Got a long one this time! You know the drill – upcoming episodes, current projects, conventions, and more under the cut!
Schedule of Upcoming Episodes
5/23 – Comic Book Quickies #6
5/30 – 400th Episode
6/6 – Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man
6/13 – Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day #1
6/20 – Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day #2
6/27 – Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day #3
7/4 – 15 Things Wrong With Marvel’s Civil War
7/11 – Star Trek: Deep Space 9 #1
7/18 – PATREON: Minister of Chance Audio dramas
7/25 – US-1 #6
As always, the schedule is subject to change due to any number of reasons, but this is the current plan.
The Road to 400
On that note, we’re almost to the 400th episode! I have something really fun planned for it. It’ll probably end up being shorter than the 200th or 300th and it remains something that nobody has guessed! And trust me: I’ve seen quite a few guesses on it. Really the thing is that there is no hard and fast rule that the big milestone episodes NEED to be the absolute worst thing I’ve ever reviewed or a really long miniseries or something.
Still, it’s another big achievement for the show. I’m still shocked that I got to 300 episodes before many of my colleagues and I felt that was something that I REALLY wanted to celebrate. Many have been asking me if I have any similar plans for the 400th as I did for the 300th, like another day-long livestream. The answer is… I’m really not sure. This has been a rough few months for me professionally due to my schedule. I know it seems like I use the “I’m busy” card a lot, but it’s true – it takes a lot to produce this show on a regular basis and stuff like Blue-Skying is VERY draining just in how much work needs to be put into it. And because I have other things that I want to produce, the side videos, AND that the stuff with the movie is ALMOST finally over with and I worry about my ability to pay bills and taxes (oh, taxes were especially fun this year) and I get to finally do this storyline I’ve been planning and… well, it just is all a bit much. Oh, and I’m planning on moving at the end of the summer, so that’s a thing, too.
I WANT to do big celebrations for the 400th, do another livestream and some other things, but realistically it’s probably not going to happen. If it does, I will make an announcement about it.
Storyline
Speaking of the storyline, sorry if it seems like things are moving at a glacial pace right now. It certainly wasn’t my intention, especially since for a variety of reasons, I REALLY want to end this storyline on Halloween (which, by the way, another October 31st episode this year – yay!) and given the number of summaries I’ve written for the rest of the storyline, that may not be possible. I’m going to try my damndest to make it happen, but again – stuff happens. Worst case scenario I push it back to the old February date, but I REALLY want it to end this year. Some of this stuff requires new CG shots of Comicron One – complicated ones, at that, so while that hasn’t slowed me down yet, it IS going to be a factor later and hopefully we got enough of a head start on it to not create any issues.
IndieGoGo Rewards Update
By now, 99% of you have your IndieGoGo rewards. That would include DVDs sent out, cast photos, prints, previous drafts of the scripts, etc. Only a handful of you have not (I think about a dozen or so people) received theirs. I have sent out e-mails to the appropriate individuals and only about a third of them have responded, so please do so as soon as you can. The last remaining batch to be sent out was the signed DVDs, which were all sent out last week. So if you haven’t received it yet and if you’re in the USA, I’d check your e-mails to confirm that it was sent out and to check your old IndieGoGo info to double-check where it was being sent to (in particular I have sent out MULTIPLE reminders by this point to have your address data up to date, so if by now you haven’t… well, it’s not for lack of trying on my part).
Now the big question is when will the DVDs be available for non-IndieGoGo sponsors to buy. The answer is: I don’t know yet. I’ve been trying to arrange meetings with Screenwave to discuss this, but of course they have a bunch of other people they’re managing and helping out and now they’ve got a new player (more on that in a bit) and a bunch of other stuff on their plate. And since I’ve got all these other videos that I’m editing and working on, it hasn’t been at the top of my list, either. It WILL be available (along with the compilation DVD) and I’m hoping to get out Volume 3 finally for this Christmas, but no promises.
Once the Movie and Compilation DVDs are available for sale, I will of course announce it to everyone.
EDIT: I am happy to announce that both the movie DVD and the compilation DVD will be available for sale on May 29th!
History of Power Rangers
In case you’re unaware, I’ve been in the process of posting up updated versions of History of Power Rangers onto youtube! These are rerecordings, with new information and analysis that I either skipped over originally or new thoughts that I have. At the time of this writing, all three seasons of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers are up. I’ve been kind of held up on them with everything else going on, but I do intend to keep working on them. Zeo has been taking longer in particular because I decided to expand on stuff concerning Tommy’s brother that I had just skimmed over, which means I need to rewatch the episodes and I haven’t really had much of a chance to do so. Turbo will definitely have a different opening, since that utilized a full 2 minutes of the first episode of the season (recapping the movie in what is admittedly a very well-put together montage), but what’s more I’ll be commissioning some help with the In Space redux videos since I’ll have to record a cover of “Under Pressure” for that segment and I want to keep it.
A History of Power Rangers video for Dino Charge still has no official release date yet. This is because even when the series does end, I won’t be able to make the video right away. As per my contract with the Power Force (Power Rangers’ promotional thingie with uberfans), I can’t make any videos on PR unless they’re from officially released sources like DVDs. As such, I have to wait for all the DVDs for Dino Charge to be out before I can make them.
JW Player
As you may have noticed, the Screenwave player has changed! That is to say it’s not REALLY the Screenwave player anymore. Basically, Screenwave has signed a deal with JW Player and are integrating things together. As with the Screenwave transition, there are a lot of videos that need to be replaced, so please be patient while things are updated and fixed. Fortunately, all of Atop the Fourth Wall has been replaced by this point and all the riffs have been replaced. I’m going to try to spare some moments in the next few weeks to update everything AGAIN, so please pardon me while I work on that.
The thing to note, though, is that apparently the JW Player is a superior player overall to the Screenwave one, to the point where many of you who have had issues with the Screenwave player should give it a try and see if this works. If it doesn’t, no worries – there will still be a youtube link to all videos requiring one. I’ve been told that the JW Player also pays better, so we’ll see if that plays out to be accurate.
Longbox of the Damned: A Midsummer’s Nightmare
Just a reminder to check out a certain chain_reaction for the announcement about some upcoming content! It’ll cover various comics from all eras of this particular subject and will be publically viewable on both Screenwave and on youtube, so I hope you all enjoy!
Patreon
I keep getting messages from people asking “why hasn’t the review request slot opened up in a while?” or “How can I guarantee that I get a spot?” Well, here’s the thing – it DOES open up all the time – usually at the beginning of the month, since someone will make their request and then change their pledge level. The problem is that the slots are in VERY HIGH DEMAND. There really isn’t much else I can do in that regard.
I did change from requesting reviews once a year to once every six months… but that has upset some people since some slots have actually gotten taken twice by the same people. Fair enough. It probably made more sense to only have six months if I had stayed to four open slots, but that is not the case. As such, I am changing my policy back to only being able to request a new review every year. Hopefully that will encourage more open slots for people.
Patreon is rolling out a new feature called “Charge Upfront.” Basically, here’s what it means – if I choose to activate it, if someone decides they’d like to become a patreon contributor, they will IMMEDIATELY be charged for that month’s pledge – so if they pledged on, say, May 20th, they’d be charged for May’s patronage. Under the current system, they wouldn’t be charged until June 1st. In this case, they’d be charged for May’s pledge and then soon afterwards for June’s once it hits June 1st. Existing patrons wouldn’t see any difference except in one area: if, say, they’re pledging at $2 and want to increase to $5, once they change, they will immediately be charged the difference between the two for the remainder of the month. However, decreasing the pledge would not refund the difference.
I’m tempted to activate this because I feel it would help stop the continuing problem I’ve had of roughly $100-$200 worth of pledges that get declined at the beginning of the month. If they’re charged immediately and declined, it would be an instant signal to them that something is wrong that they need to fix or try again. Patreon recently changed how Patreon Creators can deal with people who are a problem – namely that instead of allowing me to just delete them from my Patreon… I have to BLOCK them from my Patreon. This means that if it’s just a temporary issue and they don’t get to it in time (although I usually wait for three months of declined pledges before deleting), I don’t have the option of just letting them try again to pledge – they’re forbidden from attempting to pledge or see my content. I don’t like that, but I have no control over that and I need to find some way of having accurate data if I’m going to reach any future milestones for the Patreon.
Once the “Charge Upfront” option is activated, it apparently cannot be switched off. As such, I’d like to hear your thoughts on it and whether you think I should or should not implement it.
Pokémon Omicron
Ugh, the sad thing about Pokémon Omicron is that it really wouldn’t take me that long to record some new footage – I usually just do the stream for 3 hours and then edit where I can. It’s just I keep finding new things I NEED to work on. I do want to keep doing it and even try some other Let’s Play ideas in the future, it’s just this is a side series and as such it gets pushed to the back burner. I am very sorry to the fans of it and I hope I can put out some new videos soon.
Conventions
These are the two conventions that I am currently confirmed for! If anything else comes up, I will amend this list or make an announcement, but that’s where we’re at right now!
Too Many Games – I will be heading out to Too Many Games for the second year in a row! It is at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania on June 24-26! Doug Walker, James Rolfe, Team Four Star, and many others will be there, too, so be sure to check it out! Copies of the AT4W Movie and Compilation DVD will be available for sale there, as well!
Anime Midwest – I’ll of course be at Anime Midwest again at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont, Illinois on July 8-10! I SHOULD have movie DVDs by then. The Last Angry Geek and I are planning on having another comic panel where we rant about the things we love and hate about this medium.
ConBravo – And of course I’ll be at ConBravo at the Hamilton Convention Centre in Hamilton, Ontario on July 29-31! A bunch of other Channel Awesome producers are planning on going and I shall be involved in the standard activities of the Con like D20 Live and other such activities.
That’s it for now! Feel free to share your thoughts on this stuff!
