Eddie and Lee go live and tackle the 80's kids book Choose Your Own Adventure and YOU get to help decide their fate.  For the 2nd time they will try to survive in Deadwood City and The Third Planet from Altair. Join in and be part of the fun! Will Eddie and Lee survive their adventures? Listen and find out. ----more----       Links from the episode: Prufrock and Schmidt episode Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Starcruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page: Omug Comics

Covert Nerd Podcast

CYOA Live! Deadwood City & 3rd Planet from Altair Pt.2

Ruth, Jesse and Lee talk all things Cobra Kai season 3. We discuss our predictions from last time we got right and our predictions for season 4, plus much more.  ----more---- Links from the episode: Previous Cobra Kai episode Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Starcruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page: Omug Comics

Cobra Kai Season 3

Eddie and Lee go live and tackle the 80's kids book Choose Your Own Adventure and YOU get to help decide their fate. They will try to survive in Deadwood City and The Third Planet from Altair. Join in and be part of the fun! Will Eddie and Lee survive their adventures? Listen and find out. Links and picture below: ----more----     The Morning Star Ending       Links from the episode: Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Starcruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page: Omug Comics

CYOA Live! Deadwood City & Third Planet from Altair

The good things from 2020, I know a bit of an oxymoron, but take a listen and hear me out. Links below ----more---- Ways to get in touch with me: Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Merch   Links from the episode: Retro Recycling episode Hero Quest Episode Details about the Hero Quest game system Hero Quest reboot/rerelease details Main Covert Nerd website

The good things

Eddie and Lee go live and tackle the 80's kids book Choose Your Own Adventure and YOU get to help decide their fate. For a second time the books they will try to survive in are Secret Treasure of Tibet and The Abominable Snowman. Join in and be part of the fun!   Can Eddie and Lee solve the mystery?     Yak Butter Teas is for real: Yak Butter Tea Recipe Fun hashtags from the episode: #yetiquette#yetication#ineedaRunal#yakbuttertea#zeroconcussions Will Lee and Eddie find the Yeti?   Where to find the Abominable Snowman Zodak in the village                                             Zodak in The Masters of the Universe (MOTU)       Links from the episode: Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Starcruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page: Omug Comics

Choose Your own Adventure Live PT.8

Tim and Lee talk about all things from DC Comics latest mini series Batman 3 Jokers. Full show notes and links below: ----more---- The Joker is a supervillain created by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson who first appeared in the debut issue of the comic book Batman (April 25, 1940), published by DC Comics. Credit for the Joker's creation is disputed; Kane and Robinson claimed responsibility for the Joker's design while acknowledging Finger's writing contribution. Although the Joker was planned to be killed off during his initial appearance, he was spared by editorial intervention, allowing the character to endure as the archenemy of the superhero Batman. In his comic book appearances, the Joker is portrayed as a criminal mastermind. Introduced as a psychopath with a warped, sadistic sense of humor; the character became a goofy prankster in the late 1950s in response to regulation by the Comics Code Authority, before returning to his darker roots during the early 1970s. As Batman's nemesis, the Joker has been part of the superhero's defining stories, including the murder of Jason Todd—the second Robin and Batman's ward—and the paralysis of one of Batman's allies, Barbara Gordon. The Joker has had various possible origin stories during his decades of appearances. The most common story involves him falling into a tank of chemical waste that bleaches his skin white and turns his hair green and lips bright red; the resulting disfigurement drives him insane. The antithesis of Batman in personality and appearance, the Joker is considered by critics to be his perfect adversary.        Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson are credited with creating the Joker, but their accounts of the character's conception differ, each providing his own version of events. Finger's, Kane's, and Robinson's versions acknowledge that Finger produced an image of actor Conrad Veidt in character as Gwynplaine (a man with a disfigured face, giving him a perpetual grin) in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs as an inspiration for the Joker's appearance, and Robinson produced a sketch of a joker playing card.                           In the 1988–89 story arc "A Death in the Family", the Joker murders Batman's sidekick (the second Robin, Jason Todd). "A Death in the Family" is a four-issue, 1988 Batman comic book storyline published by DC Comics. The story was written by Jim Starlin and illustrated by Jim Aparo, while Mike Mignola (28 year old Mike) designed each cover. Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke expands on the Joker's origins, describing the character as a failed comedian who adopts the identity of the Red Hood to support his pregnant wife.[25][52] Unlike The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke takes place in mainstream continuity.[53] The novel is described by critics as one of the greatest Joker stories ever written, influencing later comic stories (including the forced retirement of then-Batgirl Barbara Gordon after she is paralyzed by the Joker) Batman: Three Jokers Geoff Johns basically taps Alan Moore's origin for The Joker from The Killing Joke as the official Joker origin - and then twists it. Instead of The Comedian's pregnant wife dying in that electrical fire (as Moore told it), she was helped by the police to escape from her increasingly insane and criminal husband. This drastically changes the dynamic between Joker and Batman - and the potential danger the villain poses, if he ever finds out the truth. In 2006, the Joker was number one on Wizard magazine's "100 Greatest Villains of All Time." In 2008 Wizard's list of "200 Greatest Comic Book Characters of All Time" placed the Joker fifth, and the character was eighth on Empire's list of "50 Greatest Comic Book Characters" (the highest-ranked villain on both lists). In 2009, the Joker was second on IGN's list of "Top 100 Comic Book Villains," and in 2011, Wired named him "Comics' Greatest Supervillain." Complex, CollegeHumor, and WhatCulture named the Joker the greatest comic book villain of all time while IGN listed him the top DC Comics villain in 2013, and Newsarama as the greatest Batman villain.                 Links: Rainbowcomics Lincoln Facebook Page Covert Nerd Website Rainbowcomics website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Star Cruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:

DC Comics Batman 3 Jokers

Eddie and Lee go live and tackle the 80's kids book Choose Your Own Adventure and YOU get to help decide their fate. The books they will try to survive in are Secret Treasure of Tibet and The Abominable Snowman. Join in and be part of the fun! Links from the show below ----more----     Snide or should I say electric Snide Crampon     Tibetan Blue Bear                                                 My wife and Josh Gates   Links from the episode: Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Starcruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page: Omug Comics

Choose Your own Adventure Live PT.7

Lee and Jeff from the MEGA and Tirekicker podcast talk about 6 Wonky 80's movies they know you will like.  Full show notes listed below ----more----   Fortress (1985)   An Australian school teacher and her students are kidnapped. She and the children fight for their lives and try to escape from their captors.  Loosely based on the 1972 Faraday School kidnapping of a teacher and her class by Edwin John Eastwood and Robert Clyde Boland. Eastwood later escaped from prison and repeated the crime with another teacher and her class in 1977. The Faraday kidnapping was in turn a real-life copycat crime based on a scene in the Clint Eastwood film Dirty Harry (1971) where the Scorpio Killer holds a bus driver and several schoolchildren hostage.          The Faraday School kidnapping occurred on 6 October 1972 at a one-teacher school in the rural town of Faraday in Victoria, Australia, where two plasterers, Edwin John Eastwood and Robert Clyde Boland, kidnapped six female pupils and their teacher for a $1,000,000 ransom. The Victorian government claimed it would pay the ransom. The victims escaped and the criminals were captured, tried and convicted. Eastwood escaped and later kidnapped a teacher and nine pupils. He was again captured, convicted and sentenced. While in prison, Eastwood strangled convicted rapist Glen Davies in what was ruled self-defence. He was eventually released, having served his sentence. The film was initially released directly to cable television by the HBO channel in the United States on 24 November 1985.It contains scenes of graphic violence unusual for TV productions of the time. It was released to cinemas in Australia on 26 June 1986. Played for years on HBO     Megaforce (1982) The story involves two fictional countries, the peaceful Republic of Sardun and their aggressive neighbor Gamibia. Unable to defend themselves from a Gamibian incursion, Sardun sends Major Zara and General Byrne-White to ask the help of MegaForce – a secret army composed of international soldiers from throughout the western world, equipped with advanced weapons and vehicles. The MegaForce leader, Commander Ace Hunter, will lead a mission to destroy the Gamibian forces, which are led by his rival, and former military academy friend, Duke Gurerra. While Hunter composes an elaborate battle plan to destroy Gurerra's forces, Zara tries out to become a member of MegaForce. As she executes the various tests, Hunter's feelings of affection toward her grow. And while she passes the tests, he is unable to allow her to participate in their raid, because her presence, as an outsider, would disrupt the trust and familiarity of his force. Eventually, MegaForce successfully para-drops its attack vehicles into Gamibia and Hunter mounts his sneak attack against Gurerra's forces. Although they manage to destroy his base, they are told by General Byrne-White that Sardun has decided they will not be allowed to cross the border into their country because they consider MegaForce too dangerous a global organization. At the same time, Gurerra has set a trap for them at the team's only means of escape – a dry lake bed where the cargo planes will pick them up. Gurerra sends his tanks to secure the lake bed while Hunter comes up with a plan to attack Gurerra from behind by crossing over a mountain range the enemy tanks had turned their backs toward. The plan succeeds, and MegaForce manages to break through Gurerra's tanks, but one of MegaForce's cargo planes is damaged in the process. Having to abandon their high-tech vehicles (which they program to self-destruct), the team successfully makes it on foot to the last plane, except for Hunter. The commander, instead, makes his own dramatic escape on his motorcycle after it deploys airfoils and a rocket motor and catches up with the cargo plane in midair. Although he has lost the battle, Gurerra shows admiration for Hunter's cunning, and he gives his old friend a thumbs up. Hal Needham later described it as: Kind of a version of James Bond done with a helluva lot of less budget and no Roger Moore, but it was a high tech, good "right wing" film and I thought it was kinda interesting. Those buggies that we built, they were dune buggies and we revamped 'em a little bit, and put the weapons on 'em and all that, and the military sent people out there to look at my weapons and my vehicles and how they run, and how they handle...they were out there in the desert with me for a week watching. And, if you go back and take a look at Desert Storm, there's a pretty good resemblance to my vehicles. They were pretty slick, pretty tricked out, and they had a helluva job putting those together. The film was poorly received by critics, bombed at the box office and was nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture.   See the flying bike scene   Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend 1985 A paleontologist and her husband discover a mother and baby brontosaurus in Africa,  and try to protect them from a group of hunters intent on capturing the dinosaurs.   Starring William Katt from TV show the greatest american hero. Sean Young From Balde runner and dune and Ace Ventura Sparked an interest in learning more about actual sightings of dinosaurs. An article in a school magazine wrote about possible sighting in Congo. My imagination was hooked.             Big Trouble in Little China (1986) Truck driver Jack Burton arrives in Chinatown, San Francisco, and goes to the airport with his Chinese friend Wang Chi to welcome his green-eyed fiancée Miao Yin who is arriving from China. However she is kidnapped on the arrival by a Chinese street gang and Jack and Wang chase the group. Soon they learn that the powerful evil sorcerer called David Lo Pan, who has been cursed more than two thousand years ago to exist without physical body, needs to marry a woman with green eyes to retrieve his physical body and Miao is the chosen one. Jack and Wang team-up with the lawyer Gracie Law, the bus driver and sorcerer apprentice Egg Shen and their friends and embark in a great adventure in the underground of Chinatown, where they face a world of magicians and magic, monsters and martial arts fighters. The film only gross $11.1M in the box office where it had an estimated gross budget of $25M, but James Cameron’s Aliens came out at the same time and took all of the thunder. Directed by John Carpenter and starred Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall   The movie did so bad that John Carpenter said he would never do another blockbuster type movie again and went to independent film making from then on out. IT has since become a cult classic and has a 78% average rating on Rotten Tomatoes.   Better Off Dead 1985 The teenager Lane Meyer has a crush on his girlfriend Beth Truss. When Beth dumps him to stay with the successful skier Roy Stalin, Lane is depressed and decides to commit suicide. However he gives up and tries to improve his skill of skier to ski the dangerous K12 slope to impress Beth. Meanwhile his neighbor Mrs. Smith receives the exchange French student Monique Junot and her fat son Ricky Smith considers Monique his girlfriend; however, Monique has an unrequited crush on Lane that does not note her. When Lane stumbles upon Monique in a high-school party, he befriends her. The upset Lane challenges Roy in a competition on the K12 slope but then he regrets. However Monique is a great mechanic and skier, and fix Lane's Camaro and teaches him how to ski the K12 slope. Star a young John Cusack Lane Meyer David Ogden Stiers Al Meyer from MASH Dan Schneider Ricky Smith Starred in Head of the Class, but later know writing and producing kids shows like Good burger, Drake and Josh and iCarly. Curtis Armstrong Charles De Mar Who was also in Revenge of the nerds as Booger and later in Moonlighting TV Show with Bruce Willis.   According to Savage Steve Holland, the film is mostly autobiographical. Holland really was suicidal when his high school girlfriend left him for captain of the ski team. Also, he really did have a paperboy named Johnny Gasparini who would harass him for two dollars. According to Holland, when the film came out, the ex-girlfriend contacted him to apologize. Lane's mother's experimental cooking was inspired by Savage Steve Holland's mother, who did the same thing. "My mom would get McCall's magazine, and she would find these recipes and make these things, and have some excuse why they didn't taste good-because she forgot something or she didn't have an ingredient," Holland told Entertainment Weekly. One year for his birthday-not Christmas-she gifted him with some TV dinners. "She was like, 'And I got you these really cool frozen dinners because you like the peach cobbler in this one' or something. And I was like, 'Wow. Really? This is my life.'"   John Cusack hated the movie when he saw an early cut The last line of the credits reads The film's over... you can go now. Badger his bizarre, but genius little brother Opening Weekend USA:  $56,371, 25 August 1985 Gross USA:  $10,297,601 7.1 on Amazon and 77% on rotten tomatoes Had resurgence on VHS and Cable   UHF (1989) George Newman is a daydreamer whose hyperactive imagination keeps him from holding a steady job. His uncle decides George would be the perfect man to manage Channel 62, a television station which is losing money and viewers fast. When George replaces the station's reruns with bizarre programs such as "Stanley Spadowski's Clubhouse", "Wheel of Fish" and "Raul's Wild Kingdom", ratings begin to soar again.   Mean-spirited and cynical mogul R.J. Fletcher becomes furious that the UHF station is getting better ratings than his network's programming. Because of gambling debts, the uncle is forced to consider selling the station to Fletcher, who would only too happily shut it down (he cannot legally own two stations in the same town). George and his friends organize a 48-hour telethon to raise the money by selling investment stock from Channel 62 to save the town's new favorite station.         Links from the episode Tirekicker Instagram Tirekicker Twitter Tirekicker Facebook Page Tirekicker Podcast page MEGA (Make Eternia Great Again) Podcast Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Starcruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:

Wonky 80's Movies

A fun Choose your own adventure live event. Eddie and Lee go through Space and Beyond and Space Patrol. You can participate and help them out. Watch the Covert Nerd Facebook and Twitter account  (see links below) for dates and times.----more---- Space and Beyond                                                     Being sucked into a black holeSpace Patrol                                                               Henry the our robot companion   We like a dagwood sandwich while we patrol space  Taking on space pirates  Covert Nerd FacebookCovert Nerd WebsiteCovert Nerd InstagramCovert Nerd TwitterCovert Nerd MerchProud Member of Eddie and the Starcruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:Omug Comics

Choose Your own Adventure Live PT.6

Tim and Lee talk about the DC comics and TV series character by Geoff Johns Stargirl. More notes below ----more---- The many commissions Tim has of Starman            Star Spangle Kid                 Star Spangle Kid and Stripesy           Rainbowcomics Lincoln Facebook Page Covert Nerd Website Rainbowcomics website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of Eddie and the Star Cruisers. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:      

DC Comics Stargirl talk with Tim

A fun Choose your own adventure live event. Eddie and Lee go through UFO 54-40 and Space and Beyond. You can participate and help them out. Watch the Covert Nerd Facebook and Twitter account  (see links below) for dates and times. ----more---- UFO 54-40 cut out, we need more of these.               We wear suits when we fly, it's the 80's it okay.         The Utai paradise you can only find by reader through the book Look at our chin! Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of The Last Starfighters Entertainment Group. For more great content go to the Facebook Page: Amazing Vinyl products from Kim at Star Lite Studios Omug Comics

Choose Your own Adventure Live PT.5

 What's old is new New amazing work of Jeff Lemire, EC Comics new old comics and the SNES Classic. Complete show notes below. ----more---- DESCENDER One young robot’s struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. A rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey that pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling space opera from the creators of Trillium, Sweet Tooth, and Little Gotham. ASCENDER Powerhouse creative team JEFF LEMIRE and DUSTIN NGUYEN launch an all-new sequel series to DESCENDER with the launch of ASCENDER! Set ten years after the conclusion of DESCENDER’s storyline, magic has taken the place of machinery and the rules are very different indeed… Mila, the daughter of Andy and Effie from DESCENDER, spends her days exploring the lonely wilds of the planet Sampson and trying to stay out of the clutches of the evil disciples of the all-powerful vampire witch known only as Mother. But, like her parents, Mila doesn’t like to play by the rules, and when a certain robot pal of her dad’s shows up, nothing will ever be the same! With all the scope and heart of the sci-fi classic DESCENDER, LEMIRE and NGUYEN reunite to take readers on an unforgettable fantasy quest! Like you I’m sure you can tell when something is good, whether it’s a book, comic book or podcast you can’t stop consuming it. This is one you won’t be able to put down. Like most of Lemires work it’s excellent and addicting.  The whole future dynamic between robots and humans is fascinating to all of us, especially now when AI is getting closer than it ever has been. The art is gritty and fits the story telling. The story starts with Descender and chapter two is Ascender. Also as I have said before I like the story because it has a beginning and ending.If you like the conflict between humans and robots you will love Jeff Lemires Descender/Ascender.   This isn’t new, but it’s new to me. EC Comics collection from Dark Horse. When you think Dark Horse might be down for the count they hit back hard, THE EC ARCHIVES Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series. In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted EC Comics to concentrate on the humor magazine Mad, leading to the company’s greatest and most enduring success. Initially, EC was privately owned by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. Later, during its period of notoriety, it was owned by his son, William Gaines. He sold the company in 1960, and it was eventually absorbed into the Kinney National Company, the same corporation that later purchased DC Comics and Warner Bros. EC had success with its fresh approach and pioneered in forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and its fan organization, the National EC Fan-Addict Club. EC Comics promoted its stable of illustrators, allowing each to sign his art and encouraging them to develop unique styles; the company additionally published one-page biographies of them in the comic books. This was in contrast to the industry's common practice, in which credits were often missing, They were also known for their shock endings in the stories, like Weird Fantasy #18 (April 1953) The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia, inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut determines that due to the robots' bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet until these problems are resolved. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a person of color. Which in 1953 America was shocking. Almost all of their stories had an ending like this. Another fun series is Adventure into the unknown. One of the stories simply titled Haunted house might be what a Scooby Doo episode was based on. A couple has to stay overnight in a haunted house in order to get their inheritance from a rich relative. The lawyer in charge of the estate tries to scare them out of the house by making the house appear to be haunted. Classic story and art from 1948. At the time these stories were considered edgy before the comics code of authority. These comics are the reason for the code. What a great idea! Rather than create new characters and stories why not go back 75 years and retell stories to many who have never seen it. This concept fits the saying “why recreate the wheel” you have great stories very few today have seen, why not reprint and give a chance for new readers to experience and enjoy an old story. IDW also released a special limited run edition feature the best artists edition, but I believe the Dark Horse reprints are complete and unabridged. If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you can tell I’m a bit of a nostalgia nut. Seeing these old comics even though I didn’t live in this time period I still like the vibe I get from reading them. The optimism they project is inspiring, for example the writers had humans traveling in space like we drive to the grocery store. Yes, I will admit some of it is a bit corny but getting a glimpse of what people living in that time period were thinking is fun to consider.   Look at least one of these volumes and see what you think. The people who created these comics and stories were the pioneers of the industry that we enjoy today. They were learning as they went along. They created the medium and creators today are perfecting the medium. This reminds of the SNES classic my kids gave me. To clarify if you don’t know the SNES classic is a small Super NES console with 21 SNES games on it. No carts and they included controls identical to the original 1990 controllers. The games play just like the originals. again, what's old is new again.                       Best of all you can hack it to play even more retro games from the NES to Sega Genesis and more. Nostalgia is in and in a big way. With all that is going on in the world I believe people like to go back to what they believe in their mind was a simpler time. Whether it was or not is debatable, but if you go back to when you were 10 it was a simpler time. Or at least I hope it was for you. When you are 10 you don’t have to concern yourself with a job, house payments and getting the next promotion. The most you had to worry about is who you are going to hang out with today and what game to play. Some may knock people who like to talk about and buy things from their childhood. I would say like most things there is a healthy and unhealthy balance that needs to be adhered to. For example, do not put a second mortgage on your house to buy that one-of-a-kind limited-edition Star Wars action figure. The guys over at the MEGA podcast came up with the idea of having a mini collection of MOTU figures. I believe the number to be considered mini was 8-10 figures. I thought this was a good way to not go overboard, but still have a piece of your childhood. Overall, I don’t think it’s bad to have a few things from your past. You know the feelings and memories that come rushing back when you hold that one thing from your childhood and instantly you are 10 again and you have your whole world to explore. Even if it’s only for a few minutes at least let people enjoy it and let them share their memories with you and the excitement they got to experience. A friend told me his wife didn’t understand why he collected and talked about old MOTU figures. He said because it brings back feelings and memories from a good time in his life and made him feel good to revisit those memories again. She still didn’t understand why. A few months later her birthday came around and he bought her an original bear she had as kid that she mentioned she had lost during a move when she was a kid and wished she had never lost it. When she opened the box she was stunned and started to cry as the memories of the bear came rushing back. He had bought her the exact bear she had lost. And he said this is why I buy those old figures. That story nailed it for me. Maybe you have a similar story. If so you can email me cn@covertnerd.net or go to covertnerd.net to find out how to reach me. I will put a link in the show notes that you can access on whatever device you are using to listen to this podcast. Let me know about your thoughts on this episode and any ideas you have for future topics I would love to hear what you think.   60's Reboot Podcast Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of The Last Starfighters Entertainment Group. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:

What's Old is New

 What's old is new New amazing work of Jeff Lemire, EC Comics new old comics and the SNES Classic. DESCENDER One young robot’s struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. A rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey that pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling space opera from the creators of Trillium, Sweet Tooth, and Little Gotham. ASCENDER Powerhouse creative team JEFF LEMIRE and DUSTIN NGUYEN launch an all-new sequel series to DESCENDER with the launch of ASCENDER! Set ten years after the conclusion of DESCENDER’s storyline, magic has taken the place of machinery and the rules are very different indeed… Mila, the daughter of Andy and Effie from DESCENDER, spends her days exploring the lonely wilds of the planet Sampson and trying to stay out of the clutches of the evil disciples of the all-powerful vampire witch known only as Mother. But, like her parents, Mila doesn’t like to play by the rules, and when a certain robot pal of her dad’s shows up, nothing will ever be the same! With all the scope and heart of the sci-fi classic DESCENDER, LEMIRE and NGUYEN reunite to take readers on an unforgettable fantasy quest! Like you I’m sure you can tell when something is good, whether it’s a book, comic book or podcast you can’t stop consuming it. This is one you won’t be able to put down. Like most of Lemires work it’s excellent and addicting.  The whole future dynamic between robots and humans is fascinating to all of us, especially now when AI is getting closer than it ever has been. The art is gritty and fits the story telling. The story starts with Descender and chapter two is Ascender. Also as I have said before I like the story because it has a beginning and ending.If you like the conflict between humans and robots you will love Jeff Lemires Descender/Ascender.   This isn’t new, but it’s new to me. EC Comics collection from Dark Horse. When you think Dark Horse might be down for the count they hit back hard, THE EC ARCHIVES Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series. In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted EC Comics to concentrate on the humor magazine Mad, leading to the company’s greatest and most enduring success. Initially, EC was privately owned by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. Later, during its period of notoriety, it was owned by his son, William Gaines. He sold the company in 1960, and it was eventually absorbed into the Kinney National Company, the same corporation that later purchased DC Comics and Warner Bros. EC had success with its fresh approach and pioneered in forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and its fan organization, the National EC Fan-Addict Club. EC Comics promoted its stable of illustrators, allowing each to sign his art and encouraging them to develop unique styles; the company additionally published one-page biographies of them in the comic books. This was in contrast to the industry's common practice, in which credits were often missing, They were also known for their shock endings in the stories, like Weird Fantasy #18 (April 1953) The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia, inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut determines that due to the robots' bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet until these problems are resolved. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a person of color. Which in 1953 America was shocking. Almost all of their stories had an ending like this. Another fun series is Adventure into the unknown. One of the stories simply titled Haunted house might be what a Scooby Doo episode was based on. A couple has to stay overnight in a haunted house in order to get their inheritance from a rich relative. The lawyer in charge of the estate tries to scare them out of the house by making the house appear to be haunted. Classic story and art from 1948. At the time these stories were considered edgy before the comics code of authority. These comics are the reason for the code. What a great idea! Rather than create new characters and stories why not go back 75 years and retell stories to many who have never seen it. This concept fits the saying “why recreate the wheel” you have great stories very few today have seen, why not reprint and give a chance for new readers to experience and enjoy an old story. IDW also released a special limited run edition feature the best artists edition, but I believe the Dark Horse reprints are complete and unabridged. If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you can tell I’m a bit of a nostalgia nut. Seeing these old comics even though I didn’t live in this time period I still like the vibe I get from reading them. The optimism they project is inspiring, for example the writers had humans traveling in space like we drive to the grocery store. Yes, I will admit some of it is a bit corny but getting a glimpse of what people living in that time period were thinking is fun to consider.   Look at least one of these volumes and see what you think. The people who created these comics and stories were the pioneers of the industry that we enjoy today. They were learning as they went along. They created the medium and creators today are perfecting the medium. This reminds of the SNES classic my kids gave me. To clarify if you don’t know the SNES classic is a small Super NES console with 21 SNES games on it. No carts and they included controls identical to the original 1990 controllers. The games play just like the originals. again, what's old is new again.                       Best of all you can hack it to play even more retro games from the NES to Sega Genesis and more. Nostalgia is in and in a big way. With all that is going on in the world I believe people like to go back to what they believe in their mind was a simpler time. Whether it was or not is debatable, but if you go back to when you were 10 it was a simpler time. Or at least I hope it was for you. When you are 10 you don’t have to concern yourself with a job, house payments and getting the next promotion. The most you had to worry about is who you are going to hang out with today and what game to play. Some may knock people who like to talk about and buy things from their childhood. I would say like most things there is a healthy and unhealthy balance that needs to be adhered to. For example, do not put a second mortgage on your house to buy that one-of-a-kind limited-edition Star Wars action figure. The guys over at the MEGA podcast came up with the idea of having a mini collection of MOTU figures. I believe the number to be considered mini was 8-10 figures. I thought this was a good way to not go overboard, but still have a piece of your childhood. Overall, I don’t think it’s bad to have a few things from your past. You know the feelings and memories that come rushing back when you hold that one thing from your childhood and instantly you are 10 again and you have your whole world to explore. Even if it’s only for a few minutes at least let people enjoy it and let them share their memories with you and the excitement they got to experience. A friend told me his wife didn’t understand why he collected and talked about old MOTU figures. He said because it brings back feelings and memories from a good time in his life and made him feel good to revisit those memories again. She still didn’t understand why. A few months later her birthday came around and he bought her an original bear she had as kid that she mentioned she had lost during a move when she was a kid and wished she had never lost it. When she opened the box she was stunned and started to cry as the memories of the bear came rushing back. He had bought her the exact bear she had lost. And he said this is why I buy those old figures. That story nailed it for me. Maybe you have a similar story. If so you can email me cn@covertnerd.net or go to covertnerd.net to find out how to reach me. I will put a link in the show notes that you can access on whatever device you are using to listen to this podcast. Let me know about your thoughts on this episode and any ideas you have for future topics I would love to hear what you think.   60's Reboot Podcast Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of The Last Starfighters Entertainment Group. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:

Eddie and Lee go live and tackle the 80's kids book Choose Your Own Adventure and YOU get to help decide their fate. The books they go through are Cave of Time and Inside UFO 54-40 both authored by the Choose Your Own Adventure creator Edward Packard. To participate in the next Choose Your Own Adventure Live! go to the Covert Nerd Facebook   Read the Choose Your Own adventure books here at Archive.org: Cave of Time  Inside UFO 54-40 Other episode links: Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of The Last Starfighters Entertainment Group. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:

Choose Your own Adventure Live part4

I had the honor of talking with hall of fame podcaster Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting. He has over 15 years of podcasting and has great insight into starting a project and the mindset you need to take your first steps. Do you have a topic you are passionate about? Dave has great advice to help you out. Covert Nerd Facebook Covert Nerd Website Covert Nerd Instagram Covert Nerd Twitter Covert Nerd Merch Proud Member of The Last Starfighters Entertainment Group. For more great content go to the Facebook Page:

Get Started!

Celebrate your inner nerd by uncovering books, video games, comic books and more and analyzing them from a nerd perspective.

hubhopper

Covert Nerd Podcast

hubhopper