Launch Day

Retrograde is live on Kickstarter!

The big day is finally here – Retrograde is LIVE on Kickstarter!

I’ve been working hard getting Retrograde ready to get out into the world, and we’re almost there – all we need is you! Some of you met me a few months ago at local art markets and got to see the demo zine of Retrograde’s Condensed Rules. Some of you have probably seen my art online these past few weeks or learned about Retrograde through word of mouth. Some of you have known me for years, and know that Retrograde is only the latest in a string of projects that I commit myself to completely, projects that get my mind running with inspiration and fuel me with the joy of creation. Regardless of how you know me or how you came to find Retrograde, I want to share a little about how Retrograde came to be.

In Boulder, Colorado, in the summer of 2023, the idea for what would become Retrograde began to take shape. I was eager to continue pursuing my passion for printmaking, and when I discovered my local college offered a letterpress course, my mind immediately spun with the possibilities letterpress would open up for me. I had always wanted to design an RPG, and letterpress could be both a physical vessel for my games and a compelling inspiration for them.

I began experimenting with letterpress in earnest, composing metal type alongside linocuts for bookmarks and covers for my short stories. I also carved over a dozen linocuts for Bad Trips, a cryptid-hunting RPG that launch in Zinequest 2024. It was a great way to dip my toes into the world of RPG creation, and the project’s success confirmed for me that Zinequest would be a great opportunity to launch Retrograde.

Retrograde’s development properly began this summer, and I wrote Overprint and the Condensed Rules while I was performing Things We Will Miss in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Theatre work has a habit of propelling other forms of creativity, and much of the energy of my theatrical practice found its way into Retrograde.

Returning to Madison in the fall, I eagerly continued my letterpress work, and continued experimenting with multiple forms of printmaking: linocut was my jumping-off point and will be the core illustrative style for the Player’s Manual and Librarian’s index, but I’ve had an immense amount of fun exploring halftone illustrations for risograph printing for The Bone Record and monoprints for Overprint. Among other things, Retrograde is a celebration of the power of printmaking, and the joy of pulling a new print is at the core of Retrograde’s creation.

And now, here we are, with Retrograde just about to go out into the world – not merely with this Kickstarter, I hope, but with a treasure trove of beautiful dreams to come. One of the most exciting things about Retrograde is that digital versions of the zine will be free to download for everyone. I’m releasing Retrograde with the CC BY-SA 4.0 License, meaning that no only can everyone play Retrograde for free, they can adapt it and share it, even commercially, so long as they release it under the same license. Our backers’ support on Kickstarter makes this possible – you help provide the resources needed to write and illustrate Retrograde, and we want to give back by making our digital versions free and returning our supporters’ generosity with some killer zines.

If you want to help Retrograde reach the farthest limits of the cosmos, back right now and help us reach our funding goal on Day 1 – funding on Day 1 can give us a huge boost with the internet’s fickle algorithms, and will make it that much easier to reach Retrograde’s stretch goals. That means even more great zines and letterpress art for you all. If its not within your means to back, you can still be a great help us by sharing Retrograde with your friends – even the smallest signal boost can have a huge butterfly effect, and I’d really appreciate you sharing Retrograde in all of the places.

Stay tuned for big news and celebrations to come. Thanks for reading!

–Nathaniel