Upcoming Whisperforge audio drama, StarTripper!!, aims to lighten up fiction

There’s been a trend in recent media that feels pervasive. Stories, regardless of subject, are determined to be gritty, rooted in real-world struggles and hammered in by intense drama. Whisperforge’s Julian Mundy (a writer on the recently featured ars PARADOXICA) has set out to make sure this doesn’t happen in the world of audio dramas, though. With his upcoming sci-fi adventure podcast, StarTripper!!, Mundy looks for a return to optimistic, humanistic stories.

“[Startripper!! Is] a sci-fi adventure podcast about alien file clerk,” Mundy said to explain his upcoming show. “He’s just sort of a menial office worker and one day he has this realization after a bad weekend crunch, he’s just fed up and he decides to sell all of his stuff just by a spaceship that he is basically taking from his favorite Flash Gordon type character—but that show was meticulously researched, and he’s very adamant on letting people know that point. He just decides, go and have, you know, the time of his life.”

In speaking with Mundy, it was clear he has a frustration with the direction of some recent takes on pop culture franchises. Mundy brought up the recent Suicide Squad film as an example that does its characters wrong and does a disservice to its viewers: “I have read the Suicide Squad comics, and I think that Gail Simone has done a phenomenal job with those characters and they’re a joy to be around. And the Squad that we got in the movie was a bunch of assholes, and I can’t look at that without feeling betrayed—not just betrayed in terms of like, oh, I’m a fanboy, I deserve better. The characters deserve better.” Mundy touched on how certain characters were introduced just to be immediately, coldheartedly killed off, saying, “I don’t look at the disposability of characters as a virtue, because people are not disposable.”

With StarTripper!!, Mundy plans to subvert these trends. StarTripper!! will be a podcast that people can go to for escapism and fun, where they can always find something different from episode to episode. Unlike many audio dramas, StarTripper!! will be somewhere between serialized and episodic. Listeners will be able to jump in and out of listening without having to worry about missing too much of the plot, and episodes will vary in genre. “I’ve rambled at you a lot about the warm and fuzzies that I hope to instill in everybody when they listen to this show,” Mundy said, “but really what I want to touch on about StarTripper!! is that this is a show that’s going to be intentionally free to be whatever it wants to be. So there are going to be some funny episodes. There might be some scary episodes, there might be a couple episodes where not very much happens at all, and I won’t spoil anything , but these are all things that I’ve considered and I think that it’s all part of the package—you know, this is all part of the trip.”

Mundy is no novice to emotionally gripping stories, though. With his work on ars PARADOXICA, Mundy has run the gamut of emotions in storytelling. Some of his episodes include the bonus “ODAR & You!”, an in-universe training document for new recruits to the ominous government agency driving much of the podcast’s plot—but also “9: Decay,” the first episode in which the listeners hear the protagonist have an authentic emotional response to the sharp turns her life has taken.

“I’m always a fan of contrast,” Mundy explained. “I’ve written scripts over the years that have gone to some darker places to some more emotional extremes, and I don’t like to shy away from those because those were the most, the meatiest scenes and the scenes where the most happens. Um, but I, I love shows recently Penny Dreadful, which has this beautiful poetic tone about everything. All of [its] characters are, um not just these monstrous characters; they are also so there for each other. I don’t like seeing friendships get tense or break apart, although that is so much of where the drama comes from.”

One of the most exciting things about StarTripper!!’s announcement has been the casting of audio drama veteran Ian McQuown as the protagonist, Feston. McQuown is known best for his roles as Agent Green in The Bright Sessions and Trip in Deck the Halls with Matrimony, but has appeared in countless other podcasts in smaller roles. McQuown’s roles have been diverse, but when I asked Mundy about what new side of him listeners might find as Feston, Mundy laughed.

“That, that is a question. Um, well, uh, I’ll put it this way to start, um, hard to contain is how I would put it. Uh, it’s, it’s fantastic because he really is exactly the sort of a Feston that we want, because he’s a very physical actor. The best voice actors really kind of fling themselves into it, but also [their] head never moves from the microphone [. . .] I think that he is bringing all of that kind of wide eyed energy to the character.”

StarTripper!! will also be the debut for actress Giselle de Silva playing Proxy, the AI system built into Feston’s ship. “She is doing a phenomenal job. This is her first voice acting gigs. She is still currently a student and we just kind of met her through, you know, random chance [. . .]  Now our two principal actors have met and they now know what is going on with the other, I think that the relationship is going to become this really great organic thing.”

In discussing StarTripper!!, I’ve heard the project called everything from “extremely ambitious” to “super bizarre.” The concept and genre-bending nature are novel and exciting for the audio drama medium, but Mundy is excited to bring his vision to listeners. “I just want to write the show that I want to see, really. That’s kind of a principle that was instilled in me fairly early on in my creative arc as a person—that if you can just trust your own taste in something and believe that maybe you’re not crazy, that someone else [would, too]. You can rest on that idea of just making the show that you want to see and then taking it as far as you are comfortable taking it.”

StarTripper!! is set to premier this Summer, with the first two episodes released on June 2^nd. For updates, you can find StarTripper!! on Twitter or check the Whisperforge website.