Fade to Lack is going Paid to Lack
Announcing subscriptions and an exciting new future for the Wordcast
So it’s finally come to this: Jonathan Lack is asking you for money to read his movie reviews.
Well, that’s the short version, anyway. I am indeed announcing today that, if you would like to read the entirety of everything I will be publishing here in the future, I am turning on paid subscriptions via Substack. The price is currently set at $5/month or $50/year, and if you live outside the US, those numbers should automatically adjust to your local currency. If you’re even considering subscribing, I am positively flattered, and I plan to make it worth your while.
For the longer version, let me explain exactly how everything will be shaking out, and what will and, just as importantly, will not be going behind the paywall!
First and foremost: if you just want to follow me to stay up to date on my podcasts with Sean Chapman, including Japanimation Station, or for periodic reviews of new movies, that content will remain free, and I would certainly encourage anyone interested in my work to subscribe to the newsletter so you never miss any big announcements! I still kick around on some other social media platforms, but this is the only place where you’ll learn about everything I’m up to, either on my own or with Sean.
What will be available for paid subscribers will be material akin to the columns I’ve had running here throughout 2024 in series like Miyazaki Madness or Star Wars Saturdays. These series were a trial run of sorts to showcase the kinds of reviews I’d like to create in the paid format: thoughtful, reflective writing on classic movies put in a larger context. I took most of these pieces from the work I did on my recent book 200 Reviews,and while there is still some content left to share online from that book, most of what I have planned for the future is new.
That will begin tomorrow with a new weekly series publishing each Wednesday, that I’m calling Movie of the Week! It will be exactly as it sounds: A new review of a classic (or obscure, but always interesting) movie each and every week. In contrast to series like the currently-running Star Trek Sundays, this won’t be focusing on one series or set of films, but will instead cast a much wider net; there will be some themes (I’ve already got some horror writing lined up for October), but the goal is to create variety. We will be kicking that off tomorrow with a review of Prince’s Purple Rain in honor of the film’s 40th anniversary, and 7-day free trials are available to everyone so you can all give that piece a look. And I hope to always announce the next week’s movie at the end of each review, so those interested in watching along at home have a week to prepare!
Everything older than 4 weeks will go into ‘the archive’ and become a subscriber-only benefit, though of course all our podcasts from Japanimation Station and The Weekly Stuff are available for free on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else podcasts are found, so those will never be paywalled (just the articles announcing them here). That archive, it should be said, is no joke: I’ve imported everything from the version of my site that ran from 2011-2023, and that’s literally over a thousand articles. They are not all tagged and sorted yet due to limitations on Substack’s back end, but it’s still a lot to look through and enjoy, and the built-in search function seems to surface things pretty accurately.
My goal is to have at least one substantial piece for paid subscribers every week (the Movie of the Weekcolumn), and to add more if time allows! For the next 10 weeks, for instance, you’ll also have Star Trek Sundays continuing behind the paywall, and that’s some of my favorite movie-related writing I’ve done in a long while. I have ideas for other weekly series that could be fun once those are exhausted, and of course, the more people sign up, the more I will be able to support that (because the more I will be able to support myself with cold, hard cash!). For now, I have priced things with all this in mind, and in line with other Substacks I pay for that put out roughly 1 new piece a week.
You may also notice that I’ve renamed the site Fade to Lack, a moniker I’ve used for a very long time. It was the title given to my weekly column in The Denver Post’s YourHub back in the late 2000s/early 2010s by my editor, I used it for my first book in 2013, and for the earlier pre-Substack incarnation of JonathanLack.Com. I liked the silliness of the name The Weekly Stuff Wordcast, but with Sean and I retiring The Weekly Stuff Podcast, the name had to change, and this is more reflective of a site with my personal stamp anyway.
And that about sums it up! This is, for now, an experiment. If there are certain kinds of things you’d like to see, let me know! If nobody signs up, I will reevaluate all this in a few weeks. If it’s successful, who knows what the future may bring? I am finishing up my last semester of my PhD at the University of Iowa this Fall, and I don’t currently have teaching work lined up, so this is designed to supplement my income while hopefully enabling me to put out more and better writing here on the internet, as I have done for many years. As I said at the top, any support you’re willing to give is deeply appreciated.
In the words of the musical genius whose film we’ll be reviewing tomorrow for Fade to Lack’s first paid post, Let’s go crazy.