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Freddave Rides Again

Yesterday, we mentioned that fans of STRIPPED check their emails, on account of the hivemind known as Freddave KellettSchroeder had sent emails to Kickstarter backers of that fine movie (and it’s second Kickstart to finish production) to let them in on a secret: they apparently didn’t have enough travails in the four years or so it took to make the movie, so now they’re making a series:

Story/Line will be a love-letter to the art of cartooning, featuring in-depth, thoughtful interviews about the craft. These will be deep conversations, in the style of a PBS or BBC interview. Each will be beautifully shot in 4K, with one of the best crews in Los Angeles. Among our four Kickstarted interviews, we’ve already scheduled with Academy Award-winning Directors Chris Miller & Phil Lord (Spider-Verse, The Lego Movie, and every other great movie from the last decade), and Eisner-Award-Winning cartoonist Scott McCloud (The Sculptor, Understanding Comics, 24-Hour Comics Day).

So they’ll be channeling their inner Bill Moyers, or hopefully Graham Norton; Norton gets the absolute best out of his subjects via the simple expedient of boozing them up for the talk. Look into this, Freddave! They’ve got one interview in the can (and on their own dime) so far — Jake Parker of Inktober fame — and the campaign is to get another four interviews for general distribution to backers, with a secret additional interview mentioned.

Here’s where I think their rewards tiers are a little hecked up — to get that last, secret, interview, you have to be a backer at a high level; at present, it requires US$30 or more to get the Parker + four interview series, but US$85 to get the secret interview (or US$300 if you want a bunch of Sheldon e-books and an original comic to go along with ’em). That’s a pretty big jump from five interviews to five interviews, uncut footage, a poster, and the secret interview unless that secret interview is amazing.

Then again, they got Watterson on audio for STRIPPED and the Los Angeles resident Dave Kellett half of Freddave Schroeder-Kellett attends fancy industry parties with the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Taika Waititi, so who knows? I want to make it clear that I have no idea who the secret interview is and I think I just convinced myself to up my pledge after typing that last sentence. Well played, Freddave Kellett-Schroeder! Well played.

Update to add: Third interview announced. Raina.


Spam of the day:

justin l____ district manager at Primerica Financial Services would like to connect on LinkedIn.

This is actually from LinkedIn, which means it is definitely spam. I have no damn idea who Justin L____ is, and have had no relationship with Primerica except once more than 20 years ago when the local office called me in for an interview “for an executive position” that turned out to be a room full of people being encouraged to join and push penny stocks on cold-called dupes. Ever see The Wolf Of Wall Street? That.

I gave them about 20 minutes to get to the point then got up, said I was asked to come in for a job interview and instead you’re trying to get us to join some kind of Amway cult (which tremendously offended the woman at the front of the room) and walked out.

So yeah — get lost, Justin.

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