RDCCDX: State of the Union Summer 2009

Hey internet, you got me so worked up, I jumped off Twitter and took to my blog again. Hope you’re happy! 144 characters thought bullets aren’t going to cut it this time. Prepare for incoming TRUTH BOMBS.

First off, we released the now-tentatively-in-quotations “finale” of our Ronin Dojo: Digital Pirates of Dark Water Saga. Watch before reading what follows.

We debuted it at our live panel famed East Coast anime convention Otakon (more on that next post) and it was an incredible experience. Thank you to everyone who came to watch and to anyone who talked to me at the panel or elsewhere at the con. You made my weekend.

Then I read the Youtube comments and, much like Barry, feel like there are some things I HAVE to address.

Ronin Dojo’s not ending. I teased on my Twitter, but no, there is much left in store for Mark, Barry and Mr. Henderson. Look for Episode 4.5: The Denouement (look it up, it’s a good word to know) in relatively short order, which was always in the cards from when we wrote the original 4 episodes nearly a year ago. After that we have some planning to do, in terms of whether we’ll go right into the next Ronin Dojo cartoon (in which Hank Henderson will kick your dick in with awesomitude) or do our new concept.

Episode 4 boards.

Here’s the news early so you can prepare yourself: We’re going to do a series of cartoons at some point in the future that aren’t Ronin Dojo, and aren’t 100% geek referential. The sensibilities will be the same, we just may not have characters talking about the idiosyncrasies 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons so much. I swear on the plots of land that will in the very distant future become the graves of my parents that the new stuff will be funny and great and you’ll love it. And if you don’t, get in touch with me and we’ll settle it the only way I know how. Please see Episode 4 for the manner in which this will be done.

Speaking of the highly-controversial-in-my-own-mind finale, I want to impart some behind the scenes facts that could inform your Youtube comment. It’s a losing game to get into the habit of addressing negative comments, and to the internet’s credit, no one was really outright mean in the comments left on Episode 4 (so far). You’re free to say what you want about our stuff, and in a way I’m glad some people are invested enough to let us know if they weren’t 100% feeling it this time around.

Me on vacation, working on Episode 4.  Animation is a bitch.

But the one thing I want to staunchly assert is that this ending was the ending we had planned all along. It may have even been the first idea we had when we knew we wanted to do a continuing story for RDCCDX. Giant robot fight to close out. It’s unexpected and abrupt, but that was kind of the point. When you look at it as the final punchline in these four scripts you’ve written all at once, it feels like good pacing. But maybe the time it took to release the episodes hurt the impact. I don’t know, it’s something to consider. We did not write ourselves into a corner or run out of jokes, though. I pull my jokes from a bag of holding, son! Shit has no bottom. Giant robots were our plan all along. So maybe we sucked to begin with. We’ll do Rebuild of Ronin Dojo in a few years to fix it all and sell more merchandise of our characters in sundresses.

Of course, no one reads the video descriptions on Youtube, let alone seeks out my practically defunct personal blog, for more information on our work, so this post was just an exercise in making myself feel better. Which I do, considerably.

Please direct other Ronin Dojo fans to this post on your favorite Ronin Dojo fansite forum (there are none).