Ancient Geeks
Ancient Geeks
Two old geeks talk about being young geeks, at a turning point in popular culture. In the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the threads of modern geek culture emerged and wove together. Science fiction, fantasy, comics, movies, TV shows, tabletop games, computer games, ad all their incarnations. The great SF&F writers, Star Trek, Star Wars, monster movies, D&D, Doctor Who, the Marvel and DC superheroes, 2001, Planet of the Apes, conventions, Zork, Ultima...What was it like to experience these for the first time? Why did we love them? And how do we feel about them, decades later?
Episodes
Mentioned books
Feb 10, 2025 • 1h 12min
Ancient Geeks, episode 1: Batman in the 60s and 70s
WHAM! SOCK! POW!
We were big fans of the Caped Crusader in the 1960s and the 1970s, starting with both the TV show and the comics. In this episode, we focus on Batman during this pivotal era, when the TV show became hugely popular, and the comics started to grow out of their early Silver Age goofiness. You'll hear about what made us Batfans, the weird process of having to schedule your time around a TV show, the jaw-dropping greatness of Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams' run on the comics, other terrific writers and artists from this period, and our favorite Batman merch.
For feedback, contact someancientgeeks@gmail.com. You can also find us on Facebook, Reddit, and Bluesky.
© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor
Jan 15, 2025 • 1h 12min
Ancient Geeks, episode 0: Our origin stories!
It all starts here! Welcome to Ancient Geeks, a podcast about the birth of geek culture, from two older geeks whose younger selves were there at the beginning.
In this inaugural episode, Tom Grant and Steven Taylor share their origin stories. Watching Batman, Star Trek, cartoons, and monster movies as kids. Reading classic science fiction and fantasy books by Tolkien, Burroughs, Asimov, and more. Being there at the premiere of Star Wars and Superman. Playing D&D and computer games. We were geek before it became chic.
What attracted us to all these shiny bits of popular culture? How did they all fit together into one big geek mosaic? And how do we feel about them today? That’s what we’ll be exploring in this podcast.
For feedback, contact someancientgeeks@gmail.com
© 2025 Tom Grant and Steven Taylor
