A Brief Introduction to this Page's Purpose

Not Another Dime! is dedicated to documenting the assorted, and sometimes wild, details of Mr. Ken Whitman's business dealings within the Role Playing Game (RPG) industry. This place is NOT intended to be a medium of discussion about Mr. Whitman, pro or con, but instead be a "jumping off" point to enable the reader to make their own informed decision about Mr. Whitman's history and business character. (Editor's Note: After years of this documentation, we simply cannot be anything BUT "con" when it comes to Mr. Whitman)

Whenever possible, links to the original source material will be provided, but in many cases that information may have been deleted or secured behind restricted-access (like a private Facebook page) accounts.

Anything posted here is the opinion of the retrospective author and any content shown is to be considered "fair use" and posted for educational purposes only.

Note to authors: Please begin each post with the original date of the event being documented in the format of YYYY.MM.DD (i.e. If the event being recorded happened on March 15th, 2015 and today's date was August 8th, 2018 the beginning of the post's title would be 2015.03.15 and not 2018.08.08) so readers can use the Chronology page to find specific information. Please use appropriate tags when possible for the same reason.

Note to contributors: If you have some valid data to send, screenshots, links to other Ken Whitman stories, etc., please feel free to send a gmail to notanotherdimeblog. We'll look into it and post if appropriate.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

2018.02.14 You Cannot Spell Valentines Day Without a Big "D"

2018.02.14 You Cannot Spell Valentines Day Without a Big "D"
(Editor's Note: Why did somebody let Ken "Whit" Whitman have an outlet?!)

The last 24 hours have been far more interesting that any of us at Not Another Dime (For Ken Whitman) would like it to be. While we are glad that the KoDT:LAS Backers have some level of closure.

Of course now some of those backers are wondering where their other promised/paid for items are.....

Even though Erik Tenkar (Tenkar's Tavern) gave Ken "Whit" Whitman an opportunity to use his popular blog as am unedited forum to explain his side of things, our main-man decided to use David Flor's Blog: A Walk in the Dark instead. Please go ahead and read the entry over there, but the pertinent part we're most interested in is:
2018.02.13 Blog Post

"About 2 years ago, I turned over the KODTLAS footage to Z.O.E. and today, both ZOE and Jolly Blackburn, announced are releasing all three Episodes of KODTLAS.

Now matter how much I may not enjoys Jolly's company personally, I can not belittle his amazing talent. Jolly is a true genius when it comes to storytelling and everyone at Kenzer was top notch to work with.

It was never my intention to take this long for people to see all three episodes, but due to a turn of events in my life, it did not allow me to financially keep working on the project. I messed up ran out of funds, and had a hard time paying for the project to continue out of my own pocket.

I could talk about the online slander/libel posed many times over the past two years about never turning over the footage, but why open old wounds, they fact is I did turn it over to ZOE.

I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed directing them. I will continue to work on this project in my free time, hopefully finishing up the project in the near future.

To Jolly, Kenzer, the actors, the crew. It was an honor working with you.

- Ken Whitman"

A casual reader of this blog probably won't catch some of the right-out falsehoods, misdirects, and BS that comes standard with an online post made by Ken "Whit" Whitman.

Normally we'd pick apart his commentary and specifically point out, with sources, everything wrong with his statement. This time, however, we'll just let the primary sources involved cut us out largely as the middleman. The comments to this post at the A Walk in the Dark contain most of what we need and we'll share that here instead.

In response to some specific & direct questions regarding his Kickstarters:
Ken "Whit" Whitman
2018.02.14 Ken Whitman BS"From here on out, I will only respond to questions from people who are backers of my project. Please state what item your were a backer of and your questions.

Thank you."

Nathan C"Ken, I was a backer of four of your kickstarters. (KODT, Traveller, Castles & Crusades, and RPG Pencil Dice) Now that I have covered my being a backer, my questions.

1) Why was the original footage never handed over to ZOE?
1a) Will you turn it over to them now? You have said above that you still have it after all.
2) What work is left to do on getting Spinward Traveller finished?
3) Is there a plan to get the Pencil Dice produced and out to backers?"

Ken "Whit" Whitman
"1) it was given to ZOE 2 years ago. there were 4 or 5 clips that were lost and low res footage was used.

2) see above

3) i am working with Marc to release the green screen edition shown at Gen Con. No date has been determined for the final.

4) with the sucess of my store i have been able to afford two heat foil machines so i can prodyce them myself. I have placed an order from the machines coming from china,"

Ben Dobyns
"In the interest of keeping facts straight, several years ago Ken mailed me a hard drive that included a) ALL of the raw footage from Episode 1, b) SOME raw footage from episode 2, and c) ZERO raw footage from episode 3."


Now for the next round of comments:
Jolly Blackburn
2018.02.14 Ken Whitman BS"My only response here will be this.

If you have the time or inclination simply go read the comments on KODTLAS kickstarter and updates. Read Ken’s own words on the project. If you want to save time you can read a compilation quotes/statements (with citations/sources here: http://notanotherdime.blogspot.com/p/ken-s.html). Again, Ken in his own words without editorial commentary.

As I told Ken last night in an email, my only desire these past four years has been for the episodes backers paid for to be seen. That has now been accomplished thanks to Ben. Happily, I can close this chapter in my life and move on.

I wish Ken luck on finishing his kickstarter projects.

If he ever decides to release a final edit of the film project to backers, I’m sure they’d be grateful. I myself would love to see that. Especially the blooper reel and on set diaries. Or even the cast commentary that was recorded to go on the DVD.

I encourage him to do that in fact (Although the license now having lapsed might need to be addressed)."

Ken "Whit" Whitman
"The White Elephant in the room is that Jolly has had access to footage for years now, but has posted several times that he did not.

Does he have access to the RAW files no.

The SPIN here could be be considered lible as many belive anything was provided.

Secondly, been had negotiated the raw files from me almost 2 years ago, this is what I didn’t have any money, and jobless, I requested that they spend $200 on a hard drive. Jolly refused to provide one saying that it was my own problem, deal with it.

Feel free to believe whatever spin you want about me, the truth is somewhere in the middle 🙂"

Ben Dobyns
"Ken is referring to 480p MP4s of his assembly edits, compressed at a low bit rate and not suitable for delivery. The existence of those edits was never a secret. Ken is also neglecting to mention my offer to send a mutual friend to his then-residence in Atlanta and copy the original footage on site from his hard drive. This would have been a more secure option for everyone than sending more cash in exchange for promises of future action."




Tuesday, February 13, 2018

2018.02.12 Great News on the KoDT:LAS Front!

2018.02.12 Great News on the KoDT:LAS Front!
We here at Not Another Dime (For Ken Whitman) have spent a LOT of time covering Ken "Whit" Whitman's shady dealings, mostly focused on his numerous Kickstarters. While we tried to be as objective as possible, all these things.....and there are some things we deliberately have not reported (but still investigated in case we had to go there)...well, they just wear our people down. If your go back through pretty much every post you'll see that there really isn't any good news, anything positive.

This is why we are so happy to report something positive: the Knights of the Dinner Table Live Action Series (KoDT:LAS) is finally seeing the light of day, despite Ken "Whit" Whitman's actions to the contrary.

We got words months ago that Ken "Whit" Whitman's contract to produce KoDT:LAS expired at the end of last year. He couldn't release the series legally after that point, not that he would anyway. Thanks to a few contacts behind-the-scenes, one of whom was obviously Jolly Blackburn, we knew that there was a chance.....a brief glimmer of hope....that KoDT:LAS might see the light of day.

Today is that day! Here is a preview of the editorial from KoDT 252 (might change due to editing in the actual issue):

Jolly Blackburn, Kenzer & Company
"Four years ago this month, 795 backers raised almost $70,000 to crowd fun a live action, Knights of the Dinner Table movie. Low budget to be sure, but the cast was amazing, the script was provided by and creative control was in the hands of the KODT D-team and for everyone involved it looked to be a fun project.

Then — as most of you know, the troubles began.

I won’t retread the sad details here other to summarize that the project creator (and the man who had sole acess to the funds) failed to uphold his part of the equation and effectively abandoned the  project and went silent.

Which is doubly sad since everyone else involved  DID do their part. The script was delivered. The actors and crew showed up. And three episodes of KODTLAS were filmed. All that was left to do was for Ken Whtiman to edit the footage and deliver the finished DVD to backers.
Obviously they never happened. 

Enter Ben Dobyns.

Ben of ZOE (Zombie Orpheous Entertainment) took it upon himself to try and salvage something from the project for those who  put up their hard earned money.

You can read the detail in Ben’s release below, but basically he cobbled together the footage of KODTLAS and manged to pull together, “A best possible cut with what we have”  edition.

So the good news is, if you backed the project you can finally see all three episodes. I want to thank, Ben and ZOE for their hardwork and  efforts on this front. It wasn’t THEIR problem. It wasn’t their project. 

I’m extremely grateful that KODT fans will finally be able to see the hard work the actors, crew and backers put in to this. They deserved better than how they were treated by the project manager. Thanks, Ben.

Jolly R. Blackburn
January 18, 2018"

And from what should be a KS post and additional entry in KoDT 252:

Ben Dobyns, Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE)
"Hello to the backers of Knights of the Dinner Table: The Live Action Series – My name is Ben Dobyns (CEO of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment, producer of The Gamers and JourneyQuest, etc) and with Kenzer and Company's permission and encouragement I've managed to cobble together complete edits of the three original Kickstarter-funded KODT episodes.

I used a combination of the incomplete footage on the original hard drive that Ken Whitman sent, low-resolution rough cuts from Jolly Blackburn's Dropbox, and any other resources that I could find. It's not perfect—and it probably never will be—but it's better than nothing.

With the original Kickstarter creator apparently permanently out of the picture, Kenzer and Company and I discussed whether it would be possible to at least let backers see the film project they paid for.
I reached out to BackerKit and, thanks to major technical support from their team, we were able to build a pledge fulfillment survey for all of the original KODT:LAS backers. Those surveys will soon be going out to backers!

So, if you're a backer, here's what that means: You'll be able to fill out your BackerKit survey. Then you'll receive a download of KODT:LAS -- The Reconstructed Edition
And optionally, you can order a DVD (at cost) from our print-on-demand partner

YES, it's not a complete Kickstarter fulfillment, we all get that. I don't have the funds (or responsibility) to print up all of the rewards that the original creator (Ken) promised. But I can at least give you a version of the movie.

This has been a labor of love. I'm not making any money from it. Kenzer and Company isn't making any money from it. We just want you to have a copy of the series that you paid for.

Thanks for your understanding and patience, thanks to KenzerCo for allowing this, thanks to Zombie Orpheus for hosting the resources for fulfillment, and thanks to all of you for being loyal KODT fans.

Ben Dobyns
CEO & Exec. Producer
Zombie Orpheus Entertainment"

One of our editors went to the disastrous GenCon "premiere" and after-party. While he didn't speak to Ben Dobyns directly about the subject, he did see a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff and everyone....EVERYONE from Zombie Orpheus Entertainment was pretty awesome. Not only did they hustle up an actual after-party for the backers, they kind of took over the Q&A portion after the viewing and pretty much put the focus on the project, with a heavy emphasis on the non-ZOE actors. By all accounts everyone at ZOE love what they do and love their fans, many of which were also KoDT:LAS fans. Odds are the guys (and gals) at ZOE are big fans themselves and to spend so much time and energy in a project that isn't theirs......



Monday, February 12, 2018

2018.02.12 Blogger Contact Regarding Ken "Whit" Whitman and Little Monster Games & Comics

2018.02.12 Blogger Contact Regarding Ken "Whit" Whitman and Little Monster Games & Comics
Last night we received an email claiming our main-man Ken "Whit" Whitman is using his new gig at Little Monster Games & Comics to screw people out of money.

Now, to be fair to Ken "Whit" Whitman, we cannot verify the claims made within this email, so you have to take this as hearsay on our part. There are only two reasons we even feel comfortable posting this inflammatory email, which you should definitely assume is false:
     1) The pattern established in the short email is consistent with previous behavior of Ken "Whit" Whitman.
     2) We would think that if there is any truth to this email then there would be others willing to corroborate by telling us of similar interactions with Ken "Whit" Whitman and Little Monster Games & Comics.

Until such time though we should all take the following email as hearsay, because it is:
2018.02.12 Blogger Contact Regarding Ken "Whit" Whitman and Little Monster Games & Comics

"I also got ripped off by Ken. I got suckered during one of his magic sales/auctions. Bought once for 20, those cards were perfect. Ordered another set for 25, got half of them. One card I didn't get I bought for 5 dollars, after I paid it spiked up to 15, it still hasn't arrived. I was told it shipped so I spent another 22.50. This was November 2017. I still have not received my cards. When I contacted him once, he said they were shipped. The second time he told me he still had them. Finally he threatened to resell them. It isn't as much as some, but it still shows he is ripping people off."

If  anyone else has a story to tell, especially if there is any associated documentation (emails, BBB filings, police reports, etc.), you know where to find us: