2015.08.21 As Close to an Official Statement As We Might Get....

The other day...maybe a week ago, I reached out to Jolly Blackburn from Kenzer & Company to ask about his company's storied involvement with Ken Whitman.

Since Ken Whitman hasn't "coughed up" the promised KoDT:LAS footage I wasn't expecting any substantiate response. If you read the projects comments and poked around a bit on the KenzerCo forums you'll see that Jolly has been probably the most understanding and compassionate guy when it comes to this one particular sordid affair.

I don't know if that is Jolly's good nature, some level of placation, or even some contractual obligation, but I doubt Ken Whitman has enough sense to write a "be nice to me" clause in a contract. Hell, I bet he normally doesn't even "do" contracts based on his level of making sure his companies are legally on the up-and-up.

I haven't yet looked into the whole GenCon party/no-party affair mostly because Erik Tenkar did a good enough job over at the Tavern. Jolly had a good comment on the KenzerCo/Ken Whitman relationship covered here, so I don't think I need to go over it in too much detail (but I might as a matter of record anyway).

The reason for this post is just to note a bit from Jolly's personal, and seldom used blog, Cries From the Attic, which I think is a reference to his writing gaming shed I've heard so much about. Of course I'm reminded about the horrific story of Flowers in the Attic whenever I hear about his blog, so thank you for that Jolly.

All kidding aside, today's post on Flowers Cries From the Attic is largely a thank you to those who stepped up just before GenCon to "help out" the number of folks "recently" screwed over by our main man Ken Whitman. Overall it is a positive post about these groups and individuals who made an effort to take care of some backers & fans who were massively let down, and in some cases harmed in a very real legal and financial sense, by Ken Whitman's actions/in-actions.

Since Jolly was at the heart of this debacle, like it or not, his words are a great 1st hand account of some of what went down in and around GenCon. This is likely to be as close as we'll ever get here as far as a "what happened" report from the KenzerCo D-Team. I think you should read the post for yourself, but here are some of the highlights pertinent to this blog:

 "I won’t go over the details here (I want to keep this positive) but you may have heard that last month just days before the world premiere of the Knights of the Dinner Table Live Action Series premiere at GenCon the producer announced he was canceling the after party (where backers and actors were to have an opportunity to celebrate) and that he wasn’t going to honor his promise of bringing the actors to GenCon (travel/lodging). It was such a shock and a let down."

It is important to note that the actors at the GenCon premiere AND the after-party was a specific backer reward that two people paid $450 for. Ken Whitman also sold tickets to the party...that for some dumb reason are STILL available for sale at the time of writing this!

Despite this being a specific backer reward, Ken Whitman tried to front-load his failures by insisting as early as May that the after-party wasn't a done-deal when allegedly offering to issue a refund to a disgruntled backer....."Throwing a party at gen con is an added expense. Not promised in our Kickstarter."

Not bringing the actors.....well he was lying about that soon after...."The show will last 70 minutes Followed by 20 mins of Q&A, followed by 30 mins of autographs - posters provided."

Guess what? He didn't bring the actors or the posters......

Now back to Jolly's post (emphasis mine), "When hours to prepare there was a scramble to make things right. Ben Dobyns and Chris Ode of ZOE took took up the heavy lifting of finding a venue for  a ‘replacement party”. All on their own dime using their own resources and contacts.
Two days before the premiere, an anonymous donor stepped up to say he would cover airfare for one of the actors. Late night calls were made to contact the actor (who had taken time off work for the premiere but found out at the last minute d20 Entertainment wasn’t providing him a ticket or lodging) to see if he could even make it still. Texts going back and forth Emails being exchanged trying to pin down flight times.
While travel was taken care of we didn’t  have a place for the actor to stay and the hotels in Indy were book solid. An email to Peter Atkinson (owner of GenCon) was sent out, asking if he might know of any options. His reply was amazing. “I can provide a room”. And then a few seconds later. “And it’s on me”.
That same night, Barratt Moy contacted me on Facebook asking if anyone else needed lodging. When I said yes he informed me he would cover it."

So all these people came together to support not just Jolly and KenzerCo, but a group of people screwed by Ken Whitman.

At least Ken Whitman didn't try to take credit or claim his hastily put-together "3fer" party didn't fulfill his legal Kickstarter obligations....
"They d20 After party happened. It was at the slippery Noodle at 11pm June30th. E-mail were sent 24hrs ahead of time. If a backer choose not to come, well I can't be responsible for that."

...oh boy...this will take another post....