Krypton Media Group (KMG) was never meant just to be the parent company of SCIFI.radio, the world’s only full time sci-fi geek culture radio station. It was formed because its founders, Susan Fox and Gene Turnbow, and all their friends, like to create wonderful things and share them with everyone. SCIFI.radio has been working out so well that they figured it’s time to try the Next New Thing.

And here it is.

Mighty Aphrodite! is a new animated web series about the Goddess of Love herself who, after being stranded for two thousand years at a borrowed Temple of Hera, finds herself once again able to access the world of mortals. Much to her surprise, she meets an archeologist named Ben and falls in love!

Her ability to function and survive in the modern world depends on the power of belief of the mortals around her. She’s rescued from oblivion by the love and belief of one man, but Aphrodite quickly learns that not only is she still in great danger, so is the rest of the world. It’s up to Aphrodite and the power of love to save it.

She thinks she’s got everything under control – but she so doesn’t. Despite being thousands of years old, she’s a bit naive about how the world works in the days after the time of the ancient gods and goddesses. Is she up to the challenge? Can she even save herself?

Mighty Aphrodite! is our first project beyond our internationally popular radio station.  The series is more than just another cute cartoon, though. What makes this project groundbreaking is that while it’s fully animated, it makes use of specialized tools that bring the costs way, way down. It’s not exactly machinema, but it’s not done by hand from scratch either. Typical turnaround from script to finished piece is anticipated to be about two to three weeks, yielding a four to five minute episode each time.

A traditional 3D animation studio would require thirty to forty thousand dollars per episode to create something like this. Even using a game engine like Unity or Unreal doesn’t cut costs far enough to make something like what we’re doing possible. Krypton Media’s team can do it for about $300-$400 per episode, or roughly 1% of the normal cost.

We figured nobody would believe we could actually make animation for this small an amount of money, so we made one full episode just to prove we can actually do it. And here is that first episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU-TU6Siz14

Aphrodite and Ben are voiced by Mary R. Bergman-Kridler and Shawn  Crosby, with episodes initially being written and directed by series creator Gene Turnbow, with KMG / SCIFI.radio’s Susan Fox serving in the producer’s role.

Shawn Crosby is the voice of “Ben” in KMG’s new web series “Mighty Aphrodite!” He’s also Shawn “Obi-Shawn” Crosby, who hosts the weekday morning music show here on SCIFI.radio, “Good Morning, Tatooine!”

Gene Turnbow was experimenting with this newly discovered animation tool and suddenly found himself creating new characters and writing dialog for them. It was like eating kettle corn, and the episodes practically wrote themselves.

Aphrodite isn’t a warrior. She’s all about love, and frankly that’s a contagious idea. Not everything has to be full of angst. How many edgy, gritty remakes have we seen? As producer Susan Fox puts it,

“Aphrodite was known as The Heavenly, The Merciful, The Smile-Loving… we need Aphrodite in the world today, now more than ever.”

Voice actor Mary R. Bergman-Kridler provides the voice of the goddess Aphrodite in the new series.

Though Shawn Crosby is a seasoned actor with experience both on and off-camera, this is Mary Bergman-Kridler’s first experience with this kind of performance despite an extensive theatrical background. In a recent Facebook post, she said she was “so excited to be a part of this project!”

The new series, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with the Mira Sorvino / Woody Allen film of 1998. The series title is simply the euphonious extension of the name of the Greek goddess herself.

Additionally, given the family-friendly orientation of Krypton Media, it will also be completely safe for both work and kids and contains no nudity or raunchy language, instead relying on romance, humor, charm and endearing characters for its appeal.

Mighty Aphrodite! is for people who want to fall in love, who are falling in love, or who fondly remember what it was like.

The fact that Mighty Aphrodite! funded as quickly as it did shows the excitement surrounding the project. If stretch goals are met, there will be a full season of 14 episodes. If things go really nuts, there could be more, longer episodes, and even possibly a Mighty Aphrodite! virtual reality experience.

The takeaway here is that it’s just a bunch of fans doing this. This isn’t some giant corporation. It’s just a handful of fans with a dream.

The Kickstarter itself concludes on June 20, so there’s still time to go contribute to it and help the little radio station that could make some transmedia history!

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