Issue 2: July 7th 2021: Caught Wind

Letter from the editor: @TheTankTribune is back. Our job here is done. It was a good run. We managed to get three full issues and a special out before the not-so-great one caught wind of our operation.

In case you don't know, the Tank Tribune is the self-proclaimed 'official newspaper of Newgrounds' and our number one competitor on this platorm in this field. It's not like they don't officially recognise us. They did a story on us for their 42nd issue. Time to throw in the towel. Goodbye.

TOP STORY: WHY 'SHERIFF BEAN' IS DESTINED TO FAIL

Image credit: ChutneyGlaze

Last week, @ChutneyGlaze and @chimp-shrimp launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund six short episodes of a show called Sheriff Bean, needing $77,777.77 to get funded. In just under a week out of its 30 day goal, it only managed to raise $1,695 from 12 backers, even though the announcement was frontpaged and won a Daily Feature.

Experts in mathematics have accurately predicted that Sheriff Bean will barely get over $10k, let alone the $77k goal.

We at Tankman Triweekly suspect three possible threories to why it's failing.

1: The Newgrounds community have already been drained of all their money from the Friday Night Funkin' 'Full-Ass Game' Kickstarter and can't afford to back another Newgrounds related campaign.

2: Most of the high-tier rewards involve being put on a wanted poster with a bounty on their head. Basically it's illegal to back this campaign. Also, someone's going to have to claim said bounty, and they usually don't bring them back alive. The $3,000 reward tier guarantees that. In that case, rest in peace backers.

3: A quick draw minigame was posted two days later in order to increase traffic. How it's supposed to work is that if you press SPACE to get a score between 1 and 6. If you lose the quick draw, you must visit the Kickstarter, even though people have already figured out that it's nothing more than a standard video and that you can shift frames (shift to frame 715 for the highest score of 6), and even if you lose, you can always not click the link. Also released was a minigame where you have to press keys in the correct order in order to hear an old bloke play a royalty-free song.

What? You're fightin' against the law. You're a filthy no-good cheatin' crook! If just BACKING the campaign makes you a wanted criminal, that means you're allowed to bend the rules a bit. 

Either way, it's not like it isn't possible to make the show without the campaign. If you backed the Kickstarter and get refunded because it fails, double it up over on Chutney's Patreon so there's a chance it will still be made.

ATTENTION ALL TANKMEN. THEY MAY BE A MAGICAL CAT UNDER YOUR TANK!

Captain's making an important announcement. He's announced that it is mandatory that you check underneath your tanks on a daily basis. When asked about why anyone would need to do this, he had this to say

"Word has gone around that a mythical cat with magical powers hiding under the tank. I don't know which tank, but we must grab this pussy before the enemy does. It'll give us the ultimate advantage. I'll promote whoever finds it to become second in command! That way we can both grab the pussy"

Steve, one of the tankmen trying to grab pussy, had reportedly checked over 8 tanks before his hands got dirty. He reportedly claimed 'it's not from the pussy'.

The search immediately ended when the cat magically teleported right in front of the Captain where he was then forced to step down.

RE: WHY CHOOSE NEWGROUNDS MUSICIANS FOR YOUR PROJECTS?

We don't usually get a lot of responses to the Tank Tribune, but it's always nice to check your inbox at least once in a while. This has been sitting in the company mailbox for at least three days.

Dear Mister Johnny Guy Sir

When I watched your panel at the Newgrounds Summer Festival last week and why you want me to use music from Newgrounds instead of the usual sources of royalty-free music such as NoCopyrightSounds, Epidemic Sound, and the YouTube audio library. I have no musical skills, nor do I have the money to pay someone to do that for me, so I have no choice but to use these songs. You got my hopes up that I can finally say 'fuck you' to these services and use Newgrounds music instead, but once I actually looked into it, I figured out that I'm not 100% impressed with the claims you made.

First, the only important point you did make was that the songs were 'unique', but you never got around to explaning anything else, and second, most of the time spent on your panel was just talking about your own music, although you did conveniently include a tutorial for how to use the songs.

One thing you didn't mention in your panel is how HARD it is to find the song you want to use. Let's say I want to find a nice upbeat acoustic song on here for me to use. I pick the category 'Southern Flavor - Country' and start searching. Except no, most of them don't even sound like what I'm lookin' for, and the ones that do, there's this 'Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project' bullshit.

I found this one song 'Don't Piss Off the Lord', which despite this 'please contact me' crap, sounded perfect for what I had planned for today, but when's that donkey gonna respond? I make short comedy live-action skits 'round my farm on YouTube and I only ever use Newgrounds every now and then to play the occasional Flash game or watch whatever LazyMuffin puts out next. I don't have time to wait around just for them to respond. And even if I did get permission, I can't download it from Newgrounds, I have to go to the guy's Bandcamp and buy it for a dollar, whatever that is. Not very good when compared to Kevin MacLeod who lets ya use his work for free, but I can accept one dollar.

Now let's grab myself a second song on here. Something a little more moody. I'm not going to search every single track again, takes way too long. If only there was a way to sort by mood, like what I can do with the YouTube audio library. Nope, I have to search them all manually.

It gets worse when I run into songs made before 2008 and aren't under a Creative Commons license. How am I supposed to contact the author if I'm not sure if they're still active, or worse, no longer use the platform, or ten times worse, they died and no one's managing the account.

After two days of searching the Newgrounds Audio Portal for music, I only ever found six tracks worth using and I will not cancel my Epidemic Sound subscription. Thanks a lot Newgrounds.

Your's sincerely

Cleetus McBill Sr.

FEATURED AUDIO

Today's featured audio comes from @BeepBoxClock. He's our newest musician of the day.

CALENDAR:

WHAT DO YOU NEED ME FOR? IT'S RIGHT THERE

ON THE TOP LEFT OF THE FRONT PAGE.

JUST GO THERE!

What was originally going to be the latest @BridgeofFaust piece was going to be here, if only we knew not repost his work. So here's BridgeofFaux instead.

Credit: BridgeofFaux

So far the only anti-piracy measure is that you can't click the links anymore.

Credit: The Pirate Bay

Tankman Triweekly is owned by @Beggenrun