Kickstarter this Friday!
Pugmire: Squeaks in the Deep! Get ready to roll out!
Hey all! It’s Independence Day (observed) here in the US, and while I plan to take some time this afternoon to relax, I wanted to make sure I got this month’s Pugsteady News out the door!
Big Booms
I live in town in Atlanta, which means that there were lots of fireworks last night. Our boxer Darby was, of course, terrified of all the big booms, which really put a damper on the holiday. But this morning she was her happy, wiggly self once again.
It really got me thinking: Even as I start my eighth year of being self-employed as a freelance, I still love my job. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have days where I struggle, get frustrated, or feel like a failure. But as long as you have people to help you through the big booms, eventually they’ll be over, and you can get back to what you love.
In case the company name doesn’t make it clear, I think dogs are great.
Kickstarter! Kickstarter! Kickstarter!
That said, this is one of the types where I get really excited about my job, because there’s a lot of news to go over!
As I mentioned in May, the next big Pugmire supplement is coming to Kickstarter. Now, I can confirm that it’ll be this Friday! Barring complications, Onyx Path will start it off at 2pm EST, so keep an eye at theonyxpath.com, or on my Twitter account (@pugsteady) for the link! If you want to play a mouse or a rat, or want to explore the spooky underground depths, this is a book you’ll want to snap up!
Speaking of Onyx Path, a big release that I’ve been working on for years was launched last month: Trinity Continuum: Aberrant! This is a near-future superhero RPG that also addresses topics like identity, celebrity, and the balance of power. You can order it from your local game store, or buy it digitally from DriveThruRPG.
Last time I mentioned History Check, a show I’m working on with the folks at OneBookShelf. In June we talked about The Mechanoid Invasion from 1981! I won’t keep recapping them here — if you want to check out future episodes, you can subscribe to the OneBookShelf YouTube channel to get future updates!
And finally, something that’s very exciting for me personally: I can announce that I’m one of the writers on the upcoming Transformers RPG! I can’t say much more than that for now, but I have been a fan of the Transformers since 1985, and being able to work on a beloved property like this has been a dream come true. I can’t wait to say more!
My Media
Recently I’ve had a desire to rewatch some old Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well the show’s held up, particularly the first season. I had vague memories of the first season being not great, and certainly some episodes are exactly that, but it’s been more enjoyable than I expected. It led me to the podcast Gates McFadden InvestiGates, where she talks to her Star Trek colleagues, and it’s been great to actually just listen to some really old friends talk about things both light-hearted and serious. If you’re at all a fan of ST:TNG, I highly recommend it.
I’ve also been taking a deep dive into manga recently. While I’ve watched anime off and on since the early 90s, I’ve never really ready manga at all. Recently some Humble Bundle offers on digital manga got me interested (after a couple false starts), and I discovered that Shonen Jump is frankly one of the best deals in comics right now. For $2 a month, you can read over 10,000 chapters of manga ranging from Dragon Ball to Moriarty the Patriot (which is how I got sucked in).
Moriarty isn’t faithful to the original stories, but the writer and artist have clearly done their homework — the fact that Moriarty has two brothers is a little-known bit of canonical lore, and the series takes those kinds of details and spins them into some wild directions (like making Sherlock Holmes from the East End of London). There are only 11 chapters, and new drops come every few months, so it’s easy to catch up on.
Anyhow, I’m off to have some barbeque. See you next month!