Nertz

A very special tribute episode of NERTZ in which Mathew Klickstein's 2014 interview with legendary (and, as of 2017, late) comic book creator and icon Len Wein (co-creator of Wolverine, Swamp Thing, et al; editor of Alan Moore's Watchmen, etc.) is expanded and explored, delving into the changing face of the comic book industry today.

After a lengthy hiatus (which has become par for the course), your favorite nerd/geek culture podcast -- NERTZ -- returns triumphantly with a VERY "indie" new production including brand new intro/outro music and a very special, very apropos guest: Get Up Kids frontman Matt Pryor. The Get Up Kids being one of the pioneers of so-called "emo" music, despite the fact Pryor, his band and most people in that "scene" so to speak detest the title. But the music is great, Pryor is an articulate and passionate interview subject and now you too can find out what it is that makes "indie rock" (HA!) so very nerdy and geeky on this episode of NERTZ.

It’s another huge get for the world of NERTZ, fellow NERTZERS: the one and only supreme geek rocker himself, Mark Mothersbaugh! Find out all you ever wanted to know about the intersection between the birth (and sustaining resonance) of Devo and nerd/geek culture, why Mark just looooves Andy Warhol and making music for “geeky” indie filmmakers like Wes Anderson and why the Internet helps him find all the weird and wacky music his innovative brain can handle. It’s one of our super geekiest episodes yet!

BOOM! It's Sara Driver, longtime partner and collaborator of the one and only master of indie films, Jim Jarmusch. Driver is also a filmmaker in her own right, having made a handful of movies back in the day and her recent documentary Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Driver was a close friend of Basquiat's, and her intimate portrait of the late artist is quite the quite-the! And speaking of, we have quite the quite-the episode here: Driver explains where Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and she used to see people get mugged ... in the same spot where now there's a Damien Hirst gallery that you can't even get into if you're not dressed right! We talk about how the "nerdy" weirdos of those days grew up to create a lot of what became No Wave and the Cinema of Transgression .. before there would eventually be such a thing as the "indie" movie scene ... and why the hell we should care on a podcast like this.

Time to get caffeinated! On the this episode of NERTZ, we have one of our favorite all-time comix folks: Mr. Shannon Wheeler, the creator of one of the great indie comix of all time: TOO MUCH COFFEE MAN. Tah-dah! Wheeler also teaches and writes about comix (and comics; you'll find out the difference, as you will whether or not folks in the industry actually LIKE the term "graphic novel"), regularly contributes to the New Yorker and recently put out what is becoming an incredibly popular book, Shit My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump. There's so much to glom off of Wheeler, his adventures through the world of comix, comics, graphic novels, illustrations, conventions, what R. Crumb is REALLY like, and much-much more.

We are so excited to present one of the key figures of Nerd/Geek Culture, Mr. Toby Radloff, to our podcast. Toby took on the qualifier of "Genuine Nerd" after becoming fascinated by the quintessential Nerd Culture film Revenge of the Nerds, and later built his own reputation as such through his reoccurring role in Harvey Pekar's groundbreaking comic book series American Splendor. Toby would appear as himself in the film adaptation of Splendor, which also featured renown comedian/actor Judah Friedlander as Toby, too. Toby starred in his own series of "Genuine Nerd" interstitials which he helped write and produce for MTV in the late eighties/early nineties, as well. These brief spots were directed by longtime friend and collaborator Wayne Alan Harold who additionally directed Toby's two Troma films Killer Nerd and Bride of the Killer Nerd. Get ready to hear the word "nerd" far more than any episode of NERTZ yet!

This episode of NERTZ gets right to the skinny of how Nerd/Geek Culture and pop culture intersect with our good friend Caseen Gaines. Caseen has contributed many pieces to outlets ranging from Vanity Fair to Rolling Stone and has written books on: Pee-Wee's Playhouse, A Christmas Story, the Back to the Future trilogy and (just released!) The Dark Crystal. As something more than the typical "fanboy," what does Caseen have to say about obsessing so passionately over a geek totem like Howard the Duck or "Weird" Al (as he has for his journalistic pieces) ... while at the same time receiving so much (occasionally frantic) adoration from fellow geeks/nerds/fans himself? Find out in this fun-filled and geeky episode!

After a brief hiatus, we return to NERTZ with a truly fascinating character who, frankly, loves investigating truly fascinating characters for his many articles, books and classes on subjects ranging from the rapper Common (with whom he wrote a bestselling memoir), to the monumentally impactful writer of Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, whose literary estate he assisted throughout Bradley's time at Harvard), to the "poetry" of pop music. Many of his books on hip hop and pop culture (such as The Anthology of Rap and Book of Rhymes) have become seminal texts for university classes around the country. He speaks all over the country on a series of compelling topics, directs the Laboratory for Race & Popular Culture (RAP Lab) at the University of Colorado - Boulder where is an English professor and dresses really snazzily too. What the FUNK does THIS guy have to do with Geek/Nerd Culture? Find out in this episode of your favorite nerdy nerd podcast, NERTZ!

For our TENTH EPISODE (!) of NERTZ, we have an extremely special guest in screenwriter and TV show creator Diablo Cody. There's so much to be said about Ms. Cody, but we'll leave that for the episode, a fun and informal frolic through her thoughts on what it means to be a nerd or a geek, whether or not there's such a thing as "nerd cultural misappropriation" and even a little bit about why she kind-of-sort-of agrees with American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis that Millennials are a bit too cuddly (and why that may kind-of-sort-of be okay). We're truly honored to have Diablo Cody celebrate our Tenth Episode Anniversary and can't wait for you to check out what makes her so damn deliciously devilish ...

What can one say about Suicide Girls? The world-renowned iconic and iconoclastic collective of ever-growing young women who champion their inner and outer beauty in the most unique fashion while being at the same time totally embracing of their un-fashionability. There's plenty more wonderful contradictions ahead with our episode involving the proud mama of the Suicide Girls bunch, Missy Suicide, who speaks with us about how being a misfit or outsider can sometimes be pretty damn sexy. In the process, we'll discuss how nerds and geeks have become so hot (in more ways than one) over the past two decades and what Suicide Girls may have had to do with it (especially when we consider one of their last photography collections, GEEKOLOGY.)

Hailed as one of the rising stars of the DIY/indie film scene at the turn of the 21st century -- including a "favorite filmmaker" designation by perennial bellwether critic Amy Taubin and a "Someone To Watch" Award given by the Independent Spirit Awards -- Andrew Bujalski, rather unwittingly, has been called the pioneer of the so-called "Mumblecore" movement in cinema. Perhaps the most recent alternative film ethos (or maybe just a marketing catchall by lazy journalists -- you decide), Mumblecore has boasted such "graduates" as Greta Gerwig, the Duplass Bros., Lynn Shelton and Joe Swanberg, amongst many others. And it all started -- for good or ill -- with Bujalski, whose films include Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation and Computer Chess. As the Mumblecore gang has grown up, with Bujalski himself having had recent mainstream success with his Support the Girls and screenplay for Disney's upcoming live-action Lady and the Tramp, we can now ask: What happens when film nerds and geeks become major movie stars and

Geekie Awards founder and geek mainstay Kristen Nedopak talks about how she developed her unique awards ceremony -- which has brought in such icons as Stan Lee, Kevin Smith and Seth Green -- why she chose to award "geeks" over "nerds" and what it takes to be a true independent in today's ever-changing creative market.

We finally uncover our long-lost Episode Four, a very special segment involving two different mainstays from The Simpsons. Join Mike Reiss (who has written for the show since day one and was showrunner during Seasons 3 and 4, co-created The Critic and was a writer for National Lampoon) and Emmy-nominated voice actress Maggie Roswell (Maude Flanders, Luann Van Houten, Helen Lovejoy, Shary Bobbins, et al) as we finally distinguish the differences between the nerd, the geek and the dork, all while keying into some easy-to-understand examples from the beloved animated series that helped to raise us all as young'ns. 

Just what does the "Flo" Progressive Insurance spokesmodel have to do with Geek Culture? Find out as talk to her co-creator and copywriter John Park. You may be surprised. Or not. That's fine, too. 

Alex Winter is far more than merely Bill from Bill & Ted's or actor in such other modern classics as Lost Boys. He's also a filmmaker and uber-tech geek who's made a few docs on the subject (including the Napster flick, Downloaded). He now holds the record for most fundraised project on Kickstarter (for his Zappa documentary) and is just a darn nice guy. Smart too. Check out what he has to say about how tech and culture are intersecting more and more today. Please?

Dr. Sandra Calvert has spent much of her career investigating how media affects children and thus the rest of us. In this debut episode of NERTZ, Dr. Calvert reveals some fresh new research about why we connect so intimately with fictional characters, especially those onscreen. It's really weird, gang, but it's true. Probably. Harry Potter gets discussed a bunch, so there ya go.