One thing that comic books have that I've always enjoyed is a "letters page" - a page or two at the back of the comic book where readers can write in to ask the creators questions. Adam and I were talking about this recently, and we've decided to launch something similar, but in our own way.
Rather than doing a written thing, we're going to do a podcast.
We find ourselves talking about the world and history of Sentinel Comics on a daily basis here in the office, and thought this might be a great way to bring that world to those of you out there who are interested. So, this is a "soft announcement" of our upcoming podcast: The Letters Page!
But what does any Letters Page require? Letters, of course! The format of this show will be very Q&A oriented, in that the bulk of it will be us reading e-mails sent in by Sentinels fans, and then answering your questions and talking about anything we're inspired to talk about, given that topic. We want to launch the podcast in a couple months, and that will give us time to start the process of reading your letters and recording our answers.
So! Want us to read and respond to your letter in The Letters Page? Use this handy form (thanks, Pydro!) to submit your letter! We'll be talking about Sentinel Comics things, not card games or tabletop games or anything like that - this is about the comic book stories and back stories that make up the world of Sentinel Comics. So make sure that your e-mails are about this history of the characters and what stories we have told, not "How do we beat Iron Legacy?" or "Who is the next big villain?" There's plenty of help with gameplay stuff and future-speculation right here on the forum!
Will you be revealing new stuff that we shouldn't know yet, or only expanding on thigns we do?
We could totally reveal past things that you don't know yet. We're unlikely to talk as much about the way things are moving forward - especially with Sentinel Tactics story stuff. But things that have happened in the "history" of Sentinel Comics are the best bet. The further "back" the questions go, the more likely they are to be answered, and expounded upon.
This podcast, at least at the beginning, is more interested in filling in the gaps in the history than in setting the stage for the future.
Given it's you answering the questions, how much can we trust the answers?
I mean, an entire podcazst of reading out questions, followed by someone screaming "Smoke bombs"! wouldn't be fun. Ok it would be fun, but only at first.
1. When do you need the letters by (for the first ep)?
Whenever! We want to start recording an episode or two a week within the next couple weeks - we're shooting for each episode to be about an hour long. Questions we get in the next couple weeks are more likely to show up in earlier episodes. But there's no deadline! We're going to be putting out a new episode once a week, and we intend on doing this for a long time. At least, we hope you all have enough interest for us to get to share that much!
2. Timing of first ep?
We would love to put out our first episode in, say, mid-late July? But we're not sure yet. Depends on how long it takes to build the website and such. Which brings us to...
3. How will we get the episodes? (Will they just be posted here on the forums, available via iTunes, something else?)
They will be at www.letterspagepodcast.com eventually... still working on that part. While Joel is working on website stuff, we're working on episode and recording stuff! We're also hoping to have them on iTunes and Stitcher. Are there other ways you want to get them? Let us know! We've never made a podcast before!
Should we word these like they are letters to a comic book, or just ask a question?
For Example:
Dear Legacy,
Did you ever get Grounded? I got grounded for going to the playground when I was supposed to be doing homework. Can you tell my Mom that exercise is important?
Thank you,
Geoff.
Or:
Hey Christopher, can you give us a story about Legacy getting in trouble when he was younger?
so could questions be addressed to the characters, and then you'd answer them in-character?
Hah, well, we probably won't do any radio plays or anything like that, but we would talk about what the character's been through and what has happened in their life that would inform that question, and then come up with what their answer would be in their words.
So, pretty much, yeah. Just don't expect professional voice-acting or anything like that out of us.
