Heart Art - Indie Production 101

Lilith sketch by ... me.

Hard at work on Word of Traitors, as are many of the artists.

Please help support us in getting this material produced. We have a way to go the next 20 days but it can be done if you get active along with us! 

Here's two videos about some of the dioramas I've just started building - which will be integrated digitally with mixed media pieces.


Video 1.



Video 2.

Here I am, babbling more about found art, working with what you have. Again, I had a lot I wanted to say about serendipity but talking to a camera you're holding it awkward. Feel free to ask me directly if you have questions about process, especially if you're an artist yourself.

Words of Traitors Crowdsourced Fundraiser

Art by Amy Claire

NONE OF THESE MEMORIES ARE MINE ANYMORE. The divorce was amicable. It just didn’t work out. They’re great memories, honestly. Don’t get me wrong. Sad, brutal, we’ve lived hard together, and the truth is that I’m a little jealous that you’ll make them your own. It’s selfish. These memories can guide the lost, or offer comfort. There's enough of them for seven people, compressed into snapshots, provided to you for the price of a bar of artisanal chocolate and a latte.

They’ll find a perfect home in your head—sending their roots into the verdant soil of the right mind, a mind like yours—and I’m sure before any of us know it, they will be yours entirely. To me, it will be as if they never were. We wouldn’t have a flicker of recognition if we passed one another on the street one rainy morning.

I hope you are happy together. Wishing you all the best. Goodbye.

-Jamie Curcio

We are raising the funds required to produce The Words of Traitors: 7 Lives in Transition: $8000. 
A challenging book does not just appear out thin air. Back in the 50s and 60s it took a publisher that wanted to give the establishment the finger. Now everything is different, but the need to produce and really support art lit that pushes the boundaries is as real now as it was then. So we are asking you to join our production in some sense and help us fund it into existence.



In exchange, you will get a lot of unique artifacts such as:

• Full-color prints. 
• e-Book Fundraiser edition of WoT
• Paperback Fundraiser edition of WoT
• Custom, signed, Hard-cover full color Fundraiser edition of WoT 

Some of these may feature different covers, and we will almost certainly be adding perks to thank you for your contribution.
Some tiers of funding will also give you access to the final 1st edition when it is completed production in 2013.

Words of Traitors website.

That is really quite a lot to squeeze out of $8,000, and it is only possible because we have an art team willing to accept independent guerrilla-style rates for these things. We are dedicated and want to create something amazing. If we don't make the full goal we will still try to work with what we have, and continue with the campaign to produce a series off of the Nyssa stories in this edition.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

The Words of Traitors: 7 Lives in Transition, 30 Day Crowdsource

NONE OF THESE MEMORIES ARE MINE ANYMORE. The divorce was amicable. It just didn’t work out. They’re great memories, don’t get me wrong. Honestly. Sad, brutal, we’ve lived hardtogether, and the truth is that I’m a little jealous that you’ll make them your own. It’s selfish. These memories can guide the lost, or offer comfort. Enough of them for seven people, compressed into snapshots, provided to you for the price of a bar of artisanal chocolate.

They’ll find a perfect home in your head—sending their roots into that verdant soil of the right mind, a mind like yours—and I’m sure before any of us know it, they will be yours entirely. To me, it will be as if they never were. We wouldn’t have a flicker of recognition if we passed one another on the street one rainy morning.

I hope you are happy together. Goodbye. —Jamie Curcio.

The truth about these stories. I was fighting chronic pain, I had to move, I was behind on payments, I was getting death threats, royalties from past books weren’t cutting it, and suddenly I had an infection in the nerves inside my teeth. No one in their right mind would choose THAT as the time to start churning out short stories, one every few days. But that is exactly what I did. 20,000 words in a month. When my laptop and desktops died or became unreliable, I started writing it on my cellphone because my handwriting, though it’s alright for notes, is just too slow and clumsy to write fiction with.

I packed my life into boxes and then unpacked them again, and in the process discovered that I had one parcel along with them: this freshly printed young manuscript, written in a month, which was (I was told quite a few times) bringing people to tears. 

At the end of the day no one knows anything about what good literature is, not really. But I do know that I made girls cry, and that has to count for something. (Though I hope it makes some of you laugh, in the end, as well.)

Now it is the time for these stories to be polished, for them to be paired with the art of some very talented artists, for a cover to be created — and most importantly — it is time for you to join us in the steps that come next. 

FUNDRAISER July 19, 2012 - Aug 19, 2012. 
MANY PERKS TO BE ANNOUNCED FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION.

http://wordsoftraitors.tumblr.com
www.wordsoftraitors.com to be functional as soon as the DNS stops screwing around.

Goodnight, and good luck.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Mythos Media Fundraisers 2012

Rather than these vague twitter posts let me be very clear what is going on.

There are several projects in production and all of them need some seed funds to really get off the ground beyond a sort of "pilot episode."

And this is of course despite conjecture such as this. The fact is, it costs money and time to produce media, and I've killed myself (and years of my life) too many times on projects that made it through round 1 of funding only to die at round 2, which often means due to contracts that no one even got to see anything for our labors. No more. Beyond the most bare bones, which usually amounts to words on a page or on a screen, transmedia and multimedia projects need to gets funded and produced, or they have to get shit-canned. I am streamlining production cost but there is only so far you can go and produce the kind of quality that I am aiming for, and in the past I've encountered problems of retaining talent when they have studios like Image and Vertigo and movie studios knocking on their doors and it comes down to "I really like this script, James, but I've go to go where the money is."

So in a sense I'm counting on all of you to vote with your dollars, cause that's what we have to vote with these days. And our past track record of production at least shows that well--considering what we've done on shoestrings, what we could do with slightly longer ones could be amazing. 

Nyssa:

A dark modern fairy tale. 

Below is a piece of artwork-in-progress from the artists I am working with on issue 1. At least some of these will appear in the ongoing series if we raise the necessary funds to produce a multi-part series that will also be collected as a graphic novel. The production will include a lot of mixed media material, availability as print and ebook, and short video trailers and web materials that add layers or other angles to the narrative. (Transmedia.)

Fundraiser: September 1 - October 10. 

I plan to run this Kickstarter in September and really hope I can get some press help and bloggers and all of you on twitter to get the word out because it does come down to a popularity contest at the end of the day. We will work our asses off to make something beautiful and unique if we can fund it. 

Estimated necessary budget: $30,000. (I have to review the spreadsheet before I say this is final.)

Giveaways: Just initial thoughts...We will be giving away various artist prints, of course e- and print versions of the illustrated story 'pilot' (issue 1) as well as the lowest donation tier which will be the unillustrated text. The pilot is why I'm waiting until September to begin the Kickstarter which will run for 40 days. Of course I have ideas for posters and some unique items, but the question does arise of production cost of giveaways vs. funds raised and production overhead itself so I have a lot of math to do...

Words of Traitors:

These Are Not My Memories. A collection of stories that get at the nebulous - fate, faith, choice, death of the self, death of another, young lust - while they are in transit from one place to another.  These are works of "honest fiction" that I've been working on by way of 'stretching' myself as a writer. Or that is how it began. As all projects do, this is taking on a life of its own, and I am now seeing the final version being ideally a hardcover with a single very nice illustration to accompany each piece. I would like to pitch first rights for each short story to publishers but want to retain creative control over the final version which means having money for an editor, for luring artists to actually hit deadline, and for a marketing campaign that actually gets the word out.

Fundraiser: July 20 - August 20. I plan to run this on Indiegogo. This is because even if we get partial funding, we can make some headway with this project. They say that August is a terrible month to fundraise. I guess I'll find out.

Estimated necessary budget: $7,000.

Giveaways: obviously, early editions of the stories will be giveaways, as 1 offs and as a collection at a higher tier and then in an early print chapbook at a higher tier. I'd also like to offer something unique, so I'm thinking about that as well. Then those at a certain tier will also receive a final, hardbound copy when production on that is complete - likely several months after the fundraiser is complete, but long before it is available on the public market. You can read first (and I mean first) drafts of pieces for this project on my tumblr under this tag: http://fallennation.tumblr.com/tagged/writing

If you'd like to get in ahead of the curve and donate to Mythos Media / Modern Mythology productions in general:

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

#Myth Week 2

Just a little over a week left for the fundraiser for Modern Mythology to raise money for 2012. We've raised over $500 so far but we still have a way to go!

I'd like to share with you just some of the interviews I've done over the past year talking about many of the projects we've been hard at work on. Projects like these are supported by donations to the campaign:

James Curcio Interview by Rev.R4D4 An interview on Stanford radio about myth, occupy wall street, politics, media, and hoodooengine. If you'd like to hear higher resolution versions of the tracks on here and more, go here and stream or pick up the mp3s! (See other Hoodoo releases on the sidebar.)

• Conversation with Elizabeth Spann Craig (2011) about "why we write" on her award-winning blog.
• Audio: Solipsistic NATION (2011) interview with James and Johan of Hoodoo Engine, also featuring interviews and new music with Ogre (Skinny Puppy, Ohgr), and Tim Skold (Manson, KMFDM).
• Audio: Occult Sentinel 32 (2011) interviewed by Joseph Moore about the Immanence of Myth, Clark, HoodooEngine, and more.
• Living in Stories (2010) Planetshifter interview, focusing on the Immanence of Myth project. 

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

#Myth Week 1

Showing some of our wares at a recent event.

Here is what some of those who have contributed to our fundraiser campaign have said about this project:

"Modern Mythology’s work is way too important to not support. We need this discourse. Rock on guys!"

"You’re doing good work; I’m proud to support that."

"Myth is something that even our technological, interdependent and global society cannot escape. Myth can illuminate and unveil aspects about ourselves and where we are going, where we have come from. Myth, in short, is self-knowing. As an essential dimension of human experience, it would behoove us to try to contextualize myth—or more appropriately see how myth contextualizes—the modern age."

"You rock so hard, rocks are jello in your very presence. Neutron stars are tied neck and neck in the races. Your stuph is dense, and heavy. Keep it up. Way up."

10 days left! We are presently running an ongoing tweet-a-thon under #myth on twitter. Listen in or join the discussion.

Even a donation of $1 gets you a free eBook and helps to keep us going.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]