The Origins of Whisper Season
Hey Creature Keepers!
I know some of you have been with us a very long time, and remember when the first Whispers came onto the scene in 2017. But for all the new members, I wanted to share a quick little throwback to the very first Whisper!
The Whisper Creatures were originally created as a special reward for my Patreon supporters (back when still used that platform!) and had nothing to do with Halloween. I started them as a limited edition version of each creature that would be raffled off every month to one Patreon supporter. At the time, I was creating Faerie Research Boxes on Patreon with a monthly themed creature, so the Whisper would be the ‘infected’ version of that months creature. This little Salamander and the watercolor that went with him were sent off to the very first raffle winner and kicked off the mythos of the Whisper Creatures.
In 2019, after the Woolsey fire displaced us and we moved to Virginia, we had the first real Whisper Season, where a handful of artist friends of mine made Whisper Creatures are part of an art trade/collab. That was the first time the Whisper infection left the Menagerie and began to spread to other parts of the US, and infect magical creatures besides just my own.
In 2020, I got a flood of messages from mutual artists on instagram asking if they could participate in Whisper Season this year. I was super flattered that so many people were inspired by my idea, and beyond excited about opening up the Whisper genre to everyone during fall. And thus, Whisper Season was born.
Just to keep things extra fun, I like to make one special Whisper Creature per year to be a giveaway prize at the end of Whisper Season, to go to one randomly selected participating artist. I feel like 2021 is the first year since the inception of Whisper Season that I’ve had my sh*t together enough to actually hype up Whisper Season and referee it as a real event. I hope a lot of people will join in on the fun this year and create their own Whispers before October 31st!