This evening I did a quick-and-dirty computation of the amount of work I need to get done between now and the evening of the 23rd when I leave for Worldcon. I’m fast approaching my print deadlines for Schlock Mercenary: The Blackness Between, you see…

For reference, when I say “row” I mean “one row of comics taken through one of the four steps of creation.” This means that pencilling a row equals “one row of work.” By this standard, each week of Schlock on the web takes 36 rows of work.

So… In the next 14 work-days available to me (excluding Sundays, but including everything else) I need to do the following:

Script, pencil, ink, and color three weeks of Schlock for the web. That’s 36 rows times three, or 108 rows.
Script, pencil, ink, and color up to six more pages of Bonus Strips for the book – I’ve scripted, pencilled and inked two pages already. Plus I need to color those two inked pages. At four rows a page, that’s 6*(4*4) + 8, or 104.

14 days. 212 rows. 15.14 rows per day. Or 16 rows for two days, and 15 rows for 12.

Today I pencilled and inked 8 Bonus Strips, which means 16 rows. So today I worked hard enough.

Yes, I have a contingency plan for “failure to get enough done.” I don’t like it.

I just reviewed some of the images from the beginning of Schlock Mercenary: The Blackness Between. Again, we’re doing “Sunday” style coloring on all images in the book, rather than just on Sundays. I had to finish the coloring on about 25 images, and now that it’s done all I need to do is finish up the bonus story.

(And the cover. And the margin materials, including re-scanning old sketches, throwing in some new ones, and writing new footnotes.)
(All before September 15th, if at all possible.)

Anyway, in reviewing the work I’ve done so far I got sucked into reading the beginning of the book. It’s going to be a darn good book. I wrote it, yet somehow I managed to make myself laugh. It’s probably going to be about 20 pages longer than the first one, with more action and (pending me finishing it) a bigger, more violent bonus story. I’m excited.

–Howard

I don’t have an Introduction lined up for the next Schlock book.

I know a dozen or so people who would be willing and able to write one.

This begs the question… are there MORE people, willing, able, and (he asks selfishly) famous who I could be hitting up?

My only requirements for famous intro-writers are that they 1) must read the strip, and 2) must be able to write a nice introduction sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Suggestions?

(Note: I haven’t actually asked anybody yet. Mike, Ryk, Eric, and Jay… you’re all on the short list, but I haven’t tapped anybody yet.)

(And now it occurs to me… Jay Maynard, Tron-guy and Xinchub cosplayer might write the PERFECT introduction for the book, provided we could include a picture or two.)

Cool meme, via kinkyturtle. The map, complete with a color-key, is behind the cut. The Cut