player twice which is quite good going for me listening to a full podcast.

And I read the first 30 or 40 Excalibur as well. Well, I say read, more struggled through Claremonts HORRIBLE over-wordy writing for Alan Davis' beautiful art.

YEaaaah. I'm all about the Alan Davis loveliness.

I LOVED it when he was doing that Marvel UK stuff after Excalibur. I don't remember if it was any good or not, but it sure looked nice.

[Agitprop]

When you guys mentioned the SFX convention, it sounded like you guys are not familiar with China Mieville. His book "The Scar" is far and away my favorite stand alone fantasy book. No need to read 15 volumes to get the whole story. It's a fantastic book with no respect for genre constraints. Starts out as high seas adventure with a floating pirate city looking to outfox the imperial navy, but within sohort order you've got vampires, lost civilizations, alchemical science, and cthulhu scale sea beasties. I'm not here to say it's the BEST fantasy book ever, but I do love it and recommend it to any geek who likes genre-bending or big action. Just thought I'd mention it since the writer's name came up.

[paladinb]

When you guys mentioned the SFX convention, it sounded like you guys are not familiar with China Mieville. His book "The Scar" is far and away my favorite stand alone fantasy book. No need to read 15 volumes to get the whole story. It's a fantastic book with no respect for genre constraints. Starts out as high seas adventure with a floating pirate city looking to outfox the imperial navy, but within sohort order you've got vampires, lost civilizations, alchemical science, and cthulhu scale sea beasties. I'm not here to say it's the BEST fantasy book ever, but I do love it and recommend it to any geek who likes genre-bending or big action. Just thought I'd mention it since the writer's name came up.

You're right mate I had no idea who he was and that book sounds bloody awesome!