Batman: Shadow of the Bat #57 - Atop the Fourth Wall

Welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn. In this episode, Linkara looks at Part 2 of a story where Batman fights marijuana!

http://atopthefourthwall.com

Originally uploaded April 20th, 2015.

ORIGINAL INFO: So… like… Batman is all just… wait, what?

RUMINATIONS: The Atop the Fourth Wall Movie was getting ready to be filmed and I was ahead of the game.

Echoing what had happened a year before at Midwest Media Expo in the Zolastraya and the Bard review, I decided I wanted to try to get episodes done with early and ahead of time so the show could still be released on time while I was filming the movie. As such, just like that year before, I wrote and filmed the Batman: Shadow of the Bat review while at the convention, even deciding to take advantage of the fact that a bunch of Channel Awesome producers would be there, too. Aside from longtime producers like Doug, Todd, and Brad, there were people who were new like Yomarz, Calluna, and the duo of Beth Elderkin and Tim Sampson from Shark Jumping. Hell, even Tamara and Malcolm from Doug’s videos were guests, so that was an opportunity for jokes. Megami33 of Team Four Star was also there, soooo I threw her in, too. Me mentioning the “cameos last week” was an honest mistake on my part, since for some reason in my head the Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines review had come only a week before and included Elisa, Paw, and Jackula. On top of that, the ROMtrospective had featured a host of cameos in BOTH weeks, so while I was happy to give some attention to the newer producers, hopefully get some people interested in them… it was A LOT of cameos.

The bit with Calluna mentioning how producers hate each other and don’t want to do cameos with one another is a bit that’s… well, outdated even by the time the episode was released. After all, this was post-To Boldly Flee, when cameos and crossovers were VERY much a normal thing after so many years of operation. Hell, just look at the amount of cameos stuffed into any given episode of Some Jerk With a Camera and you’ll see why pointing out people not getting along with each other seemed a bit outdated. Still, I felt like there was a bit of material to be squeezed out of the concept for one last go – to finally explain WHY nobody wanted to do cameos and crossovers. After all, while Doug likes to write the characters not getting along because jabs and insults can be witty and funny and fun, in the end we all acknowledge that we’re friends with each other and DO like hanging out, so why WAS it a thing? And thus the answer is given: it’s basically the equivalent of putting together a bunch of people who are all already leaders with their own ways of doing things… and they all clash on how to approach stuff.

The jab at the skits thing in Doug’s videos… is not really a jab. Honestly, while some have criticized them before as his attempt to do Demo Reel without being Demo Reel, really they’re no different than the skits he would do pre-Demo Reel… except he actually has other actors he can interact with instead of just playing himself. Sometimes I think they’re a bit over the top, but I don’t begrudge him doing that. However, what some people actually took umbrage with was Doug’s assertion that he was more popular than me. Except… he is. It’s not a question of quality or anything like that: he just IS. On average, his videos get more views and he even has broken a million views on youtube, sometimes for episodes that while uploaded recently, are still old. NONE of my youtube videos have broken a million views. Hell, I don’t even think any of my Blip videos ever did, either. I’d love to have those kinds of numbers, but them’s the breaks.

Oh, and the episode premiered on 4/20. Yes, that was deliberate.