Sneaky Geek

Episode 57! Con season is upon us! Bryce and Bryan revved up slowly and gently to Wondercon 2025 by first visiting a pop up for Gundam and Gunpla, then the next week went to The Inland Empire Strikes Back!, a small but excellent Star Wars convention. With the convention just days away, there's planning to do! What panels to see? Is there merch to be on the lookout for? When are we getting s'mores? Will Bryce somehow win ANOTHER raffle? We go over the event schedule, some of the notable guests, and what we're looking forward to this year at Wondercon!   00:00 - Intro 00:03 - Gundam Pop up 00:10 - The Inland Empire Strikes Back Star Wars convention 00:40 - Wondercon 01:10 - Closing thoughts

It's that magical time again! San Diego Comic-Con is here at last! Get ready to conquer your next comic-con with Sneaky Geek! In this episode, we're joined by the amazing Sarah McIntosh of MacAttack Cosplay to share insider tips on making the most of your con experience. We chat about what essentials to pack, how to plan your visit, and the best strategies for enjoying the con whether you’re flying solo or with a group. Sarah shares her expert advice on con-essentials for cosplayers, and we all share some of our favorite con stories both good and bad. If you're a con newbie or a seasoned veteran, you'll find plenty of useful tips and laughs along the way. Join us as we help you prepare for an unforgettable comic-con adventure! Don’t forget to subscribe to Sneaky Geek and follow us on social media for more geeky content. If you spot us at SDCC, come say hi! And we’d love to hear about your con essentials, so drop a comment and join the conversation.   Tune in and geek out with us! Find our Discord by searching Sneaky Geek Find us on our socials! @sneakygeekpodcast, @brycerankins, @brom1137, @Mac_Attack_Cosplay Wanna be on our podcast? Head over to SneakyGeekPodcast.com and contact us there!

Sneaky Geek is talking about anime again, and this time it's not just pokemon. Join us on this episode of Sneaky Geek as we dive into the unique intersection of black culture and anime, especially through the lens of music. We're excited to chat with Dr. Marcus Norris, director of the South Side Symphony, about how black music has influenced popular anime series like City Hunter, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kids on the Slope, and Cowboy Bebop. From the beats of City Pop to the impact of the Wu-Tang Clan, we explore the cultural fusion that brings these worlds together. It's a beautiful thing, influencing and building on each other. Plus, we discuss the iconic moments of Dragon Ball Z. Join us for insights, humor, and a celebration of inclusivity and cultural exchange. Tune in and geek out with us! Find our Discord by searching Sneaky Geek Find us on our socials! @sneakygeekpodcast, @brycerankins, @brom1137, @marcusnorris, @southsidesymphony

It’s a kaiju podcast! This week we are talking with John Hazlett yet again but this time its not about his time curating Star Wars history, and is instead about his love of the King of all Monsters, Godzilla! Godzilla, or Gojira as they call him in the streets, has been destroying cities since the 50s, and during that time his films have gone from poignant anti-WMD narratives to gigantic wrestling matches to Taco Bell Commercials to Oscar winning films. Listen as we do our deep dive into the history of Kaiju! And be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, join us on our Discord server, and follow us on social media for updates and more! @SneakyGeekPodcast

Star Wars: Tales of The Empire is a week away! We're so excited for this follow up to Tales of the Jedi. So we decided we needed ANOTHER trailer breakdown!  So we broke the trailer down, frame by frame, to find every reference, Easter egg, or sneaky recut that we could. We also talk about hopes for the series, how it might tie in to Ahsoka, Mandalorian and Grogu, and everything else a-brewin' in Dave Filoni's branch of the galaxy. Enjoy! Find us on Instagram and Threads at @SneakyGeekPodcast Join the discussion on our Discord Server Be sure to listen to our other podcast, which is centered around The High Republic, called The Starlight Archive!  

Wondercon is one of our favorite cons, it's far less daunting than SDCC but still packs a punch. This years Wondercon took place on a rainy Easter weekend, and it had some interesting affects on our usual con experience. But that didn't stop us from seeing great panels like Her Universe with Ashley Eckstein, Star Trek Discoveries season 5 premiere, or The War of Rohirrim panel! Joining us this episode are Reychel and Frankie, from The Bitches of Dathomir, a Star Wars podcast that focuses on print media! You should give them a listen, especially if you're into The High Republic.

At 8am on March 19th, 2024, Lucasfilm dropped the trailer for their newest Star Wars show, The Acolyte. It featured intense fight scenes, a whole lot of lightsabers, and a new threat we haven't yet seen! This whole show takes place a hundred years before Anakin told Sebulba he was going to be bugsquat (sleemo), and that means it's during The High Republic! What is The High Republic? What do all this quickly flashing scenes mean? What kind of alien is that again? All these questions and more are answered in this bonus episode of Sneaky Geek! Find us on Instagram @TheSneakyGeekPodcast Looking for more High Republic info? Head over to our other podcast "The Starlight Archive" to hear more, and follow us on Instagram for even more info @TheStarlightArchivePodcast!!

This week we are honored to have former Wookiepedia Bureaucrat, writer, and Legends afficionado John Hazlett on the podcast! Lucasfilm is a few years into its multi-media storytelling initiative, "The High Republic." Since it's going strong, we wanted to ask John if he had seen any of these stories before and whether this era in Star Wars overwrites any of the old canon. He had some fascinating insights, comparisons, and drops a few knowledge bombs on us. The High Republic takes place between 500BBY and 100BBY (that's Before the Battle of Yavin), which means it exists well outside the Skywalker saga, but well INSIDE the lifetime of Yoda, Yaddle, and a few other notable Jedi, if you're interested in more High Republic content, be sure to check out our new podcast, The Starlight Archive! And be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, join us on our Discord server, and follow us on social media for updates and more! @SneakyGeekPodcast

You get two Pokémon games with every new generation, so we're giving you two parts to this Pokémon episode! Because... because it's part 2 of our Pokémon episode... get it? This episode was first streamed LIVE on Twitch.tv/sneakygeekpodcast, and it was so big, that we broke it into two episodes for you! In this episode, we discuss how the nuzzlock and soul link work, what these new iterations bring with new features, and talk about the card game! This episode features music from Mikel's album Poké & Chill, Music provided by GameChops GameChops.com/poke-and-chill

It's Sneaky Geek's 50th episode! You asked, we listened, and now we're here to talk about Pokémon! This episode was first streamed LIVE on Twitch.tv/sneakygeekpodcast, and it was so big, that we broke it into two episodes for you! In this episode, we discuss how pokémon came to be, its many iterations, and how pokémania has taken the world by storm on more than one occasion! Timestamps: 0:05:00 Introductions 0:27:00 What's your favorite starter 0:34:00 History and origins 0:52:00 What did you name your rival? 1:11:00 Pokémon Unite 1:20:00 Edible pokémon vs. Cuddleable Pokémon This episode features music from Mikel's album Poké & Chill, Music provided by GameChops GameChops.com/poke-and-chill

Is Echo worth the watch? How does it fit in with the MCU? What is all this Marvel Studio's Spotlight business about? Why is Biscuits your new favorite MCU NPC? How is Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin still managing to surprise us in all the right ways? All these questions and more in this week's exciting episode of Sneaky Geek! *Warning: Contains Spoilers*

So it turns out Ahsoka is your new favorite... or maybe it's Sabine... if it's neither it's obviously Chopper. The problem is, you wanna learn more but you don't know where to start. We have excellent news for you! Bryce hit record right as he and Bryan were discussing this exact subject and before you could say Follow the white Loth-cat, a bonus episode was formed. We go through some of the key moments to watch without being too spoilery! What episodes do you think are quintessential Ahsoka plot points?

"Let's split that Blue Beetle episode into two parts!" Bryan and Bryce said excitedly. Our comic historian Dave is back again with us this week as we get to the second part of our Blue Beetle History. Then we talk about what we're reading for a while. Maybe those "what are you reading?" bits should be their own episodes at this point... Hmm... What was I saying? Oh yeah, I was telling you about this episode. It's great. Go see Blue Beetle when you're done listening. We hear it's really good.

Did you know the Blue Beetle comic is almost as old as Super Man? Or that he wasn't originally owned by DC? Or that there was a team of super heroes called the Mystery Men? Well we didn't, and that's why Bryce went over to Dave's house to record a podcast episode remote with Bryan back at home as the man in the chair. Blue Beetle is in theaters August 18th, and you can learn all about Jaime's (and a few other Blue Beetles) history here on Sneaky Geek!

The whirlwind blur of SDCC has come and gone. Bryan and Bryce try to piece together what exactly happened and when after only a week of being back home. After parties, panel cancellations, signings, trailer drops and so much more happened! Have a listen and do your best to follow along. Let us know in the comments what you thought of Comic-Con this year!

The long awaited second half of our WandaVision episode is finally here! We thought, given that we've been back for only a month that the best thing to do would be to keep our momentum going with an episode about something that was totally relevant two years ago! You're welcome for our genius career move to let you hear something recorded about a character who isn't even in current MCU things. It makes TOTAL sense that we're doing this.

Bonus episode! We know it's off schedule but Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny came out last week and we felt compelled to do a quick review of Harrison Ford's swan song for his clearly preferred franchise. We happened to like the film very much so don't expect a ton of complaining from us.

The Illumination Super Mario movie was great, but before Mario could run with his arms stretched out, Bob Hoskins had to walk, in weird shoes, next to John Leguizamo... and go through a lot of pain. We caught up with our Video Game Historian, Nick Fratto to talk all about the bizarre story of the original masterpiece that is the 1993 Hollywood Pictures dystopian classic, Super Mario Bros.

We're Back with a vengeance! A new season of Sneaky Geek is upon us and we've missed quite a bit since we last hung out. So let's catch up and rapid fire as many things that we missed since the world shut down as we can think of! See you in two weeks! (no but seriously we actually have an episode planned for two weeks from now and we're back on a schedule)

It's that time of year again! Comic-Con is here! Except this time, it's special! November 26th through 28th marked the first ever Comic-Con Special Edition. So instead of Black Friday shopping, we went to the exhibit hall! Joining us on the podcast today are Bridget Kelley and Nicole Jones to talk about their first con experience, we also reflect on past cons and what what the absence of Marvel, DC, and film & television meant for a con as big as this one.