All posts by Howard Tayler

Announcements, Crossposted

Schlock Mercenary Turns Seventeen

On Monday, June 12th of the year 2000 the very first Schlock Mercenary strip appeared on the web.

Yesterday, Monday, June 12th of the year 2017 marked the seventeenth anniversary of that start date—seventeen years of uninterrupted¹ daily² updates here at schlockmercenary.com.

That I am now in my eighteenth year of doing this stands as evidence of ongoing good fortune. I’ve enjoyed seventeen full years without any sort of debilitating injury or crisis preventing me from working for more than a couple of weeks at a time. I’ve gotten sick and been injured, of course, but I keep getting better with sufficient time to spare.

At some point this streak will end. That point lies in the mists of a hopefully-distant future, and is not today.

Today I am making comics.

(Just as soon as I finish this blog post.)

If you would like to celebrate the beginning of Schlock Mercenary’s eighteenth year, you might consider sharing the strip with a friend. But whatever you do, don’t send them back to the very beginning. That would be cruel. Start here, with Book 12.  Which, by serendipitous convenience³, is the most recent of the Schlock Mercenary stories to appear in print.

How long will Schlock Mercenary continue to run? The over-arching story is in its final act, and will draw to a close soon, probably  in Book 19. But on the day following that big finish there will be another update, and another one the day after that. Those will launch a new story, featuring some characters you know, and a universe you think you know, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There is a satisfactory conclusion coming up, and you can enjoy it secure in the knowledge that it won’t end the delivery of daily strips here at schlockmercenary.com.

¹ There have been service interruptions, of course. Like that time the data center’s UPS failed, and a fire destroyed part of the facility. But Schlock Mercenary has updated every day, and with a bit of back-up hosting has never been unavailable for more than a few hours at a time.

² That’s 6,210 strips. Yes, the image files are backed up in more than one place. 

³ A friend who also happens to be flush with the good fortune of a spot of discretionary income, might purchase that book as a gift. Shared links are lovely, but a thing made out of colorful paper is a thing that will be remembered. 

Crossposted, Reviews

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman was pretty much a perfect movie.

I loved it, Sandra loved it, and we’re both extremely happy that it is a thing  that exists in this timeline.

Does it redeem the clumsy, colorless DC movie franchise? Well, if my ticket purchases for those other movies (the ones with with the altruistic alien, the disturbed rich guy, and the clown-guy’s psychiatrist) helped fund Wonder Woman I have exactly zero regrets, and would spend that time and money again. Twice more, even. But I’m glad I don’t have too, because now I still have that time and money, and can go see Wonder Woman again.

Wonder Woman clears my Threshold of Awesome, and while it doesn’t quite edge GoTG2 out of the top slot, it comes really close. It’s not as if these things matter. I get to live on the timeline where I can enjoy both of them.

Journal

The Kickstarter is Closed

The Game Chief’s Handbrain Kickstarter is closed now. Thank you for backing it! If you missed it, and are now kicking yourself (likely in lieu of kicking us for not getting the word to you sooner) please stop kicking things¹. In a few days we’ll post instructions for anyone who wishes to pre-order screens, but who missed the project.

Hopefully the auto-posting of this alert will be timely (the project closed at 11:30 am Mountain Time.) We’re at the movies right now, devices muted and stowed, enjoying a matinee showing of Wonder Woman².

¹ That sentence was written completely innocently, with zero intent to make a “kick” pun on Kickstarter. This note exists purely to alert you to the fact that we know the pun is there, but it wasn’t deliberate. Sometimes these things just happen.

² My review will appear later today, as will my review for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

Announcements, Crossposted

Last Chance!

Today is the last day you can back this project.

Our Game Chief Screen Kickstarter has funded, and manufacturing will begin sometime early next week. We will make more than we need to fulfill orders, but we might not have the opportunity to make more of these. Running the molding machinery costs around $12k regardless of the size of the run¹, and these are a niche product. We cannot promise that they’ll always be in inventory.

We will ship what’s left of our inventory to GenCon Indy in August, where a great many of the shoppers in this particular niche hang out. It is entirely possible that by the end of that show these quirky, silly, incredibly useful² tools will be forever sold out.

Act now! Like, RIGHT NOW.

¹ Financial note: In 2015 and 2016 we invested roughly $22k in R&D and mold-making. This project isn’t actually paying any of that money back yet. That’s okay, because you’ll be getting your stuff, and we’re happy to have made a cool thing, but the financial prospects for making more of these are stark. Like, Ned Stark.

² Also, incredibly customizable.