Welcome to Zine Month! A place where indie TTRPG artists and creators can crowdfund their Zines from February 1st - February 28th.
Come celebrate the creativity and collaboration from a diverse group of creators running projects centered on TTRPG adjacent content, from dice to trackers, from journals to maps, and monsters to heroes, and all the in-betweens.
Want to be part of Zine Month?
Collaborate with fellow creators and join the fun!
The money from the crowdfunding campaign has arrived, so it's time for another update with everything you need to know about getting your zines and PDFs!
🐱 Status of the game
In the past two weeks, the translation of Catcrawl was with Marx Shepherd, our proofreader. I've also set up the PDF with screenreader tags, image descriptions, clickable links, and internal references so it's comfortable to use for as many people as possible. After getting the file back from Marx, I've made all necessary corrections and finalized everything. In other words: Catcrawl in English is ready to print!
The German version with the print error (see previous update) is currently being reprinted and should arrive here within the next week or so.
🐾 Backerkit pledge manager is open!
Now it's your turn! I've set up the pledge manager on Backerkit so you can choose additional add-ons (if you like), pay your shipping fees, and give me your shipping address!
I've just sent out the Backerkit survey to a small portion of backers to make sure everything works as intended. The rest of you should get your survey link within the next 24 hours.
The pledge manager will only stay open until Monday, March 17th, so please make sure to fill in your survey as soon as possible so you can get your zines and PDFs. You won't be able to add any other items to your order after that date, but you'll still be able to change your shipping address until I actually start the shipping process in April (you'll get another update from me then).
I'll charge your credit cards (for shipping costs and newly-booked add-ons) through Backerkit right after locking your orders.
🐈 Pre-order store is also open - for one week only!
I've also set up a pre-order store for everyone who has missed the crowdfunding campaign and still wants to get their hands on a printed copy of Catcrawl. Please share the link around!
The pre-order store will only remain open until I lock the orders for the crowdfunding backers - that is, about a week from now.
🐱 Digital fulfillment through Itch.io
Once orders are locked, you'll receive your Itch.io download keys for your digital files shortly afterwards. They will be sent to you through Backerkit. You will need an Itch.io account to claim your PDF copy.
At the same time, the community copies that were donated by all of you will go up on Itch when the game becomes available for everyone.
🐾 Printing and shipping physical zines
I will send the Catcrawl files off to the printer's next week, right after I lock orders. I expect to receive the printed zines 2-3 weeks later. I will then pack and ship everything myself, since that gets all of you the best deal in terms of both time and money.
I expect to have everything shipped out by mid-to-late April. I will send another update then.
What about tariffs for shipments to the U.S.? You may have heard that Trump has threatened to also hit Europe with a bunch of tariffs for imports into the U.S. soon. Right now, no one knows if these tariffs are coming, and if so, when or how high they will be. Based on the available information, here's what I currently know: Packages with relatively low monetary value (like the ones from this campaign) will most likely NOT be affected by any tariffs Trump may introduce for imports of EU-made products. Yay! But I'm a very cautious cat in matters like these, so I still recommend that U.S. backers brace themselves for additional fees upon arrival of your zines, just in case.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me any time!
With Devil's Due off to the layout artist, I've been able to dig back into my own layout work and art for Fear of a Daily Planet.
Since most spreads are styled as several layers of paper, I'm finding that only having black and white to work with while trying to both vary the paper backgrounds and keep the text easily legible is certainly a challenge. I also have the privilege of seeing the work in progress of the Straight Arrows module, by Ryan at RAC Computing, which deploys a similar material-driven, layered collage approach with, honestly, a lot more finesse and control. It's a bit intimidating! But Ryan is using actual collages he makes himself and then photographs to become the page backgrounds, whereas my setup requires me to work solely digitally with licensable and public domain files.
But I'll manage! I've been able to finish all of the art, which feels like a big milestone, although there are a couple pieces I might redo to see if I can improve on them.
Around 70% of the spreads have their layouts finished, and when it's done, I'll have to review the print proofs very closely to judge the readability of each section and make adjustments. Making the hyperlinks for the digital PDF will also take some time.
But here are a few samples to hold you over: art of a Ward cultist, a redacted version of the d100 I Read the Print spread, and slightly updated cover art.
Depiction of a Ward cultist. Their filler text and the parallel and perpendicular nature of their ritualistic glyphs are believed to protect them from Dolorem Ipsum.
This roll table is a mix of mission hooks, useful items, worldbuilding, thematic nods, and awful puns, and it will obviously be uncensored in the actual book.
Updated cover, with a cut-out, printed planet.
I appreciate the support my backers and others in the community showed with my weather-related setback. Hoping there won't be any more bumps like that lying in wait for this project, but given the general state of things right now, I can only look so far ahead.
Please let me some time to fulfil all the orders. I am drawing something in almost each Zine and for some orders I also had to order bigger boxes. You will receive a notification and a tracking number when your order has been shipped
Thank you so much for your patience!❤️😚
💣Jinx plushie update
The bangs have been fixed and I think they are standing pretty nicely now. We fixed her mouth, eyebrows colour and colour of hair under threads. Right now we've decided to finish the second outfit and company will send me 2 samples by next Wednesday (2nd of July). I will then review them, see how the hair is looking and we'll be moving to the mass production stage finally ^^
Incredibly stoked to announce that the smoke test has launched and surveys should be going out to the remaining backers next week!
Additionally, the preorder store is now open!If you missed your chance to grab a physical copy of No Mercy For Monsters or would like to snag another, you can find it along with all of the add-ons from the campaign on the store. Shipping will not be charged until it's time to ship for any physical items.
We're on target to get PDFs and physical copies out the door soon, so stay tuned for more updates and feel free to reach out with any questions.
As a parting gift, I will leave you with the final piece of fantastic art from Tasca of our favorite toxic couple.
Thanks again for all of your support, and good hunting, Woodsmen.
You should be receiving a separate email with download links to download both FOLK (Volume I) and Travelers of the Inky Void!
If you don't receive the link, or have any trouble with the download, please let us know! As noted in our previous update, the files for the physical zine have been sent to the printer! While the printer is printing, we will be finalizing the risograph print and hand-drawn Folk rewards. Here's a sneak peek of the cover!
Just a very quick note to let you all know that we have sent Folk to the printer! Expect more updates coming soon as we begin distributing PDFs, give updates on the printing timeline, etc.
If you have a shipping charge, or ordered any add-ons, those will be charged now (this does not apply to digital backers and folks doing local pickup).
Well, unfortunately, after getting a bit of layout work done, I have another quick update about a setback. We were juuust clipped by the tornado that moved through St. Louis a bit over a week ago. An already troubled city is going to have a rough, costly road ahead. We are very lucky to be in a neighborhood that only took a little damage, but a significant amount of that damage was a few large trees coming down from our neighbor's yard, knocking down a utility pole, transformer, and lines in our lot, and smashing the back of our car.
It took days to get our car out, thanks to the help of a generous co-tenant and his chainsaw, and it took a week to get power back, thanks to the dedicated work of the numerous power company contractors. We're still without internet service. I was able to keep from falling too far behind on client editing work with the help of slow library internet on days we could get out, but I didn't have my desktop computer to do any more layout work with. And of course, this hit right before the weekend I was gonna use to wrap up Devil's Due editing.
However, the power was recently restored, and we've been loaned some wi-fi by a neighbor. So, I'm slowly starting to get up and running again while we wait on the insurance assessor to tell us if our car is totaled or not. I'm hopeful things will be back on track soon!
I added 2 more spreads ^_^ (which makes to 48 pages Zine)
Received a hard cover sample and it's looking great, sooo we're doing it!
We're in mass produciton stage now🤩
💣Jinx plushie update
We've got a new version with the right hair colour yaay! (The colour of head and strands is still an old one here, will be fixed)
I added some sparkles to her eyes and more depth
hairline fixed
The hood is going to be held by a velcro! She's looking very cute wearing it ^_^
Next steps:
fixing strands colour
fixing eyebrow colour
We still need to move strands to the middle but it's a bit tricky because of the hair, so we're looking for a solution right now
new outfit (pants, top and a wristband)
We're getting close to the final, my friends🥰
🖼Posters update
Here are all the final poster designs to pick from. You can comment here and let me know which ones you want or you can also send me an email ([email protected]) stating your name and which posters you want c:
Have a wonderful weekend everyone, so excited to finally ship you items soon!!💕
I just changed my shipping address as I will be moving within a month or two so there isn't a guarantee that I will be here at the original address used. Will the updated shipping address be for this project or am I too late?
