Thu Jan 5 '23 Announcement
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Jan 05, 2023 at 10:57:42 AM
Hello and Happy New Year, illustrious backers! It's Cat, back from a much-needed break, here to update you on our plans and schemes regarding the campaign.
But first! Here's something fun and relevant I did over the holidays. I was in Louisville, KY and went to the Speed Art Museum to check out a staggering touring exhibit of work by Alphonse Mucha. Mucha is the art nouveau artist and his work has been a huge influence on me - including my design work on printed Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program materials.
Above is me posing with an original copy of Le Pater, one of Mucha's most haunting works. It's got a Mystery Program link: Thomas Negovan, who covered "Welcome to My Nightmare" on wax cylinder, which was played in the first episode of "The Black Birth", restored Le Pater and published an incredible book archiving and exploring it.
It was awesome to behold so many of Mucha's original prints in their true scale and metallic inks, but the most special thing was seeing his original sketches up close - getting to look at his line work with pencil and inks, and gaining a sense of his process and technique. But most relevant to Mystery Program was getting a look at unassuming things like this...
...Which gives me ideas for layout and font choices in our RPG scenario books. 1897 is far afield from our late '20s setting, but there's notions to be gleaned regardless.
Now, speaking of RPG books etc, here's what's to come:
RPG Scenarios
Our first order of business is fulfilling crowdfunding rewards, which includes prepping the Beta Edition of "The Terrible Secret of Lot X"'s RPG scenario for distribution to you folks through DriveThruRPG.
Next is the final design and assembly of "Lot X" scenario for publication. This is going to establish the design template for our RPG books going forward. I'm a professional graphic designer, fluent in much of Adobe, but I haven't spent a lot of time with InDesign, their book layout program. Learning that program could take a little while, and the project will be better for it.
Now, it should be noted here that since we didn't meet our goal, our ability to fund the creation of an RPG book for "The Case of the Penumbral Gate" isn't guaranteed. Obviously we want to. Maybe the "Lot X" book will do well and it'll fund the production expenses for the next one. Time will tell, but regardless I need to make sure the design for the first one is on point and if there's any additional installments, my job will be much easier and future books could come faster.
The Podcast
As you may have heard in our feed, we made it official: "The Case of the Penumbral Gate" is happening.
With modifications to our plans, and continued support through Patreon, we'll be able to make this next series… it’s just going to take some time. How much time exactly, we don't know yet. It depends in significant part on funding via Patreon and continued growth of our listenership. (There are ways to help with that, which we'll discuss below). We're taking the production of "Penumbral Gate" in stages and with each stage we'll evaluate our budgetary needs and proceed accordingly, to stretch your dollars (and any additional funds we've picked up along the way) as far as we can.
"Penumbral Gate" is our #1 focus - however, we've got a scheme we're hatching. If things go according to plan, we'll be able to backdoor the expanded redux of "The Black Birth" into being as well. A certain world-weary police detective from "Black Birth" is returning in "Penumbral Gate" and that gave us the notion that, if we cast versatile actors, they can play different parts across the two stories. That means a smaller cast, getting paid more to flex their range, more economic recording practices, more bang for your bucks. As far as production goes, "The Black Birth" will be sound designed by Colin Peterson, who did that series originally and all our work to date, and "Penumbral Gate" will be done by another party (we know who, but we can't say for certain until we've locked a schedule). Since they're being done by two different people, they can be worked on simultaneously.
Why is "Black Birth" important enough that we attempt this? A couple reasons.
We've still got new stories we want to tell, but if "The Case of the Penumbral Gate" ends up being the last word from Mystery Program, I'd like for the whole show at large to be a unified work we can be proud of. I love "The Black Birth", however it has some significant problems (see the FAQ section of this IndieGoGo for elaboration). It's connected to everything we've done, we've got something new to say with it, and I think we can say that without too much extra fuss. It seems worth reaching for.
I've been sketching out the scripted expansions for both stories for a while now and will begin writing in ernest once we've got the "Lot X" scenario in the can.
In Summation
We’ve got to take things slowly, plan carefully, adapt, and use the extra time to make up the rest of the money needed to finish this project, taking the creation of the next season in stages, setting certain funds aside, building it up, piece by piece, and seeing how far we can get. But, barring no additional massively disruptive global upheavals, I’m confident that the space between seasons will be shorter than last time. We’re an indie studio, we’re used to being scrappy with our resources and coming up with workarounds.
Ways to Help
You've already helped so much! The simplest but most important additional thing we could ask is to spread the word about the show!
Sharing the show with people you know who you think would like it is ENORMOUS. The more our listenership grows, the more our Patreon is likely to grow, the more funding and opportunities we have to work with, the more likely it is that we’ll be able to make the next season faster and hopefully keep going afterwards.
Rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts and Podchaser is a huge help to - and perfect if you're not sure who to recomend us to.
Look for a message from Backerkit sometime this month, regarding your rewards. We'll send out a notice here too, and keep you amazing folks abreast of all additional updates as the work continues. In the meantime, maybe join us on Discord?
Love,
-Cat
