Belated, of course, but it’s been quite a hectic and chaotic time at the start of the final quarter of 2020, so in the meantime just enjoy that I have anything to talk about!
Schedule of Upcoming Episodes
11/30 – LATE NIGHT DOUBLE FEATURE PILOT
12/7 – Awesome Comics Holiday Special #1
12/14 – The Transformers (UK) #41
12/21 – Solo: A Star Wars Story Official Comic Adaptation
12/28 – Yet Another 15 Mistakes of AT4W
1/4 – Star Trek Book and Record Set: Dinosaur Planet
1/11 – DC Challenge! #2
1/18 – PATREON: The Mighty Heroes #1
1/25 – PATREON: Justice League 1×01-3: Secret Origins
2/1 – The Star Wars #6
2/8 – PATREON: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar Episodes 1-4
2/15 – Youngblood: Strikefile #2
2/22 – PATREON: Pokémon 15×01-02 – “Enter Elesa, Electrifying Gym Leader!” and “Dazzling the Nimbasa Gym”
3/1 – LATE NIGHT DOUBLE FEATURE (Assuming the pilot does well)
3/8 – PATREON: Stanley and his Monster #1-4
3/15 – Marvel Than Meets the Eye, Part 1: Transformers #1-40
3/22 – Marvel Than Meets the Eye, Part 2: Transformers #41-80
3/29 – Marvel Than Meets the Eye, Part 3: Transformers Generation 2 & Regeneration One
As always, the schedule is flexible and things may change if unexpected events occur or if the material just isn’t working. For instance, the pilot for Late Night Double Feature will help determine if there will BE any more episodes of Late Night Double Feature (at least as part of the regular schedule). Since doing the show is my bread and butter, if only 1,000 people watch the pilot or if it’s got a massive amount of people saying “No, don’t do this anymore,” then chances are I won’t.
The Marvel Transformers retrospective will only be those three parts and focus on the USA Marvel Transformers, with no focus on Marvel UK’s run or any other Transformers comics.
Episode Compilations
So something that I just started to do to make things easier for people (especially if they’re marathoning a lot of the same content) is put together compilations (or digital trade collections, if you were) of episodes focusing on the same miniseries/series! The first one I released, combining all ten episodes of All-Star Batman and Robin was very successful and people seem to want more. I fully intend to do so, though I am going to lay down a few ground rules about these:
-Nothing that is still ongoing (no compilation of Batman: Odyssey until I’ve finished reviewing it, same for US-1 or the like)
-Nothing that I’ve released an episode related to within a year (Tandy Computer Whiz Kids WILL happen, but let’s let the final review involving them – Superman #358 – sit until July before I lump it in with all the rest)
-Edits will be made for the title cards, music, and only have a single ending credits for all the episodes. This is mostly due to Youtube ContentID reasons, as of course ContentID rules have changed so much since the initial release of many of these episodes. This is best exemplified in how I’ve had to change the Miller Time music from the song “Pizzicato Playtime” because it keeps being claimed, which demonetized a number of episodes.
-Storyline segments will be cut out wherever possible so the reviews will be the focus. Some stuff is unavoidable, but obviously stuff like the ending fight from Silent Hill: Dying Inside will be cut should I compile all the Silent Hill reviews together (I will probably compile all the Silent Hill reviews together).
The current plan is for my next compilation to be all the Marville reviews, but I’d love to hear what other videos people would love me to combine, and whether that would include some of the bigger reviews that I’ve split into multiple parts because of how long they are (All of each Event Comics Month into one, or, say, just the Final Crisis review into one or something like that?).
Title Card Music
On the subject of music, sadly it looks like the Title Card music system will have to change. Recently, the Spider-Man: Web of Life video’s 7 seconds of a song got claimed. Admittedly, this was due to ContentID saying that I had used 10 seconds when I had clearly not (I had to reduce it to 5 seconds to get around the system), so it might have been a fluke… but as I continue to attempt to release episodes on time again, I don’t want to have to re-render things over and over because of crappy automated systems. To be fair, the use of the music is not really Fair Use – it’s just a track that has something tangentially related to the subject matter (and sometimes not at all, as is the case with any video I used Weird Al polkas for the title card music).
As such, I’m commissioning Il Neige to put together a few 10-second tracks that I can use on episodes from here on out, including hopefully some Christmas and Halloween variations for those seasons. I doubt they’ll be instituted until 2021, but expect to hear more royalty-free tracks until then.
Storyline
COVID continues to be awful and the reason for a slowed production on storyline material. Long story short, the actor for Heavy Wrex works in an area where he has the potential to be exposed to COVID and therefore does not want to risk potentially giving me or Viga the virus. Since the next storyline segment is the wrestling bout between Linkara and Heavy Wrex, that kind of puts a damper on storyline until then. The Halloween storyline was, in fact, a change from what the originally-planned storyline for Halloween was going to be. Just as well, since with moving to a new house it probably would have been difficult, but yeah – that’s where we are now.
I’ll continue to do everything I can to get things ready for when we CAN film more stuff in the future, but sadly that’s why the Contest of Champions has currently hit a standstill. I do apologize for all this – the storyline was NOT supposed to last as long as it has.
History of Power Rangers
Beast Morphers, as far as I can tell, is still not over yet. It’s close to being officially done and it’s definitely ended in places outside the United States, but right now in the USA it’s still ongoing. It is my policy to not work on History of Power Rangers until the series is out on DVD (I do not even watch the series until I start working on HOPR), but sadly there hasn’t yet been any announcement on a DVD set for it. As always, NO SPOILERS SINCE I HAVEN’T WATCHED IT YET (and naturally people have ignored this or I saw spoilers on a Youtube video title, but there you go).
Depending on how long it takes to release, I do have access now to the ability to grab the episodes from Netflix. I don’t WANT to have to do this, since the episodes need to be recorded in real time and that means over 13 hours of starting and stopping, but it IS an option if need be.
In the meantime, I’m hoping to work on the Lost Galaxy redo for Youtube and hopefully get that out before the end of the year, but I make no promises given what a nightmare the rest of 2020 has been. Frankly it’s a miracle that I got every Longbox of the Damned out on time (and got the last three AT4Ws of October out before the end of the month, as well).
T-Shirts
For those unaware, we have a bunch of various kinds of merch available! Most of it is accessible through the Store tab above, but I’d like to specifically highlight the t-shirts that can be found via Shark Robot and Teespring.
Of particular note – Shark Robot has the “THIS COMIC SUCKS!” shirt introduced in the 600th episode (as well as I am a Man, Because Poor Literacy is Kewl, and a glow-in-the-dark Longbox of the Damned shirt), while Teespring has every shirt produced from the old Printfection store from years back as well as several newer designs, like “Damn You and Your Lemonade,” a Fat Grandma SASS shirt, and the newest added in October – shirts with the Ashock the Fourth Wall logo!
It should be noted that while I’m mostly pushing t-shirts here, the Teespring store includes other things like hoodies, face masks, long-sleeve shirts, posters, and die-cut stickers! Check ’em out if you want to give some additional support to the show!
Patreon
As a reminder, $1+ contributors to the Patreon gain access to the Atop the Fourth Wall Discord channel! Become a patron at that level or higher and you can see a pinned message that will give instructions on how to join the channel.
Patreon-sponsored episode slots are available again, but like with the last two years, they’re first come, first serve – it depends on the previous person in the slot to give it up once they’ve fulfilled their second $50 payment at the beginning of a new month. I do not have any specific time for them to vacate the slot, so it can be at any time. I’m sorry for anyone who hasn’t been able to grab a slot before, but so far this system is working. I may change the policy in the future if the same people keep managing to grab the slots (as has happened before), but otherwise they are restricted to once a year. Just keep an eye out and you might be able to get it!
Conventions
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
STAY AT HOME. WE’RE STILL IN THE MIDDLE OF A PLAGUE.
That’s it for now! Questions, comments, etc. please leave them below and stay safe and wear a mask!
