The Independent Insurgency

11:16 pm - Misspent Youth: front and back covers

Hot off the non-presses, the final versions of the front and back covers for Misspent Youth.

11:16 am - [Misspent Youth] Back cover art spec (real, non-hoaxy)

So here is a spec request I made to Jennifer Rodgers for art for the back cover of Misspent Youth. We don't have sketches done yet but I'm really excited about this so I figured I'd share it.

A gang of 3-5 kids, in silhouette (possibly pure black like something out of Sin City, possibly something with some surface to it that we can see, I don't know). These kids are in a tight knot together, maybe some are riding skateboards or (better yet) hoverboards. Anyway they're all clearly running from left to right away from something off-screen to the left. Maybe someone is shooting a slingshot backwards or something. I see an interesting tension between their bodies moving in one direction and their attention being in the other (even if they're not facing in that direction, something about the set of the shoulders). I imagine a street sign of some kind slightly ahead of them and a grubby street. I'm figuring it would run along the middle edge or bottom of the page and take up all or almost all of the width of the page and about a quarter of the height of the page.

06:55 pm - [Misspent Youth] Update to the cover post

I need to nip this in the bud before it goes too far! Apparently I was a little too subtle in my earlier post. That cover? Totally a hoax.

So here's the story: Jenn, Joshua, and I are emailing back and forth about the cover design. I mention Jenn showing us a sketch when she has the time and Joshua goes, "Well, of course you want a cock, right? That's why you picked Jenn?"

So Jenn shoots us an email. "This is a quick sketch I did."

I think, that's got to be a joke. Oh shit, what if it's not. I mean, I'm SURE it's a joke but if I say, "Is that a joke?" and it's not, I'm gonna feel like a huge dick. I fret. I call her. She laughs very long and very loud at me. I deserve it. I talk to Joshua. He does the same. I decide I should spread the pain.

So, yeah, no cock in the final game (although there's a surprising amount of cock in issues of Maximum Rocknroll, the 'zine I'm basing this on.

Voila.

01:35 pm - [Misspent Youth] cover sketch

As you may know, I've been working with Jennifer Rodgers and Joshua AC Newman on the art and layout for Misspent Youth. I'm happy to say that I have today a preview image to share with you of what the cover for Misspent Youth will look like.

11:04 am - Spot illustrations decided-upon

Here's the list of spot illustrations (the thing I asked for help with on a prior post) I'm asking Jennifer Rodgers for. These are going to be little slug/icon thingies used to break up and punctuate text:

* gas mask
* STOP sign with "the pigs!" or "cops" graffitied on it
* cracked riot helmet
* raised fist with a spiked bracelet, maybe with the suggestion of a UPC  code tattoed on it
* cctv/security camera
* combat boots/Docs
* Molotov cocktail
* lit joint
* neck-tie noose
* spiked mohawk head in silhouette, maybe stylized, maybe with tape on mouth in white

I've asked Jenn to make sure that a slingshot appears on my back cover image because I'm so goofily enamored with them.

04:48 pm - [Misspent Youth] Spot-illo/icon suggestions?

I'm working with Jennifer Rodgers and Joshua AC Newman on the art and layout for Misspent Youth. I need your help!

The layout and design conceit of the book is that it's going to be punk zine style, such as Maximum Rocknroll (which looks like this). I am ordering from Jenn a set of 10 little black-ink mini-illustrations to use as icons/plug-marker thingies between articles. These are meant to be flavorful and neat. This is the list I have so far. I need more! Any suggestions?

A skateboard
A slingshot
A pack of cigarettes, or a lit cigarette, or maybe a joint
A taped-up baseball bat.
A bike chain.
Googles
A gas mask

05:01 pm - MY Dreamation roundup

(D'you like the double entendre there? I do!)

I ran Misspent Youth three times and it went extremely well each time. Each one went to a full game, from exposition scene to deneumont. Revelations:

1. The game works. It's hella fun.
2. The three-act structure scene economy works very well. We had definite stories in every game.
3. Writing it such that people do it "right" as GMs is going to be tough.
4. The first trait that Youthful Offenders have, Mistreatment, may be too passive and focused on the past. I may have to come up with a more active and present-focused trait.
5. Despite what came up at the indie roundtable, I've got to make conflicts a bit easier for YOs. Right now, they are winning at a vanishingly small degree. Mendel confirmed this for me with some rough supermath in the final moments of the con. I don't want to make it too easy, but I'm hoping that the YOs will come out of conflicts winning somewhere between 25% and 40% of the time. Right now it's something like 8%.
6. I'm not going to try to have a final book for Gen Con 2008. I am going to have an ashcan, however. To that end I'm downloading free (and maybe one cheap) layout programs. As to why I'm editing my expectations, I came away feeling that I won't really know what the game does until and unless I've released it into the wild and gotten feedback
   1. I want to give people a price break for buying the ashcan when they buy the final book. I think I'm going to stamp each one with a unique "citizen identification number" or something similarly creepy.
7. Jennifer Rogers is going to do art for me, for reals now. At minimum, I'm going to get a cover and some motif images that I'll reuse as chapter stops or page markers.
8. I am not going to write any part of it in-voice. I am going to do layout and stuff as though it were a magazine, though.
9. I want to make it comic-book sized.
10. The following quote will be on the cover: "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." -- George Orwell