Schlock Mercenary

Minter, Printer, and Nuclear Winter

Good news, all the way around. I know, I know... "nuclear winter" doesn't sound like good news, but it is. I'll get to that last.

Minter: I spoke to our manufacturing rep early last week, and the production of Schlock Mercenary challenge coins is on track. They're being struck in brass, electro-plated, enameled, and epoxy-domed as I write this, and all 30,000 coins are due to ship from the factory on May 20th. UPS will, in theory, deliver these to my door on May 22nd, the same day I leave for Phoenix Comic-Con. Will I have samples of all the coins at that event? MAYBE. But when I get back, roughly a ton of carefully-configured brass, enamel, epoxy, and packing materials will be waiting for me to hahaha, no. They won't be waiting for ME to do anything. I shall stand back and let Sandra, her trusted lieutenants, and perhaps a few minions begin the shipping process. My job? Feed the children, make more comics. 

Printer: The ninth book in the Schlock Mercenary series, The Body Politic, went off to the printer late last week. Sandra replaced a couple of corrupt files just this morning, and that project is tentatively scheduled to arrive at our door in late July. We'll open pre-orders in late June. This book has lots of bonus material in it, but it does not have a full bonus story like the others. Why not? I shall be frank: the story I was working on turned out to be boring.

So instead of fleshing out the universe with twelve pages of pictures wrapped around a low-stakes, who-cares kind of plot, I fleshed out the universe with a bunch of fresh, hilarious, science-filled footnotes. Do you want to know how Boomex compares to Composition Four? Do you wonder how grey goo and zombie plagues impacted human politics? Are you interested in flying a kite on Mahuitalotu? This is the book for you. There's more, too, but I'll make the full pitch when we open pre-orders.

Nuclear Winter: The doctor called me 30 minutes ago to give me some good news. The clostridium difficile, whose aliases include "c.diff" and "CDI," has been completely cleared from my poor, beleaguered intestinal tract. Right now Whoville (as I lovingly refer to the colonies of biota that live in my gut and help me digest things) is a nuclear wasteland, and I've been throwing back Yakult, Goodbelly, two brands of Kefir, and pretty much anything else I can choke down that says "active cultures" on it. I counted -- there are 28 different strains of lactobacillus, acidophilus, and other tiny yoppers moving back into Whoville, but conditions down there have been pretty hostile until very recently. I'm on the mend, but food doesn't yet work for me the way it used to. Still, every day is better than the last. This week I may have strength enough to make it back to the gym.

Last week, low-blood-sugar notwithstanding, I cranked out two weeks of comics, polished off the last image and text edits for The Body Politic, and did a day and a half of conference attending. So, you know, I can't really be THAT sick. Sure, I go a little light-headed trying to run up a flight of stairs, but sit me down with a stack of scripts, and I can still draw. In fact, sit me down with a stack of scripts and you have to work pretty hard to get me to NOT draw. It's this thing that I would do anyway.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 is my new favorite movie of the year. I had a blast at the 9pm show last night, and I'm seeing the film again tonight with my friend Alan (who has ALSO seen the film already.) Iron Man 3 is now my favorite of the Iron Man franchise (excluding The Avengers, which I probably shouldn't since a solid "Hollywood Formula" analysis shows that Tony Stark was the protagonist in that film.)

From my Twitter feed last night:

Iron Man 1 was Iron Man vs Bigger, Dumber Iron Man. Iron Man 2 was Iron Man vs Iron Catgirl-Man & the Iron Bumblebees. Iron Man 3 rocked.

— Howard Tayler (@howardtayler) May 3, 2013

Had I more than 140 characters to work with I could have said more about what made Iron Man 3 so much fun, but I don't want to spoil it for anybody. Going in I was concerned that the trailers might have spoiled the film for me, but my fears proved groundless. Their trailer-fu was good -- they got me into the seat, but they didn't telegraph the good stuff. Of course, if you haven't seen any trailers the film could be extra-awesome for you. Just go plant your backside in a seat and enjoy the ride.

Mad Props to Jeff Zugale

On Tuesday, April 16th I was supposed to meet with Travis Walton (our colorist) to talk about upcoming projects. It was going to be a fun time over food in which some of the financial support you've shown Schlock Mercenary recently could be applied to making new and better things.

Have you ever been waiting for somebody to arrive, and they don't, and you are frustrated, and then worried, and hope they're okay, and then it turns out they ARE okay and this was just a misunderstanding, they're at the wrong restaurant? That was how I expected this to turn out. Pretty surreal to have it go the other direction. Travis was in the emergency room getting stitched up from a car accident.

Well, piling on the mirth, that same Tuesday night I visited the ER on my own account because the fever and cramps didn't make sense, the nice doctor diagnosed me with a pretty scary bacterial infection, clostridium dificile, which I'm still fighting two weeks later. I'm not bedridden, but this has been similar to walking pneumonia in the way it wipes me out. The result is that I can't pick up the slack from Travis, and can barely get my own stuff done in a timely manner.

Enter Jeff Zugale, who has taken up the Schlock Mercenary coloring mantle for a couple of weeks. If you haven't noticed, that's because Jeff is just that good. His job is to make it seamless, so that Travis can get well. I'm still paying Travis the same as I would if he were doing this coloring, but I'm also paying Jeff to get the work done. You folks didn't drop six figures on me so that I can be stingy, and I'm certainly not allowed to be a jerk. 

Jeff colored today's strips, as well as everything that airs this week and next. He did great work, and he did it at a time when he was no less busy than any of the rest of us, but just happened to be healthy enough to carry the extra load. Thank you, Jeff! You should check out his other work at Not Invented Here, and if you're hiring in the video game space, Jeff is totally your guy. He can deliver.