As much as I love comics, I have another obsession which I enjoy immensely. This second obsession is with podcasts, those “radio shows” which you can download directly to your iPod or other mp3 player. I listen to podcasts on my way to work, when I am driving by myself, at break times at work, mowing the lawn and when waiting to grab Jamie from school. Basically, any time I am on my own and outside the house I will be listening to a podcast. The best thing about podcasts is there is a podcast for any conceivable topic: current affairs, philosophy, psychology, comedy and “new time podcast in the style of old time radio” and of course comics.
I will talk more about specific comic podcasts another time, but today I want to talk about my favourite podcast of all: The Book Was Better. The Book Was Better’s raison detre is to read the novelisations of well-known movies and determine whether said novelisation was better than the film on which it is based. Spoilers ahed: Most of the time the novels are, as they delve into the back stories of minor characters (and their cats), provide more random information than Wikipedia and critique the fashion sense of the extras. The show is hilariously funny and contains more dodgy double entendre than “Are You Being Served ?”
By now you are wondering “what’s any o f this got to do with comics at all ?”. Fear not gentle reader, there are enough comics connections to make it a suitable topic for a blog called Comic Book Evangelist !
Connection One: The hosts of The Book Was Better are Jessica McLeod and Luke Milton, renowned comic artists from right here in Perth. Jessica is the artist/writer of great mini comics including Mungo Bean, Ghost Farm, and my personal favourite Love Puppets. You can view and buy her work here.
Luke is the artist/writer of the hilarious Bunnies That Hate and the writer of the even better Glorious Bounty comedy/sci fi series. The artist is the local celebrity Edward J Grug (who has also created a heap of cool mini comics. See them here). Glorious Bounty and the Complete Bunnies That Hate are available to purchase here.
Connection Two: I first met Luke and Jessica (and Grug) at Supanova a few years ago as I was perusing artist’s alley for cool comics upon which I could spend money. Not only were their comics extremely cool, both Luke and Jessica were great people to talk to about comics, cartoons and pop culture. Since then I have been lucky enough to hook up with them at subsequent Supanovas and bought more product, had more chats and was given more badges than any man could reasonably try to wear on one shirt/cap/bag !
Connection Three: My favourite episodes are those in which the novelisation is of a movie based on a comic ! The BWB folks have done a number of episodes featuring such a creature, and for mine these are the funniest episodes ! Even better, a couple of these movies based on comics novelisations are written by comics scribe Peter David ! He wastes no time in pointing out the flaws in the script he is adapting, often by having the characters themselves make disparaging comments like “I don’t know why I said that” or “I would be crazy to consider doing that”.
So, whether you are a comics fan, a movie buff or a connoisseur of bad books, I heartily recommend you listen to the following episodes of The Book Was Better podcast.
To quote Wayne from his eponymous Wayne’s World: You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll hurl.
Oh, and if you download THIS episode you will hear Luke and I discussing the junior novelisation of Elektra.
Comic Book Evangelist 