Happy New Year!

*sighs* Leave it to me to say I'm going to post on New Years' and forget to do it until more than halfway through the month. And the only reason I remembered is because there was some new news to let you guys know about. And now I can't even find the Wooton New Years' picture I was going to post. *curls up in shame*

But anyways, the AIO Wiki posted some new Gary Locke artwork today! We now have a picture of Penny Wise:

What do you think of it? I think it's pretty accurate. It matches the voice pretty well. I imagined her a little more heavyset, shorter, and without glasses, but hey, Gary Locke and I obviously don't share a mind, so I think it's pretty good. It works.

In other news, the Avery Awards are open, so make sure to go vote in those A.S.A.P. if you haven't yet. I'm not going to take the time to post all of my picks and predictions like I did last year--mainly because I don't have time, but also because Ben Warren at The Changing Times already did that, and I agree with most of what he said.

The AIO Wiki also posted some new info on Album 56 today, including some episode titles, and a little about what will be in the episodes. We'll get to hear a Room of Consequence episode for the first time since Album 41, I believe. It will feature at least an older Barrett and an older Matthew, it seems, so that's definitely something to look forward to.

There's a new episode summary for the episode Mistaken for Good in Album 55. It's about as simple as a summary could get: "Jay Smouse is mistaken for being a good guy." That's all I got for the upcoming season, but I'm sure there'll be more to come soon. We still need the name of the final two-part episode of the much anticipated The Deep End album, so be on the lookout!

Thank you to all of my faithful readers who bear with me...even when I only post once a month. :P Hopefully I can post again soon. And maybe I'll find that picture of Wooton that I said I'd post. Anyway, your comments are greatly appreciated, so say something if you can! Thanks again!

Mr. Jones!

I received my January 2012 issue of Clubhouse Magazine in the mail yesterday afternoon, and in the Adventures in Odyssey section of the magazine, I saw this picture:

Gary Locke has again done an amazing job in putting a face to the voice we hear on the radio. I, for one, think it is an excellent representation of my mind's picture of Mr. Jones. I did imagine him a bit heavier though...

This first issue of 2012 also featured new pictures of Emily and Barrett Jones further on in the magazine:

(Is it just me, or does Barrett have huge feet?)

I hope I'm not violating any copyright issues in posting these pictures. I stated that Gary Locke was the artist behind the new drawings, so I think I should be okay. But if anyone thinks otherwise, please let me know, and I'll take them down.

P.S. If there's anyone who'd be able to offer me some assistance with the technical aspects of the blog, I need some help. The Internet Explorer version of my blog has the entire right sidebar on the bottom of the left sidebar. No matter what I do in the "design" section of blogger, I can't fix it. All the other browsers seem to be fine. But Internet Explorer is what the majority of my viewers use, so I want to try to get it fixed.

Some More Random News

I don't know where FreddyJay got this confirmed, but he told me in the comments that in this picture,



the girl is Priscilla Peterson, the boy with the black hair is Jay Smouse, and the boy with reddish hair is Barrett Jones. Those would probably have been my guesses if I had to guess, and they make sense: Jay is being annoying, Barrett is playing trombone, and Priscilla is with Barrett. :P But I'm not sure how much I like the illustration. I imagined Priscilla with dark hair, Barrett with really short blond hair, and Jay with black hair, but at the same length as Barrett's is in the picture. But I can't complain, because very rarely do the illustrations look just like I pictured them to look. Sometimes the actors end up looking like they sound, but almost never the illustrations.

Plus, FJ told me that he thinks this is just a draft, that it looks to un-polished to be the final cut. I think I agree. The colors and tints don't seem to be as solid as Gary Locke's usual work is. And obviously it doesn't have the border around it yet, so maybe it'll end up looking better with the AIO logo and album title.

In other news, information for The Blackgaard Chronicles is finally out! We were told about this upcoming saga repackage several years ago, and now it's finally coming! This is the description that was posted on AIO Wiki two days ago:

Evil has a name and it's Dr. Regis Blackgaard! The small town of Odyssey will never be the same! When a man named Dr. Regis Blackgaard arrives to build an "amusement house for kids," chaos and danger follow him. A top-secret government computer program is unleashed at Whit's End. Tom Riley's barn burns to the ground. And that's just the beginning of the schemes that Dr. Blackgaard has planned for Odyssey and John Avery Whittaker.

Follow the ever-twisting story in The Blackgaard Chronicles, a collection of thirty episodes following Whit's greatest nemesis. Along the way, the folks in Odyssey learn lessons about God's protection, sacrifice, forgiveness, salvation, and more. Once you start the story with "A Bite of Applesauce," you won't want to stop listening until you hear the dramatic conclusion. The Blackgaard Chronicles contains 30 episodes on 10 CDs. Over 13 hours of entertainment.

I'm wondering what episodes are going to be included in the package. I like all the Blackgaard episodes, and I own all but three of them (the last CD of my Darkness Before Dawn album is missing). Hopefully it will, in addition to the episodes in Darkness Before Dawn and Daring Deeds, Sinister Schemes, include episodes such as Waylaid in the Windy City and A Name, Not a Number. Those are some of my favorite Odyssey episodes. Blackgaard was always one of the best villains, and I'm glad they kept him around for so long, even bringing him back from the dead in Blackgaard's Revenge. :)

I hope I am able to get this set, because, as the Novacom Saga did, I'm sure it's going to have some great bonus features, let alone the fact that you get thirty episodes in one package!

Well, I think that's it for now. Oh! I just remembered. Original Joe just today gave me a link to Gary Locke's blog where he posts all of the artwork he does for all kinds of things, including Focus on the Family's Clubhouse Magazine. You should go check it out! (Alert: If you are not a Republican and/or if you are totally content with and supportive of our current president, you could possibly be offended by some of the artwork. :D)

Also, if you're interested, Brock's been posting lately about his experience with the Duggars when they came to FOTF just this week. It's very interesting, especially if you already know a lot about the Duggars (they're the family with 19 kids that you may have seen on TLC!). You can go to Brock's blog here. (FYI: There's a weird-looking blue boy with no shirt on at the top of the page. Hopefully you're not offended by it. If you are, you can take it up with Brock. ;P)

Thanks for reading! Make sure to come back on Saturday for my review on The Green Ring Conspiracy Part III!

Mystery Image

This picture was posted on the AIO Facebook page a few days ago as a teaser picture. I'm not on Facebook, so I didn't know about it until AIO Wiki posted it the other day. The only clues we are given about what it might be a picture of are the initials RC and VS. Also, as someone else pointed out, you can see the word "Fingerpainting" in the grey rectangle at the top left.

People over at AIO Wiki speculated that since this looks very similar to the Kidsboro Book #3: The Creek War cover, RC and VS might stand for "Ryan Cummings" and "Valerie Swanson". Commenters were saying that there may be a repackaging in store for the book series with Gary Locke illustrations, since this picture definitely appears to be by Gary Locke. Here's the cover for The Creek War:

I've read the book, and I know that in that picture, Alice is driving the sled, Ryan is in the second spot, and Jill is in the third. The characters have the same hair color and positions in the new picture, so I think it is highly probable that this scene is what we're looking at. And the "Fingerpainting" part may just mean that this was a finger painting that Gary Locke had done. From the video we've seen before where he drew Eugene, we know that he uses a touchscreen to do all his painting.

I don't know for sure, but this is definitely going somewhere, and I'll be looking for more news to share should any more come up. Thanks for reading! Please comment!

Awesome Picture!

Here is the picture drawn by Gary Locke from the April edition of Clubhouse Magazine:


A few weeks ago, I had tried to scan it into my computer and post it, but my computer doesn't let me post scanned images on the Internet. :0 This illustration is a play off of the cover of an old Beatles' album: Abbey Road.

Gary Locke did a great job. One thing you can't see with this version of the picture is that Harlow Doyle is looking for clues in the bushes on the left side of Wooton.


At the bottom of the poster, it reads: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"--Romans 10:15. Each character has different things on their feet: Whit--dress shoes, Connie--slippers, Eugene--bare feet (as one of the Beatles in the original picture), and Wooton--roller skates.


Enjoy! Be sure to read my review on "Target of the Week" below!