Sequestered in the dankest depths of the Evil Lair, the Brotherhood of Evil Geeks strive to bring you their honest opinions on the entertainment that we all love. Comics, video games, movies, TV shows, and geek culture in general are dissected, reviewed, then re-assembled by each Evil Geek with devious care and nefarious ingenuity. Through our written reporting and through our podcast “Transmissions From the Evil Lair” (Soon to be subliminal message free), we will show you the most vile and uncouth underbelly of the nerd world! –The Brotherhood of Evil Geeks Homepage

The Brotherhood of Evil Geeks consists of:

Big Evil

C-Mart

Undies of Wondy

Biff Tannen

Martian Luthor Kang the 117th

Arthur Harkness

Greekimus Prime

Lilith Assisi

I first met C-Mart from The Brotherhood of Evil Geeks at the 2015 Free Comic Book Day event at Earthworld Comics.

For some reason at the time I must have forgot that Amanda (Undies of Wondie) was the first member of the group that I met at the Fall 2014 Albany Comic Con. She was cosplaying Black Canary at the time. She was also nice enough to share her thoughts on the Cosplay story involving creator Pat Broderick’s comments about Cosplay at Comic Cons:

The War over the Role of CosPlay at Comic Conventions

They were there recording an episode as the Earthworld FCBD festivities were going on. We chatted for a bit and talked about podcasting and talked about comic books of course.

They invited me onto Episode 127 where I talked to the crew about doing this blog for the Times Union, which was a fun time. I guess I didn’t do so bad since that time I have been on the show two more times for Episode 161: The Great Digital Comics Debate and Episode 164: The Killing Podcast . As part of my ongoing theme of the comic book/geek culture locally, it was a no-brainer that The Brotherhood of Evil Geeks deserved their own feature/interview here on the blog.

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Describe the show in general (what shows you guys do, recording frequency, typical format etc)?

Chris: We try to cover as much of modern “Geek Culture” as we can on our show, Transmissions From the Evil Lair. With geek culture going mainstream over the past decade or so, geek culture has become so much more than just comics (which we do talk about frequently). Geek culture now also includes movies, books, video games, TV shows and we even spend a great deal of time talking about travel destinations. Places like Disneyland/World, legendary comic shops like Midtown Comics in NYC or Meltdown Comics or Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles, or some of the larger comic cons across the country are major attractions for those of us in this cultural subset, so we spend a great deal of time talking about those things.

Basically, anything that somebody can obsess or “geek out” over will get covered on our show at some point. We try to get out at least one show a week. It’s tough sometimes and we miss a week here or there, but I’d say we’ve been semi-successful in sticking to that schedule. Our 4th anniversary will be this year and we’re up to about 166 episodes, so we’ve definitely taken a few weeks off.

We like to keep it very free form as far as our shows go, we don’t have strict formats that we stick to, but we basically have 3 types of shows that we do: Interviews, Specific Topic Discussions, and “General Geekouts”.

The interviews are for when we have a guest on the show, obviously. Even in that situation, we tend to keep things pretty informal with our guests. I don’t even like to think of it as an interview as much as I like to think that it’s just a few people having a casual conversation. Almost talking to the guest as if they were someone you were talking to at a party. The guest will usually have a specific project that they are promoting, so we’ll talk that whether it’s a new comic/graphic novel, a book, a movie, album, etc., but I like to go beyond that as well, I like to talk about what was behind the creation of the project. It gives the creators a chance to not only promote their new product but also demonstrate their passion for their work. If you can get across to the audience what it is that drives you to create, then I feel like it’s that much easier for them to engage with your creation. I’ll always have a few standard questions at the ready like “How did you get started?” or “What are your influences?”, but for the most part, I really have no idea what I’ll talk about with a guest. Only after we start talking, do I finally get a sense of where the interview will go. I always tell our guests that we tend to get way off topic, but I feel like that’s when you really learn the most about people; after they’ve dropped the sales pitch and they’re showing you the real person behind the creation.

The Specific Topic shows are the ones where we’ll focus on one thing; be it a recent comic movie, a comic book storyline, video game, TV show or pretty much anything. We’ve had debate shows (our 100th episode was a Marvel Vs. DC comics debate held at Earthworld Comics. I still say Marvel got robbed in that one), shows about specific cartoons (We did like a 2 hour episode on the show Duck Tales once), we even did a movie-centric series of shows we call The Stallone Film Society, in which we watch and provide commentary to Sylvester Stallone movies, which we break up with random readings from his book “Sly Moves”.

Aside from comics, movies are probably our second most talked about topic. We have quite a few movie nerds in the Brotherhood of Evil Geeks, lol. I spent a few years working at movie theaters and video stores, so I’m filled with useless movie knowledge as is my cohost on the majority of the movie shows, who goes by the name of Paulo Pinta. He spent a few years as a projectionist as well.

The General Geekouts are when we just want to talk about recent geek news or about what geek things we may be consuming at that time. We’re just too lazy to come up with a real topic so we ramble on about what we’re doing for about an hour, lol. I personally like those shows the best, it’s when we’re most ourselves and I think when we’re at our funniest. It’s like the guest interviews, except it’s our turn to be passionate about the things that we love.

What is the Secret Origin of the Podcast?

Chris: Our secret origin is very Marvel-esque as opposed to being DC-centric. We aren’t aliens from Krypton or parent free billionaires, we got our powers through scientific accident!

Basically, I was exposed to a massive amount of podcasts…and alcohol. We started our website in September 2012 as a site mainly about the New York Comic Con, then branched out to do reviews of comics and comic-based opinion pieces. After a few months of doing only articles, we decided to start doing podcasts as well. I’d secretly been in training for years, as I was (and still am) a fan of podcasts like The Nerdist, any of Kevin Smith’s SModCo podcasts, The Dana Gould Hour, How Did This Get Made, The Smartest Man in the World and non-podcast shows like The Howard Stern Show and Coast to Coast AM.

Big Evil and I (C-Mart) actually recorded our first podcast in October of 2012 in our hotel room at the NYCC at about 3am, after a case of liquid courage. We didn’t think we’d get 20 minutes out of it, but I think we ended up talking for about 45 minutes. We got through it somehow, but we didn’t record the second episode until January 2013. It’s funny now to look back and think about how terrified we were to talk into a mic. Now I can do it with almost no preparation or topic prepared with no problem at all and I actually have to make it point to stop myself from talking longer than an hour.

How has the show evolved?

Chris: We used to be a much larger group, but people have come and gone over the years. We still have a group of about 6 or 7 contributors, but the main core of the group is myself (C-Mart), Amanda (Undies of

We still have a group of about 6 or 7 contributors, but the main core of the group is myself (C-Mart), Amanda (Undies of Wondy), and Big Evil (Nick). I’d also say we’ve gotten way more comfortable being on the mic and putting stories about ourselves out there. It’s really intimidating when you first start to think that people will be listening to you and judging your every word, but the scare starts to lose it’s bite after a few episodes. Guests were also a rare occasion when we first started, but I’d say that at least 50% of our shows are guest shows now, if not more.

Amanda (Undiesofwondy): When I first started on the show, it was more of our Evil Geeks just talking about geeky stuff they were into. We still do shows like that, but now we get a lot more people in the geek community and industry professionals on board for interviews, which is so cool and always a great time.

How did you guys get into reading comics? (When, what was that one book that hooked you…)?

Chris: I was given my first comic at about age 10 or 11, by my great aunt. It was Spectacular Spider-Man #158, it’s the one where Spidey get’s the Captain Universe powers. She worked in a beauty salon and they had it laying around for kids to read, they were going to throw it out but she gave it to me instead. I had some comics before that, but they weren’t “real” comics, they were like Disney comics for kids or GI Joe. SSM 158 was my first superhero comic. I wasn’t hooked right away, it actually took a few months to set in. I was in the hospital a few months later and my mom asked me if I wanted anything. I’d never asked for them up until that point, but for some reason, I asked for Spider-Man comics. Little did she know that she’d be handing me a lifelong addiction, lol. She got me a few books, but the one that stood out to me was Web of Spider-Man #84, Part 1 of the Name of the Rose storyline.

Amanda: I was originally very into anime and manga from a young age. As I got older, I lost interest in that and now I solely read comics. My curiosity for comics peaked when I started watching the ‘Teen Titans’ animated cartoon on Cartoon Network’s ‘Toonami’ block. I would be on websites and forums for the show and I would see bits and pieces of comic trivia, and I decided to read up on the Batfamily and from then on I was hooked! My favorite comic, which I often suggest to other people looking to get into DC Comics is Green Arrow: Longbow Hunters.

Podfading is a common occurrence in the Podcasting community, what do you do to prevent this?

Chris: There was a time when I thought we’d be just another one of these podcasts that just faded away. It was right at a time when the first contributors to our site all kind of gave it up. It’s definitely understandable why it happens: Podcasting and blogging are fun, but when you’re doing it for free, the novelty can wear off quickly. Real life happens to you and something frivolous, like podcasting, is an easy thing to take off your plate when you need to make room for real responsibility. I was definitely bummed because the majority of the group of people I had begun doing this with didn’t want to do it anymore. I really felt at the time that I couldn’t do this without the entire group, so I was faced with a tough decision: Give up podcasting, which by this time I had grown to love, or suck up the loss and power through with what I had to work with. I knew I couldn’t give up podcasting because to me it’s become therapeutic. If I go too long without doing a show, I start getting miserable and really irritable. I needed an outlet for my creative energy and podcasting was it. In retrospect, it really wasn’t a tough decision at all. If I didn’t keep podcasting, I’d be a powder keg of backed up the tension. It was for sure a very trying time, but it was one that helped me grow and realize that if I really needed to, I could do this completely on my own. It actually led to kind of creative boom for me. After deciding to keep doing the show, I REALLY decided to keep doing the show. For a period of about six months, I was recording like a madman and booking like 3 or 4 shows a week as well as doing guest spots on other shows. It was the love of doing this that kept me going. You either have that love or you don’t, and if you don’t then that’s when you get podfading.

Amanda: We listen to many other podcasts and us kind of see what works and what doesn’t as far as the actual podcasting part of it goes. It also helps us to set ourselves apart from others who may be podcasting about similar stuff. It’s such a small market so this is definitely a challenge. We stick to what works and we keep doing our things.

What has been your involvement with local creators, cons, LCSs

Chris: I like to pitch in as much as possible for any show that we’re a part of, not just the local ones. I feel like it’s our responsibility to do whatever we can to make every show we attend a great experience for the con goers. I really love doing things like trivia contests or raffles or anything where we give away prizes. I love putting together crazy prize packages of things that I’d love to get if I were the one winning. It’s almost getting to be a problem! At almost every show we go to, I usually end up buy at least one piece of art that I absolutely love, but have no intention of keeping because I know I’m going to put it in a prize package. We have a subscription to Loot Crate, basically so I can have a steady stream of items to give away. I feel like it’s the things like that, winning something unexpectedly, that make comic cons memorable. We helped out a lot behind the scenes whenever we can as well. For the last Fantacon that was held, I helped escort legendary artist Basil Gogos from his apartment in NYC to the show here in Albany. I also try to sponsor shows when the opportunity arises and everything lines up for me financially.

As for local creators, we’ve been working with Tom from The Geek Culture Podcast on a lot of things lately. We’ve been teaming up to host panels, we’ve MC’ed some cosplay contests and have recorded a few podcasts together as well. We’re both in podcasting, but there’s no sense of rivalry there. I really do believe that no matter how good things are going for you, if we work together instead of against each other, then we’ll all do EVEN BETTER than we were doing before. I love working with people who are of that same positive mindset.

Amanda: The website and podcast definitely have helped us to meet tons of other people who do similar work, which helps us all to help each other. One of my good friends is a local podcaster for “The Geek Culture Podcast” and we’ve worked with him on panels for local conventions and teamed up with him for a few podcasts. We love talking to local creators and getting to know people who love the same stuff we do.

What is the most memorable interview you guys have done? What has been your favorite show you have recorded (topic, or just something random lead to a great discussion)??

Chris: I don’t want to give the robotic, “Well, all of our guests are my most memorable ones” diplomatic answer, but to some extent, it is definitely true. You don’t realize how uncommon a thing it’s become in our society to actually sit and have an in depth conversation with someone, so across a hundred and sixty something episodes I’ve had the opportunity to do that hundreds of times with people I NEVER thought I’d be having a conversation with. We had artist/creator Jim Mahfood on the show a few months ago and that was an episode that I had to work overtime to suppress my inner fanboy for. I’ve been a fan of his work for so long and to find myself talking to him was just mind blowing. We’ve had Ming Chen and Rob Bruce from Comic Book Men on before and both of those guys are great to talk to as well. My personal favorite guests though are the indie creators who’ve come on our show, some of them multiple times. They are always the most fun to talk to because they truly do love their art form.

Special shout outs to guys like Nick Marino, Daniel Arruda Massa, Ian J. Malone, Sal Brucculeri, and Frank Mula in that category.

Amanda: My most memorable interview with the Evil Geeks crew had to be the one where my friend Miggy Jagger guested on, and he told us a story about how he accidentally walked into a furry orgy at a past DragonCon. That was pretty hilarious. We basically had to end the podcast there because we couldn’t top that convention story! My favorite interview we’ve done, however, was with Kelly Thompson who is currently writing for IDW on their “Jem and the Holograms” comic book.

It was such a blast of ‘truly outrageous’ proportions.

What is the one interview you want to do?

Chris: I’m an enormous comedy nerd. We’ve had a few on the show over the years, but I would love to have so many more. My personal dream interview would be comedian Dana Gould. He’s been one of my favorite comics since the early 90’s and I’ve listened to every singe episode of his podcast multiple times. I’d love to talk comedy and Planet of the Apes with him on our podcast someday. I’ve emailed a request to him like 2 or 3 times, so I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a stalker.

9/11/16 Update: Since I originally sent the questions, Dana Gould did the show. I had been talking with his assistant about nailing down a date. I was beyond excited for this and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I knew going in it would to be hard not to fanboy out once we start talking, but I’m going to try my best to keep it together.

Amanda: I think everyone would love to interview Stan Lee. I’d also love to interview Kevin Smith, Bill Nye the Science Guy or Sarah Michelle Gellar. That would be a dream!

What is your take on the current state of the comics industry?

Chris: I think that the mainstreaming of comic culture has been a good thing so far. It’s brought the cultural focus to the stories and characters that we love, which has led to us being able to enjoy them in new mediums, but at the same time, let’s not pretend that this is something that’s going to last forever. Comic companies seem to be riding high on the newfound popularity, but I feel like they’ve forgotten the harshest lesson of the 90’s. This bubble is going to pop sooner or later, mostly because the market is becoming flooded with superhero everything. We’ve reached peak geek culture and the saturation is starting to set in. That won’t necessarily be a bad thing in my opinion. To me it seems the needs of comic movies are bleeding into comic books. Book characters need to look and act exactly like they do in the movies or the new fans might not stick around. Marvel is allegedly canceling books and shelving characters based on who owns what movie rights. Once the bubble pops, I think those things that the hardcore fans complain about will go away and comic storytelling will get back to basics, with the intent of selling comics and not movie sequels.

Amanda: I don’t read very many current comics anymore, although I’ve been told I need to catch up on DC Rebirth. I think that digital comics are on the rise but for true fans, nothing compares to walking into a local shop and holding that crisp new comic in your hands! I think that it’s awesome that a lot of topics that were considered “nerdy” and “lame” when I was younger are so mainstream now. It’s cool to be able to talk to more people about this stuff.

What do you have in the pipeline for the podcasts?

Chris: This is a tough one to answer because I usually don’t schedule shows more than a week or two ahead of time. I’ve got a few interviews lined up with some indie creators and I know we’ll find time for a few general geek out shows, but beyond that it gets cloudy. I know that I’ll keep doing what I can though to get even better interviews and working towards making our show the f(hopefully!) funniest and most entertaining podcast it can be.

We have a new show that we just started, Grrrr Argh! where we talk all things Whedon (but mostly Buffy)!

We set the bar high as far as guests in this premiere episode, as The Master himself, Mark Metcalf, joins Undies of Wondy and C-Mart to talk his time terrorizing Sunnydale, as well as his role in the comedy classic, Animal House and his character The Maestro on Seinfeld!

Amanda: Oh man! The fun never stops over here in The Evil Lair, you’ll just have to listen to us to find out the answer to that question! 🙂

Last question, (for fun and not to start or stoke an ongoing local podcast feud), In the traditon of Marvel vs. DC, Pepsi vs Coke, paper vs plastic, do you think the Brotherhood of Evil Geeks could take the FanBoyInc crew on in a interCapital District Podcasters throwdown?

Chris:

Lol, wow! I think the first shot in that war was fired a long time ago, but it’s all in good fun!

In my opinion, for sure! We’re EVIL, it’s right in the title. Plus we’re spread out across the globe. Even if they could take just the Capital Region people, we’d still have folks coming in from downstate and Long Island, California, and even our guy from Greece. He’s probably going to bring some kind of magical weapon or Golden Fleece with him, so we should have this wrapped up.

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You can check out the gang at their website

Get updates about new episodes and new on their Twitter feed or the Facebook page

Tou can subscribe or listen to their shows on iTunes and Stitcher.

so download a show (or ten) and get ready to get your geek on!