This morning I sat down to sketch out the project plan for the next Schlock Mercenary Book, Schlock Mercenary: The Blackness Between.

The story runs from August 24th of 2003 through March 14th of 2004, which is 29 weeks plus a Sunday. That’s 88 three-row pages, which will require something like 45 sketches, margin bits, or new footnotes in addition to the 15 footnotes already running during that story. With the introduction and sketch page, it’s a 90-page book before I add the bonus story or any other materials.

100 is a nice round number. It looks like this book will be a full 20 pages longer than Book I. I’m okay with that, provided I’m not “padding” to hit the number.

I’ve got about 20 rows of comics from February and March of 2004 that will need to be recolored, I need to create the cover art, and obviously I have to create the bonus story and other materials. I’ll be doing the principal layout myself, and probably having Steve Troop tweak it for me when we approach our print deadline.

All that, plus feeding the buffer, is how I’ll be spending my summer. Those of you who bought books have paid my wages for at least that long. I may have a quick family vacation, and there’s Comic-Con to attend, but other than that, I’ll be a busy guy.

–Howard

… you can now place regular orders here. We’ve ironed most of the kinks out of this mailing thing, so the (few, but still annoying) cases of bent books should be a thing of the past.

Don’t keep Sandra TOO busy with mailings, or she’ll neglect to nag me to get to work on Book II.

–Howard

I don’t say enough about how wonderful Sandra is. It’s not just that she’s smart, funny, beautiful, and the mother of my children… she’s also the best mother I have ever met — better than her own, and way better than mine.

Recently she’s been posting about kid-management stuff (sandratayler), and I have been brought again to realize that she is brilliantly adept when it comes to discerning what our children need, what they mean when they talk/sulk/scream/mumble, and how to balance their needs against her own.

I love you, Sandra. And hey, look! It’s not even our anniversary, or your birthday, or Mothers’ day, or anything like that. It’s just today, one more day in a happy chain of thousands. Thank you for all of them.

–Howard

I just took three naps. I announced my intention to lie down at around 9:55 this morning. At about 11:15 I was awake again, but still exhausted and feeling sick. So I took a quick shower (I shouldn’t have put that off this morning) and then took a second nap. At 12:25 I got up, wandered around in circles for a bit, took some vitamin C, and went back to bed. I woke up again at around 2:00pm, and decided to make lunch.

I’m feeling a lot better now, except for the part where most of the day is already gone and all I got done was some coloring between 8:25am and 8:45am. Sandra says I should put “convention recuperation” on my list of things to do. I may list each nap individually, just so I can check them off.

–Howard