Someone was in the pod!

Chapter 138: Pauses are good...

• The State of the Newsletter!

• New Releases This Month!

• 7” Records!

• Mailbag!

• Secret stuff!

Hi again.

So we have a big update this week for paying subscribers, but even if you aren’t a paying subscriber this might be of interest. Or not. I’m not psychic.

As many of you may have noticed, we’re a little (or maybe a medium amount) behind on our rewards for paying subscribers. I started to write a long thing about how making comics is hard, and life stuff that gets in the way, and planning release schedules is complicated, blah blah blah. All of that felt like excuses, and I have no interest in making excuses to you all. So I’ll say this. We’re running late. We fucked up. Sorry.

But an apology without action is meaningless, so I didn’t want to say anything until we had solutions in place. Which is now. All of the books are still coming, and you will 100% get what you paid for (plus some cool bonus stuff!). In fact, I’m really proud of the stuff that is coming and it is by far some of the best stuff I’ve ever worked on. So, I really do feel confident you’ll be getting stuff you will love.

But, with the subscription nature of this thing, we’re still ironing out kinks. One of those kinks is the billing cycles. We want to make sure everyone is taken care of before our partners who handle the billing try to get anyone to renew. So this Sunday we will be pausing any billing until we have everyone’s rewards sorted. That seems like the simplest way to handle these delays.

So how does that impact you? If all goes as planned, it should not. In effect you are just getting bonus months (and some bonus stuff) for free as our way of making up for the delays. You will still get the newsletter every week. You will stay get the paywalled bonus content. And you will get your rewards. And when everything is sorted we’ll send a little notice that things will proceed as normal from there.

For you non-paying people this means that you still have a few days to sign up at a paid level before we pause that option. You can still get all the year 1 rewards, plus the bonus months we’re giving the people who already paid. People who paid before now will get some bonus stuff you won’t get, but you still get a sweetheart deal so you don’t really get to complain.

With all this technical stuff out of the way, we do have some fun news too. If you are a subscriber at a level where you get physical rewards mailed to you, the first packages are going out in the next little bit. What can you expect in the package? Some stuff will be a secret, but we can tell you you will get this-

The rarest WTFPFH? variant that exists. Limited only to paid subscribers at the top tier, we’ve been hiding this 1st print of the 1st issue for a long time now. This one is drawn by the amazing Adam Gorham (NEW MUTANTS: DEAD SOULS / THE VIOLENT). It features Sid on the cover and some very cute little nods to some other books if you look closely.

But that’s not all! People will also be getting one of these amazing hand drawn covers by Tyler Boss. I’m really excited about these because not only are they awesome, but Tyler very rarely does sketches or commissions, maybe a few dozen a year at most. So these are super unique and each one is totally different. Honestly, I’m pretty jealous of everyone getting these.-

And then there will be some other bonus stuff in the packages. So if you are subscribed at the top tier and DIDN’T fill out the address form we sent you a few months ago, do it now. I’ll put it up again at the bottom of this email.

Hope this all makes sense, but if you have any questions just respond to this email and I will do my best to clear any confusion up.

Now that that is out of the way, we can talk about some other stuff. Let’s start with comics coming out this month.

THE JOKER #10 is out today. RED HOOD #1, WILDC.A.T.S. and WTFPFH? out soon. And 2 lovely hardcovers for your reading pleasure.

Also, if you’re planning on reading RED HOOD I’d suggest maybe grabbing the other books in the GOTHAM WAR event. You don’t need to read them to read our book, but I promise it’s better if you do. Also Chip, Mike, Jorge, Tini, Nico, Ben, Jess, and the rest of the GOTHAM WAR crew are doing great work. I’m just sending in Jason to make a mess. If you want to grab the whole thing here is a handy little checklist.

8.29 - BATMAN/CATWOMAN: THE GOTHAM WAR - BATTLE LINES

9.5 - BATMAN #137

9.19 - CATWOMAN #57

9.26 - BATMAN/CATWOMAN: THE GOTHAM WAR - RED HOOD #1

10.3 - BATMAN #138

10.17 CATWOMAN # 58

10.24 BATMAN/CATWOMAN: THE GOTHAM WAR - RED HOOD #2

10.31 BATMAN/CATWOMAN: THE GOTHAM WAR - SCORCHED EARTH

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In other news, a few of the first printings of the WTFPFH? #1 Deluxe editions turned up and were shipped to me. I offered them to the paid subscribers first (See? Perks!) but now I figured I’d throw the rest out for everyone.

Vinyl Color may not match picture.

If you want to grab a copy of this pretty hard to get record, now’s your chance. And remember, all the proceeds go to charity so you can get a comic, a record, and feel good about yourself! 1 per person please. We can’t have people feeling too good about themselves.

Let’s dip back into the old mailbag, shall we. This one feels extra relevant.

Devin wrote:

Err, maybe a pedantic question, but back in December there was a request for our mailing info about sending out a package. Should we have received something? Or was that more of a "in the future" thing?

Well, Devin, never assume anything is too pedantic for us here. The answer is- Both! If you live in the U.S. and gave me your address you should have gotten a fun postcard/sticker in the mail from us. I know a lot of you did. I also know some of you did not. I’m guessing by your question that you are one of those people. Sorry about that. The only explanation I have for that is the post office hates me. Or you. Or both. Sorry about that.

But, people who back us at the top tier will be getting a package from us very soon. So if you gave us your address and have moved since then, let me know. And if you didn’t give us your address, the link to the form is below.

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And the rest of this is for paid subscribers. So if that’s not you, this is where we part ways.

Stay safe. Take care of each other. Thanks for your patience

-Matthew Rosenberg

NYC 9/6/23