Odyssey collectors, your collections are going to look even
more consistent as more album repacks are on their way. The
remaining titles in what has become AIO's biggest repack project in
history—is nearing its
long-awaited end. We'll be getting to see those final covers
of audio albums with illustrations by Odyssey artist Gary
Locke by the end of the year.
Plus, the Adventures in Odyssey team continues to
build on its empire of books, audio, and more. The newest
book series, The Imagination Station, continues to
grow with at least six titles on the way (Problems
in Plymouth our newest addition). And if you've been
waiting for more Kidsboro books, one mega volume is
scheduled for a September release, titled The Fight for
Kidsboro. It will include the first four books
packaged as one 4-in-1 book... which begs the question,
Will we be seeing more Kidsboro books in the future?
Also, for all you iPhone, iPad, Android, and otherwise
mobile geeks out there, the Odyssey team will release its
first-ever e-Book version of
The Fight
for Kidsboro. Just imagine: flipping digital pages
of your favorite Odyssey books in the future? Does this mean
we'll be seeing previous Adventures in Odyssey books
make their way onto collectors' mobile app shelves?
Of course, we're going to tell you to stay tuned. We'll give
you the latest updates as they happen.
Surprise! We've been working on something
special for a while, and we decided to make it available
today. The Scoop just got better with a new site feature in
our Features section: The Odyssey Times.
The Focus Story
In the 1990's, Focus on the Family produced
its own print version of The Odyssey Times newspaper for fans of Adventures in Odyssey to read
(Issues 1-6). It was "Always Free" and contained
special tie-in stories to the audio series, product promotion, classified
ads, and a fun experience for avid fans. It contained references to events
and situations which were happening on Adventures in Odyssey at the
time. The Odyssey Times is now out
of print and considered a rare collector's item. Editions of The Odyssey
Times are currently on display at the Focus on the Family Visitor
Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Online editions of The Odyssey
Times were made available when Adventures in Odyssey's official
site launched in 2000 (Editions 7-12). Editions were released periodically
for a couple years.
The Scoop Story
Now, we've brought them all to one place for
you. We want you to be able to rekindle and experience the memories that
many earlier AIO fans have shared. Although Odyssey continues for newer
generations of listeners, the archive of Odyssey's early days haven't been forgotten. We've
chronicled a majority of editions
of the newspaper here, with each article word-for-word and in PDF form. We have not
featured every edition of the newspaper quite yet (we are currently missing
Issues 1 and 2), so if you have copies of editions we do not have, feel free
to photograph them (high-res images preferred) and send them to us. We'd love to share
them with the online community!
What are you waiting for? It's time to enjoy all the fun
writing, filled with numerous references to everyone's
favorite audio drama!
The
legendary Ethan Daniels is finding himself in an interesting
situation in The
Ceiling Fan's latest
podcast:
Wooton Bassett inspires the
U.S. Postal Service to provide more services beyond mail
carrying, but postal workers aren't too excited about it.
Meanwhile, Ethan realizes what a rap battle actually is, but
stands his ground. And why can't he remember what he
overheard before?
I don't think I've ever found
the tooth fairy to be as funny as
The Ceiling Fan's rendition, especially when she
likes Ethan's "zeal for Odyssey." If you're unfamiliar with
The Ceiling Fan, it's a podcast featuring fictional
characters Ethan Daniels, Phil Jinkus, and Odyssey segments
you would never expect to hear on Adventures in Odyssey.
I'm probably a little biased as I'm the guy who keeps
their website looking pretty, but
The Ceiling Fan is definitely among the top AIO fan
podcasts. Actually, if you hold on just a little while
longer, the next edition of our podcast, The Odyssey ScoopCast, will
feature the creators of this high quality podcast in a Q&A
session for the fans. Stay tuned.
Also today, the Official
Podcast has released a
new edition with an interview with sound designer
Jonathan Crowe. You won't want to miss his miraculous story!
There's always something in the works with
Focus on the Family's popular Adventures in Odyssey
series. Fans are always
awaiting the next installment from the show. Album 54, Clanging Cymbals and the
Meaning of God's Love, is scheduled for an September
2011 release and will feature a 1 Corinthians theme woven
throughout the episodes. After the fast-paced Green Ring
Conspiracy, I think things will begin to slow down, if
only a little. Of course, bonus content is expected with an
updated map of Whit's End (we haven't seen one of those for
years), secret word access to features on the show's site,
and more.
And for those of you who have
waited for a special release containing episodes from one of
Odyssey's longest-running sagas, The
Blackgaard Chronicles (cover is very preliminary)
should arrive in stores this August... and you can expect
some great bonus features to make the collection well worth
the cost. You'll get to see a special behind-the-scenes
video and other great things to complement the package. This
special audio release will feature packaging much like The Encore
Collection and The Platinum
Collection. We don't have many details regarding
what's included yet, but I think fans would certainly enjoy
seeing a nice inclusion of earlier illustrations throughout
the included CD sleeves. We'll keep you posted as we learn
more.
As always, you'll want to keep
checking back in the days ahead!
See? All your patience paid off. And we know
you can wait no longer.
From February 26 to March 23, 2011, Odyssey
fans were given a chance to participate in the second annual
ScoopYourself contest to win a free copy of
Album 53:
The Green Ring Conspiracy,
and some special surprise bonus prizes.
Much like the popularity of our first ScoopYourself
in
early 2010,
our 2011 edition proved to be even more popular than the one
before. We doubled our participation from last year with a
total of 63 contestants. All 63
entries went through preliminary judging and
narrowed down to 11 finalists. Fans were given an
opportunity to vote for their favorite of the 11 so we could
gather an assessment of what the fans thought compared with
ours (we received well over 250 votes). The final judging
session took place on on April 12th with the winners
announced today.
We know you're all dying to
see who won, so click here
as we reveal our winners and showcase everyone's work.
There's no doubt that many of you have been
waiting for the newly-repackaged Passages book series
to be available. Wait no longer. Books 1-6 of this popular
series are now in circulation and make a nice addition to
fans' collections. Each book contains special illustrations
by artist Mike Harrigan, a map of the land of Marus, and
attractive cover designs no Adventures in Odyssey fan
can pass up. This third edition of the books is, by far, the
best to be released by Focus and Tyndale.
To learn more about individual
titles from the Passages titles, visit our product listings.
And be watching the Scoop for future contests and giveaways
this year. You might be surprised at what we're giving away
to our most loyal fans (or at least, those who enter our
contests!). Will it be Passages?
Contest
Update: We noticed a
lot of ballot box stuffing in our attempts to collect fan
votes for our winning ScoopYourself contest entries and
we've been weeding out duplicate votes as much as possible.
For this reason, we've
closed down the voting and are changing direction just a
little. Our judges will be determining three winners as
originally intended. Along with posting all the submissions
we received, we will be showcasing the results of the fans'
votes just so you can see who the fans chose. Stay tuned for
the awards ceremony!
Many of you have
been patiently waiting for us to reveal the
winners to our ScoopYourself contest. While we aren't
quite ready to unveil all the entries, we need
your help! We're opening up the vote to you, our
visitors, to help us decide on the top three
photo entries. We received a lot of fun entries
and we want you to get involved.
How does it work?
All you have to do is click here and see our top 11 favorite
photo entries. From there, you'll have the
opportunity to vote on your top favorite. We
will announce the winners at a later date. So
what are you waiting for? Get involved and
see those entries
now!
Today, The Odyssey ScoopCast
introduces its final installment of our
interview with Whit Hertford, voice of Jay
Smouse for Adventures in Odyssey:
In conclusion to our interview with Whit Hertford, we
discuss Rodney Rathbone and Jay Smouse. Plus, Whit gives advice to aspiring
voice actors on how to get started in the field. It's a podcast you won't
want to miss.
Listen to our latest edition of the podcast
here.
Our team is always hard at work thinking of ways to make the
ScoopCast better. Stay tuned... we've got some good things
in store!
We know many of you enjoy reading
Adventures in Odyssey episode reviews, so we decided to share a special
link with you today. A new blog has sprung up, titled
At Whit's End, in
which the founder plans on reviewing each episode of AIO from the very first
episode. He starts out his review journey with a review of Whit's Flop and plans
on reviewing his way through the entire series of packaged episodes.
Of course, this is going to be a long journey
for blogger Matthew Miller as he pursues the quest. It's sure to be filled
with excellent writing and insights into the #1 audio drama on listeners'
mp3 players. Feel free to tag along for the ride. For more information,
visit the At Whit's Endblog.
Odyssey listeners, you're in for a real treat
with the latest
Official Podcast:
Listen:
Monty Whittaker is back in Odyssey and he's voiced by Chad
Reisser. Chad has been voicing Monty since 1987 and today he shares the
story of how he started on the show, plus the inside scoop of the other
parts that he's played.
Long-time fans will certainly enjoy this
interview. And Scoop fans, we haven't forgotten about getting you the
results for the ScoopYourself photo contest we're holding. Hold on tight.
We're busy getting ready to do something very special with it.
The
legendary Ethan Daniels is finding himself in an interesting
situation in
