Category Archives: Announcements

Hey, there’s something coming up that I want to tell you about!

Politics: Neither Fun nor Profitable

Schlock Mercenary is, in its heart of hearts, satire. It has always been political, but those messages are delivered in the abstract. It is sociopolitical satire framed in military sci-fi comedy. It invites the reader to laugh as they ask questions, but it does not commit to giving them hard and fast answers.

On rare occasion the blog posts beneath the comic have been a bit more explicitly political. Over the years I’ve determined that political punditry isn’t something I enjoy, and that the people who find it profitable seem to also encourage a widening of the spaces between us, driving both the left and the right to more entertaining¹ extremes. Mostly, then, my blog is about movies and merchandise.

Of late, however, my Twitter feed has been extremely political. This isn’t because I enjoy politics, nor because I’m seeking attention. It’s because important things are happening², and I believe they’re important enough for me to expend a bit of my social capital to boost critical messages. I still tweet the slice-of-life silliness I used to, but the mirth is diluted a bit.

The pattern described above is likely to continue:

  • Schlock Mercenary is going to follow the outline I’ve established for it, and won’t wander off into what would definitely be the weeds for the story I’m telling in order to take specific political positions.
  • The blog below the comic is going to focus mostly on movie review things, merchandising, and the occasional public service announcement.
  • My Twitter feed is going to reflect my personal opinions on matters of the soul, the State, and a scattering of other things. It’s going to remain on the side-bar here at schlockmercenary.com, but you’re neither required nor expected to read it.

Regardless of what is said in any of these spaces, each of them belongs to me. I’m under no obligation, legal or moral, to give equal time to positions other than my own³. I do feel a strong obligation to say things that are true. I aspire to the high levels of journalistic integrity currently demonstrated by people like Farenthold and Tapper, but I’m not a journalist, so I’m much more likely to get things wrong from time to time.


¹ “Entertaining” in the same way that watching a car accident is entertaining. I hold the modern pundit-provocateur in extremely low regard. 

² Political protest appears to be on track to be the American national pastime for 2017, displacing Baseball.

TakeMeOutToTheProtest

³ My personal political positions have changed over the years, and some have flipped nearly 180 degrees. You can peruse howardtayler.com/blog if you’d like (not everything there cross-posts to schlockmercenary.com) but only the most current stuff is going paint an accurate reflection of what I think.

 

Shopping Schlock Mercenary for the Holidays

From time to time people ask us: “what’s the best way to support Schlock Mercenary?” Here are some answers!

Shop at Amazon with the Schlock Link

Just click on this link before beginning your Amazon.com shopping trip, and we’ll get a small portion of what you spend.

Shop With Us Directly

We’ve got plenty of merchandise for your consideration:

70momem-adv-pristine-onwetproofs2Pre-Order Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries and/or the Planet Mercenary RPG

This link will take you to Backerkit, where you can pre-order Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries in defaced and/or pristine versions², as well as the Planet Mercenary tabletop role-playing game.

Share the comic with a friend

Do you know people who might enjoy reading Schlock Mercenary? The archives are oppressively deep, but there are good starting points³ at the beginning of books 10, 11, and 12. You might even start them at book 15. If they decide they want to go back to the beginning, they totally can.


¹Sandra wrote two children’s books, which were illustrated by Angela Call. They’re beautiful, and make great gifts.

²The pristine version has scholarly annotations under the maxims, and lots of white space. The non-pristine version has handwritten notes from both Tagons, Murtaugh, and Schlock in the margins. The pristine version is pictured atop the wet proofs for pages from the non-pristine version.

³Seriously, don’t start people at the beginning. Just don’t.

Pre-Orders for Maxim 70 Coins

You may now pre-order the Maxim 70 coin. We expect to be able to ship these out during the second week of November.

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“Maxim 70: Failure is not an option. It is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.”

They are $10.00 each, and should make excellent gifts. Award one to someone¹ whose persistence you admire, or to someone who needs a leg up over a recent failure. Or perhaps you might carry one in your own pocket as a tactile reminder of your own passion for standing back up after having been knocked down.

Our first run of these is limited to 500. The Schlock Patreon supporters got a head-start, and we’re down to 250 as of this writing. We’ll order another 500 if it looks like we’re going to sell out, and if that happens this week we should take delivery of the second order in plenty of time to ship everything in time for Christmas. There’s no difference between the two runs, and we’re not numbering the coins.


¹The practice of awarding a coin to someone who has performed a service, or has otherwise acted in a notable manner, is about 75 years old. We’ve chronicled a bit of that in this free PDF: An Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins, which was funded by our Kickstarter backers in 2013.

 

Coin Pre-orders Opening Soon

We’ve been wanting to make some new challenge coins for a while now. Our hope is to have at least two designs done, die-struck, and delivered in time for Christmas.

This is the first one. It’ll be simple struck brass, with an antique gold finish. No colors, no resin domes, just metal.

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I love all the coins we’ve made, but this design really speaks to me. I look forward to having this in my pocket, serving as a reminder that I’m allowed to make mistakes.

The second coin we’ve planned is the Bristlecone ship coin, similar in design to the previous ship coins we’ve done. It’s not done yet, so no pictures.

Watch this space. Pre-orders will open soon, perhaps as early as next week. The coins will be $10 each, plus shipping.