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| Doug Kovacs (illo) and Stella Condrey (typography) |
Today is the official launch of Space Penguin Ink LLC, a new publishing company headed by my friend Jarrett Crader a.k.a. jert. The first wave of products includes a hardcover book and four zines written to support five different games (two are for Mothership but one has stats for both Troika! and B/X), so there’s a fairly wide variety right out of the gate.
If you don’t know who Jarrett Crader is, he’s been working in RPGs as an editor for about a decade and a project manager for at least five or six years. He worked with me at Melsonia for years before moving on to Exalted Funeral, not to mention the dozens (hundreds?) of freelance projects. He handled project management on Dissident Whispers which pulled together 90+ people in less than two weeks (and has raised upwards of $70k for the National Bail Fund).
With SPInk he’s also introduced the most creator friendly business model I’ve personally worked under or seen in the industry, offering royalty shares to the artists, graphic designers, and editors, not just the authors. And of course complete creative ownership and control. This kind of approach tends to encourage everyone to go the extra mile and end up producing a more inspired, polished, and just all around better product, so the audience wins too.
I have development credit on one of the new releases, The Garden of Corda, written and illustrated by reluctantly rising star Cade Crites. They previously did layout on The Ruinous Palace of the Metegorgos. The Garden of Corda is a Troika adventure that takes place on the planet-sized heart of a long dead space giant, host to a dying biome. This is the one written for Troika! with B/X stats included in the back.
So yeah, this is a pretty exciting development all around. Check it out, and while you’re at it take a look at the Kickstarter for my superhero game Longshot City.
