Album 56 Cover

I had already forgotten that this was soon to be released, but this morning I saw that American Eagle had posted it on The Town of Odyssey, so here, in a very short post, is the new cover!

I really like all of the colorful variety in the picture, and I love it that we get to see into Whit's workroom/the basement! Some people said Whit looks too childish. I disagree. He looks like he's doing what he loves: inventing. And he looks happy to see us. Sure, it's probably directed more toward younger kids, as usual, but I definitely think it's an improvement over Album 55's cover.

What are your thoughts?

P.S. Thanks very much to all of you who commented letting me know you were reading yesterday. As I said, I was feeling pretty down-in-the-dumps, so it was some much-needed encouragement.

The Grand Design

The title for Album 56 is out! The Grand Design will be available for download later this year, and 3/4 of it has already been recorded. The album art will be released as soon as AIO's Twitter account reaches 1,000 followers! Thank you to AIO Wiki for putting this information out.

It seems like this kind of exciting news always comes when I'm not expecting it for a while. And it usually brightens up my day. Hopefully it brightened yours too! :)

Now You Can See It

If any of you were lucky enough to see the cover of Album 55 during the few hours that Marvin (The AIO Fan's Life) and I had it posted before we were asked to remove it, congratulations! It's great to know that you follow our blogs so closely. But if you didn't see it, here it is, officially. We were asked to take it down last week because The Official Podcast wasn't going to release it until today. Now it's released, and I'm fairly certain I can give you the picture. So here it is:



I posted my thoughts about the cover last week, but since I had to delete that post, I'll review it again. I think Whit looks great; but why is he wearing his full outfit--including a thick, leather jacket--in the pool? Connie looks a little to Asian, in my opinion; her eyes get more and more stretched out and slanted with every new picture we see. Eugene looks weird in sunglasses, but it reminds me of the days when we couldn't ever see his eyes; but one thing I noticed is that he has a lot of wrinkles for a guy in his thirties. And Wooton...typical Wooton. He is what makes this cover art so great. Although I actually think AIO Wiki's mockup cover (bottom) makes it look better. It seems to add some needed depth perception, and I hope the official cover will follow suit.

But I don't really get it. Is this a scene from an episode? Or is it merely representative of the album's theme, as in the case of Days to Remember? And who's the kid cannonball-ing into the pool? Is it maybe one of the "old friends" mentioned in the album description?

I'm really looking forward to this album. I'd love to hear your opinions of the cover and the album. Tell me your thoughts in the comments!

Repack Covers and Album 55!

The new covers for both Album 23 and Album 29 have been released! (These ones are actually official [if AIO Wiki can be trusted ;)].) They are a small improvement from the fake ones released before, but I still think those were wonderful! Here they are:




And then here we have the official back cover art for Album 54:



All of these look fabulous! I am continually amazed at Gary Locke's ability to create such quality and yet fun art.

Now for the more exciting part of the post: Information about Album 55! AIO Wiki has put a summary of all that we know about Album 55 (and Album 56) on their "Future" page. The most notable piece of information that I'll include here concerns one of the three-part episodes that we've heard about before:

While The Labyrinth, the episode featuring Jason and Mr. Grote, will remain the same--a three-parter--Sgt. York will not. "This was originally a 3 part episode. However, after editing the voice tracks, the AIO team discovered that the episode is 18 minutes too long. Rather than cut out 18 minutes out of the story, they decided to make it into AIO's first 4-part episode. Because of this, an episode from album 55 will be pushed back to be released in a future album."

Wow!! I have some friends who don't really listen to Odyssey, mainly because of the modern turn it's taken over the last ten years (sometimes featuring snarky and worldly characters); however, I know that they really enjoy the story of Alvin York, so I'm very excited to know that this will be an extended episode about which I will potentially be able to give them a good report. And from what I've heard them tell me about Sgt. York, it should be a very interesting and riveting episode. I can't wait to see how the writers handled it; it has the potential of becoming as much of, if not more of, a favorite than the Jubilee Singers.

Well, I don't know about you, but, minus Album 54, I'm excited about where Odyssey is going in the future, particularly with Album 55. We'd better all stay tuned for what's coming in the days ahead!

More Misinformation

So, it turns out, I was wrong...again...in the information I thought I was relaying from the Odyssey Scoop. Those five album covers I posted the other day are not final; they were created by a fan. I personally think they look wonderful, and AIO should consider using them as the final products. But they aren't official.

Anyway, here's some breaking news: The Blackgaard Chronicles is out today! And there's a special Official Video Podcast to celebrate. It features a "pop-upisode"--A Name, Not a Number, Part I. If you don't remember from the Album 50 videos, a Pop-upisode is an Odyssey episode put to a video with a whole bunch of behind-the-scenes information running throughout it. It should be very interesting.

The word from Jacob Isom (and I'm pretty sure I can trust this information, since he has his own copy) is that The Blackgaard Chronicles features the thirty AIO episodes pertaining to Dr. Blackgaard over 13 hours of audio entertainment on 10 CDs. And just like the Novacom Saga, there's a bonus disc, but in this case, it's a DVD featuring a 30-minute interview with Paul McCusker and Phil Lollar about the creation of Regis Blackgaard. But Jacob argues that the best feature of the new collection may be the brand-new illustrations of Jack Allen, Jason Whittaker, Dr. Blackgaard, Richard Maxwell, and Phillip Glossman!! This alone makes me very badly want to get the set for myself. I so hope this new artwork is released somewhere sometime soon.

One other thing: Just before the pop-upisode starts in the newest video podcast, we see Brock opening the Blackgaard Chronicles package, and behind him there's a dry-erase board that has written on it: "55 Episodes Sgt York The Labyrinth" Could these be the titles of the two three-parters we've heard talk of?! Only time will tell. :D

Thanks for reading! Be sure to tell me what you're thinking about all this new stuff in the comments!

P.S. Here's the back cover for The Blackgaard Chronicles, if you were wondering what episodes are included:

EDIT: There's more breaking news, now that I've watched the Pop-Upisode!!! If you watch the whole thing, almost exactly halfway through, you'll notice that the title of Album 55 has been released! It will be called The Deep End. I was totally not expecting to learn this so soon! Some other special things included within the video were original drafts of The Blackgaard Chronicles' artwork, and original drawings of Dr. Blackgaard. And for those of you who like the Imagination Station series, at the end of the video, you get a peek at the newest book's cover. Also, we get to see new illustrations of Jack Allen and Jason, in addition to the ones already released on Album 23's new cover! This all made the time it took to watch the Pop-Upisode very worth it!

Misinformation

A couple weeks ago when the new cover for Album 29: Signed, Sealed, and Committed was released, I relayed the information on from The Odyssey Scoop that that album, along with every new repack after it, would feature the new AIO logo. It turns out, that was a rumor from CBD that was not true. Album 29, along with all the other new repacks will, as has been reported in the past, feature the older AIO logo. I think this makes much more sense, and I'm glad AIO has chosen to take this route. Sorry for giving bad information.

Oh, and since I'm posting, I may as well post the final products of the repacks for which I've already shown the art (Albums 2, 23, 26, 29, and 34):

I think all of these look wonderful! Even the album 26 cover. The hot pink background actually totally rights the wrong of the weirdness of the art, in my opinion. And all the others look great as well. What are your thoughts? Please comment!

P.S. If you were wondering why, I have no idea why this front page ends with the previous post. I can't figure out what's wrong with the system, so just bear with me until I fix it. You can find older posts by clicking on "Older Posts" or by looking back through the blog archive.

WOW!

I was expecting these soon, because we got one of the five albums shown in the Facebook video a few months ago, but I wasn't expecting them in bulk this soon! Unlike I was thinking, all of these are exactly the same as they were shown in the video, and I think at least three out of the four look really good! Here are albums 2, 23, 26, and 34:



I'm sorry the pictures are so small. For whatever weird reason, Blogger won't let me post big pictures anymore because there's an overflow of information. You'll have to go to AIO Wiki or The Campbell County Connection to see the big versions.

I don't have time right now to give my thoughts on them, so you guys'll have to guess which one I don't like as much. Thanks for reading! I hope you were excited as I was to see these. Please comment!