Our roster of confirmed contributors so far:
A Profound Waste of Time’s creative director and editor is Caspian Whistler, who started the project in 2014 while studying at University of the Arts London in the form of a self-published fanzine. The Kickstarter campaign to create the first issue of APWOT was one of the first things he did after graduating from UAL in 2016, and he’s been confused and baffled ever since.
Acting as producer on the project is Darren Wall, founder of visual culture imprint Volume as well as videogame history publisher Read-Only Memory, known for hit publications as Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, The Bitmap Brothers: Universe and 500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII. Darren will be advising on all aspects of art direction, production and project management to ensure the highest quality outcome. He’ll also make sure Caspian doesn’t lose his mind.
Our cover for Issue Two is an colourful and intricate cityscape based on the games of Keita Takahashi, of Katamari Damacy and Wattam fame, brought to life by esteemed illustrator and architect Doug John Miller. Doug has worked for numerous clients the world over, and last year was shortlisted for Illustration of the Year at the World Illustration Awards. Due to Doug’s architectural background he has an astute understanding of 3D space, so approaching him to interpret Keita Takahashi’s characters and stylings felt like a perfect fit. As you can see, the final result is a breathtaking composition, packed full of life, familiar characters and tiny details to pore over.
Following on from our last campaign, and for the APWOT enthusiasts amongst you, we are offering additional rewards besides just the magazine itself:
Our covetable special edition version of the issues featured a high spec iteration of the cover, featuring an intricate linework version of our Keita Takahashi-inspired cityscape, printed in a high production metallic rainbow palette. Backers of this reward will also see their name listed in the magazine for all eternity – a record of their kind support and excellent taste in all things printed.
The APWOT logo has been re-imagined as a three colour enamel badge by Keita Takahashi himself. This exclusive badge will only be available for the duration of this campaign. While the our ‘P’ logo is looking a bit more carefree than we’re used to, we promise it’s just as profound.
For those of you who want to see themselves recreated in 16-bit stylings, we are offering the opportunity to receive your very own pixel art portrait by artist JJSignal of cyberpunk adventure 2064: Read Only Memories and the upcoming NeuroDiver. These portraits will be showcased in the magazine and you will be sent the artwork as a digital file, for use on your social inter-web doohickeys.
For those of you who missed out on Issue One of A Profound Waste of Time, we are happy to offer both magazines together at a discounted price. Issue One will be sent out as soon as the Kickstarter is over, which will give you something to read as we build Issue Two!
“A beautiful, collectible object” Creative Review
“A delightful surprise” Mag Culture
“Without any doubt, the most beautiful magazine that we have ever seen in the sector” Ludum Post
“APWOT encapsulates one fulcrum of independent publishing — true, personal voices that defy the mainstream simply by being themselves” Stack
Commendation – Best Use of Illustration – Stack Awards 2018
Nominated – Launch of the Year – Stack Awards 2018
Merit – Publication Design Single Issue – 98th Annual ADC Awards 2019
A Profound Waste of Time is being manufactured in the UK by the award-winning Pureprint, based in East Sussex. The job will be closely overseen by the APWOT team to ensure the best colour reproduction. Our spectacular rainbow-infused Special Edition cover will be carefully tested prior to the final job is run, and these print tests will feature in our backer updates.
We were lucky enough to receive an incredible response for our last Kickstarter campaign, reaching 195% of our funding goal. We want A Profound Waste of Time to continue to be an incredible magazine, and we also wish to once again hit a high bar for quality and continue to ensure that everyone who works on the project – from writers to designers to artists – is paid properly. Put simply, APWOT is not a cheap magazine to make.
“And you’re asking for more than you did for the first issue?” I hear you enquire. This is because originally, for our first issue, we were planning for the magazine to be smaller and contain fewer pages. Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of our supporters, we were able to raise almost double what we asked for, and we put every penny of that towards making it as good as possible.
We want Issue Two to be at parity with the standards and expectations set by Issue One. This means we’re asking for the minimum amount of money we’d need to make an issue that can sit next to the first and be considered its equal. We won’t be able to do it without your support!
We want to remain independent and free of advertising, while still creating a publication of exceptional quality. If we can continue to publish independently via crowdfunding campaigns we can have final say over every aspect of the editorial, production and fulfilment process.
We will be posting both general and backer exclusive updates including snippets from articles, previews of illustrations, production tests and other behind-the-scenes morsels as the campaign progresses. You can check the updates from our Issue One campaign to get a taste of what is to come..
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for regular updates on how the magazine is progressing.
Delays are almost an inevitable part of independent publishing, but we are confident that this issue of A Profound Waste of Time will be much more straightforward than our launch issue was to create. The original pitch for Issue One was a publication of 100 pages, at a size of 210 x 240 mm. The final magazine was almost double the extent (186 pages) and was also physically bigger (210 x 270 mm). This was made possible thanks to a hugely successful fundraising campaign, giving us more resources to produce a better publication. This time around however, we now have a clear, templated idea of what an issue of APWOT needs to be, meaning we don’t need to spend time working on the brand identity, art direction and general setup. We can dive straight into commissioning and creating our articles. In the event of any delays or issues, we’ll be certain to let you know immediately via our regular project updates.