Blógünder Schlock

As promised here are the details of Howard’s LTUE presentation schedule

Thursday Feb 11
1:00 PM: Talking art
Howard Tayler, Nathan Hale and Bryan Beus will talk about art. Pretty straightforward, right?Bring your questions to ask these two excellent artists (and Howard.)

2:00 PM: The Howard and Bob Show
When Bob suggested to Charlie that he wanted to be on a panel with Howard for a reprise of “The Howard and Bob Show,” Charlie took him a bit too literally. Howard Tayler and Bob Defendi promise to be both entertaining and educational. Beyond that, all bets are off.

6:00 PM: Drawing Wizards
Join Nathan Hale, Brian Hailes, Sarah Seiter, Howard Tayler, and Bobbie Berendson as they discuss and demonstrate a bit of wizardry. Drawing wizards goes way beyond the pointy hats, folks.

Friday Feb 12
9:00 AM: How to become an idea factory: Where to get ideas and how to go from idea to story.
Clint Johnson, Larry Correia, James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, Karen Hoover, and Howard Tayler discuss that most curious commodity, the authorial idea.

7:00 PM: Writing Comics and Webcomics
Learn the particulars of writing for comics with professionals from both the traditional comic book arena and the world of webcomics: Jake Black, Brian Hailes, Howard Tayler, and Emily Sorensen

Saturday Feb 13
9:00 AM: The Future of the Art of Comics
Join this panel of comic creators as they attempt to scry tomorrow’s comic art from the entrails of today’s Wacom tablets, Cintiq monitors, and inexpensive color printing (among other things.)  Emily Sorensen, Brian Hailes, Jake Black, Howard Tayler. (Note: No actual Cintiq entrails will be present.)

1:00 PM: Signing

4:00 PM: Writing Excuses Panel and Podcast Recording
Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler discuss their podcast and record an episode, perhaps with the help of a guest author or two.

5:00 PM: Making a Living as an Artist (2 hours)
This one has a huge list of panelists with a wide variety of experience as working artists. If you’re looking to find work (or make your own) in this field, this panel is a must see. Steven Keele, Kevin Keele, Joshua Keele, Brian Hailes, Jessica Douglas, Sarah Seiter, Nathan Hale, Howard Tayler, Brian Beus, and Sandra Tayler.

And by the end of all that, Howard will be tired. But not too tired to take a Sharpie marker to the inside of your book.

Dear Mister Bezos,

I heard that you got all mad at Macmillan over electronic book pricing, or something like that, and last weekend you made all of Macmillan’s titles disappear from your store. Then I heard they came back, and I thought everything was okay.

But they’re not back, not really. I can only get books by guys like my friends Brandon Sanderson and John Scalzi through third-party sellers. This makes me sad, because you still sell my books, and I used to think it was so awesome that somebody could put my comics in a shopping cart alongside cool-awesome science fiction and fantasy from Tor (a Macmillan imprint.)  I still get a little thrill when I think that maybe some Amazon shopper will open a box with a Robert Jordan book in it, and it will be sitting on top of The Tub of Happiness.

Today I took down all the ads I run for you guys. My fans might think this is a big sacrifice, but I should tell them it’s really not. It’s pizza-money. I’ll still let you sell my books, though. Making you click all those buttons on your big database would just be spiteful. Besides, I figure that’s why it’s taking you so long to get all my friends’ books back in your store — too many database buttons! I guess you should have patented that “one-click” thingy so it works inside your giant fortress!

Anyway, I hope you’re not mad at my friends the authors. They didn’t do anything wrong, I swear. And please let me know when you’re done being mad at Macmillan, and Tor, and the rest of those publisher people. Then I’ll click my database buttons and make your ads come back, and everybody can be happy and be friends and buy stuff from you.

–Howard

ps. those shirts I bought from you were not shiny enough. I’m sending them back.

I blogged about the final round of the easily-spoofed Washington Post poll, and I made a mistake. I mentioned that it was easily spoofed.

This was not meant as encouragement to spoof, but apparently it was taken as such. For this I am sorry.

You see, when I blogged at 9:15pm local time, Schlock Mercenary had around 120 votes. Three hours later Schlock had 211,000. That, for those who are interested in this sort of thing, is more unique IP addresses than hit my own website in the course of an entire month. I don’t for one minute believe that more than 1,000 of those votes are legitimate. And by curious coincidence, during the one minute for which I’m not believing, about another 1,000 votes arrived.

I’m embarrassed and saddened. It’s much more fun to mock an easy-to-rig popularity contest when it’s not one of your own fans doing the rigging. You see, now if tens of thousands of Penny Arcade fans visit the poll (and they will) they will associate “Schlock Mercenary” with dishonesty.

See what you did?

Whoever you are, mister or missus Inappropriate Expressor of Enthusiasm, you are damaging my name with your antics. Worse still, you are making all of the smart, discerning, tastefully dressed, and bewitchingly attractive Schlock Mercenary fans look dingy and disreputable.

Shame on you.

The “Comic Riffs” guys at the Washington Post have done two wise things:

1) They’ve selected Schlock Mercenary as one of their seven finalists, showing taste and discretion.

2) They’ve renamed their easily-spoofed popularity contest “your favorite webcomic of the past decade,” so the losers won’t feel like they’ve missed something historic.

Go vote now! Knock Schlock into first place before anybody notices! (We’ll finish in 6th, regardless. The Schlock Mercenary audience, while discerning, intelligent, and desirable is a small bunch compared to what’s listed there.)

You brought in 10,079 votes last time. That’s enough for me to kill an attorney drone, but only just barely. Honestly, I didn’t think you’d pulled it off until I checked the final count this evening. I hadn’t actually planned on writing attornicide into the Mallcop Command arc, but I am a man of my word. I’ll make it happen in March.

I don’t have a bribe in mind for this last round of voting. Feel free to suggest things.

Last October we announced the Howard Tayler 2010 Appearance Schedule. A few things have changed since then, so it is time to post the new, improved, and updated Howard Tayler 2010 Appearance Schedule.

February 11-13: LTUE, Provo, Utah — This is next week and it is currently the only event Howard is scheduled to attend in Utah. The annual Life The Universe and Everything  Symposium is held on BYU campus. Howard will be attending and presenting all three days. (We’ll be posting a detailed presentation schedule early next week.) Sandra will also be attending and presenting. Her presentation schedule can be found here. LTUE event is FREE to anyone who walks in and asks for a badge. Other notable guests include Brandon Sanderson and ILM wizard Marty Brenneis. LTUE is always packed with excellent writing and artistic advice. It is well worth the trip to attend. (Note this is a symposium, not a convention. Costumes are not allowed on campus.)

April 30-May 2: Penguicon, Troy, Michigan — This event has long been one of Howard’s favorite conventions to attend. He is pleased to return this year as an Artist Guest of Honor. Other GOHs include Spider Robinson and Karl Schroeder. Penguicon combines the best of Sci Fi/ Fantasy Fandom and Linux Geekery. Regular features are ice cream made with liquid nitrogen, sword play demonstrations by Aegis Consulting, and the amazing Chaos Machine. Sandra will be attending with Howard.

May 28-31: Balticon, Baltimore, MD. Howard was delighted to receive an invitation to be a guest of this long running convention. This will be Howard’s one event on the East Coast for 2010. Other guests will include Tanya Huff, Dr. Thomas Holtz Jr., and a host of other excellent panelists and presenters. Howard has not had the privilege to attend this event before, but he expects to have a marvelous time.

August 5-8: GenCon Indy, Indianapolis, Indiana — Howard intends to reprise his attendance at GenCon in 2010. He’ll have a table where he will hang out with Tracy Hickman and Curtis Hickman. There will be yet another action packed Killer Breakfast event and a good time will be had by all. There will also be acres of dealer’s room floor, non-stop gaming, and all the other cool events one expects from GenCon.

The arrangements for DragonCon have fallen through, making an appearance there extremely unlikely. Howard has his eye on AussieCon in Melbourne, Australia, but the travel expenses involved make that event extremely tentative as well.

There will be more specific scheduling details available for each of these events as they draw closer. Some of them may include non-convention related Schlocker meet-ups, or book launch parties. If an event is not listed, then it’s safe to say that you won’t find Howard there. If you want him at a convention near you, contact your local con and tell them to book him for 2011. Book early, we expect his 2011 calendar to fill up by October.

The Mall-One restaurant “Szupa” is a loving tribute to a local place, Café Zupas where I’ve been eating an average of four large salads per week. While I’m sure they have corporate customers who spend more there than I do (they do catering) I don’t think they have many individual customers who can claim that Zupas is three of the four major food groups.

Brief backstory — in 2004 I quit my day-job to be a cartoonist. Shortly thereafter one of my former co-workers, Rob Seely, quit to open a restaurant. I didn’t get around to eating there until almost five years later, much to my chagrin. It’s been delicious the whole time, or so I’m told. And to Rob’s credit, he never once used the word “trendylicious” and none of the salad, soup, or sandwich fixings appear to be made with “genecreated foodsmarts.”

But the Vermont Maple Blueberry salad? Yes, it is practically swimming in a salad dressing that is the product of a torrid love affair between maple syrup and the word “vinaigrette.”  I’ve never been a fan of salad (”that’s what food eats”), but Zupas has converted me. Not to vegetarianism, mind you. I’m now a more flexible omnivore. I’ll eat food, and I’ll eat what my food eats. I’m not sure how much further down the food chain I’m willing to go, though. Water, sometimes. Dirt, only accidentally.

Anyway, here’s a shout-out to all the fine folks at the Plumtree Plaza Zupas in Provo: Matt, Eva, Alex, Anjo, Janni, Sam, Michelle, Beck, Miguel, Alison, Erica, and of course Liz and Tanner and a half dozen people whose names I’ve forgotten — thanks for all the salads.  And the soups and sandwiches too, but mostly the salads. For some reason I just won’t eat a salad prepared by my own hands, even when they’re clean.

Apple announced that their keyless, touch-screen tablet offering will be called the iPad, and the iTampon jokes are flying. This is to be expected, but it does not mean that iPad is a bad name. Not for Apple, it isn’t. Apple can make this work just fine.

Marketing 201: if you’re a small company, your product name will be defined by language. But if you’re a huge company (or a government,) language can be redefined by your product name.

Two recent examples: first, many Greeks objected to the name “Euro” for the European Union’s international currency because in their language it sounded an awful lot like “oúra,” which is their word for urine. (Of course, the abbreviation for “pennies” in the UK has been “p” [pronounced "pee"] for a long time, and nobody accidentally fishes change out of the urinal.) After the initial kerfluffle the confusion just went away. Europe’s currency is the Euro, and that word makes only a very, very few of us think of urine.

Second, the “Wii.” Again with the potty-humor. But Nintendo, while not quite as big as Europe, had the marketing dollars to reshape language. It’s been years since I made jokes about getting carpal tunnel from playing with my Wii. The jokes stopped being funny (assuming they ever started) and besides, now you have to actually think about it to make the connection. “Wii” only means “Nintendo game console” now. Language changed because Nintendo told it to.

And now Apple wants us to call this device of theirs an “iPad.” Guess what? The iTampon jokes are going to stop being funny (again, assuming they ever started) because Apple has the market presence to reshape language. Just like “Pod” now suggests MP3-related technology and services (”podcast,” for starters), “Pad” is going to mean “keyboardless portable notebook computer with a touch-screen.”

Were there women involved in naming this thing “iPad?” I’m sure there were. And I bet that they’ve all taken Marketing 201, and knew exactly what they were doing.

Whether or not the device lives up to the hype is another matter entirely.

And now, the obligatory closing of the loop:

“Waaugh! Somebody get me an iPad! My Wii is getting Euro all over the coffee-table!”

I realized that my previous post may have been insufficiently motivating. I brandished the stick of “maybe you’re not my favorite,” but never waved an actual carrot. Patently unfair to you!

So here is a carrot! Bring me 10,000 votes, and I will kill an attorney drone during the Mallcop Command chapter. That probably means it will happen in February or March.

Should Schlock Mercenary be named Webcomic of the Decade (extremely unlikely, but not beyond the realm of possibility), I will kill ALL of the attorney drones before the end of 2010.

Here is where you click to go vote.

That Washington Post poll for “Best Webcomic of the Decade” is being predictably dominated by comics with readership in the millions. This is, of course, as it should be. If the webcomic that spawned a multi-million dollar charity and a replacement for the E3 Convention can’t sweep the Webcomic of The Decade poll, then this last decade has been a webcomic wash.

That doesn’t mean I voted for Penny Arcade though. Neither did close to 5,000 of you. Apparently 9.5 years of uninterrupted daily updates counts for something. That’s why I’d like to see whether Schlock Mercenary can garner 10,000 votes. That would be about a quarter of my guesstimated daily audience, and that would be darn impressive.

So what are you waiting for? Go vote! And should your conscience get the best of you, should you decide to vote for a comic you like better than Schlock Mercenary, that is acceptable. Just know that if Schlock Mercenary is not your favorite comic, you’re not my favorite fan.

(Unless you buy something. If you buy something, ALL IS FORGIVEN and you are my Favorite Fan and New Best Friend.)

(No, you may not have my cell-phone number.)

I saw Legion today. Boy, where do I begin? Oh, yeah. I know.

1) Book of Eli

2-5) Anything else, really.

6) Again, anything else.

1 jillionty-five) Legion

Spoilers ahead! But I shouldn’t bother warning you, because you’re not going to see this film. Sure, you may think that this movie had a lot of things going for it — Paul Bettany, for starters. Throw in some zombie apocalypse tropes, and then some regular apocalypse tropes. Now add some re-interpreted Judeo-Christian mythology… it could prove to be an interesting film, right?

Wrong.

I shall now endeavor to tell you exactly where this film erred.

Mistake the first — the filmmakers are pitching a film to audiences they apparently don’t understand. Most True Believers will take offense at the concept of a changeable, bitter God. Non-believers will be annoyed by an unseen, unmotivated, cardboard-cut-out antagonist. Atheists will just see the whole thing as a parable for how stupid religion can be. None of these groups are going to love this movie. The idea that God might wipe us all out because we made him mad (again) is an interesting one, but in order to sell it you really have to SELL it.

Mistake the second — somebody forgot to figure out who the Hero is.  See, we’ve got the fallen angel Michael (played by Paul Bettany), and we’ve got the good-hearted, faithful slackwit Jeep (played by Lucas Black), but the Hero should be making us stand up and cheer at some point, maybe by overcoming impossible odds or personal weakness. Michael doesn’t fit this because they never really ratcheted up the pressure. He’s up against ONE angel, not millions. Oh, and he dies. That’s okay… he can be the Mentor character. Unfortunately, that only leaves us with Lucas, who doesn’t fit this because right about the time the odds are impossible, and he’s stretching past his own weakness, Michael comes back from the dead and saves the day. In short, deus ex machina. Lucas gets robbed of his heroic moment, and when Michael returns he’s changed God’s mind so Everything Will Be Okay Now.

Mistake the third: Can God really do no better than B-movie zombie tactics? All He needed to do was kill ONE BABY. He’s GOD, right? People have been blaming him for sudden and unexpected deaths for thousands of years! And even if the mythos of the film didn’t explicitly say that God can’t personally kill babies (note: it didn’t), the film did explicitly credit him for creating the earth. Is a meteor strike too much for the Hands that Shaped the Heavens? It’s a plot-hole the size of, well… all creation.

Mistake the fourth, and this is a grievous one, if perhaps a little bit audience-specific: never, ever name the first guy to get eaten “Howard.” Not if you want me to like the movie. And unless you’re really gunning to be in a jillionty-fifth place, don’t name dead Howard’s snotty wife “Sandra.” That’s right, I went to a movie in which Howard and Sandra die, and die poorly. Not. My. Favorite.

The film did have some redeeming factors. There were a few cool visuals, good performances by several (but not all) of the actors and actresses, and a couple of interesting character arcs. But these factors were, per my tweet from just after the curtain dropped, insufficiently redeeming. Maybe a bad movie that can’t be redeemed by the good to be found in it is the sort of parallelism the filmmakers were shooting for, but that’s giving them too much credit.

So… one jillionty-fifth place. I’ll probably move it up to an actual number long after I’ve barfed, brushed my teeth, and then forgotten about the barfing.