Dear Insane Children, 

After several weeks of life off the grid, out on the water aboard Chaos, I’m finally back to land and slowly returning to reality. My apologies for not uploading content of any sort while I was out there… Internet access was non-existent or incredibly slow. Now that I’m back I’m chipping away at a mountain of updates, emails, and planning… Tonight I fly back to Shanghai and tomorrow will resume business as usual. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Chinese New Year – and am happy to welcome you to The Year of the Dog. Woof!

While I was away Joey finished a cover image for the Alice PPT. I think it’s turned out fantastic. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. 

There’s been a ton of progress on OOTW, Pirate Jam, and on other fronts… but I’ll save that news for later this week. 

From Thailand with Love, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

Greetings from the tropical shores of Ko Phayam in Thailand! I’ve just spent the last 5 days sailing up here from Chaos’ home-base in Krabi. It was a beautiful journey with a nice mix of wind, waves, and excitement. We flew the new chaos symbol gennaker (that’s a type of big sail you fly off the front of your boat in certain conditions) on several occasions and were amazed with how fast it pulled the boat along. Wow! 

Back in China several billion people are kicking off the start of Chinese New Year with holidays, travel, and fireworks. Year of the Dog – here we come! 

But Joey still managed to find time to draft some cover image concepts. I’d asked her to meld together Alice in both her Asylum and Wonderland forms and to place critical elements like the fire, asylum, and Wonderland in the background – trying to mirror the transformation of Alice’s character and psyche. 

What image do you think works best? The Asylum background – or the split Wonderland and fire background? 

Thing is, these images are great for a poster or potential box cover – but some wires got crossed in my instructions to Joey. She was meant to render these in landscape format so that the final image could fit on the cover of the pitch PPT. Portrait won’t work, but we might as well see one (or both) of these images brought to final format, yeah? 

Joey also put work into creating a final version of the Caterpillar in Ice image. We’ll print these and deliver them to Patrons for the month of February. Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! 🙂 

Meanwhile tons of progress being made on Out of the Woods. Alex sent over sample images for the book layout. I think it’s looking fantastic – what do you think? 

That’s a little sneak peak of the actual content from the book as well. The “Take Away” section is where RJ and I riff on the moral lessons and themes contained within each tale. We had a lot of fun writing those – let us know what you think in the comments below. 

Last but not least our sponsors over at Freak Fandom just posted a new podcast where they discuss Battle Royale – “That’s right, Freaks, it’s time to talk about Battle Royale! We’re covering the film primarily, but expect some info for the novel and manga as well. This week, we’re joined by special return guest and Japanese film fan Elizabeth Baker! So remember to stay out of the danger zones, don’t try to take off your collar, and may the odds be ever in your… wait… “

You can check it out on the Freaky Fandoms website! 

Alright… I have a TON of emails and work to catch up on. I’ll get to you in a couple days with a video update. 

From the Shores of Paradise, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

It’s been a long, cold week heading into the start of February. Here in Shanghai we’re seeing the first signs of the coming Chinese New Year holiday season: Internet slowdowns, factory closings, and people abandoning the big cities for their distant hometowns. This time of year brings the single largest annual human migration on earth – where 2.9 billion people make journeys for the holiday over a period of 2~3 weeks.

What’s all this mean for us and progress on our various projects? Well, if you order anything from Mysterious in the month of February you can expect fulfillment and delivery delays of 1~3 weeks (depending on item). We’ll also see art output from our China-based artists (Joey and Sonny) slowing while they spend time with their families. And I’ll be out sailing for a few weeks this month – but will continue to post updates and vlogs here and over on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

We’re not doing a live stream this week – and might not do another until March 2nd – but I will record and upload videos (at least once per week) in which I share new art, answer your questions/comments, and take you along on a sailing adventure where I head to the northernmost border of Thailand – eventually arriving at Ko Phayam near Burma. 

Martin is staying in Shanghai and taking care of Lulu. Thank you, Uncle Martin! 

(Don’t ask how Lulu got a pancake on her face. We live in a strange home).

Two new images from Joey this morning. Color version of the sketches she previously shared. I’m really loving these pieces and anxious to see more environment pieces like this done. Sending out instructions to her this morning for next steps.

Alex continues his work on layout and design for Out of the Woods. Once he’s finished with that (next week?) he’ll start on layout and design for the Asylum license presentation (and the inmate certificates – more on that below). Bringing Alex onto the Asylum project full-time means we’ll see more focus on production design, UI, icons, and other graphic-arty type elements to the project and presentation. Exciting stuff! 

Here’s an almost-final instruction sheet from the OOTW card game…

Avast mateys! 

This week has been especially busy with planning and prep for Pirate Jam 2018. Who knew it would take so much effort to organize transportation, legal docs, and finances for 30 developers, 6 boats, 12 crew, and 6 shore-side event locations? On the bright side… everything is coming together really nicely – our sponsors are great, attendees look fantastic, and all the event stuff is lining up nicely. We’re even doing event recruiting in China!

—

In terms of Patreon housekeeping items… now that we’ve made it to month’s end I’ll start work with Alex and Martin on prep for the Inmate Certificates. 

A GIANT THANK YOU to everyone who helped us reach our goal. Looks like there were 621 Patrons at the end of January and 583 of those which have successfully processed payments. 

If your pledge isn’t going through for some reason you’ll want to resolve that issue ASAP so you get processed and can receive a certificate. For the 11 of you at the $1 level we’ll send out a request for mailing address via Survey Monkey – keep an eye out for that. 

We are looking at next goals – bringing on another illustrator and improving our live-stream setup. Expect details on those items in the coming weeks. 

OH! One last thing… Ella Purnell as Alice!

Another fantastic photo manipulation from Omri. There are three other fan-requested actresses in the illustration pipeline. I’ll share those as soon as they come through.

Questions? Comments? Feedback? Excited for The Year of the Dog!?

Woof!

Share your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll go through everything in the next video update and try to have that uploaded by end of next week. 

Now… I have a ton of packing and prep to do! Thailand here we come!

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American