
Hikeeba them aliens be a kwaaazy!

As read, we wish everyone a Happy Holiday season. EBEJEEBIES Coast to Coast greeting posted on their front page just in time for Christmas once again with our gratitude. Also posted the 2004 EBEJEEBIES Xmas on Deviant Art. Take care everyone, Merry Christmas!
Shawn La Douceur, one of Coast’s intrepid webmasters, has just posted a paranormal themed illustration I did around Halloween titled, “This Place is Ours”. I had a lot of fun doing this painting, fully digital in Photoshop 7.0. It shows some Willo o’ Wisps who seem to have gotten pretty upset with the inhabitants of the building in frame. They painted a warning, in blood, on the wall. Clearly not something you want to wake up to in the morning… that is if they get the chance to wake up. Who knows what these ghosties have in mind?
Also as you might see, from the post below, EBEJEEBIES is making a return soon. Hopefully Coast will post our new EBE one spot promo gag soon to get the word out. It’s been a busy year for us and we expect to continue to be busy into the New Year with more new things to bring to those of you gracious enough to keep following our work. To keep track of all the most current work Vulne Pro has been doing please, by all means, cheack out our Deviant Gallery.
The site is in stasis at the moment, with some areas under construction or in the middle of style changes, we apologize for that, again the busy. We also took down the forum because it simply broke on us and spammers were killing it so if you wish to drop us a line please do so, anyone can comment here on the blog, you needn't be a member of Blogger to do so. Thank you all for dropping by and my thanks to Shawn and the good crew at Coast to Coast, as always they have our best. Keep watching the skies folks! Cheers!
Greetings and salutations good Infobahn surfers. The Terran Trade Authority RPG has finally been released at Drivethrough RPG.com and the print version will be arriving in short order at various retailers. Being the URL for Vulne Pro’s studio site is in the credits I welcome those of you who wander in for a look see. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done for the site so bear with us on that, it’s been a crazy busy year and little time for web work. Currently new art posts are ending up in the Vulne Pro Deviant gallery so take a look there first. The forum we had broke sometime back so we nixed it until a new one can replace it. Any inquiries can be posted here in the blog as you don’t have to be a member of Blogger to post, so please feel free to drop a line. Sales have been good so far, it seems the TTA RPG is #1 on Drivethrough RPG.com so we thank you folks for the interest. If you like what you see support it otherwise you might not get to see more as we have other plans for new projects that will hinge on the success or failure of TTA. Please enjoy the visit. See you round the Infobahn. Cheers!
Well, what’s been going on? Have we dropped off the face of the Earth, finally rubbed off by the Grays who’s feelings we’ve possibly ruffled with EBEJEEBIES? Have we decided to become pirates in a vain effort to fight global warming?
For everyone who’s been wondering… yes, the first TTA book, Spacecraft 2100 to 2200 AD, is out and has been out for a month now. But you probably haven’t seen it. Why? Because Barnes & Noble and Borders (more specifically, their corporate buyers) are morons.
Here’s the problem: Despite heavy interest, a huge amount of pre-orders, and promises to order lots in exchange for steering buyers to their websites, the Big Two STILL vastly, vastly, VASTLY under-ordered the title. How badly did they under-order? The Borders distribution center in Indiana, which serves the ENTIRE Midwest, including Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Cleveland… you get the idea… ordered a grand total of fifty-three copies. This amount didn’t even cover their pre-orders, much less leave any stock for the shelves. In short, my book has been out for weeks… and I still haven’t seen a copy anywhere! More importantly, fans haven’t been able to get it!!!
Fortunately, this problem was easy to correct, as the Morrigan Press warehouse in
Don’t get me started on Amazon… which is doing a nice job of promoting and cross-promoting the book… yet still lists it as “not released yet”. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of this one…
I won’t go into the problems associated with a Byzantine, monolithic bookstore chain and their bureaucratic problems… even though I have a lot to say about it… but here’s the low-down…
1.) The big book chains should be re-stocked quite soon. If you already ordered one from them, keep pestering them. Also, please ask your local bookstore to stock it.
2.) The distributor that handles the orders of small, indy stores ordered plenty… so check your independent retailer! This is something we should all encourage, anyway.
3.) Morrigan now has their own stock of books- and you can order from them direct! Here’s the link: http://www.morriganrpg.com/gm-preorder.html I know it says “pre-order”, but it’s not- the books are in stock and ready to go, and shipping for anywhere in
Thanks for your patience, everyone!
There you have it; it’s out but not but is. I worked at BOTH Border and Barnes & Noble in the past and I’m well aware of the broken that is their distribution system. I can’t say everything was sloppy but what occurred here wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence. Hopefully this will all be sorted out soon, until then, as Jeff pointed out, anyone who wants a copy of the book can order one directly from Morrigan Press. Pleas by al means do as the success of TTA will be crucial to us moving forward with some plans we have for possibly doing some original material with Morrigan of our own.
Cheers!
It was Eleventh Hour at TTA HQ. The new Spacecraft 2100-2200 AD had gone to press. The writing and artistic crews set their sights on finishing up the RPG book while K. Scott Agnew, president of Morrigan, went on a well-deserved family vacation.
On May 9, Scott returned to the office to find a message from Stewart Cowley, original author and compiler of the TTA books, in his inbox.
“Great!” He thought. After all, we at Morrigan had been trying to contact Mr. Cowley for months, hoping to include him or at least get his stamp of approval on the new material.
Then Scott read the message. There was a problem.
When Morrigan originally sought to license the TTA franchise, Scott approached Hamlyn Publishing, which asserted that it owned the rights to the TTA books. A deal was negotiated and advance royalties paid to Hamlyn.
In his message, however, Mr. Cowley asserted that he owned the copyright on the TTA books, and in fact had been the holder of said copyright since 1990.
A flurry of phone calls and e-mails later, it was confirmed that there had indeed been, to put it mildly, a slight oversight. Mr. Cowley did own the rights to the books. Hamlyn had somehow misfiled or otherwise overlooked this fact, and so had licensed a property that they had not owned for sixteen years.
I’ve got a bridge here, by the way. Nice bridge. Real ornate. It’d look good spanning whatever river you choose.
The contract was dead. Hamlyn returned the royalty money. The presses were stopped. And Scott and myself were busy searching our local areas for nice, high cliffs to drive off of. Was six months of work about to go up in smoke?
Well… it’s a wonderful thing in life when one of your childhood heroes turns out to be a jolly good fellow...
Mr. Cowley immediately made it clear that he had no wish to obstruct the project. He let us know that he was certain that everything we had been doing was in the true spirit of the original books. Once he had made sure that we weren’t some wildcatter organization attempting to rip him off, it was clear that there was the matter of a new deal to be forged… which it was.
The bottom line: Stewart Cowley is officially back in the TTA saddle! He’s aboard ship, back on the command deck, and will be contributing to future TTA releases. Best of all, everything from here on out is going to have the official Cowley blessing and seal of approval.
So this heads off any criticisms of expanding the canon... as well as giving me an opportunity to work with one of my childhood idols. All things considered, I think things worked out better than could have possibly been imagined... especially since Cowley could have, at any point, just said "no." He could also have very resonably demanded to have complete oversight, or to put the whole thing on hold until he got some of his people in the mix. He didn't. He trusted us, and he liked what we had done... in a similar situation, I don't think I would have been so understanding. He was, and now the project continues, stronger than before...