It was early 2005 and I had had enough of Scott Kurtz’s rants on his website. I was in search of a new webcomic that would fulfill my daily need for geek humor. That’s when I found Scott Johnson’s Extralife comic. Not only was his comic great, Johnson’s blog was full of great geek posts and most importantly no more silly rants. This was a positive place to be and I could feel it.
I was in the process of developing my own webcomic and was poor in terms of traffic to my website. I was just some cartoonist who had a dream of making it big. I was watching and taking note of everything successful web cartoonists were doing and by gum I liked the way Johnson was running his show. He was focused chaos. He was where I wanted to be.
Everyday I would stop by the old Extralife shop and see what Johnson was up to that day. He was always trying out the latest thing. RSS Feeds. Blogging. WordPress. Podcasting…what the crap was podcasting. It was just an idea. It didn’t even seem like a very good one. I remember when I first heard of podcasting I couldn’t get my head around what was so fantastic about it. I mean it was no more than just recording some audio right. It wasn’t like they were inventing radio. But Scott could see what was special about it. It wasn’t about the content. He already had the content. It was about the delivery.
Brian, Thank You so much for all the fun these past 5 years (god has it been that long?) you Scott and O (& Andrew) were my first Podcast. My only regret is that i never participated more in the ELR community. Film Sack is a close 2nd but ELR was always my favorite Podcast. I’m getting a little choked up here right now. You three don’t know me, but you’ve been a big part of my life. Hopefully there will be a reunion show soon.
I just wish you guys had done a Farewell Spectacular and given it the send off it deserved.
Drew from NY
P.S. My favorite were the radio plays you ans Scott did at the begining of a bunch of the episodes.
Thanks Drew, We didn’t intend to end ELR the way we did. It just sort of happened. You know we went o every other weekend last year and we just didn’t feel like we were doing justice to the show and didn’t want to destroy what we had worked so hard to build. Maybe, down the line we will find some open time that will allow us to go back and do a proper sendoff.
Thanks for listening. We had a blast.
P.S. There is a whole show we have planned for those radio plays. They are fun to do.
I started listening after the first hundred episodes and this quickly became my favorite Podcast. I always looked forward to new episodes and tried to put off listening to it at times when I thought I would enjoy it the most. I will start listening to the old first 100 episodes now! Thank you!
https://twitter.com/#search?q=%23imisselr
I’ve been listening to Filmsack for a while now and also enjoy it quite a bit!
Hey Silvio, Thanks for the kind words. I think you will have fun going back and hearing those earlier shows.
We are having a blast on filmsack.
I’ve listened to ELR for so so long now, my favorite being the “non-homofobic show” which i think was 58 or something:P but anyways, i’m really sad about you guys retiring your show<.< when you've listened to something regulary for 2-3years then it feels quite strange when it goes away:/ filmsack is a comfort because almost all the people are there, but i really miss having O on one of the shows.. anyways, are you planning to post a "ELR and me, part 2?":) i really enjoy reading about it
Oh Brian,
I started listening to ELR while going through some hardships in my senior year of high school. I found true comfort in being able to listen to you, Scott, and O talk about video games, movies, and so much more that I was able to laugh my way through my problems. While I’m sad that its over, being towards the end of my senior year now, I’m happy that I was able to have it in the begging of the year. Just wanted to say thanks for always making me laugh, and you never cease to amuse on Film Sack! Keep up the great work!!
Katherine
Thanks Simon and Gabrieli. We had so much fun doing the show. I will never forget ELR. I’ve been so overwhelmed over the years by the great things people have told me about how we helped people through tough times with our humor. That is a great honor for me. I love to laugh and I’m so glad you got to laugh along with me.
Thank you so much.
Brian