Shipping to begin this week
over 3 years ago – Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 03:36:44 PM

Hi everyone!

Hope you're having a good weekend. We are packing up the last bit of items to our warehouse today so that they can start sending out everyone's packages next week!

Relatively right on schedule as we had planned, although we thought the vinyl singles might be the last piece to arrive. Ironically, however, it was the book itself that proved to be the last straggler. The past 2 months have suffered a ton of congestion at shipping ports around the world due to increased holiday shipping traffic, tighter restrictions, and COVID-impacted staff reduction all over the world. The hardcover books were expected to be in our hands the week of Christmas, but instead sat on the boat which itself sat in line to unload for two weeks, and then once unloaded, the containers sat in an even longer queue to clear through customs.

But they are finally in route and are expected at our warehouse on Monday (or Tuesday, depending on who might be closed for MLK day). So barring any other unexpected surprises, we should be able to start getting packages out the door by next weekend!

We were also waiting for more copies of PISTOUVI  -- the demand was so high, and our initial orders into bookstores so positive, that we had to order a second printing! But they look awesome and are indistinguishable from the first print run:

There are still 42 of you who haven't filled out your surveys.

Reminders have been sent, but if we don't have your final order info by Monday, you will likely have to wait until "round two" a few weeks after the first batch are sent. It really helps to ship things together, so please, get us your info if you haven't already.

HOW WILL SHIPPING BE HANDLED?

Domestic orders will ship directly from our warehouse. They do a really excellent job of packing things nice and securely (and QUICKLY!), so those will be the first to go out.

Canadian orders will be packed at our warehouse, then dropshipped to a postal forwarder in Ontario who will send them to the final recipients. That process takes an additional week or so, but is usually pretty quick once the forwarder has received them.

International orders... well, that's a bit up in the air right now. Our original plan of shipping worldwide orders through our fulfillment partner in the UK has run into all kinds of unexpected issues raised by both Brexit and reimplemented pandemic lockdowns happening around the world (particularly in the UK due to the new strain discovered in the UK there). Our partner says they are still able to operate once the bulk items are received, but getting the items to them has become a lot more complicated, particularly with our VAT application being caught up in gov.uk traffic. We were told we would have our VAT before Christmas, and yet we are still waiting for it.

Hopefully, it will come through in the next two weeks. If it does, we will get the goods shipped to them as immediately as possible. If it drags on far past that with no clear indication of a date, we will find an alternate solution. We are already looking for one now, just in case. We do not want to keep you waiting!

Of course, with all things, we will update you on new developments! More to come later this week!

Digital files are ready
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jan 08, 2021 at 06:45:54 PM

Hey everyone

Strange day today, trying to stay productive while a genuine insurrection attempt of our national capital plays out on live television... super surreal, like we're living in an episode of Homeland... So we did our best to stay focused on something that we have some actual control over: getting all of the ASTER OF PAN digital rewards collected and sent!

You should receive a notification from Backerkit any minute now (if you haven't gotten it already) directing you towards your download links.

If you don't get that notification, don't worry -- you can find them all on your individual Backerkit accounts, right behind the big button near the top that says "Get your Digital Downloads":

Click that button and you'll see your personal links whichever digital download rewards you are expecting:

The Soundtrack file and Sketchbook PDF are direct downloads provided through Backerkit. The main book PDFs are provided by Gumroad with a 100% discount code -- follow the link in the instructions which should take you to the item on Gumroad already marked down to $0. If it isn't marked down automatically through the link, simply apply your personal code at checkout to get it for free.

We chose Gumroad because it is DRM-free, good quality, and a pretty painless way to get your files. We are required to use a platform with some degree of file download tracking per our license agreements, but we did our best to make those embedded marks as unobtrusive as possible.

If you lost your link or aren't sure how to get back to your Backerkit account, simply go to https://aster-of-pan.backerkit.com/ and log in with your Kickstarter email. (And if you still haven't filled out your survey, now is a good time to do that...!)

If you like what you see/hear, please share on social media! If you wish to include a link to www.asterofpan.com too, that would be nice. :) Folks can still pre-order! Although they might not get theirs as soon as you will. We're hoping the books finally clear customs this week so that physical shipping can begin next week. But we'll keep you all posted.

In the meantime -- ENJOY!

Locking addresses! Getting ready to start shipping (next week?)!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Jan 04, 2021 at 11:18:30 PM

Happy New Year everyone!

We hope you all had a wonderful set of holidays and are enjoying a decent start to 2021. Ours is pretty good so far -- not much different, but we took some personal time away from the desk to fit in some of that elusive "work-life balance". Played some video games, worked on some new music, read some comics, and ate way too much holiday food. It was nice, but now we're back on the job and ready to roll!

First thing on our agenda: 

START SHIPPING!

All of the items are now at our warehouse except for the most important one: the book itself!We were expecting it to arrive the week between Christmas and New Years, but California ports have been incredibly congested this month for several reasons, not the least of which is the growing spread of COVID causing a lot of staff reductions at the various ports and trucking services. Apparently there are ships backed up in line waiting to unload... We're told that half of our shipment has cleared customs, but the other half is still being checked. Hopefully we'll get an all-clear update tomorrow. As soon as they get through port, we should have them at our warehouse within about 5 days (barring any other hurdles). So optimistically, we hope to be able to start packing and shipping your stuff next week!

That means that we are LOCKING DOWN BACKERKIT ADDRESSES THIS WEEK!

We just sent out a final 48 hour notice to everyone -- if you need to make any changes to your address, you have 48 hours to do so! At that point, we will be exporting all of the data to start printing shipping labels. We expect to do this on Wednesday (Jan 6th).

• There are still a handful of you (about 22) who haven't yet filled out your surveys. PLEASE DO THIS BY WEDNESDAY IF YOU CAN! It gets really complicated (and expensive) to ship individual packages out after the initial mailing process. Especially overseas. Seriously. Any orders not part of the initial processing might face a delay of a few extra weeks. Please keep that in mind. 

There are also about 6 of you who have filled out your surveys but your credit cards have errored. We can't fulfill your order until those are fixed, so if you're one of those, please see what you can do to update your payment method soon. Reminder notifications have been sent.

Also coming on Wednesday: digital rewards!

We spent some of the holiday wrapping up the final soundtrack mix and mastering, and we are excited to release that out into the world. On Wednesday, we will distribute all of the digital rewards directly through Backerkit.  If you followed us through the PARIS 2119 campaign, don't worry: we learned a good lesson from that initial mistake! 

We will be distributing the main book itself through Gumroad again, and everything else will be download-able directly through your Backerkit account. We will post an update on Wednesday explaining everything once the files are all wired up and good to go.

Thanks again for your support and patience, everyone!

And if you haven't checked out our current Kickstarter for BRINDILLE and LOVE: THE MASTIFF, please take a look today! The campaign ends this Thursday, and we've unlocked some sweet stretch goals! It's definitely another great campaign you won't want to miss!

www.brindille-comic.com

Happy Holidays
over 3 years ago – Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 01:17:04 AM

Hi everyone!

Just a quick update to wish you and your loved ones a very happy and healthy holiday season. :)

THANK YOU for all of your wonderful and heartfelt support this year. We couldn't have done it without you, and it warms us to know that you folks are out there with as much interest in these wonderful authors and artists as we have.

If you're not on our mailing list, here is our holiday card sent out to all of our supporters --

WE HAVE THE VINYL.
over 3 years ago – Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 08:40:45 PM

Hey everyone.

I'm slightly hesitant to share this update. Mostly because I don't want to make anyone upset if they weren't able to get in on the limited edition 7" vinyl single.

Because they're here. And they're suuuuuper cool. ;)

I really don't mean to gush. It's just that this is the first vinyl recording Neurobellum has ever produced, so its kind of a milestone. (And I don't even have a record player... I think I gotta fix that, stat...!)

I wish we could have made more. Granted it is a very niche artifact for real connoisseurs, so maybe this was just the right amount. Maybe we'll give it another crack on an upcoming campaign...

Beyond that little bit of news, we've also gotten word that the cloisonné pins have shipped and should arrive next week, so that leaves only the book as the last item to arrive! So January shipping appears right on track!

So why not check out our current campaign in the meantime? We just debuted the world premiere trailer video for LOVE: THE MASTIFF over there... take a look at the next beautiful book you must have!

Thanks again, everyone! More news coming soon!