I know everybody is super excited and champing at the bit for Volume 2 announcements. Well guess what! There are none in this post. (But it won’t be much longer!)

A FEW IMPORTANT TIDBITS while you wait:

Regarding the title cloud of Volume 2 submissions. Some folks have become worried because they can’t find their title. Regardless, in all likelihood, we did receive your story. Generating the cloud required wrangling data through four different programs, and some slippage through the cracks is regrettable but inevitable. (I have you covered, though! On the poster version I included a little blank for you to write in your title, if you found that it was accidentally omitted.)

So while I tried my very best, the cloud is unfortunately not one hundred percent comprehensive, and the blame for that falls on me. I apologize! But don’t worry — if your title’s missing, you’re in good company. Here’s another dude whose story title is not in the word cloud:

Who is that? Why it’s only ERIK ZIMMERMAN

FROM ANTARCTICA

Erik, a globetrotting firefighter, had also previously sent us a submission from Afghanistan, which was awesome, but this… this quite frankly fulfills our lifelong dream.

Erik’s story (appropriately titled “FULFILLING A LIFELONG DREAM”) was quite a late submission to MOD2, but we have unanimously voted to amend our submission guidelines to accept all late submissions if they come from Antarctica. Thanks so much, Erik!

Also, it turns out that one of the stories that was submitted earlier got double counted by mistake, so we’re still at 1,958 total submissions. IT ALL WORKS OUT.

NEXT ITEM. Reader C.S. Markle, organizer of the Perth, Australia branch of 24-Hour Comics Day this year, used MOD as his group’s theme! As you may know, 24-Hour Comics Day is when folks undertake the challenge of writing and drawing a complete 24-page comic in 24 hours. C.S. prepared MOD predictions for each participant to use as prompts for their comics!

We think this is a fantastic idea. One of the completed comics has posted online by its author already — you can read the entire thing here, and the author discusses the work in a Reddit thread here.

“FATED” by Kat Zhang

A note about fan art

Lots of folks have expressed interest in creating their own Machine of Death-themed projects of various types, and we couldn’t be more excited to hear it! We’ve been incredibly honored to see folks make films, stage plays, and generate art of all sorts.

Because we get the inquiry a lot, though, it’s probably best to clarify our stance on fan art for the record. Since (most of) the individual stories in the book — as well as the introduction — are covered by a Creative Commons license, you should absolutely feel free to create noncommercial MOD adaptations of your own so long as you follow the guidelines of the license, i.e. provide attribution and release the resulting work under the same or a similar license. You can also feel free to quote from the book’s introduction if you like.

Here is an easy way to do it above board! Just include the following disclaimer:

Inspired by the “Machine of Death” concept created by Ryan North. This independent adaptation was created under the MOD Fan Art License and is not officially affiliated with Machine of Death. For more information, visit machineofdeath.net.

If you choose to release your work under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, we’ll be happy to feature your work on a Fan Art page here on the MOD site — just contact us! Hooray!

I should also clarify that this covers noncommercial adaptations only. School assignments, stuff for fun, blog posts etc. all qualify. If you’re interested in any commercial use of the MOD concept — basically anything that might make a profit — contact us so we can steer you in the right direction. Thanks!