Nov 8
House to Astonish Episode 26
Posted on Sunday, November 8, 2009 by Al in Podcast
It’s the one-year anniversary of House to Astonish, and as a special treat (if you can call it that) it’s an extended and unedited edition of the podcast, with the usual news roundup, reviews of Assault on New Olympus, The Great Ten and Stumptown, and a special bonus Listener Questions feature. All that plus our anniversary renumbering, the phrase ‘boring boring boring lazy boring boring crap’ and a saucepan being hit with a metal stick.
Download here, and let us know what you think either in the comments threads or by email, Twitter or by secret coded messages in ancient Templar manuscripts.
Thanks to everyone who’s enjoyed our show for the last twelve months, and we hope we’ll continue to entertain as we head on into our second year.
Happy birthday. You forgot to tout that after this special anniversary edition, nothing will ever be the same AGAIN!
Also, you really don’t sound much different from normal Al, except when talking about slots. Oooh-err.
Things John Byrne Has Done – he basically ended the Vision as a character anyone bothers with. Bob Harras tried to do repair work later, but whatever his technical success in the matter, the character faded permanently into the background until he was killed & replaced after Disassembled.
He didn’t sound any different than he normally does to me.
I think the main difference is that my sibilants are a little lispy. But thanks for saying it sounds normal – I’m kind of self-conscious about it at the moment and it’s nice to be reassured that it’s not as bad as I think it is.
You don’t sound any different, Al.
And this non-edited version of the show wasn’t that bad, there really wasn’t weird or awkward parts.
I was freaked out when listening to the show in the car when the ambulance went by, as I thought there was a police car behind me.
Historically, Byrne’s biggest revamp mistake is usually attributed to doing away with Superboy, which foobared Legion history in numerous ways. And now, that’s probably all be retro-retconned by this new wave of continuity changes.
As Paul can probably attest, the discussion of Marvel/DC not creating new characters is eerily similar to discussions about how the WWE has not made any new stars in years and how their product is also suffering.
Congratulations on going a year and I hope you both keep it up for many more! I think yours is the only comic podcast I can listen too.
I’ll just chime in and say I didn’t hear a difference in your voice either, Al. I do like when you take the time to edit the show down to an hour, so please continue with that for the “regular” shows.
Also, since there was someone who asked about file sizes, you can consider adjusting the bitrate down to 96 kps instead of 128. Voice shouldn’t sound too much different, but you will save a few megabytes on bandwidth. You can always sell the high-bitrate (or even lossless) versions later for all the big fans ;-). Anyway, it’s something you can try.
Congrats again!
Loved the longer format! I say do it for every show! More sirens!
Nice anniversary edition. Really liked the Q&A (although definitely keep Official Handbook instead for the regular pods).
How many coughs do you normally have to edit out per show Al?
Congrats on the one year anniversary, I really look forward to these podcasts every fortnight. And I would also like to echo love for the longer, un-edited format. Screw the editing and use the time spent on that to make this baby weekly! Here’s to the next year of House to Astonish and beyond.
Great episode, really like the longer ones.
(And no Al, your voice sounds completely normal.)
Glad the surgery went well, and add me to the list of people who didn’t notice a difference in your speaking voice. Although for a real test, you should have said “machinations”.
Loved the extra-length podcast this week. I really struggled to work out how the surgery affected your speaking, and it really didn’t affect the podcast at all. Happy birthday to the podcast!
Thanks for answering my question!
Really glad you didn’t go straight to the next question after answering “Yes”.
Glad you made the comparison between 90’s and 00’s comics, should have been more specific, because that was really where I was getting at (anyone can see the difference between golden/silver age and now).
Did anyone else’s downloaded version cut out at 58 minutes, right as we’re about to find out the secrets of the Hulk?
Also, after I listened to the streaming version, I have to say Bendis ignored Ultimatum as much as possible in Spiderman, only about three issues are painfully depressing. I wouldn’t drop it quite yet.