Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men

November Shirt of the Month: ALL OF THEM!

Oh, dang, y’all.

We were going to wait to announce this until November proper, but we were so excited waiting for the beginning of Secret Convergence that we decided to jump the gun and launch a couple days early.

November’s shirt of the month is… ALL OF THEM. Every shirt of the month ever, back in our store. Check out the designs below–and then read on for a big announcement about the future of the Shirts of the Month!


SO, HERE’S THE BIG NEWS:

When we started doing shirts of the month, we were really excited; and over the last ten months, we’ve had a lot of fun and put out some rad shirts. But we’ve noticed two problems:

  • FIRST: The nature of the Shirt of the Month program means that either we have to pull some of our favorite designs after just a month; or we swamp the store.
  • SECOND: Because of the first problem, there are designs–ones we really want to do and suspect you’ll really want to wear–that we’ve been sitting on for ages, both because we don’t want them to disappear and because we’re swamped with the monthly stuff.

Fortunately, one of the nice things about being our own bosses is that we get to make the big calls. To that end, here’s what’s going to happen:

  • During NOVEMBER and DECEMBER, every shirt of the month (and the Demon Bear leggings!)will be on sale in our shop; and we’re also putting those designs on some new products!
  • Beginning in JANUARY, we’ll be adding some of those shirts to our permanent selection and phasing others out. We’re not yet sure which; so if there’s one you’ve got your heart set on, NOW IS THE TIME TO GET IT.
  • From January on, there will be no more shirts of the month. Instead, we’ll be adding new designs–and sometimes phasing out old ones–as we come up with ideas we want to do.

THAT DOESN’T MEAN THE END OF LIMITED-EDITION SHIRTS.

  • One of the things we want to start doing in 2016 is collaborating with local printers to do limited-edition shirts, probably on a pre-order system. They won’t be monthly–but they also won’t be constrained by Redbubble options, which means things like full-bleed designs and a larger size range on limited editions.

EDITED TO ADD: Yes, all our other shirts are still up, too! You can find the whole kit ‘n’ kaboodle at the shop home, or just the shirts of the month over here.

Elle & Graeme Guestsplain!

Packing

Rachel here! Miles and I are moving house this week! While we’re swimming frantically through a sea of boxes, the podcast will continue unabated, thanks to the guest X-pertise of two friends of ours: Elle Collins of Into It and Graeme McMillan of Wait, What?. Elle and Graeme will be recording episode 69 this weekend, talking about Beast’s solo post-Silver-Age adventures!

Since Miles and I will mostly be unplugged for the next few days, we’re following a slightly different policy than usual in our call for questions. If you have a burning Beast question–or any other question–for Elle and Graeme, please either:

We’re really excited for this one–in addition to being some of our favorite people in the Multiverse, Elle and Graeme each brings an encyclopedic collection of comics know-how and critical perspective, and they collectively cover some of the most significant gaps in Miles and my X-perience (see: the subject of this episode!).

New Milestone Goals!

Quick update to let you know that we’ve added a new set of milestone goals to the Patreon!

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  • PODCAST WIKI – $2750/month
    Wondering which questions showed up in which episode, or where to find that one cold open about Fantomex? When we hit this goal, we’ll start work on an exhaustive wiki and question index!
  • WEBSITE REVAMP – $3000/month
    We’ll ditch our DIY setup and hire an actual web designer to revamp (and regularly maintain and update) the site!
  • A/V UPGRADE AND NEW PROJECTS – $3300/month
    We’ll upgrade our video production setup, and start producing some new video and audio content–including some larger projects*–in addition to the podcast and video reviews.

When we first launched the podcast a little over a year ago, we had no idea how large it would grow, or how quickly; and since then, it’s been a nonstop race to keep up. As a result, a lot of what we’ve done has felt less like building something to last than improvising a series of on-the-fly fixes–for instance, our very rudimentary (and mobile-unfriendly) website.

So, while previous milestones have been all about offering more content–posts, merch, recaps, video reviews, and more–this series of goals is all about creating a better and more sustainable infrastructure from which to run the current stuff and launch some projects* that we’re really, really excited about. Hiring a professional to build us a website that works. Organizing and indexing the mountain of material we’ve covered in a year+ worth of podcasts. Shifting more of the organizational and administrative hours to AdministratriX Tina, and using some of that time to get new stuff up and running.

Rachel & Miles X-Plain the X-Men is entirely listener supported, and that means that everything we do here is possible because of you. Thank you for helping us get to where we are, and helping us stay ad-free and independent–and thank you in advance for helping us continue to grow!

*Top secret, at least for now; but SO COOL. Seriously. Hardcore pipe-dream stuff; we’re kinda freaking out at the idea that we might actually get to do some of these for real.

The State of Things – Update

X-Men: Season One; W: Dennis Hopeless, A: Jamie McKelvie
X-Men: Season One; W: Dennis Hopeless, A: Jamie McKelvie

Rachel here.

I’m still out of town, still dealing with the stuff that took me away a week ago. (I’m not going to go into details—as Miles wrote over on tumblr, I’m a fairly private person, and I don’t really want to discuss my personal life and family on public media.)

However, since this has now come up repeatedly, I want to explain a little about what my absence means for Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men in the very short-term, and to address a few specific questions and comments we’ve received.

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Art, Shirts, and an Announcement

You’ve probably already seen it in the Episode 24 posts, but we are so in love with David’s Ororo: Queen of the Galaxy illustration that we’re posting it one more time for good measure. If you’re a collector of discerning taste, you can still snap up the original from David here; prints will be available here through October 5.

 

Ororo, Queen of the Galaxy, by David Wynne
Ororo, Queen of the Galaxy, by David Wynne

BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT (and we really wanted one), Probably a Summers Brother t-shirts (and stickers, and tote bags, and other stuff) are now available in several permutations at our Redbubble shop, sporting a snazzy design by Dylan Todd. Rachel will be rocking hers at NYCC:

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Finally, on a slightly less cheerful note, it looks like episode 24 will be our last on Comics Alliance. This is a wholly amicable split–they’re shifting some things around in terms of how they handle podcasts, and it didn’t make sense for them to keep us onboard. Rachel’s still writing for them periodically, and updates will continue here–as well as on iTunes and Stitcher–as usual.