Life's the Same, I'm Moving in Stereo

Karen: Aloha, returning BABsters, and any new members of the family. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, pull up a chair. I won't bore you with too many details about what I've been up to. Mostly, I've gone about my business, kept busy with my day job, had a little fun here and there. Right after we stopped regular production on the blog, I had an article on Captain Marvel (that's the Mar-Vell version) get published in Back Issue 93. You can check it out here if you're so inclined. That's the last 'real' piece of writing I've finished, alas.

But don't weep for me, friends, because I've found another outlet for my nerd impulses: podcasting.

"Now this is podcasting!"

Yep, I've taken my gig from the written word to the spoken, with the help of a couple of friends, my pals Larry and Bob. For a few years now, Larry had expressed interest in doing a podcast, and I'd say, sure, here's what we need to do...and neither of us would get it done! Turns out we needed a catalyst -that was Bob. Bob has a ton of experience in the A/V world, and he has his own sound board. So when he heard us talking about podcasting he said, "Sign me up!" And we're glad we did!

Mission Commander Larry and Chief Engineer Bob

The three of us are all super-geeks, with a lot of shared interests, and some more specialized areas of knowledge. We knew we wanted to talk about old and new science fiction, fantasy,  and super-hero movies, comics, TV shows, products, and so forth. But we needed a name. No joke, we came up with dozens of names, only to find they were all taken. Finally, we started tossing around ideas based off of sort of 1950s sci-fi, thinking about what if our show was themed around a crew of bored astronauts? Take the favorite number of Larry's fiance (8) and voila! Planet 8 podcast was born.

The logistics of recording a session are fun: Bob and Larry both live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I used to live (that's where we all became friends); they meet at Bob's to record their part, and Skype me in from my home in Arizona to join them. It's worked pretty well so far, although we've had to experiment a bit to get everything sounding right. 

Our first episode, where we discuss Avengers: Infinity War, is live now and available from our blogsite, https://planet8podcast.blogspot.com/,  feedburner, and also from iTunes. We've recorded another, which should be posted soon, which is all about our desert island picks for movies and TV shows. There are a ton of genre films coming out this summer, and we have plans to look at Solo, Incredibles 2, Jurassic World and of course, Ant-Man and the Wasp. We also have a whole laundry list of topics we want to explore, such as robots, convention experiences, the original Planet of the Apes films, King Kong, and just about any other geeky thing you can think of.

Much as Doug and I hoped to build a community when we established the BAB, we hope that Planet 8 can develop a core group of listeners who will participate in our discussions via our blog, Twitter, and Facebook (there are links on our website). It would be especially great to hear from old BAB regulars. 

And who knows - maybe we can even convince a famous comic blog host from Illinois to appear as a guest on one of our episodes!