I tried to get feedback from my family about the story, but somehow I wasn’t able to give them an outline in a concise manner. Obviously episode 2 just go so convoluted, I had a hard time to understand it myself, let alone explain it to others. In an feeble attempt to appear geeky and deep, I just made a story that was too multi-layered and no fun.

Back to the drawing board, I thought. I still had to tie up these loose ends from the pilot:

• What happened to the Astral Endeavor?
• The “ghost” in the engine room of the Pon Kho 2
• What happened to the previous owner of the Pon Kho 2?
• Why is the Framistan Engine such a controversial technology?

So I took all the scripts I wrote over the course of a year for Episode 2, which were “Maelstrom” (including the sequel “Lord of the Flies”), “Astral Endeavor” and “Schröder’s Cat”, and picked out the juicy bits, the elements that I felt worked, no matter what. Then I had to simplify the whole concept of the Framistan Drive/Engine, because its quirks and characteristics seemed too complicated and didn’t really add much to the story itself.

Then, inspired by my son, who recently got into 70s music, I thought I could give it a slightly psychedelic angle. I always wanted the whole series to have a 70s vibe, but failed because my artwork just doesn’t lend itself to that style. Well, at least some of the music will have that vibe now.

In the new outline that I drafted this weekend the story is now straight forward, the character dynamics work, the new character (new name, too), just got a special trait that works well with his physique and wardrobe, and will be fun to explore in future episodes, and last but not least I think there is enough suspension in several parts of the story to keep it interesting. I’ve been able to recycle some jokes and dialogues from older scripts so the completely re-written script for episode 2 is now 75% done.

Delays & Some Work Lost

Unfortunately I have to throw away some of my artwork that I prepared over several days and nights, but hey, it’s all in service of a better story (the image for this entry is one of those backgrounds that will be binned).

Also almost all of the narration that I recorded for episode 2 will be discarded, except for the intro that stays unchanged. These are tough decisions, given that I have little time available for producing the content, and I more or less lost several weeks due to this rewrite. The audience will have to be the judge whether it was worth the wait. The script isn’t fully complete yet, but I hope I can wrap it up this weekend (a weekend where I originally intended to start producing animatics and fix the overall timing in preparation for animation work).

And Schröder is also gone from the script. There is a new/old character a crazy scientist, which I might be basing on the some of the Schröder sketches, but I’m not fully decided yet.

Otto von Katz gets a different name and background, but luckily I will be able to use most of the rig I started putting together in Moho, so he’s going to have one or maybe even several future appearances.

More Awards

The Phungus & Mowld pilot “Dead Angle” just got awarded OUTSTANDING EXCELLENCE by the WRPN.TV Global Webisode Competition 2021 in the Category “Webisode Pilot or Episode  Animated”.

I’m excited that other people watch my very first (and flawed) attempt at animation making and still find it worthwhile. I got a very nice review on Amazon Prime Video in the US and another one in Japan, which is the kind of stuff that really motivates me to keep going.

A big thank you to everybody who bothers to watch and read my stuff. An even bigger thank you to everybody who comments on my videos in one form or another, and the biggest thank you to people who tell others about this little project, this dream of mine. The audience and their appreciation is what keeps me going.