Meet Chandler Poling and Chris Riley | Co-Host & Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chandler Poling and Chris Riley of X-Reads Podcast and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chandler and Chris, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Chandler: I decided to start X-Reads: An X-Men Experience back in 2019 as I was slowly getting into podcasts over all. I was introduced to a show called ‘A Date with Dateline,’ which has two friends breakdown and discuss an episode of Dateline together per podcast episode. I loved their friendship and dynamic and thought to myself that I have a friend that I can gush about X-Men comics with easily and we can do an episode per comic issue and just copy that format. So, I rang up Chris and together we launched in July of 2019.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Chris: One of the things that sets us apart from other podcasts is our ability to jump from era to era in comics and easily integrate celebrities and creative talent into the episodes as they read the issues along with us and enjoy the format of discussing page by page.

The challenges are always to stay consistent. We are our own bosses, so you have to set deadlines, schedules, and plan out goals for your creative project and the challenge is to do so without letting your inner demons of imposter syndrome or jealousy of others cloud your path.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Chandler: Wow, this is actually a hard question to answer as Los Angeles is so massive and there is so much to do. My favorite spots in the city include Huntington Gardens in San Marino. I find the location to be absolutely gorgeous and I love their tea room in the rose garden. I would visit Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles to enjoy some fresh sushi, some delicious Japanese desserts, and shop the anime stores for nerdy items. We would of course visit the beach, but I would prefer El Matador Beach over the more popular beaches. The rustic rock formations and privacy of El Matador provides a really wonderful experience away from the crowds. LA is known for great Mexican, so I would have to visit my favorite taco truck on Melrose and Western for the best street tacos anywhere. Definitely try the Pastor. The Getty Museum is a must for any visitor. And for a night out, I love the streets of downtown LA from the Grand Central Market Place for a bevy of delicious food stalls, so crafted cocktails at the speakeasy Varnish and end the night with a drag show at Redline.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to recognize my dear friend Samantha Rei for being one of the absolute inspirations and resources of new content and ideas. She always refers wonderful stuff and through her recommendations of podcasts over time, I became more and more invested in the format and loving the experience of audio entertainment.

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