Too early? Not if you’re ordering Christmas cards! Pre-orders are open for 5-packs, 10-packs, and individual “Merry XDMas” cards featuring this cartoon on the front, and the XDM Fortune Cookie Magic System on the back. The interior of the card is blank and awaiting personalization… like an invitation to get together for some holiday-themed role-play during the solstice…
There is absolutely no better way to get the gamers back together for the holidays than to send the invitation along with an adventure hook AND a magic system.
We’ll be making the print run early next week, and we’ll order some extras, but if you want to be guaranteed enough cards to send to your gamer friends, please pre-order this weekend. We will have the cards in hand the week of the 16th, and you should receive your order shortly thereafter — in plenty of time to send cards out for Christmas.
(Sorry for the late notice. This was one of those ideas that kind of snuck up on me at the last minute. I only knew I had to do it once I realized that Kringle has been deceiving us for decades.)
First a quick note: We have 40 more Schlock Mercenary ACEO cards from Series One in the store. These are the last of them. There will be a series two, but we’re not launching it until these are gone.
Some of you may have met or heard of John Brown before. He is a local friend and debut novelist who Howard helped interview in two recent episodes of the Writing Excuses podcast: How Not to Repeat Yourself, and Emotion in Fiction with John Brown. If you click the links you can listen to the podcasts right on your computer. They’re worth the time because John knows what he is talking about when it comes to writing.
John is celebrating the release of his first novel by giving away copies of his book Servant of a Dark God. He has kindly offered two copies for us to give away here at Blogunder Schlock. The winner must be willing to provide a mailing address via email. The simplest method for determining who wins these books is for us to draw names out of a hat. There are two ways for you to get your name into the hat.
1. Leave a comment here on this post between now and midnight on Sunday November 8. You will get one entry just for commenting. Only one entry per name even if you make multiple comments. NOTE: The first time you comment after registering, your comment goes into a moderation queue and has to be approved before it will be visible. This dramatically reduces the amount of spam in our blog comments. There is no need to comment again, we’ll see it and put your name in the hat.
2. We are curious to know how many copies of XDM and Schlock books are making it into friendly local gaming stores. If you visit your local gaming store and see our books there, snap a picture. Mail that picture to schlockmercenary@gmail.com and we’ll throw your name into that hat two times. (Yes that is in addition to adding your name for a comment.) If we get some good pics, we’ll be sure to share them.
We appear to be having archive trouble again. This is why we are anxious to get moved over to our new server and site architecture. For now you can check out the RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/SchlockRSS) The right sides of the images are truncated, but you can see them by right clicking and selecting View Image. Sorry for the clunky solution, but at least it lets you read the comic while we’re scrambling to get the archive fixed.
When the Astro-Boy movie first introduced us to “positive blue energy” and “negative red energy” I decided to dumb myself down enough not to care. Unfortunately, this set a precedent. I really wanted to enjoy the film, and I’m afraid that by the end of it I had shed enough I.Q. to grant full sapience to a cage of guinea-pigs.
(No, I didn’t actually go see that movie this summer.)
Drooling idiot that I had become, I was delighted with the film by the end and could find nothing wrong with it. The final battle between the blue-charged Astro-Boy and the red-charged Peacekeeper was heaps of fun, the plot twists at once surprising and chilling, and the moral lessons were both timeless and timely.
I’m not suggesting that you have to be stupid to enjoy this movie, nor that those of you who loved it are lesser minds. Far from it! If you liked this film, you’re smart enough to have installed an I.Q. Attenuator dial on yourself.
If you dial it far enough back you can probably watch television news without wincing.
This Week at the Keep: You can find me most afternoons and some evenings (esp. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday) at Dragon's Keep. Come and watch me draw next month's comics!
My 2009 schedule is full (I'm mostly planning to stay home all year and crank books out.) I don't have anything booked yet for 2010. Are you interested in having me come to your event? Can you plan that far ahead? Here's everything you need to know.
Shop at Amazon via this link from Schlock Mercenary (or the box below), and Amazon gives Howard a cut of the profits at no charge to you -- no matter what you end up buying! We all win!
