Blog Archive: June 2026

Doctor Doom Podcast Approaches
For the past several months I have been toiling away on the PODCAST version of Data And Doctor Doom, which has turned into QUITE the production but is now approaching ACTUALITY.

The first of two really big jobs I've had to do was recording all the SONGS. I made the decision early on to do them "properly" i.e. not just me bellowing over a guitar, and while that has been FUN it has also been an enormous amount of effort, as I have spent many evenings crouched over a hot MIDI FILE trying to program synths when I have 0 idea how to do so. This task was exacerbated by my decisions to a) put back all the songs that I had to take out of the live version for Timing Reasons and b) actually WRITE lots of new stuff, including new versions of the theme tune for each episode's beginning and end and a whole new song about Dennises The menaces.

The second really big job was to write the SCRIPT. Initially I thought I'd just SAY stuff based on what was in the original show, but I very quickly realised that the original show itself had had a script and that there was a very good reason for that i.e. there is certain stuff that HAS to be in there and be correct, and also that otherwise I will just chunter on for many hours before forgetting what I was meant to be saying in the first place.

The script also became important when I realised that this was a whole other thing that would need a whole other structure that would be MUCH easier to work it out in script form rather than just having a go and hoping for the best. One very obvious example of this was that I had no idea how long it would end up being or where the episode breaks would go, which it was much easier to work out by writing it down first. This, I guess, is why all TV, radio, films, plays etc etc do it the same way!

It had all been a LOT of work with no real OUTPUT until this weekend, when I finally worked out a way to record the NARRATION properly - a process which involved tiny microphone stands, two different laptops, and ALLEN KEYS. As a test I recorded the TRAILER and then put it together with snippets of songs, sound effects, backing tracks and a guest appearance by Doctor Doom himself. It felt weird to be finally bringing it all together and then UTTERLY WONDERFUL to listen to it and realise that, after all this time and all this effort, it did actually WORK!

There's still loads to do, not least recording about an hour's worth of narration, but I'm hoping to have it all ready so that the trailer can come out on Tuesday 21 July, with the episodes themselves following once a week from Tuesday 28 July onwards. These dates were worked out based on the FACT that the big COMICON starts on Thursday 23 July, where they are fairly likely to FINALLY officially unleash the "Avengers: Doomsday" trailer, so I'm hoping that it'll land JUST when the world at large begins to think "Who is this Doctor Doom anyway?"

Let's hope so anyway, and as ever, if anyone reading this is interested in me blathering on about Doctor Doom do please let me know - I have been building up to this for several YEARS now, and am ready to talk!

posted 29/6/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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To Leicester And (eventually) Back Again
I spent a big chunk of last week in Leicester, there to attend The International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference. I have been going to this conference for TEN YEARS now and it is always a lovely event, but this one was ESPECIALLY lovely as it involved going back to my old ALMA MATER (DeMontfort University, formerly known as Leicester Poly) and indeed my old home town.

In case any OLD PALS are reading this thinking "Why didn't you let me know so that I could have plied you with BEER?" the reason is that I was going to be spending my evenings involved in heady discussions, intellectual debates and plotting the furtherance of the scholarly field with other delegates, and also BEER, so wouldn't really be around. However, I did get to see ONE pal because the actual building where the conference was happening also contained the actual OFFICE of Dr N Brown (formerly known as Neil from Voon) so we met up for a delightful and sophisticated LUNCH one day. We also bumped into each other on Bede Island (formerly known as Vic Berry's scrapyard), just as I was thinking "I always used to bump into Neil here, oh there he is".

The conference itself was GRATE - it's always GOOD but this time there were LOADS of interesting panels and talks with lots of people who these days ALSO qualify as OLD PALS, and also various NEW pals, so there was much hugging and also the aforesaid heady discussions etc. I was v happy that my panel was with two such PALS - Ms C Searle and Dr M Nguyen - who did amazing talks about a) funnny drawing workshops and b) whether reading superhero comics makes you more tolerant. I won't spoil either, for hopefully they will be available in some form in the future, except to say that the latter panel featured one of the GREATEST GRAPHS EVER answering the question decisively and also not necessarily how we would have wanted it to!

There was also a marvelous Conference Dinner in Trinity Gardens - yet another bit of Leicester that I had previously been entirely unaware of - trips to two EXCELLENT pubs in the shape of The Blue Boar and The Castle, and an evening spent with Professor I Horton and Dr P Williams trying to watch the England game with the sound unreliably out of sync, so it was always either ten seconds behind or ten seconds ahead of what we could see, but we were never sure which!

I had a lovely time, and it was a very happy Hibbett who strolled off to get the train home, finding a nice double seat for myself and relaxing with a BIRTHDAY BEER (for LO! it was my birthday) ... until we got to Market Harborough and were told there was an Incident ahead - as it turns out, a very big and serious one too. We went back to Leicester where I bumped into Dr M Nguyen again, which led to me and Mike spending the entire rest of the day on an ADVENTURE together trying to get back to London. This involved a train to Hinkley, where we got detrained AGAIN due to an entirely OTHER signals problem, and then into a taxi with a supremely nice chap and his lad who we'd got talking to while stuck earlier. The four of us then had nearly four hours getting to Golders Green, where Mike and I then got TOOBS to our respective home/hotel. It was all a bit much, but I was a) highly conscious it could have been a lot worse b) glad to be spending the time getting to know the excellent Mike a lot better and c) very VERY happen to finally make it home just after midnight. PHEW!

posted 20/6/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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Philosophy Playdate
A couple of weeks ago I travelled across London's fashionable LONDON area of London to University College London, in London, to take part in an episode of Philosophy Playdate. This is a podcast where Christabel Cane and Steve Cross take a question proposed by an Actual Child (e.g. "What's it like to be a dog?" or "Who looks after Outer Space?") and try to answer it with PHILOSOPHY.

I've talked about Doctor Doom and superhero stuff at numerous LIVE gigs put on by Steve in the past, so when the current question "Is Lego Batman real Batman?" was asked he thought of ME to help them answer. I was, as you can probably imagine, RUDDY DELIGHTED as I do very much know the answer to this question, and so I did some REVISION i.e. re-read the relevant bits in MY BOOK (which is still very much available) and printed out some NOTES.

My preparation also included some revision on the show itself, which had made me rather nervous as both Christabel and Steve are GIANT BRANES who know lots of STUFF and can not only quote things but also tell you who SAID them and what they MEAN. I was also highly aware of certain issues what arose with me while recording The Funny Comics Fan Club where I would say "yeah" ALL THE TIME and also basically repeat whatever John had just said (if you think this happens a lot on the shows themselves, you should hear what it was like BEFORE I did the edit!), and so when we sat down in a rather large room in the basement of UCL to start recording I was a little TREPIDATIOUS.

However, Christabel and Steve were DELIGHTFUL and I think I managed to rein in MOST of the above tendencies, so ended up thoroughly enjoying our lengthy conversation about multiverse theory and transmedia and all sorts of other items. OBVIOUSLY once I got home after the recording I spent approx 48 hours worrying about it, but listening back now I Think I Did OK. You can have a listen below (or wherever you get yr podcasts) and see whether you agree!



posted 15/6/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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