3,000 Strips: No, I Don’t Remember All Of Them
Posted August 27th, 2008 by Howard TaylerJust last week I was scripting and I used the phrase “revoke metaphor privileges.” It made me giggle, but it sounded familiar. I worried that maybe I was stealing from somebody.
Turns out I’m stealing from me. I decided to run the line anyway. In the linked instance above it’s the punchline. In the upcoming script (three or four weeks out, I forget) it’s the setup for a different punchline.
And the point, long since lost by now, is that I’ve now posted 3,000 installments of Schlock Mercenary to the web in 3,000 days. No, I’ve never missed a day. There have been no guest weeks, no two-for-Tuesdays to cover a missed-it-Monday, and no stretches where I hurriedly threw together a week of Ennesby and Schlock doing plot exposition because I knew I could get seven days of that penciled, inked and colored inside of four hours.
Okay, maybe that last one has happened. At least twice. Still, nobody called me on it.
We’ve all changed a lot in the last 3,000 days. Politics, global economics, and science have all done interesting, disappointing, wonderful, and terrible things in turn. But more importantly most of us have gotten 3,000 days older, and at least 250 days wiser. Some of you have told me that you have practically grown up reading this comic strip of mine.
Three thousand days is longer than any American President has sat in office since 1944. It’s long enough for a bull market to become a bear market, and then back again three or four times. It’s long enough to turn a 9th-grader into a college graduate, or a college graduate into a surgeon.
It’s long enough for Sandra to create two beautiful children from scratch and send them off to school. It’s long enough for me to start a marketing career, excel in it, and then abandon it.
It’s long enough for me to start getting a handle on the basics of writing and illustrating a comic strip. It’s also long enough for me to have figured out how to pay the bills with a comic strip I’m still just exploring basic principles with.
3,000 days is a long time, but it’s not long enough.
I want 10,000 days. That’s almost 28 years years, give or take. I’m not setting that as a maximum, mind you. I’m just holding out for permanence in this particular career. I want us to be able to look back on these times and remember the best of them fondly, while forgetting the worst of them in favor of remembering our favorite punchlines.
Which I will almost certainly re-use.
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August 27th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
“Still, nobody called me on it.”
That means it never happened… :)
“It’s long enough for Sandra to create two beautiful children from scratch”
To be fair, you did have some slight contribution to those acts. ;)
August 27th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
He’s “scratch.”
August 27th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I hate to correct you, but 10,000 days is not 36.525 years… It’s 27.379 years. 36525 days isn’t even 10,000 days (only 100 days). It’s clear you quickly did the math in your head, and… I know this is pretty darn pedantic and also irrelevant, but for a scifi comic to get it wrong… Just a peeve. ;)
MODERATOR EDIT
And for you to get it ALSO wrong in this comment — it’s not “only 100 days,” it’s over 13,000 days. EAT PEDANTRY, KID!
August 27th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I preemptively congrated you last week when the 3000 day anniversary was mentioned. Again, many congrats. It’s quite inspiring for those of us paying our writing dues. So stay healthy. We’re looking forward to 10,000 days too!
BTW, just listening to Writing Excuses, and reading your strip, I have to say you must be an awesomely fun dungeon master…with varying definitions of “fun” from :-) to 8-0
August 27th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Suggestion : every 3000 strips, use “revoke metaphor privileges” as a punchline. Hey, if Irregular Webcomics can be hobbit forming… why not have the same tradition here?
August 28th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Oh, well — you still have a ways to go before your consecutive-
strips count is OVER EIGHT THOUSAND! :)
[Reference, Obscure, 1 ea.]
August 28th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Three thousand strips, three thousand days, and countless laughs. You are definitely a legend, and I love having this to read every day.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Ha! Puts those guys in the web comics Iron Man competition to SHAME!
Here’s to the NEXT three thousand.
Hmmmm, that is ten repeated watchings of 300, a hundred “Oh my gawd, how the heck did I turn 30?”, a thousand “Yep he’s three and fully potty trained”, three million pennies if each strip were a dollar…
August 28th, 2008 at 5:01 am
csadn: OVER NINE THOUSAND would be less obscure.
Howard: 10,000 days? I thought you were ambitious. If life-extension technology becomes available in time, or you manage to start a long-lasting cartooning dynasty, maybe the Toughs could retire when the publication date catches up to the in-story date. You’ve got Y3K-compliant filenames – it’d be a shame not to use ‘em.
Oh, and if that was scratch, you need some lubricant.
August 28th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Oh, in case anyone’s wondering about csadn’s figure: the manga says “over 8000″. Does anyone know why the animated adaptation inflated the figure?
August 28th, 2008 at 5:29 am
“It’s also long enough for me to have figured out how to pay the bills with a comic strip I’m still just exploring basic principles with.”
What? You mean drawing a comic strip and giving it away for free everyday on the Interent is not the basis of a sound business plan?
Thanks Howard, for being part of a near perfect symbiotic relationship. Obviously Shlockers owe our designation and many many hours of entertainment to you. And, while you would probably still be writing, it’s hard to imagine you being able to do this fulltime without us to help pay the bills. Hopefully you have gotten back as much as you’ve given.
Rodney
August 28th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Would this be a good time for someone to do an animation of Howard’s evolving drawing style over time?
A series of Tagons, and a series of Elfs perhaps, scaled and fading from one to another at , oh, 200 day intervals, that would give you uh, 15 Tagons. Enough to see how his style has changed…..
The Howard Taylor’s hand now drawing this strip is NOT the hand that drew the strip 3000 strips ago. :-)
August 28th, 2008 at 6:12 am
You’ve blown away Cal Ripken’s 2632 streak. Congrats Howard and thanks for letting us coming along for the ride.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Wow, amazing timing! Today’s my birthday, and I can’t have asked for anything more!
Thanks Howard, can’t wait for number 10,000.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Congrats Howard! I look forward to introducing my hypothetical future kids to Schlock when they are old enough. Getting them caught up on 20 years of it would be quite a feat. I took me a whole week avoiding writing a paper to catch up on 5 of them.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:00 am
3,000 uninterrupted strips is an awesome accomplishment. We appreciate your wit, dedication, and generousity. You rock, Howard, and so does Sandra!
Thank you.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Congratulations, and thanks for all the laughs! Here’s to 28 more years of Schlock (at least)!
August 28th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Congratulations! Hard to believe it’s been so long (probably because I’ve read all 3,000 strips, but didn’t start doing it until considerably after strip 1). I’m looking forward to the next 7,000.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I haveread all 10,000 strips, although I probably read the first 9,000 or so in an orgy of strip reading a couple of years or so ago. I really appreciate the Saturday and Sunday strips, as they are the only ones on that day of those I read. And the subject matter is always fun (although I do have favorite characters, and others I really can’t empathize with.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:24 am
pgranzeau: Ah, my time-travelling fan! Thank you so much for letting me know that I hit my goal of 10,000 strips at some point 19 years from now!
(Are there stocks I should be investing in this month?)
August 28th, 2008 at 11:02 am
3000 strips. Thank you, Howard, for 3000 straight days of the funny.
Here’s to keeping it going for, not 10000 days, but for at least 10000 days MORE.
May your drawing hand never have cramp!
August 28th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Great Hoogli! If you created 3000 strips, I’ve read 3000 strips. (And most of those multiple times, online and in print.)
And Schlock remains the first webcomic I read every day–and, if I’m crunched for time, the only one. There ain’t none better.
Thanks, Howard, for continually raising the bar for the entire industry.
–GS
August 28th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Congratulations on strip #3000!!! And I believe strip #10,000 will be on October 28, 2027. Right in the middle of Sclocktoberfest. Looking forward to it!
August 28th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Many thanks Howard. You’ve entertained the dickens out of me and mine.
D.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
OMG, its been 3000. I cant wait till this is being used for ENGL 208 at my school(Their using the watchmen this year). I figure about 5-7 years :D. MAY YOUR HAND REMAIN PAIN FREE!
August 28th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Congratulations on this milestone, Mr. Tayler. Your talent and your dedication are mighty impressive. Thanks for the great times I’ve had reading your work, and please, do keep it up!
August 28th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I don’t know if I was the one who told you that or not, but I have grown up reading your strip (I’m 17 now) and your strip is now an indelible part of my childhood, right next to Calvin and Hobbes, and Foxtrot. Thanks for doing what you do, so well, for so long. Here’s to 3000 more.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Thanks Joshua! You’re one of the ones who’s told me that, but not the ONLY one. I’m not just guilty of corrupting you. I’m corrupting youth. :-)
August 28th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
So, Howard, are you going to use the blog punchline, about re-using jokes when you blog about hitting 10000? Re-using a punchline about re-using a punchline…
From my first time traveling the Galaxy to meet new life forms and kill them to nearly crying at the loss of Petey, From my first chupaqueso to…well…my most recent chupaqueso, your rapier sharp wit has entertained me and stocked my library with superior reading material.
“Rapier sharp wit” is actually a joke from mash…so i am re-using a punchline in a post about re-using a punchline about re-using a punchline…
i better stop. Thanks H.T.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Hell. Yes.
… Originally, that’s all I was going to say. But I must also express my gratitude for having a new strip every day. Some of my comics are MWF. Some are M-F. Some are ‘WTHIFLI’ (Whenever The Hell I Feel Like It.) Only, ONLY Schlock gives me more Schlockiness every single day.
Thank you.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Sam: What better way to make the reference Really Obscure than
to go back to the Actual Source?
[JOKE]
Not to mention the possibilities for Snarkiness when someone says,
“But it’s ‘OVER NINE THOUSAND’”, and the subsequent Hammering
Into The Pavement with citation-backed “WRONG, LOSER!” posts. :)
[/JOKE]
September 15th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Woot! Just hit the Metaphor Revocation joke.
Nice.