Saying Goodbye to Young Leif

Hello Everyone,

Hitting your feed on Tuesday will be the last episode of Young Leif. We're a bit sad, honestly. It was that all-too-familiar feeling of something ending right when you really figured out how to do it. This was our first (though probably not our last) attempt at telling a story in the world of Midnight Burger without the diner being the focus and, for me at least, it was a wonderful experience.

It was also our first time reaching entirely outside our core group of actors. Midnight Burger began with me reaching out to old friends of mine and Young Leif was much more about reaching out to this new community of audio drama creators that we had become a part of. A lot of the cast members of Young Leif are actually audio drama creators themselves. Evan Gulock (Leif) is the co-creator of Death by Dying, Lauren Grace Thompson (BertBert) is the co-creator of Faux & Stallion, Cat Blackard (Verge) is the creator of The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program, and Mark Healy (Darren) is the creator of The Strata. The casts’ contribution to Young Leif, from Evan’s vibe to Lauren’s comic timing, to Cat’s alluring and dangerous “Themme Fatale”, to Neal Starbird’s hilarious take on “Dez”, to Finlay’s trash talking Alice, the show truly became greater than the sum of its parts and I can’t thank them all enough.

Danny

One of the distinct joys of making Midnight Burger has been the ocean of fan art that is being created by the community. Creating fan art is not just a fun thing for us to see as we work hard on the show, it’s a tool for building community. Sharing fan art fosters connections with like-minded people and builds a sense of belonging within a community. It's a way to celebrate fandom, interpret characters and settings the way you see them, and find escape in creation. Fan art is a channel for personal expression, inspiration, and the joy of contributing to a shared love for that weird thing that you’re weirdly into. A great example of this during Young Leif has been Danny, whose art you’ve been seeing in many of these newsletters, including this one. Danny found infinite inspiration in Leif and I think we all benefitted from it.

We’re blessed to have so many people making so much amazing art, but here at the end of Young Leif we wanted to send out a special thank you to Danny, who brought so much color to the world of Leif. Here’s a fun animatic Danny delighted our subscriber Discord with the other day:

Our Dear Friends Freescha

A big part of the feel of Young Leif was the music of our dear friends Freescha. I’ve always considered myself a misanthropic person, and yet a big part of the success of Young Leif and Midnight Burger has been the fact that I somehow know a lot of very talented people. Freescha just happens to be Nick and Mike, two people I went to high school with, and when I began putting Young Leif together I knew I was going to have to write that begging email trying to get them to let me use their music, because it was just too damn perfect. If you haven’t checked them out yet and are in need of some weird space feels, do check them out. Embedded below is the album of theirs that I used throughout Young Leif, but there’s much more to explore from Freescha.

The Non-Goodbye Goodbye.

So, what happens next? We’ve met a lot of interesting supporting characters through our three seasons of Midnight Burger, which ones would you like to see us build a mini-series around? Let me know by commenting on this email, yelling at us on some sort of social media platform or emailing us directly at weopenatsix@gmail.com. Every time the diner touches down it finds itself in a potential mini-series, so there a LOT to choose from.

Calling this a "goodbye" feels a bit too final to me. We're certainly not done with the character of Leif in the twisting and turning story of Midnight Burger, and I would be surprised if we didn't see BertBert, Verge, and the rest again somehow. But for now, this is goodbye. Thanks for being supportive of this new direction in the world that we're creating, and as always, thank you all for your amazing support.

Final episode tomorrow! We hope you like it.

We're out there, somewhere, lookin' for ya'.

-Joe

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