Panelology is a weekly podcast about comics. We talk about current books, what we're looking forward to, and how to get into reading comics in the first place.
Being a nerd child in the '70s and a teen in the '80s meant Brian was blessed to experience a lot of “nerd culture” in its infancy. He’s seen every Star Wars movie in the theater on its initial release (yes, even “those” episodes…). He even saw Episode 4 on opening weekend way back in 1977. He watched Superman at 6:00am on Saturday mornings and bought comics from circular racks in the drug store. He blames his comic interest on an uncle who let him read his old issues whenever he visited his grandparents, and his friend Steve who showed him he could order directly from DC and get comics delivered to his mailbox in that unforgettable brown paper wrapper. Years of collecting, attending conventions, and visiting every comic shop in a 200 mile radius slowed and ended after marriage and kids. Now he’s on his own again, has one kid left in high school and, well… he has a lot of catching up to do…
Jenna was raised in the fresh country air around cows, ponies, goats, and more nerd culture than she could safely fit into her cranium. It’s true. It’s why she has to have that thing drained every now and then. She grew up watching taped episodes of Doctor Who, Batman, and Adventures of Superman with her grandfather; Quantum Leap, Xena, and Hercules with her Nanny; Gilligan’s Island, I Love Lucy, and Happy Days with her Mom; and devoured a steady stream of '90s cartoons, comics, manga, and So Many books in whatever free time she had left. I guess you could say she never had a chance to be anything but the Skrillex look-a-like contest winning, derpy, adorkably awkward geek that you hear on Panelology today.
Mike bought Gold Key Star Trek comics in Stuckeys, so the rest of you should probably just shut the hell up. He compares everything to Sandman, Watchmen, Preacher, Give Me Liberty, Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol, The Vertigo Hellblazer, Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis just to let everyone know where he comes from. He loves the Batman vs Superman movie and hates Harry Potter in just about every form except amusement park. He writes things that aren’t comics but he’s got ideas. If you quote Cannery Row to him on the street he will buy you dinner.
All you need to know to understand Alex is that his earliest memories of entertainment involve watching reruns of Batman ‘66, Get Smart, and Rocky & Bullwinkle. After that came a lot of video games and all of the ‘90s superhero cartoons. Eventually, after decades of coming to know comic book characters through TV shows, movies, and video games, he took the plunge into reading comics. He now reads (and, to the dismay of his friends’ budgets, recommends) entirely too many comics.