Schlock on Wired: It’s Number One! And It’s Bad For Kids!
Posted August 18th, 2008 by Howard TaylerI’m thrilled to see Schlock Mercenary listed at #1 on the recent Wired Blog Network post about webcomics. Unfortunately the entry is entitled “Ten Great Webcomics You Should Not Share With Your Kids,” which kind of undermines my whole “family-friendly” claim.
Oh well. These stories can’t be told without depicting at least some violence, and while the comic may appear to be glorifying violence (okay, it IS) there are also important moral lessons to be found.
I’m sure they’re in here somewhere.
Thanks go out to my GeekDad fans Patrick Orndorff and Brian Little for the free publicity and the kind words. If you gents are keeping your kids away from Schlock Mercenary you’re better parents than I am…
Explore posts in the same categories: Reviews, Home & Family, Humor
August 18th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I’m guessing you’d be even more thrilled if they’d spelled your name right.
And only in America (or possibly some war-torn hellhole) could you possibly think something as violent as Schlock would be considered family-friendly. SFW, sure, but not family-friendly.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
“And only in America…” Heh, I find that statement as about as chauvinistic as possible. I’m sure I could make make plenty of inferences like “Only in Europe…” etc that portrays wherever you are from in an unfavorable light. Maybe later on my blog, where I can badly, but not here.
Besides, Howard already, for all intensive purposes, admitted that Schlock isn’t family friendly.
On another note, I already read half that list, but I found #7 to be questionable; when I last read it, I thought it had become absolute drek, and from links from friends it hadn’t gotten any better. Maybe it has improved in the past year, but I have no inclination of finding out.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Well, Quake 3 Arena probably isn’t considered family friendly either, but myself and my children love blowing the **** out of each other! And If I let them read Shlock, I’m sure they would be telling their friends.
However, I restrict access to the net for them, especially now that school has started.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Of the list at Wired I read #1, #3, #5, #9, and #10.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Well it’s kinda ironic that the “family friendly” discussion comes up the day Ebby’s walking around with his spinal cord sticking out…ewww…
August 18th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Drat, I guess I’ll forbid my 9 y/o son from reading you now.
Not.
Only in a touchy-freely LSD-induced fantasy world, or Australia, where fuzzy pink bunnies ejaculate rainbows into skies full of fluffy white sheep would someone decide that children need to be protected from something like SM.
Welcome to the real world, Sam. Cocooning your sproggen in bubble-wrap will, in the long run, only smother them.
D.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I don’t see the problem. This is America. Violence, decapitation, blood, guts, gore, and profoundly excessive violence are A-OK for all audiences, but show one little…
… I better not complete that sentence, since I’ve never shown one little where two great big would do instead. }:-{D
And as for the list, I only read 1 and 2; would probably read 3 if load times weren’t so awful; tried 9 and didn’t care for it; couldn’t get 10 to load at all; no real interest in the others.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I think Schlock’s violence is similar to Looney Toones violence, with the added benefit of when people die they stay dead. This last bit shows real consequences. (I am ignoring the whole “super soldier nano-bots” storyline for this argument.) I thought it particularly poignant when Elf’s tank blows up and Chuv dies and then Elf has to deal with the consequences of losing her friends and her legs. You even talked about substance abuse and the emotional consequences that go along with that. I’d show Schlock to my kid, but she can’t read yet.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
brenatevi: Chauvinistic? Unfavourable? America is AWESOME! Then again, in (some parts of) Europe soft-core pornography is considered family-friendly, which is also awesome.
I’m not from Europe, but Australia, which is like Europe only more American. Which means it’s like Canada but warm.
And as long as I’m replying to you, I might as well point out that the expression is “intents and purposes”.
Dev Dot Nul: At least you remember Australia exists. Let me clear up some misconceptions…
We shoot rabbits.
The skies full of fluffy white sheep are in New Zealand.
And most Australian children aren’t as sheltered in practice as they are in theory. Heck, we let Bindi Irwin play with dangerous animals…
Mathom: Oh, yeah, drug references, too. Yet another thing the “think of the children” crowd here get uptight about. Although you could get away with it if it was a Very Special Episode.
squidfood: And somehow, he still has eyebrows…
August 18th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Oh, and I don’t know whether rabbits ejaculate rainbows, but I doubt it.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Sam: *bows* My apologies. :) I read “Only in America…” as a blanket statement. There are a lot of people in the United States that don’t approve of violence. I’m not one of them. :D
August 18th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
And yet your grandiloquent response somehow failed to address my salient point Sam.
And while you’re contemplating your next reply, pray spend a minute or two refreshing your familiarity with the definition of “sarcasm.” Especially as it applies to polychromatic ejaculations, LSD, flying sheep, and pink bunnies.
D.
p.s. Who doesn’t know Australia exists? (if you say “90% of the U.S., you lose)
p.p.s. Do your children shoot rabbits? If so, game over.
p.p.p.s. (last one, I promise) My kid shoots rabbits. Doves and starlings (as invasive to the U.S. as rabbits are to Oz) too. So what? Death is the ultimate outcome of life, at least as far as the body is concerned.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Sorry, I’m going to try to suppress my sarcasm gland for the next few sentences.
Actions have consequences. Doing the right thing and standing up for your friends and mates is usually the right thing to do. Violence, while it DOES settle everything, tends to leave people hurt or dead. Responsible use of noisy toys is WAY cool.
All these things are lessons that come from SM and all of them, by my standards, are things that children need to learn.
Am I wrong?
D.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:20 am
I know what sarcasm is. But you mentioned Australia and bunnies in the same sentence, and I ran with it. I couldn’t think of anything funny to say about them being pink. Or do you think New Zealand sheep fly?
re: p.s. brenatevi just found out. ;) 90% of the U.S. just think we call prawns “shrimp”.
re: p.p.s. and p.p.p.s. Irrelevant, two ways:
1. Hunting is a bit different from violence towards people.
2. I don’t have children, but if I did I’d be careful about who I told about what they were allowed to do. We’re not even allowed to have R-rated computer games in this wowser-infested country*, for fear that someone might let their kids play them anyway.
To clarify: Officially “not family-friendly” doesn’t mean it’s not fun for the whole family. Although that might just be an Australian thing: As I said, Australia’s like Europe except more American. Which means that for both sex and violence, we combine the relaxed attitude of one with the censorship of the other. Stupid vocal minorities.
*I just found out “wowser” is an Australian word. Look it up.
p.s. You’re not wrong. We’ve just had trouble communicating, due to cultural issues. But then confusing foreigners is an Australian tradition…
August 19th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Well, all I know is, if I had kids, they’d get to read it.
BTW, I only read 1 and 3 on the list, but that’s partly lack of time.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I’m just curious how young the children in question are. I was
reading about such garden spots as Nanking, Bataan, and the
ever-popular Auschwitz in 2nd grade. (I’m still convinced within
the next 15-20 years, we’ll be seeing “voluntary” Ratings System
for books, just like every other media has….) I can see where a
really young kid might be a tad freaked out by something like
Ebbirnoth’s current situation, but this is where a Parental Unit
stepping in is required.
(Personally, Schlocktoberfest ‘05 was my Horatio Nelson “I have a
right to be blind sometimes” moment, but that’s just me…. :P )
August 19th, 2008 at 1:03 am
This whole age thing gets my goat! I was all of ten when a friendly lady librarian let me read Old St Pauls by Harrison Ainsworth. I enjoyed it! And for those who don’t know it, it includes one scene set in the Great Fire of London when the two villains die in the crypt when molten lead floods it! Oh, and I still enjoy the original Thomas the Tank Engine stories as well as Schlock Mercenary. Suitable for age is a matter of opinion not fact.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:31 am
i was around five the first time i saw some one cut in half. reading schlock won’t scar your kids. if they are old enough to read it. relax people.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Interestingly, Schlock Mercenary is the only comic on that list that I’m even remotely interested in reading. That is, I”m not even remotely interested in reading those others. Schlock I love… because it’s family friendly.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Just curious, red. . . How old were you the second time?
Sam: Great word, that. The sort of people who run the kakistocracy. Or worse, your neighborhood Homeowner’s Association. [shudder]
D.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Of course there’s a moral! Today’s moral is “it’s wrong to waste ammo on walking your fire until you figure out how to make it go where you want it to”.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Jay nails it. I shall raise my children in accordance with the Good Book…
You know, “7 Habits of Highly Successful Pirates”…
August 19th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I have kids . . . some would say A LOT of kids. In the 5 years I’ve been a steady reader of Schlock, the only storyline I won’t let my kids read is the “naked” storyline with Shurgar.
Oh sure, killing, maiming, deceipt, contract murders, walking piles of poo, all that’s okay . . . just don’t show my kids a naked man’s backside. I get the point.
But, the point is, they’re my kids and them’s my rules.
BTW, I also don’t have a minimum age. My 5 year olds like the pretty pictures in the books, even if they can’t read the witty banter.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:02 am
I personally never had restrictions on the _type_ of books I could read. Only on the level of understanding I had.
I was reading 5th grade books in the 2nd grade, and by the 6th grade, I was reading Chaucer. (And had already gone through all of the Tolkien stuff that was worth reading)
“Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex” was on the bookshelves at home since I was five. (And when I was in college, one of my friends/professors knew the original authors, and said half the book was a crock. He also worked at Kinsey for a while)
August 19th, 2008 at 8:10 am
“In the 5 years I’ve been a steady reader of Schlock, the only storyline I won’t let my kids read is the “naked” storyline with Shurgar.”
Wow, that’s exactly my situation — I’m impressed with Howard’s tastefulness (including that storyline, BTW — the only comic that stepped over the line was the one where Kevyn made his escape while talking about dignity, said stepping over the line being essential to the humor), but that one series took the skin level far beyond anything the strip’s ever done before.
That wasn’t a problem for me — I didn’t even notice the difference. But I’d just (the week before that story started) recommended it to all my younger siblings, and they DID notice it. Kinda embarrassing. They stopped reading it for a little while, then picked it up again — no harm done.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:31 am
The problem with the naked storyline was that I realized a smart captor will strip his captives completely naked before transporting them. I couldn’t get that out of my head, and it informed the entire story.
It also made some of the strips a LOT of fun to draw. I had to draw background characters in full, completely naked, indicating the position of all the interesting bits, and THEN add the foreground elements once I knew where they needed to go in order to provide necessary obscuration.
The process, as it turns out, was far, far more entertaining than the final product was.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Howard: actually, I enjoyed/was entertained by the Shurgar storyline. It was very interesting to see an obviously, consistently intelligent opponent. I briefly wondered whether Tagon would offer him a job; he instead “sold up him up the river”, thus nicely preserving Tagon’s well-established character.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
You did an impressive job, Howard. I can’t abide “artists” who draw nudes and cop out by putting blur effects or black bars over the “naughty bits.” Instead you drew months of nudes who just never happened to show anything risque and still never compromised the scenario. Speaks volumes for your ability as an artist.
You did leave me wondering how Shufgar tasted. . .
D.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
In defence of Australia (Dev Dot Nul, I’m looking at you) I’m happy to let my daughters look at Schlock. “Look at” is relevant here, because they can’t read yet.
As a result, they refer to my desktop wallpaper as “Flying Potato Man”.
:D
August 20th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Dev Dot Nul: I recall _The Benny Hill Show_ had a sequence like
that once — a faux-Scandinavian film involving a man and woman in
an affair, where the white-text-on-black-box subtitles kept appearing
in, shall we say, strategic locations…. :)
Oh, BTW, it should be obvious: Shufgar tastes like (a) chicken…. >:)
Howard Tayler: From the little I know of the US prison system (never
been in it, and with luck never *will*… :P ), after the prisoner is
stripped and searched, he is issued clothing which is designed to not
allow much more than “keep him clothed”; the “sagging” fashion is
(excuse the pun) loosely based on this practice.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Shufgar is a carnivore. He’s not going to taste like chicken. He’s going to taste like cat.
(Which, prepared properly, tastes like chicken.)
August 20th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Sorry, TheSponge I was poking sticks at Sam, not Australia in general. If I’ve offended my antipodean Schlockista brethren, I humbly apologize.
Okay, not precisely humbly, but I do offer sincere apologies.
@Howard: Mmmmmm, cat!
D.
August 20th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
TheSponge: Oh sure, but you wouldn’t call Schlock “family-friendly” on national TV unless you wanted to stir up a controversy, would you?
And it’s interesting that some of the Americans here would show any Schlock book except book 8 to their kids. Just to check Australian censorship standards, I pulled a DVD off my shelf that contains a scene of a naked man walking away from the camera. Full rear nudity in a non-sexual context is apparently G-rated here.
csadn: Prisoners have used underpant elastic as bowstrings.
Howard: The Archive Synopsiser still says book 1 will be released in the far-off future of last November.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
psssst, Sam: Call me consistent; or even better, libertarian, but I’ve already let the kiddo read book 8.
It’s all about mores, isn’t it? In the States, we tend to defer to the “Puritanical” side of things and take our violence for granted. The rest of the world, understands that sex is just part of life but often tends to deny that violence has a part too.
Makes for fun conversations especially for those precious few of us who embrace sex and violence as part of life.
D.
p.s. Stirring up controversy on national TV? What could be more fun?
August 21st, 2008 at 12:29 am
Sam: Slingshot-strings, actually, but that’s picking nits. Besides, it’s
the idea which matters here — stick someone in a hole with nothing
to do but think, and he’ll be making slingshots with his own sinew and
bone, if that’s all he has. :P
Howard Tayler: Precisely my point. (There’s a Really Obscene Joke
I could make here — “Na’ga’da’t — wouldn’t be prudent at this
juncture….” :) )
August 21st, 2008 at 5:39 am
Of those listed, I read #1, #3, #5 and #10. They are also my favourite comics overall, and even the order of preference matches.