Because It's About Time Someone Did
WHOA DANG ROSE CITY COMIC CON WAS SO GOOD! We met a zillion of you, and you were universally delightful! We did a ton of panels and threw a ridiculous party! And we shared a booth with the splendid Al Ewing, and he and Jay took advantage of the weird plethora of index cards we always bring to shows and spent their spare moments making minicomics, which we’ve collected here for your edutainment!
Click through for road safety, karaoke, vacuum friendship, and more!
On September 4, we’ll be sitting down to record our 2016 Giant-Size Summer Special and second-ever tabletop episode.
In 2015, game writer and designer and friend of the podcast Logan Bonner has modified the amazing old Marvel Super Hero Adventures game to be played as it was never intended: in the spirit of the 90s animated series! This year, he’s joining us again–this time with an adventure set in the world of X-Men: Evolution!
In addition to Logan, we’ll be joined at the gaming table by two guests: returning X-Pert Max Carleton of Waiting for the Trade and I Love Television; and writer, developer, and all-around badass Crystal Frasier!
But first, we’ve got a job for you…
(There’s a “hope you survive the experience” joke in here somewhere…)
Whoadang! We’re currently the featured podcast over at NPR’s earbud.fm!
If you’re new to Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men: It’s exactly what it says on the tin. We are Jay and Miles. (For folks coming in from the start: Rachel goes by Jay these days. Same person.) We explain the X-Men, in very roughly chronological order, sometimes with the help of folks responsible for them.
For a good general introduction to who we are and what we do, we’d recommend listening to the episode Giant-Size Special #1, which covers a stand-alone story (the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills), along with a lot of bonus material (and significantly more navelgazing than usual).
We also do weekly video reviews of current X-books, which you can find here.
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men is 100% listener supported and ad-free. If you want to join the ranks of the rad people who make it possible for us to keep making stuff, you can do that over at Patreon!
Other varyingly relevant links:
Jay here, with a brief break from our regularly-scheduled programming! Along with a handful of other podcasts and communities, we’re part of a very small closed beta for a new community-oriented social platform, Imzy; and we’re very pleased to finally be able to invite you to join us!
If you’ve been around long, you may have noticed that we keep a pretty tight lock on the social media we use. We don’t have a Facebook page. We use Tumblr very casually, and largely to boost and crosspost material from our website. Our YouTube comments are permanently disabled; and we do everything we can to direct discussion to the comments here.
There’s a reason for that: it’s incredibly important to us to have our community spaces be fun, civil, and safe; and for those qualities to be supported at an infrastructural level. The community that has come together–largely independently–around this podcast is freaking amazing. You are some of the most engaged, enthusiastic, and all-around nice people we’ve ever met, on or off the Internet. And we want to keep it that way.
Which is part of why we’re excited about Imzy. It’s explicitly oriented around communities–think the rough structure reddit with actual oversight, infrastructure, and active anti-harassment tools. If it works the way we’re hoping it will, it’ll mean a community that you can post directly to–not just comment on our stuff–and a lot of new ways to engage.
Not only is this so far shaping up to be a pretty cool platform, but you also get a totally sweet bribe for joining us there, because Imzy commissioned an X-clusive giveaway t-shirt from the always-amazing Dylan Todd:
Here’s how it works: Click over here, and enter your info; and we’ll get back to you with an official beta invite ASAP! We’ll also have physical cards with invite codes with us at ECCC.
As I wrote above, we’re pretty excited about this community, but mostly? We’re really looking forward to seeing you there. <3
Dear Everybody,
On April 13, 2014, we posted the first episode of this ridiculous little podcast: two nerds, at a table, explaining the convoluted continuity of one of our favorite comics.
Almost two years later, it’s like looking back from a different universe. Our weird hobby has become a part-time job. We’ve interviewed some of our favorite creators; traveled across the country; thrown parties and panels; shown up in an actual X-Men comic; been part of an enormous crossover; and explained a quarter of a century of comics continuity. We’ve gone from an audience of friends and family to around 15,000 regular listeners–who, together, have become one of the coolest and tightest-knit communities we’ve had the privilege to be part of.
And you’ve been with us through a lot. In addition to all the stuff above, you turned out for two (soon to be three!) live episodes. You’ve been there through our tenth wedding anniversary; a gender transition and name change; and–as of this week–100 episodes of Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men.
Thanks are in order:
To you, listeners, for sticking with us through 100 episodes of time travel, crossovers, and clones.
To our Patreon subscribers, who let us keep doing what we do ad-free and answerable only to our listeners.
To Kyle Yount, our current producer, who makes us sound way better on the air than we do in the studio.
To Bobby Roberts, our first producer and podcasting mentor, who set one hell of a high bar, and without whom it’s fair to say that none of this would exist in the first place.
To our illustrator and friend David Wynne, who’s bridged what we do back from the audio to the visual.
To AdminstratriX Tina, mistress of the spreadsheets and question files.
To the creators, guest X-Perts, and co-hosts who’ve brought their voices and ideas to our show: Elisabeth Allie, Kris Anka, Marguerite Bennett, Chad Bowers, Elle Collins, Russell Dauterman, Kieron Gillen, Dennis Hopeless, Graeme McMillan, Peter V. Nguyen, Annie Nocenti, Paul O’Brien, Jeff Parker, Greg Rucka, Kieran Shiach, Chris Sims, Si Spurrier, G. Willow Wilson–and last, but far from least, today’s guest: Chris Claremont.
To our off-air partners in crime, Katie Moody and Anna Sheffey, who are just the absolute damn best.
And to the many, many other friends and collaborators who’ve helped make Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men what it is.
Here’s to the next 100.
Love,
Jay Rachel Edidin & Miles Stokes
We woke up this morning to this amazingness in our Twitter stream:
This is not a photo of us. This is a photo of listeners @StudentofWhim and @Biscainer, who decided to celebrate the new title and URL by cosplaying as the versions of us from our cover art, which is unquestionably the most awesomely Borgesian thing that has ever happened to us in nearly two years of X-Plaining the X-Men.
Speaking of the new stuff, if you’re reading this, it means that we are now at our fancy new URL, xplainthexmen.com! (We almost went with JayandMiles.com, but someone pointed out that we’d have to change it again in a dozen or so years when the Littlest X-Perts come of age and take over, so that just redirects here.) In theory, all of the old links will keep working, but here’s a quick-reference list of where to find what:
iTunes should be showing the correct title now or within the next few days; and your feeds should update automatically.
We’re still working on getting Patreon and Redbubble updated; we’ll let you know as soon as those are moved over (for now, they’re right where they’ve always been).
Obviously, this is a big shift, and it’s involved a lot of coordination, so please pardon any hiccoughs in the days ahead; and let us know if anything’s running wrong, or if you notice the wrong name anywhere!
Dazzler’s great and all, but if you know us, you know our hearts belong to a different X-Universe rock star: Joan Jett lookalike and intergalactic super-thief Lila Cheney. So, when director Arvin Bautista–part of the team behind that amazing Dazzler video that dropped last year–dropped a line to let us know that their next project was going to feature Lila, we were pretty excited.
The video–“I Will Steal Your Heart,” embedded above, finally dropped today. And y’all.
Y’all.
I know you have jobs, and classes. I know you have responsibilities, and commutes. But please, whatever you’re doing, put it aside. Close your office door. Get a hall pass. Pull over. (Seriously, though, why are you reading blogs while driving? Don’t do that.) And then watch this video, because it is amazing.
There are New Mutants! Stevie freakin’ Hunter! Intergalactic heists! In-over-his-head Cannonball! Really, really catchy music! (Also some possibly recognizable t-shirts, and maybe some of your faces, if you were among the folks who responded to the casting call back in November!) And we’d be remiss not to mention Sage Montclair’s absolutely splendid performance as a super kickass Lila Cheney.
You can find more on both the Lila and Dazzler videos, as well as info about the folks behind ’em, production stills, &c. over at http://www.superheropop.com/
Jay here! I can’t believe we’re going to be wrapping up the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts this coming weekend! The crossover has been such a constant for the last many months, and seeing it take life over the course of November has been amazing.
Our episode will be up on Sunday, November 29. Meanwhile, we’ve put together a field guide to the Convergence so far–and what to listen to if you fall in love with any of the podcasts involved!
EPISODE ONE: Who Would Win in a Fight
EPISODE TWO: Comic-Book Movies
EPISODE THREE: Are Things Better or Worse?
EPISODE FOUR: Comics We Share
EPISODE FIVE: D-List Good Eggs & Bad Eggs
EPISODE SIX: The Worm Turns: Characters, Creators and Books that We Used to Hate but Now Love (or Vice-Versa)
EPISODE SEVEN: Guilty Pleasures
EPISODE EIGHT: Characters With Whom We Identify
EPISODE NINE: Coming soon on Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men!
IT LIVES! Head over to FanBrosShow to listen to Part 1 of the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts, where the Beyonder makes his podcast debut; and DJ BenHaMeen, Chico Leo, J. Rachel Edidin, Graeme McMillan, and Chris Sims discuss THE fundamental question of fandom: WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT?
(Unfamiliar with the Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts? Get the full scoop over here!)
Follow the Convergence on Twitter
Follow the Convergence on Tumblr
Once upon a time (this past April), a few comics podcasters were joking around on Twitter.
“What if we took a cue from comics and did some kind of ridiculous crossover event?” someone asked.
“I’d do that,” someone else responded.
And then Al Kennedy started an e-mail thread.
Six months later, we are SUPER pleased to announce the first-ever SECRET CONVERGENCE ON INFINITE PODCASTS! SCOIP is a nine-show crossover event, spanning Fan Bros Show; Into It; SILENCE!; Less than Live; Journey into Misery; Wait, What?; House to Astonish, War Rocket Ajax, and Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men. We’re producing nine stand-alone episodes, each hosted by a different show and featuring a mash-up cast from among more than fifteen hosts, and all airing between October 29 and November 29.
This is big, y’all. This is really big. We’re talking plot. The Beyonder. Original art by Brandon Graham (above) and James Stokoe (to be revealed). A guest star (also to be revealed).
To follow along with Secret Convergence on Infinite Podcasts, follow the Convergence on Twitter at @scoipodcasts; on Tumblr at secretconvergence.tumblr.com, and in the hashtag #SCOIP on both–and look for regular updates from all of the participating podcasts.
Will we die? Emerge with new costumes? LEARN TO POOP?
There’s only one way to find out.