Updates for you guys!

Hi gang! Here's what's going on this week.

First of all, if you haven't already seen the Community post, we've decided to put the Joel/Sal Elseworlds Exchange on hiatus until after Labor Day in September. The reasons for that are simple-- there are only so many days available, we're both really busy on Fridays this summer, and Fridays will get easier once the summer is over. But I've been trying to supplement that missing block of time with either a special guest Elseworlds episode or more episodes of GBU. So don't worry. It's coming back sooner than later!

We filmed our 400th episode of Back Issues this past Thursday. But here's the funny part... It's actually our 403rd episode! We filmed an episode a few months ago that I still haven't cut, we shot our Batman Earth One Vol 3 episode the other day which I'm about 20 minutes into editing, and we filmed our Onslaught Redux episode for the big 4-0-0! You'll see my reasoning for that in the episode, but I promise you're getting a very different kind of show than the Mike/Ming Onslaught you got. I'd like to normalize the idea of reduxing old episodes with either new, better, more robust info/content, or a different cast.

For me, the show is the four of us. For a lot of people, they prefer to watch episodes about characters or even publishers they prefer, which I think is selling the show a little short. It's the interactions, the reactions, and the camaraderie that sells the show, and then there's also this insane backdrop of a great or terrible book to talk about.

So if you've never seen the gang react to who Onslaught is, or you've never seen them react to the Tri-Sentinel from our Cosmic Spidey episode with Comicstorian, or Joker's face being ripped off in Death of the Family, or an actual discussion of the ending for Dark Knight Strikes Again, I think there's value there. Yes, there are books we haven't done yet, and it might strike you as disappointing that we'd re-do an episode, but if the show is about our interactions primarily, I promise you're getting a good episode regardless.

And look. We're on 403 episodes with less than 100,000 subs after 7 years. No sign of slowing down yet. So we'll get to it.

I also had this really dumb idea for a joke sketch to open episode 400 that makes a reference to literally nobody's favorite movie while also getting ahead of the comments about us redoing an episode. So obviously we filmed it. And the funny part is, Tiffany is cutting that segment. It allowed me to edit the whole two-hour episode down to about an hour twenty, maybe less, while she got that segment cut at the same time. This makes the episode not just 89% done by Saturday, but it also gets the episode out faster to YOU! And I need to cut that Earth One episode so that can be ready before next week... 

Anyway, it's pretty funny and very us. So I think you'll like it, since you're here. We don't do a lot of sketches much anymore, which I think is kind of a shame since my crew (minus me) are all really talented and funny. But we don't need to distract from what most people are there to see. 400 episodes is a pretty big deal, so we took the opportunity. I wouldn't be surprised if we did a thing for episode 500, either.

We didn't get a chance to film GBU this week, but we did read three Dark Matter character intros, so when that's shot I'll let you know.

Off the Rack is going really well, I think. Honestly, I'm not sure what the star of ComicPop Returns is, which is kind of awesome. All the videos perform reasonably well (unless Black Widow is in them), which means it's working. Pretty much the same amount of people who used to watch them on ComicPop with 96,000 subs are watching on a channel with 12,000 subs. That means everyone's getting what they want, and YouTube can let Back Issues get pushed to subs and maybe get out to recommendations since the bulk of viewers are watching that show and not skipping anything else. So if anybody asks why we did this, that's our answer. Everyone gets what they want this way.

I really want to talk about the future of ComicPop and figure out exactly what you guys want, but I'm not sure what the best method is to reach you guys. Is a conversation here worth it? I feel like you see the posts, but there isn't a lot of engagement with them, so I'd rather communicate with you the way you'd like to be communicated with. So let me know!

I would like to do another video like our Substack conversation. Not only did it perform well, but it was fun to make, it looks good, and it helps get us out there and showcase what makes our channels special. Any ideas for big topics, as always-- share them with me!

That's about it, I think. Thank you guys so much for being here. Big announcement, actually: thanks to YOU, Ben and Ethan are being paid to do the channel. That's right. You Patrons allow them to do this for the equivalent of a monthly stipend. We've been doing it pretty much for the past several months, but I kept forgetting to tell you guys. So here we are. Thanks to you.

As always,

Sal