Absent the rest of the gang, Michelle and Jake decide to chew on the mind of a very singular artist who has released a very singular film. Join them as they discuss the documentary Phil Tippet: Mad Dreams and Monsters as well as Tippett's magnum opus, Mad God. Special effects and stop-motion prodigy, Tippett has touched an extraordinary number of c…

This week Michelle & co. are joined by comics artists / bad boys Ramon Villalobos and Daniel Iirizarri, who also make their own podcast, Mex Flentallo. We explore creating work that isn't tied to your paid gig, Ramon and Daniel's views on the social media hustle of illustration work, and we get a live reaction to the Mexican Namor reveal. This is a…

Cleaning up your home is a decidedly DIY endeavor: that shit usually doesn't happen unless you do it! We talk dos, don'ts and favorites in the interest of reminding ourselves that it is nice to live in a clean environment and that no one else wants to smell your stank. It is not actually a philosophy it's just basic manners. Intro riff selected fro…

Well we had some internet trouble folks! Jake explains it all in the intro to this somewhat unique episode. Michelle saw Crimes of the Future and she's not happy about it, Jake tries to pick at her unhappiness like a psychic scab. Ruben never returns. Intro riff selected from "The Mouthwash Years" by Couch Slut. Interstitial music selected from "Wo…

The gamers three return this week: Michelle, Jake and Ruben are alone and discussing everyone's favorite socially planned activity: Game Night. Is throwing a game night "DIY" you might ask? By the end of this episode there may be an answer. Plus, Ruben shares how to weed out the social butterflies and Jake will tell you how learning the card game M…

What's all this then? Absent Eliza, the gang brings our newest inductee to the forefront to talk a bit about what you, The Individual, can do to get some value out of our horrendous economic system. Lucy breaks down the realities of leaving money on the table when it comes to using credit cards, why having five of them can actually get you More Mon…

No guests, no internet mysteries, just five buddies and a chill chat about all the jobs we have either left or been forcibly ejected from. Enjoy! Intro riff selected from "The Mouthwash Years" by Couch Slut. Interstitial music selected from "Workinonit" by J Dilla. @pigironpodcast or pigironpodcast@gmail.com to get in touch.…

Today we welcome Dr. Liz Brown to discuss relevant subject matter concerning healthcare legislation and access for trans individuals, primarily in the US. Liz is a bonafide medical doctor who works with patients to develop their care and graciously offers anonymous insight into the medical side of the equation. We are very lucky to have her on to d…

This week we are dredging up another fondly remembered DIY disaster from the internet repository that is the Something Awful forums. An ambitious Goon innocently posts asking for help on his zipline project, it's already built he says. What he will find is, in his own words, "something ugly." Join us as we break down exactly how an internet forum c…

Guests are back! We are very delighted to host eminent selfie expert and hilarious twitter presence: Caitlin! (@punished_cait). The gang discusses the inherent trickery that goes into getting a photo to look as good as you do in the mirror, as well as what wild things technology is starting to do to our self perception in the age of everyone taking…

We went so many weird places on the last episode that we felt compelled to follow up with Camping Part Two: What We Meant To Talk About. Food choices, tent troubles, snipe hunts, all the nitty gritty of camping life comes to the table. Lucy gives the camping onigiri from last episode a try to some dubious results. All in all a light affair this wee…

You win, Meghan Trainor! This week, the gang formally introduces our new name: Pig Iron. We also welcome new team member Lucy to the podcast to discuss some essential quarantine friendly outdoor activities. Jake hates camping, Ruben loves it. Eliza has many smart things to say about the value of outside. Michelle tries to keep us on target and we t…

In the midst of working on our grand re-naming scheme, here is something a bit different. Recorded after our tangent in episode 016, the gang unpacks the bizarre cultural artifact "Our Friend, Martin." Historically shown in grade schools around this time of year, hopefully no more, the film has some ... interesting takes on the life and death of ML…

A very Happy New Year to all, now here's some tips on how to not die! Covid isn't going anywhere in the near future, we don't like it and we don't expect you to either, but we do want you to be as informed as you can about protecting your face! Eliza has been busy doing this already in the broader internet sphere, so we decided to address it here o…

It's the end of our first year as a podcast and also the solar year, so in the interest of keeping things light this week we're talking about one of the most DIY endeavors humans have in common - pet ownership! Come learn the origins of the pod's pets, Churchgrim, Bruce and Roux, and hear us talk about the logistics and fun parts of having a little…

The haus so nice we talk about it twice! This week the gang closes the book on Groverhaus, with Ruben back into the fold and alive from last week's tech difficulties. What can we learn from this madness? The gang examines Something Awful modship, the changes in posting behavior and the general fallout of Grover's journey from military-worshiping, c…

The full house of buddies returns for more tales of DIY excess from the pit of the internet: the Something Awful forums. This time we discuss the house that gave us "load-bearing dry wall," the beige barn in the swampland: the mythical Groverhaus. We also touch on the recent death of Something Awful founder Lowtax. Join Michelle, Eliza, Jake and a …

This week we welcome very special guest Sarah Hightower (@nezumi_ningen). Sarah has been working online as a terrorism/cult researcher and de-radicalization proponent for years, primarily through her popular twitter account and collaborations with other journalists and researchers. We discuss her pathway to her current work as well as the hows and …

Michelle and Jake are very excited to have author and critic Gretchen Felker-Martin join them on the show today to discuss all things disgust. Gretchen's debut novel MANHUNT, about a testosterone-fueled apocalypse scenario, is releasing in early 2022 on Tor's Nightfire imprint. We discuss the development process, going from critique to published fi…

The show is haunted! The spectre of GHOST*FRUITS looms over the gang as 4/9 members of this elusive and eclectic art collective apparate into the digital studio for a sit-down. If you've never read a GHOST*FRUITS comic you've missed out on the potential for chaos that collectivist, digital art can bring to the medium. A single page is often filled …

This week the pod's Gamers Three gather to discuss the only game they manage to play together. Over the last five years, Fortnite has grown into something that can be a bit hard to not know about. Drake streaming on Twitch, stealing from popular dancers, Epic suing Apple, Giant Ariana Grande stepping on you, we cover the history and our own experie…

Brace yourselves nerds, it's a comics episode. Michelle and Jake welcome the incredibly prolific and thoughtful cartoonist Sarah Horrocks onto the show to chop it up about all kinds of sequential art as well as the state of modern media criticism. Sarah is the creator of several acclaimed indie comics, including her current radical mech space opera…

Our post-episode discussion turns into a whole new episode! Lyric delves into her history with reptile management services as well as some of the weirder aspects of previously discussed Bone Room, including "The Mexican Legs." We round out with some healthy talk about how to manage yourself as a capital A Artist in the world of online business nons…

Our first two-parter episode and Michelle is missing! Eliza, Ruben and Jake soldier on as we welcome leatherworker, model, illustrator, and friend of the show Lyric Wilson to discuss her Bay Area history with Eliza and to talk about being a person who makes things with their hands! Currently, Lyric runs the leather shop Xenolux on Etsy where you ca…

015 - Woodworking, a modest introduction. First, there was soap. Now, Ruben is back with more patented everyman advice, this time about dead trees. Michelle probes Ruben on his Tim Allen-esque practices. Folks, if you've ever wanted to get your hands dirty with sawdust, this is where your journey begins.* *Actual practical applications of woodworki…

Michelle and Jake get to grilling one another about making their respective ways through this Hell Earth. Join us for a relatively laid back and very introspective session of shooting the shit. Eliza had to dip halfway through, sorry Eliza fans! Jake talks very loudly into his microphone more than usual, he is writing this and he is very sorry. - I…

Writer and video-game Elvira extraordinaire Lana Polansky (@mechapoetic) joins us this week to discuss all sorts of stuff. Seriously, we get around on this one. In addition to her writing, Lana hosts The Freak Museum, an exploratory twitch channel that puts weird and/or rare games on display for the world. Marvel's rise to mediocrity, neo-puritanis…

This week we are joined by beloved friend and our very logo designer - Francine Bridge! Francine has been working in illustration for a number of years, specializing in the wonderful category of monsters. Her work is known for embracing and emphasizing the grand sublimity of otherworldly creatures, but today we mostly chat about picky eating, tokus…

This week we are very happy to welcome independent perfumer Marissa Zappas to the show to talk about her craft, how someone even gets into the perfume industry, breaking off on your own in a niche field, and the role scent plays in our lives. The discussion takes us on a journey through Parisian history, contemplations of death and decay, and how w…

This week the standard crew assembles to dive deep into the mines of the internet's vital proving grounds, Something Awful, for an exploration of DIY drug culture and a little legal benzo called Phenazepam, or "Da Joose" as we will come to know it. Join us as we dive into old forum posts of people dosing this insane substance to examine how messing…

The gang is joined this week by fellow artist Eli Tripoli, who runs extensively modded Dark Souls streams, for a thorough discussion of one of gaming's historic hustles. Doom WADs, early Unreal discoveries, lost Source engine gems and, of course, boobies in Bethesda games are all discussed. This episode had some recording issues so if anything soun…

This week the gang welcomes our 3rd guest aboard the ship, twitter comics young gun Beany Tuesday! Beany has been making waves with a number of poignant and hilarious observational comics on his social accounts, Michelle wants to pick his brain. We talk recent success, why he still uses a pseudonym, and go on a surprisingly chunky detour about slee…

The crew is back to basics this week with a light-hearted romp. We explore Ruben's adventure in simplifying his household cleaning methods with castille soap, and we talk about the importance of self-determination in practice. Did you know you can often buy bulk of common useful objects, both saving money AND learning a bit along the way? All this …

Wherein we welcome our second guest, the prolific and very cool Carta Monir! Self described 'Zine-Maker, Publisher, Pornographer,' Carta owns and operates Diskette Press, an independent publishing press for up-and-coming queer writers and artists. Join us for a look inside the world of buying and maintaining a risograph printer, asking for comment …

The gang discusses notorious weird-guy independent inventor Aaron Fechter, his animatronic band The Rock-A-Fire Explosion, and the eccentricities that led Fechter to being responsible for a real explosion in Orlando, 2010. Plus, how these creepy animal robots are having a comeback thanks to a certain horror video game. Intro riff selected from "The…

We return sans Ruben this week for a chill rap sesh about our favorite bygone webcomics, the fruitful era of the early 00's webcomic boom for independent creators and how Eliza ended up in a Jerk City strip. Plus, we talk about Achewood for at least a full half hour. Intro riff selected from "The Mouthwash Years" by Couch Slut. Interstitial music s…

The gang is back on their own and tackling one of the hottest trends of the pandemic, Vtubers. We discuss their origins, what types of "character entertainers" we've had in the past and what we'd like to see in the future. There's simply no avoiding them, so join us in embracing our smiling anime girl destiny. Intro riff selected from "The Mouthwas…

We're back, baybee. Join Michelle, Eliza, Jake and Ruben in welcoming our inaugural guest and known poster Colin (@spacetwinks). We discuss how being a gay, pink kangaroo can lead to being published as a culture writer and how Colin uses Itch.io and Twine to ... well, do all sorts of stuff. Colin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/spacetwinks Colin's I…

The journey begins, host Michelle Perez introduces her cohorts Eliza, Ruben and Jake as they get down to business digging into one of the world's newest creative professions, Youtubers. Our lens is Jenna Marbles, one of the first Youtubers to retire with the bag and also (narrowly) avoid cancelation. What can we learn? //SHOW NOTES\\ 14:18 - How to…