This has been WAAAY too long coming, I know.
The Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins needed two things from me: An introduction, and some illustrations. Both jobs seemed simple enough, but I’ve been hung up on the words for over a year now. In January of 2014 I wrote an introduction that was all over the map, and wrong, and I lost hope (and then track of time) for quite a while.
This morning I realized what the problem was. I was trying to use my own challenge coin story as an introduction, and that was artificially inflating my story’s importance. It was ego-bloat, and this document is not the place for that.
The solution? I wrote an introduction that serves as an introduction. It’s not a story, though it’s got story stuff in it. It is written to properly introduce the stories that follow.
And THEN I went ahead and told my story, which will get tucked into the meaty parts of the PDF along with everybody else’s account. So you get to hear from me twice. After this long of a wait, it seems like the least I can do.
Both of my documents have been handed off to Sandra for editing, which means that everything this document needs from me has been delivered, except the pictures. And those are what I’m sitting down to work on next.
I get to draw an elephant!
Redshirts has a great game mechanic. The object is to kill off your own crew members. If they actually succeed in their missions and return healthy, you’ve clearly done something wrong. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it’s pretty easy to pick up. David Reddick’s art is perfect for it, and I’ve been led to understand that in this expansion I’m not the only creator of things to be garbed in ominous red and sent doomward repeatedly.