The Latest Girl Genius Graphic Novel and Kickstarter Extras from 2024!

Backerkit pledge manager emails for Girl Genius Volume 21: An Entertainment in Londinium have now been sent!
12 days ago – Thu, Nov 07, 2024 at 02:57:44 PM

Hello everyone! 

I have now sent out all the BackerKit pledge manager invitations! If you backed for physical rewards, please watch for yours. It will go to the email that you used to pledge to the Kickstarter campaign. Please remember that you need to fill out the pledge manager to get your rewards!

After I sent out the "smoke test" emails, I found a few boxes of collector’s hardcovers in our inventory, so we now have listings for collector’s hardcovers for volumes 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and of course the new volume 21. If you’ve already filled out your pledge manager but want one of those, you can still go back and add it. I’m sorry for the last-minute addition.

If you missed the Kickstarter campaign or have friends who did, I will be opening up the BackerKit store soon.

The digital extras for this campaign were sent long ago: PDF links were sent from DriveThruComics on May 7, 2024, and the Wallpaper links were posted here on the campaign in the May 3, 2024 update.

And finally, while I waited for the smoke test to clear, I worked on setting up my next project: some fantastical medals, including campaign medals for the last two volumes! It’s not ready to go yet, but I’ll very soon have a "let me know when this project goes live" link. Of course I’ll mention it here when that happens.

Thank you all for your patience!

—Kaja

October Update for Girl Genius Volume 21: An Entertainment in Londinium
19 days ago – Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 07:41:02 PM

Happy Halloween, everyone! I’m going to keep this short:

Please watch for the BackerKit pledge manager invitation late this week and early next week. I’ll be hitting the button probably sometime tomorrow. I have to start with a "smoke test," which means that the system sends out a small percentage of emails, and then if there are no problems, we send the rest. At that point, I think the system sends the emails out in waves. I’ll come back here to tell you when I’m sure it’s all up and running, so you can expect to hear from me soon.

For those International backers from the Volume 20 campaign who chose to combine their shipment with Volume 21: When you log in to the pledge manager, you will see that I went in and added your rewards from last time to your current rewards. I also credited your account for the amount of shipping you paid last time. Overall you are saving a lot on shipping! 

Ok, I'm going to get back to work now. I'll be back soon with more information, but I wanted to get an update out before the end of the month!

Thank you!

—Kaja

September Update for Girl Genius Volume 21: An Entertainment in Londinium
about 2 months ago – Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 08:01:10 PM

We’re about halfway through the signing of the bookplates. I’m a little farther along than Phil, but he’s been working on a lot of other things, so that’s understandable. He’ll get them done in time! The Magic: The Gathering tokens he drew art for last year are finally being made; there’s a Kickstarter campaign running right now by Original Magic Art, and they're hitting a lot of their stretch goals!

I’m almost ready to send out the BackerKit pledge manager invitation emails. I kept putting off this September update in hopes that I could announce the release, which always seems just around the corner. Well, here it is, the end of the month, and I’m not quite done setting things up, but it shouldn’t be much longer now. I’ve figured out the trickier issues with the setup (I hope). When I needed a break from working on BackerKit, I finished the designs for the cutout cards that are going into the Envelope of Madness. That was the last of the design work I needed to do for those, so now I can place the order and start getting the envelopes stuffed. It always takes a long time! Here’s a little preview of what they look like:

I also did the design work for some new medals that I hope to make soon. I’ve got one exclusive medal for each of our last two Girl Genius volumes, plus a few other fun designs. Our pin maker has those now, and I’ll put together a small campaign for them once I have the current BackerKit safely up and running. I’ll show off the designs properly then!

This week I’ll be talking more with our book printer. They’ll make sure I have all the up-to-date information I need for file prep so all the printing goes smoothly. There are a lot of balls to juggle when I’m printing a book!

In other news, Rain Games has now released the Girl Genius: Adventures in Castle Heterodyne video game for the PlayStation! You can find it on the PlayStation store. And, of course, it’s still available on Steam, GoG, and the Nintendo Switch.

As always, thank you for reading Girl Genius! I’ll be back soon with more updates!

—Kaja

August Update for Girl Genius Volume 21: An Entertainment in Londinium
3 months ago – Sat, Aug 10, 2024 at 07:20:30 PM

I’m so sorry I skipped the July update! I was traveling for half the month, and it absolutely knocked me over. The month was gone before I realized it. There wasn’t much to say, but I do want to do an update every month just to keep in touch. SO: I’m here now, and I have something to show off! Look! The book plates are here!

There are 20,000 of these bookplates to sign, and we’ve only started on them. I try not to think about it too hard. Still, they look very nice, and I’m pleased.

I had hoped to get BackerKit up and running before this huge string of trips that are eating my Summer, but it’s now looking like it won’t be live for at least another few weeks. I have another trip coming up, and I need to make sure I get everything right. I don’t want to find a new way to make a mess. I will get BackerKit ready as soon as I can, and I’ll be sure to make a lot of noise when it’s live!

Our upcoming trip is to the Laughing Dragon Magic the Gathering CommandFest event in Los Angeles, August 16-18. We hope to have our playmats from Original Magic Art there, as well as Phil’s new set of fun Magic tokens, also from OMA. After that, we trundle back down to San Diego for the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards, and then, finally, we’ll be home for a while and I can get more proper work done.

I’ll be back soon, either with the September update or sooner if I have something to announce before then. Thank you for your patience with me, everyone, and thank you for reading Girl Genius!

—Kaja

June Update for Girl Genius Volume 21: An Entertainment in Londinium
5 months ago – Fri, Jun 07, 2024 at 08:29:37 PM

Hello everyone! Here is my first monthly update for the Girl Genius Volume 21: An Entertainment in Londinium Kickstarter campaign!

Please remember that if you have any urgent questions or problems that need handling, don’t post in the comments here; it’s too easy to miss things we need to help with. Please contact us through our official page at girlgeniusart.com. And now—

I’m working on getting the BackerKit pledge manager set up. I hope to have it live soon. There were some things to take care of here that slowed me down a little, but I’m working away at it.

The fun stuff that goes into the Envelopes of Madness has begun to arrive, as well as the Travel Stickers. It all looks lovely! I’m hoping to get those done very early, because I’m going to need to ship the EoMs across the country to TopatoCo, who will pack things up and ship them for me. I’m finding myself quite pleased that I won’t have to pack and ship everything for this campaign myself, and I’m sure TopatoCo will do a much better job than I would.

Victor (Experiment #1) is helping me with prepping the book files so I can send them to the printer, and I’ve been working with the printer to reserve our press time. So far that’s all going smoothly. I’ve also been arranging things with TopatoCo so they know when they’ll be getting a big bunch of books to ship.

I guess that’s all I have to say for now! Oh, Phil and I will be at the Laughing Dragon show in Tacoma in a couple of weeks, it’s a Magic the Gathering event where we’ll be signing our old work from the early and mid 90’s. It’ll be fun! We’ll also be at a number of other events this Summer, including the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFIC) where we’ll be among the Guests of Honor.

I’m working on another installment of our email newsletter and hope to have it go out soon; you can sign up to get it here.

Thanks everyone! I’ll be sure to make an announcement here when the BackerKit pledge manager goes live!

—Kaja