A: Greasepunk Paradise is an Intellectual Property (IP) created by John Hanke. It's an alternate Earth timeline that takes place in the 1960s and follows a large cast of characters in a fictitious city called Eden. The intention is to release several forms of content using this IP, including an animated web comic series, traditional comic books, board games, tabletop games, and collectible merchandise.

A: All projects within the Greasepunk Paradise universe are privately funded at the moment. However, we do plan to allow anyone to eventually donate to one or more of our projects.

A: John Hanke personally invests at least $2500 per month to cover all production costs. This includes all art, animation, licensing, voice acting, and audio engineering. Creative Directors receive a monthly retainer on top of the budgeted amount mentioned above, and all other contributors are Work for Hire Freelancers performing paid gig work.

A: Not yet, but we are currently going through the motions to stand up our own official creative studio as a taxable business entity.

A: We pay all voice actors who contribute to our projects. While this is a relatively small operation, we want to compensate all the incredible voice actors who are breathing life into the characters who drive the story in this expansive world. In fact, every single person on our project is a paid contributor. Nobody works for free on our projects.

A: At its core, Greasepunk Paradise is all about conflict between people, which requires a diverse cast of authentic characters. As such, we put significant weight on acting abilities to deliver a grounded performance. The stories told within the Greasepunk Paradise universe are filled with action, suspense, drama, romance, comedy, and tragedy.

A: Early on we used platforms like Voices.com to find voice actors, but the voice acting community embraced us so quickly that we now host an open audition event every year. You can sign up here to be notified when a casting call begins in case you don't follow us on social media.

A: No, but in full disclosure, we used some generative AI in the initial weeks of the project to create basic concepts for the sole purpose of identifying the right comic book artist with the right skills for our vision. Once we found the artist we were looking for (Nicolás Colacitti) we tossed all AI-generated works in the trash. In this way, we used AI as a means to connect and visually communicate with the artist using mood boards, much in the same way artists often use Google to search for existing artworks while exploring for ideas and inspiration. In this manner, our brief use of these tools falls under "Fair Use" for non-commercial research, and any AI generated works were neither distributed nor published outside of private conversations.

A: No. Nicolás is now our Art Director, and any new artists we hire must sign work for hire agreements that ensure no generative AI is used for our projects. We also reciprocate this by adding the NAVA AI Rider directly into all our contracts.

A: Yes. We routinely hire freelancer artists to support our projects in many ways. If you are an experienced artist who digs our vibe and wants to contribute, then consider submitting your information to our Freelancer Directory. We will use that registry to offer paid opportunities to Freelancers with creative or technical skills.

A: Our first release is scheduled for release in early 2026. We will begin with our prologue, which will be released in 4 parts. We are using these initial episodes as a formative exercise to create and improve upon our development processes. For us it's just practice, but for you it's an engaging story to kick off the rest of our series.

A: We use a wide variety of existing platforms and electronic pay methods, including PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, and Wise.

A: Paying freelancers is one of our highest priorities, and we pay invoices immediately as we receive them. We don't assign work unless the funds are ready for payment. You will never have to wait on us to receive payment, and that's our promise.

A: Our YouTube channel is not yet monetized, but our plan is to use AdSense revenue to pay residuals on a per-episode basis. Residual payments are offered to the management team (2 creators, 1 producer, 2 directors), artists, actors, audio engineer, video editor, story writer, and story editor. Tying residuals to each individual episode allows people to receive long-term compensation for their work on our project.

A: Yes we do! Even as an Indie project, we offer a base hazard rate of $600/hour for high-strain performances. We don't see this as a gift or a bonus. Offering hazard pay is our way of paying actors to rest following extremely demanding performances.

A: While we do not offer specific feedback or coaching on individual audition performances, we do allow candidates to "opt in" to receive the score card. This enables voice actors to see how far they got through our process, and can offer hints at what to focus on when auditioning with us next time.

A: Yes! All you need to do is submit an audition with us during our annual casting call. All actors who receive a "meets expectations" score or higher for all categories will automatically be added to our roster to be considered for direct casting or closed auditions. This is our way of acknowledging voice actors who have the "right stuff" to work with us, and all that's left is to find the right role.