Update 11: Pintele’s Progress

Things seem to be moving along nicely here in Pintele-land, after a long period of little progress (despite constant effort). Part Three, “A Very Brody Passover,” is now in the same almost-finished state that Parts One and Two were in for so long; and Part Four, “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet,” is not far behind.

I’m planning to rerecord the narration for Part Four, but recording and placing a new narration track should only take me a couple of days, maybe next weekend; the episode is otherwise edited, scored, and in solid shape. Parts Three and Four have come together much more quickly than One and Two, which might mean I’m getting better at producing Pintele episodes, and I’ll finally be really good at it when there are no more left to produce.

Let’s not get hysterical, but if the first four chapters are almost finished — that’s more than half the series!

Looking ahead, the script for Part Five, “The Old Jewish Man of Unity,” is newly revised and ready to record. (And the most complicated part of it, a ten-minute fantasy sequence which comes at the end of the episode, is already recorded and edited.) Maybe I can get the Part Five narration recorded the weekend after next, then edit the episode evenings after work — and get to the end of September with only Parts Six and Seven left to produce.

Even if I meet that goal, there’s a lot to do. Some early feedback on the first two episodes has suggested a few minor rewrites of specific passages. I still have to write and illustrate one section of The Pintele Haggadah; that side project is mostly done but will still require a weekend or two of effort to cross the finish line. And Parts Six and Seven are no small hurdle; I would describe them as particularly challenging, except for the fact that every part of Pintele is particularly challenging.

Episode graphics — works in progress

But I think I’ll be finished with this by the end of the year.

Take me with a grain of salt; when I first started telling you about this project, I said I’d be ready to release the first episode sometime around April of 2025! (What a schmuck!) So what I’m saying now is that, best case scenario, I’ll deliver this project nine months later than originally intended. I hope it’s no more than that. I really am anxious to finish this work and share it with you, though of course I’m also anxious to make it as good as I possibly can.

While the wait for Pintele continues, you won’t have to wait long at all for the first Pintele trailer — and the trailer, unlike the series, has video as well as audio. It’s about two-and-a-half minutes long, and it includes several short excerpts from the series, and you’ll see it this month.

To close with something completely meaningless, but fascinating to me: Thus far, I’ve been referring to these “episodes” casually as chapters and formally as Parts, notated with the series title in italics or caps, the episode titles in quotes, and my usual preference for words over numerals: e.g., Pintele Part One, “Straight Outta Anatevka” and Pintele Part Six, “Tyrants Disappearing.” But I’m starting to rethink this. While working on designs for the seven episode-specific graphics, I’ve found that using large numerals helps convey the nature of the series — it’s like a boxed set of little books that are thematically linked. Also, in some ways Pintele feels like a magazine, with seven issues, each a collection of articles. Recently I was reading about the proliferation of independent literary magazines in New York in the 1920s, and I found it charming that issues of these magazines were often referred to simply by the magazine’s title followed by a numeral: Pagany 3 or Exile 2, for example, rather than Pagany #3 or “the second issue of Exile.” So, starting with the next update, I might use Pintele 1, Pintele 2, and so on as shorthand for referring to episodes; and I might think of an episode title as Pintele 4: You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet rather than Pintele, Part Four: “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet,” even though the narration in each episode does say, “Part One,” “Part Two,” and so on.

I’m telling you, I might do it!