From the catacombs of Italy to the glowworm caves of New Zealand, we discuss some of the weirdest, wonderful places the world has to offer on this episode of RetConned. Today we’re branching out a bit on the show — WAY out.

You don’t have to be a fan of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror to have an appreciation for the strange, peculiar places all around us, but it helps. The website Atlas Obscura has been cataloging just those sorts of places for almost a decade now with some help from a talented editorial team and readers willing to share their own experiences with creepy and quirky destinations both at home and abroad. (more…)

Released in 1991, Tecmo Super Bowl was the first sports video game officially licensed with the National Football League and the NFL Players Association. The game continues to this day, moving from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to the internet. This week the team dives headfirst into the game to talk with the creator of TecmoBowl.org

With “Captain America: Civil War” in theaters now, RetConned’s Rick Marshall speaks to attorney James Daily, the co-author of the 2012 book “The Law of Superheroes,” and creator of the long-running “Law and the Multiverse,” a blog that explores elements of the superhero world from a legal perspective.

On this week’s episode of RetConned, we talk to co-directors and showrunners, Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery, of Netflix’s new original series, Voltron Legendary Defender.

With all the turmoil surrounding politics worldwide, people like to imagine their own political ideology as the correct one. But would your best ideas turn out to be “good public policy?” Our new podcast RetConned, takes a look into the development of the popular political simulation game, Democracy 3.

The latest in augmented-reality (AR) gaming, the smartphone app Pokémon GO has been grabbing attentions across the globe since its debut last week. Mashable‘s Games Editor Chelsea Stark joins the RetConned podcasts team in logging the miles in an attempt to “catch ’em all.”

Song of the Deep, a new video game by Insomniac Games is hitting a frequently untapped market when it comes to children. A book produced in parallel with the game tells the story of a young girl named Merryn, who one night builds a submarine to venture out into open water in search of her father… who one stormy night at sea, never came back home. RetConned’s Patrick Garrett spoke with author and co-founder of Insomniac Games, Brian Hastings on what the games and book industry are doing to help encourage young girls.

On WAMC’s Vox Pop live call in show, RetConned’s Rick Marshall was joined by comic writer Ron Marz to talk post San Diego Comic-Con and pop culture.

Former NASA space shuttle engineer and sci-fi author Darren Beyer has written extensively about the disparity of leading ladies in the science-fiction genre. His newest novel Casimir Bridge, follows the journey of a female science journalist, Mandisa “Mandi” Nkosi, as she works to uncover a conspiracy in an intergalactic economy brimming with futuristic technology.

A prolific illustrator and sculptor, Harding has made a name for himself over the last decade or so working on some of the most popular lines of action figures from the comic book world. Along with designing toys and collectibles based on just about every superhero and villain out there, Harding has also worked on a long list of projects for the movie, television, and music world, and even finds time to provide illustrations for the occasional comic OR book cover.

Basically, if you’ve got an action figure on your shelf that just looks too good to part with, or one of those deluxe Blu-ray sets packaged in a collectible statue, there’s a good chance you own something that Harding designed.

We took a trip to Harding’s studio, located just north of New York’s Capital Region, to learn more about the artistry of designing our favorite geekery.

Arguably the most overlooked part of video game production exists in music and sound design. Some music makes you laugh, some makes you cry, some is weaved into the game itself through decisions made and some is the game itself. But just how did we get from the nostalgic computer sounds of yesteryear… to the sweeping orchestra scores of today?

Back in the 1970s, early video games had arrived. And although primitive by today’s standards, they gradually grew in complexity and scope – both in terms of gameplay and sound and music. Dr. Neil Lerner, a musicologist at Davidson College in North Carolina, recently spoke with WAMC’s Lucas Willard about the influences on the sound of early video games.