Basic Training: the Acid Test

Stay Away From BloodRayne
Saturday, January 7th, 2006

I originally posted this review in full over at howardtayler.livejournal.com, but it deserves wider exposure. Yes, I went to see BloodRayne with my friend Shaggy (who happens to own the finest comics and games shop in Utah Valley). Yes, we expected it to be a rotten movie. No, neither of us expected it to be as bad as it ended up being. I'm not upset at myself for seeing it -- I saw it so that you don't have to. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I'd be doing a good deed.

So let's start with my instructions to you: no matter how enticing I may make this film sound, do NOT spend money on it. Don't see it in the theater, and don't rent it. Buying the DVD would be a crime against humanity. For that matter, don't bother seeing it for FREE, either. Spending your TIME on this film is a crime against your employer, your family, and the Baby New Year. You would be better off using an hour and thirty-four minutes eating junk food and watching Weather Channel repeats you've accidentally TIVO'd.

I'm serious. If I find out that you went and saw this film after I told you not to, I'll phone your friends up and tell them to go to your house and pour ants in your bed. And when you wake up screaming, covered in ants, you'll think "at least I'm not still watching BloodRayne."

(Click here to read the complete the review, and to see the LJ user comments.)

I'm not trying to tear this movie a new anal orifice. I assure you, the film already has SEVERAL, and it defecates simultaneously through all of them. You don't want to get any of this on you.

The best possible thing now would be for BloodRayne to fail so profoundly and so expensively that Uwe Boll (who, as executive producer, is the only person on the planet stupid enough to hire himself to direct) is forced out of the film business before he can contaminate anybody else's intellectual property, whether as producer, director, or the 3rd-unit gaffer's poo-flinging donut-monkey.

Basic Training: the Acid Test
Saturday, January 7th, 2006

Lots of you have emailed me or otherwise posted to say that you liked Schlock Mercenary Basic Training. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not brand new readers will like it.

Got some spare cycles on your hands? Round up a friend who doesn't read Schlock Mercenary, and dump them into Basic Training. Then have them report back to you and tell you how they liked it. Then you can report back to ME and give me your results. If the pages need tweaking, if the text is too back-storyish or not peppy enough, if the pictures aren't engaging, or, in short, if there are PROBLEMS, you folks will find them for me, and then I can fix them.

And fix them I will. It's important to me. I want this strip to be accessible.

Schlock Mercenary Basic Training
Friday, January 6th, 2006

If today is your first day reading Schlock Mercenary, you're in luck. Everybody ELSE who reads this strip had to slog through 1000 strips' worth of back-story in order to get caught up to the beginning of "Book I," but you, you lucky dawg, get the chance to fast-track it with Schlock Mercenary Basic Training. In just six short pages you'll meet the key characters, learn what makes them tick, and figure out everything you needed to know in order to begin the story from the 1001st strip.

"Why," you ask, "do I want to begin from the 1001st strip.?"

"Because the artwork sucks a lot harder for the first 1000 strips than it does for the second 1000, that's why."

The first Schlock Mercenary compilation will begin with the 1001st strip. If it didn't, children might pick the book up and expose themselves to my early artwork. The thought of those virgin eyes running with bloody tears makes my heart stop. Really, it does. Besides, the books wouldn't sell very well.

So there you go. The barracks are filling up for Schlock Mercenary Basic Training, but since they're VIRTUAL barracks, there's always plenty of room. And I promise that there will be no PT required.

(I know, I know... it hardly qualifies as Basic without PT, but I'm trying to raise an army on the cheap here. I can't afford to be discouraging the recruits. Pipe down, you, or I might just start asking for push-ups.)

Looking for previous blogs?
Here are links to the The $100 Christmas Report and Evolution, Intelligent Design, and Me.