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Interview: Graeme McMillan and Jeff Lester on Wait, What? Podcast, the Comic Industry, and Crowdfunding

Interview: Graeme McMillan and Jeff Lester on Wait, What? Podcast, the Comic Industry, and Crowdfunding

Wait, What? hosts Graeme McMillan and Jeff Lester discuss their podcast and their recent Patreon campaign.

Jeff and I did an interview about Wait, What?, which was a strange and wonderful thing. (We did another one, that’ll hopefully run later this week, for somewhere else. It’s weird doing interviews from this side, but not a bad weird.)

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The Ballad of Magic Boots Mel

Back after three months with this, a story written for the Hollywood Reporter to accompany the USA team’s match against Germany in the 2014 World Cup — at the request of an editor — that was shelved because everyone agreed it was just a little bit too random. How I hoped this would make it on there, though.

A tweet from the official Twitter account of the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team before today’s match made the most of Clint Dempsey’s nickname of Captain America by tagging Marvel and including a pic of the star-spangled Avenger. Which got me thinking: where is Magic Boots Mel during all of this?

Admittedly, Magic Boots Mel is a bit of a deep cut for Marvel, considering that the character has only made one appearance to date (in 2013’s Avengers Assemble No. 15AU, for the completists out there). She is, however, Marvel’s primary—and admittedly, only—soccer-themed character, and as such, one that would be primed to take full advantage of the surprise soccer fever surrounding this year’s World Cup.

This isn’t as ridiculous as it may seem: Marvel has not one but two (non-soccer) football-themed concepts in its character library, with the series NFL SuperPro and Kickers, Inc. having both turned football heroes into super heroes in the 1980s and ‘90s. The publisher has also published titles centered around motocross (Team America) and previously teamed with the NBA for a line of basketball-related Marvel merchandise. So why not bring Magic Boots Mel back for the World Cup?

The character, whose real name is Melanie Kapoor, gets her powers of superhuman accuracy and long-distance kicking—I promise, I am not making this up—from a pair of magic boots that give her soccer powers. Admittedly, the fact that she’s English may not be the most topical tie-in to this year’s World Cup, given England’s speedy exit from the tournament, but this just opens up the possibility of a story wherein she lends the magic boots to the actual Captain America, who leads the U.S. team to victory and unexpected soccer domination.

Okay, so it’s probably a little too close to the U.S.’ own exit from the tournament—let’s be pessimistically honest, here—to make this happen, but there’s always time to bring Magic Boots Mel into prominence for next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada. If nothing else, just stick her in Avengers: Age of Ultron for a winning cameo…?

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Housecleaning

You’ve possibly noticed I’ve been a little quieter than usual on the Tumblrs and the Twitters. There’s a simple reason for this – I’ve had something that’s almost like vacation, except that there’s been a lot of work happening because I don’t do vacation well. Expect normal service to be resumed tomorrow, including a bunch of links I owe people. JULY! It’ll be better!

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Wait, What? Ep. (15)3: The Paise That Frays | Wait, What?

Wait, What? Ep. (15)3: The Paise That Frays | Wait, What?

waitwhatpod:

Hey, everyone!  This is a big episode in more ways than one:  not only is it a two and a half hour episode for you, not only is it our epic conclusion to our discussion Steve Englehart’s amazing run on The Avengers, but it is also the episode to listen to if you want to win one of the five Oily Comics Summer Bundles!

Hey. Hey, you. Hey, martial arts fan: Are you ready to get your guts kicked out? Because the latest issue of Wait, What? is up and it’s 150 minutes filled with Steve Englehart’s Avengers, what makes Marvel and DC Marvel and DC and proof that neither Jeff nor myself knows how to explain a “Phrase That Pays” contest in 50 words or less. Listen! Love! Let us heal you after kicking your guts out.

In which I quote DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist to promote the latest episode of the podcast because people you too can win Oily Comics Summer Bundles this time.

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What was insidious about the ’00s view of the world was that it assumed certain cynical things as a given: that the fashion world is and always will be corrupt, that the molestation of young women by older and more powerful men is tradition, that people can be manipulated through fear. It assumed that what was in the interest of a few powerful men was naturally what was right for the masses. The decade kicked off with Bush’s victory over Al Gore, in which the general public will was overridden on a technicality, and went right into a misguided response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, which established a general atmosphere of fear and sparked a depressing wave of American anti-Islamic sentiment the Bush presidency rode into an unnecessary war. The ’00s were a bully. The whole decade revolved around the public and private erasure of consent.

Molly Lambert on the hangover from the ‘00s. Great read.
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The Washington Post has pulled the portion of its online job advertisement for a social media editor that lists, among its job requirements, the “ability to explain to those twice your age what Reddit or Snapchat or Whisper or Fark is.”

Further, it’s a “bonus if you’ve convinced them to use any of these platforms.”

The new version of the social media editor job posting, found here, does not include the ability to explain social media to older people in its job requirements.

Current job requirements include working knowledge of HTML (“and quite simply, how the Internet works”); audience building experience; and five or more years of journalism experience.

Kris Coratti, The Post’s communications director, called the initial job advertisement a “draft” rather than a final version. It appeared online at various job search sites beginning June 20.

On Tuesday, the reference to explaining social media to older people was deleted.

From here.
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It’s important to recognize this in terms of gender balance. Since 1971, the “standard” model for Doctor Who has been a male Doctor and a female companion, and while this episode does explicitly note that it is possible to regenerate into a different gender, at this point in the show the Doctor remains a firmly male character, with female characters delegated to the “secondary” role. But The Doctor’s Wife consciously alters this, declaring that the series’ implicit hierarchy is in fact topped by a woman, and making female spaces a vital concept in the show’s mythology, in an entertainingly literal manner. And, because it’s worth saying, the fact that this is what the script emphasizes and not “spooky alien planet with a personality” can be credited to Moffat.

Really into Phil Sandifer’s recent Doctor Who posts, in which he teases out a feminist reading of the sixth season (The above is from this post, but the post about “Let’s Kill Hitler” is the central one in this argument, and one that’s sure to drive a bunch of people insane with fury).