Blógünder Schlock

So… I’ve gotten a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of hate-mail regarding Ensign Para Ventura. Fortunately none of you are hating me. You’re hating HER.

That’s fine. A lot of us are hard-wired to resent whiney, prima-donna, child-prodigy types, whether or not they’re actually anywhere near the age they appear to be (yes, Ventura appears to be somewhere between 13 and 16 years old. Yes, she’s drawn that way on purpose. No, I’m not telling you her real age. Yes, it’s more fun for ME that way. No, your own fun quotient was not entered into this particular equation.)

Anyway, in the raft of hate-mail I’ve also gotten a little fan mail, including two pieces of Para Ventura Fan Art. The first came from Thomas Thetford and features a rather more heroically proportioned Ensign Ventura in a ‘botyard of sorts (click on the image for a full picture.)

The secnd comes from Andy Odendahl, and features Ensign Ventura preparing to modify poor Ennesby. Again, click the picture for the full version.

Enjoy!

It’s a good thing I was alone in my office at the time, because when Melissa M. Smith emailed me pictures of her plastiline sculpture of Sergeant Schlock on a quarter, I went “SQUEEEE!” It was perfect!

She showed up at the Keep a couple of months later to show it to me in person, and I pointed out that Drew Olds (the guy who taught me how to paint minis) had some liquid latex that would work for pouring a mold, as well as some resin that would work for casting.

We cast exactly three of the things. The first went to Drew, the second to Melissa, and the third to me. You’re looking at the one Drew painted. The one Melissa painted is in the glass cabinet at Dragon’s Keep. Mine is unpainted, and I think I’ve misplaced it. That’s okay… by the third casting the mold was already starting to tear.

Janci Patterson (now Olds, congratulations you two!) took pictures of Drew’s paint job, and the piece appeared in Schlock Mercenary: The Tub of Happiness.

Now that group effort is up for auction. Drew, Melissa, and I are splitting the proceeds three ways, with the rounded penny going to Drew.

If you like having other people paint things for you, I cannot personally recommend anybody as highly as I can recommend Drew Olds. Have a look at his stuff over at Garden Ninja Painting Studio (www.gardenninja.com)and you’ll see what I mean.

Funny story: I was listening to some OCRemix tunes, and one of them was a remix from Ninja Gaiden. Never having played the game, I kept misreading it as “Ninja Garden.” I mused aloud on this, and Drew and I began wondering what a Ninja Garden was. Obviously, it’s a plot of land in which all of the kitschy garden gnomes have been ganked from behind by garden ninjas.

Drew registered the domain name about 15 minutes later.

Go check out the auction!

Schlocker M. Grand carved a Schlock-themed pumpkin, and sent me this photo this morning.

I am amazed. I’ve never worried that a pumpkin was going to actually unleash hot plasma at me, not until today…

Schlocker J. Krupp, professional demolitionist and all-round nice guy, sculpted this in a foam pumpkin.

He also cut out some letters in the back of the pumpkin, for a very cool effect.

The dark bar in the middle of the faux-squash is a seam where the manufacturer stuck the two halves together. I guess it’s kind of like the seam where the blood-nannies stuck the two Xinchub halves together: you can’t see it from the outside, but if you shove a bright enough lightbulb into his oval orifice…

Happy Hallowe’en, everybody!

On Friday schlocker S. “McNutcase” Humphreys notified me that he was having a birthday. Normally I would just say “congratulations, you survived another year,” but in this case I have to say “congratulations, you have wonderful friends.” You see, they baked him this cake.

And so I present all of you with a picture of cake. Which, unless you are S. Humphreys or one of his excellent friends, you can not eat.

(In this picture the intake ports look like they were made with slices of pepperoni. If I find out that they ARE pepperoni I shall be forced to revise my estimate of these “friends.”)

Apparently Tagon’s warship Touch-And-Go has been sighted on the shelves at the fictional geek haven portrayed in Weregeek.

From the looks of things, TAG is in very good company.

(credit for reporting this sighting goes jointly to Ross W. and Tim J. — Thanks, guys!)

Everybody’s favorite carbosilicate amorph has been spotted as a mud golem (we can only HOPE that’s mud… dirtamancers have a spotty track record) over in Erfworld today.

More than a few of you have emailed me. Rest assured, the very first person to tell me about it (and who wins the “I shall blog you” prize) was Rob Balder, who called me on the phone to tell me about it. Since he writes Erfworld, as well as Partially Clips (and filks up a storm to boot), we had lots to talk about. He even made me almost late for Church.

Thanks Rob! Oh, and since Erfworld’s artist, Jamie Noguchi was the one who actually DREW this, thank you, too, Jaime. Schlock looks good in… brown?

Kevin Wasden and I got to hang out together at LTUE XXV, and he did a great sketch of Tagon. Naturally I wanted to extend a personal invitation to him to provide some guest art for the next Schlock book.

He was excited to participate.

I’ve gotten a lot of good artwork (and, naturally, I’ve gotten a lot of stuff I can’t use.) In some cases work that is good enough to use will get crowded out of the project by work that is too good to NOT use.

If everything I get could be as good as what Kevin Wasden sent me, I would have to make the book about 20 pages longer. Which reminds me… if you’re looking for a book that is 100% full of artwork as good as what Kevin Wasden sent me, you’ll probably have to go have a look at Technosaurs by Kevin Wasden.

Back on the topic of Schlock pagination, Steve Troop is again handling layout on the book. He tells me that the 518 days of included Schlock are now laid into 224 pages. By the time we get the bonus story and all the extras into place it’ll easily fill the 240 pages I got my quote for.

This means it might be bigger than what I budgeted for. That’s okay. Content is driving the length of the book, not the other way around.

I’ve gotten a lot of submissions — so many, in fact, that I’m already having to create some form-letters for rejection.

Don’t let that discourage you. A rejection letter with a personal note on it (which is what I’m creating) is a badge of honor in this business.

That said, if you’re planning to submit stuff, here are some hard-and-fast rules:

1) No dialog, and no gags. I don’t want guest strips.
2) Don’t try to mimic my style — especially don’t try to mimic my early style. Stand out. Be different.
3) The absolute minimum picture size is 1200×1200 pixels. Smaller than that and I can’t use it no matter how nice it is.

I’m trying to process these as they come in, but they pile up and I end up doing them in batches. If you’re waiting on a reply from me, I’ll probably get back to you within 48 hours.

Thanks for all your interest in this, everybody.

I’ve been checking the pagination on the next Schlock book, and it turns out that it is going to have room for some margin art done by folks besides me.

This next book is the first 518 days of Schlock Mercenary. If you think you’ve got the chops, and would like to try your hand at my characters, I’m looking for artwork that topically fits those first 17 months of comics, and that outshines my own artwork by leaps and bounds.

This shouldn’t be hard. We’re talking about 2000-2001 here. I was still learning to hold a pencil.

What do I mean by “topically fits?” Well… you could give me your take on the Kitesfear, the original Doctor, the new Doctor, or maybe a cute-as-a-button diamond beetle. And obviously you can gimme some Schlock. But no General Xinchub, no Jevee Ceeta, and no Legs, Elizabeth, or Andy — these folks don’t show up until 2002. Also, I’m not looking for strips, or gags, per se. But if you think you’ve got a good one, run it past me and we can discuss it.

What do you get out of this? Name recognition and linkage — your name goes along with the picture, and your name and URL will go in the credits in the back of the book. Oh, and you get a free sketch-edition copy of the book, too.

If you’re interested, please email me (howard dot tayler on gmail) and say so as soon as possible. Space is limited, and time even more so. You probably have less than a month to do something shiny.

If you’ve already sent me fan art in the past (including photographs of sculptures, renderings of Schlockiverse spacecraft, etc) and you’re willing to see it in print, please re-send it. I can’t guarantee it’ll make the cut, but I will at least LOOK at it again.

SPECS: All images should be at least 4 inches by 4 inches at 300dpi or better. Usually the space that needs to be filled is 7 inches wide and 5 inches high, so landscape orientations are better, but there may be some portrait-oriented slots as well. If you REALLY shine, you may get a full page to yourself. If you’ve got flavor text for your image, like a title, or a brief description, please send that along as well.