Blógünder Schlock

I’m checking out the new website over at xtremedungeonmastery.com (your official source for all things XDM) and what do I see? A page spread, right there where anybody can read it without buying it.

It looked almost exactly like this.

And if you clicked on it, you got a version that was large enough to be completely readable. Except the footnotes. They were incompletely or “squintily” readable.

Not to be outdone, I posted the same stuff in here. Go! Click! Read that page spread, and marvel at the wit and wisdom of the Grand Masters of XDM. But you’ll not proceed past mere marvelling. In order to truly bask and absorb you must take the heroic journey yourself, returning with the elixir, the sacred prize… in short, you’ll have to buy the whole book.

You may now pre-order your autograph edition of XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, by Tracy and Curtis Hickman, illustrated by Howard Tayler. Tracy Hickman is the co-creator of Castle Ravenloft and the popular Dragonlance series. His son Curtis is a practicing magician. And me? Me you probably already know.

If you play table-top role-playing games like D&D*, Rifts*, Shadowrun*, or GURPS* then XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery is the best game supplement you can buy. Its principles will make anybody a better game-master, and will turn good game-masters into small gods. Its principles will also make for better players, so whether you’re running a game or playing in one you will benefit from this book.

And if you just want to read it for the sheer entertainment value I promise you that it’ll hold up just fine. This is not a dusty reference tome. This was written to be read, learned from, and above all enjoyed.

But that’s not the only new thing in the Schlock Mercenary Store this morning. You may have heard that Under New Management has gone into a second printing. We’ve fixed the typos, tweaked the cover and spine, and are now opening pre-orders for numbered sketch editions. We only did 300 of those the first time around, so some of you may have missed out.

And that’s STILL not where it ends. We also have Tagon’s Toughs t-shirts coming back to the store, and a new shirt that I’m not going to spoil for you here. Why not? Because it uses a punchline that won’t appear on in the comic until August. If you want to read it now, go window-shopping.

(*Note: D&D, Rifts, Shadowrun, and GURPS are all other people’s trademarks, and they want you to know that.)

On Wednesday, July 1st at 8:00am Mountain Time we will open pre-orders for XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy and Curtis Hickman. Howard illustrated this must-have reference for RPG referees, dungeon masters, and serious role-players, and has been showing off his advance copy for a couple of weeks now. The book is hard-bound, 160 pages long, black-and-white, and costs $29.95.

Why pre-order? Every pre-ordered book will be autographed by Tracy Hickman, Curtis Hickman, and Howard Tayler at no additional charge. The pre-order will end at 8 pm Mountain time on July 18th. In addition to copies of XDM, our online store will also feature the as-yet-unseen XDM t-shirts and franchise kits. Orders are expected to ship by July 30th.

After the pre-order period you can still order the book, but the only way to get it autographed will be to track down the authors and artist individually.

Now, if you’re attending GenCon Indy in August you can buy the book there. Tracy, Curtis, and Howard will all be in attendance and they will be happy to commit commerce and then sign your book.  They will even have a special “Gencon Indy” stamp to certify that your copy was signed at Gencon.

If you’re patient and don’t mind a non-autographed book, you can wait until sometime this fall and buy XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery from a hobby-gaming store near you.  We do not have a street-date yet, however. Negotiations proceed apace behind closed doors.

But wait, there’s more!
We are thrilled to now be on the the second printing of Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management. Books arrive here at Schlock Central in July.

This volume was the first book we put into print.  We only did 300 numbered sketch editions back then, and it now occurs to us that perhaps some of you feel left out. Thus it is that in celebration of our first ever second printing we offer you a second shot at getting a sketch edition.  We’ll do between 700-1000 sketched books.

Orders will open on July 1st at 8 AM Mountain time along with the XDM pre-orders, and will close when we run out.  Our past two sketch edition runs have sold out within about a week.

Well, no. There isn’t. Garden Ninja Painting Studio lives in somebody else’s garden. But they’re good friends of mine, and good things are coming.

First, though, they’ve partnered with BSCReview.com to run a contest. The winner gets a full set of patina-finished Goblin Quest miniatures. These were sculpted by my friend and mini-paint mentor Drew Olds, and are licensed characters from Jim Hines’ Goblin Quest books.

There’s a second contest starting in a week, and a third a week after that.

Now, on to good things. Garden Ninja Painting Studio is going to handle the production (and painting, for those of you who want it) of a 28mm-scale Sergeant Schlock miniature. Melissa Mayhew is putting the finishing touches on the sculpt, so we expect to have it ready in time for Christmas.

I can’t wait to get one.

In the meantime, go over to BSCReview.com and sign up to win some patina-finished pewter.

With Scrapyard out the door Sandra is in the throes of the post-shipping clean up. You should see the basement. It looked like a tornado hit it. Then it looked like FEMA hit it. Then it looked like nice, competent professionals came in and put everything back together.

Anyway, part of this clean-up process includes updating the store listings to reflect actual inventory.  We found a few more mousepads, pins, and loose magnets lying around.

And if you really must have all eight of the magnets, you can buy a full set.

We also have a pile of damaged books for sale at clearance prices.

These books are all dinged, dented or damaged in some way, but no more than you probably would expect after the book has been read a few times.  We guarantee that none of the pages are ripped, loose, or missing.  If your budget is tight then these scratch-and-dent books are a great way to go.  Supplies are limited to what we have on hand.

An array of posters and special prints is also available.
Sandra tells me that we need to clear out some of this inventory to make space for new inventory.  The very shiniest of the new inventory will be XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy and Curtis Hickman, illustrated by yours truly. We’ve gotten our twenty advance copies, and this book is wonderful. Pre-orders for XDM will open in July.

Again, the Schlock Shipping Volunteers amazed us. This is the largest number of books we’ve ever shipped, and it was also the largest volume of packages we’ve ever shipped, but that didn’t stop the crew from getting them all shipped out in less than six hours. Credit must be shared, however, with  Sandra’s new and brilliant assistant Janci, who handled at least as much of the pre-work as Sandra did (I don’t know — Sandra doesn’t pay me to mind these sorts of matters) and who, on shipping day, helped manage the minions wrangle the volunteers alongside Sandra so there was less down-time between batches.

We did run into two small problems in spite of the expert help. A number of empty slipcases went out sans fiddly-bit, and a stack of about 20 “artist’s choice” books got sent out before I actually drew in them or numbered them. As always, we’ll make this right at no charge to you. Just send us the invoice number (it’s in the package you ordered if you no longer have the original email) and we’ll take care of the rest.  If you got one of those unsketched books, congratulations! “Artist’s choice” now means you get a second chance to pick your sketch. Our mistake is your big win.

Enough blogging. I haven’t done any actual work in this new office of mine since this time last week, and I’m itchin’ to write and illustrate some comics. That, you see, is what Sandra pays me for.

This is the pair of work days during which a horde of minions volunteers show up to help package and send out 1300 packages full of Schlock books.  We always schedule two days, but for the past three shipping events the workers have been so amazing that there was nothing left to do on the second day.

Who: Any Schlock fan who is either local to Utah, or willing to travel at their own expense.

Where:  At Dragon’s Keep 260 N University Ave in Provo

When:  Starting at 9 AM running until 4 PM on June 8.  If there is work left to do, we’ll start again at 9 AM on June 9.

What:  The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance Shipping Event.  Most of the work will be putting books and slipcases into boxes and sticking labels onto the top.  There will be laughter and free food.  Volunteers will also get to pick through our scratch and dent box to take something home with them.  We do need a couple of volunteers with trucks who are willing to show up at our house at 8 AM on June 8 to help us haul massive piles of stuff down to Dragon’s keep.

Why: Because putting all those books in boxes all by myself would take a really, really long time.

If you are interested in volunteering for this event, please email schlockmercenary at gmail.com with the word “volunteer” in the subject line.  It would be helpful if the body of the email lists when you’re likely to be coming.  Some of you have already emailed me to volunteer.  I’m pretty sure I’ve got you listed, but it would be a good idea to email again to make sure you’re on the mailing list.  If you don’t want to email, but still want to come, feel free to show up on the 8th. If you only have an hour or two, that is fine just stop by. I don’t recommend showing up on the 9th unless you’ve read an announcement that there is still work to be done.

Have any questions?  email schlockmercenary at gmail.com and I’ll clarify.  Thanks everyone!

The last couple of days have been busy. Sandra took pictures.

I’ll be in Salt Lake City for CONduit XIX: The Evil Overlords of CONduit. I’m giving the keynote address at 5:00pm Friday, and throwing a party from 4:00pm to 6:00pm on Saturday. Lots of my stuff, including framed cel prints and some cool XDM artwork will be on display in the Art Show.

Finally, my take on a bunch of evil overlords from film, television, comics, and animation will be worn all over the show as badge art all weekend, or at least until attorneys from certain entertainment companies arrive with C&D orders.

Registration is required for the full convention, but if you just want to come to the book launch, that’s completely free. And now, my full schedule, complete with links!
FRIDAY

2:00pm - How Do You Write A Great Evil Overlord: Clint Johnson, Ann Sharp, Roger White, Dave Wolverton, Howard Tayler, Dan Willis

3:00pm - How to Draw Evil Overlords: Howard Tayler, Jessica Douglas, Brian Hailes

5:00pm - Main Address: Howard Tayler

6:00pm - The Howard and Sandra Show, Part I: Structuring For The Creative Life

SATURDAY

10:00am - Howard Tayler Reading: (I won’t be reading comics to you. I’ll be reading some humorous essays.)
12:00 noon - The Howard and Sandra Show, Part II:  The Nuts and Bolts of Running a Creative Business

1:00pm - Writing Excuses Podcast, with a Live Studio Audience: Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler

4:00pm - Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance Launch Party: Howard and Sandra Tayler, a Plasma Cannon, a Big Hammer, Free Food and Drink, and Schlock Mercenary: The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance

SUNDAY

2:00pm - My Favorite Books - What Are Writers Reading? Jessica Day George, Howard Tayler, Paul Genesse, Brandon Sanderson, Lee Allred, Larry Correia

4:00pm - Aspiring Writers Q&A: Larry Correia, Dave Wolverton, Eric James Stone, Paul Genesse, Julie Wright, Howard Tayler

We’ll have copies of all the Schlock books, the boxed sets, and a number of prints for sale in the Art Show, so don’t look for me in the Dealer’s Room. If you can catch up with me, I’ll have a sharpie in my pocket and will cheerfully deface things at your request. Yes, I will even sign your badge.

The absolute best time for signing, though, is at the book launch. Not only can I do free sketches there, I can do numbered sketch editions ($10 extra). I can stamp, number, and then sketch your copy of Scrapyard. We’ve set aside numbers 11 through 25 out of 1000 for this event.

Remember, if you want to pick up your pre-ordered copy of Scrapyard you must bring a copy of your receipt with you. In lieu of refunded shipping please enjoy some free food and early super-express-personalized delivery of your book!

I’m feeling a little distracted right now. It’s ten past eight in the morning, and I have it on good authority that six hours from now a delivery truck is going to unload eleven pallets of Schlock in my driveway.

This Saturday, May 23rd, we shall be celebrating at the Radisson Hotel on 215W South Temple in Salt Lake City. The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance Launch Party will run from 4:00pm to 6:00pm with prizes, food, all kinds of Schlock merchandise, and me sketching like a madman. The launch is part of the CONduit science fiction and fantasy convention, but you don’t need a convention membership to come to this party.

Next Tuesday, May 26th, we will be closing pre-orders on Scrapyard so that we can prepare to ship books. Shipping will be happening on June 8th and 9th. The delay is there so that I have time to sketch in a thousand books without hurting myself. Also, Sandra needs to print and sort about $15,000 worth of postage.

We only have enough copies of Under New Management remaining to make about 100 more boxed sets, which we lovingly refer to in the store as Schlock Mercenary: Munitions Canister I. When those are gone, Under New Management will be out of print for the rest of the summer. We’ve corrected the typos, tweaked some images, and submitted files for a second printing, but we’re not expecting those pallets-full until August. You are welcome to pre-order boxed sets and empty slipcases through Tuesday the 26th.

If you are going to be in the Salt Lake City area this weekend and wish to pick up your order at the party, all you need to do is print out your order confirmation and present it to Sandra. If you are there and wish to upgrade your order to a numbered sketch edition, as many as a dozen of you can do that, too. As always I will be doing non-numbered sketches at no charge.

It’s now twenty minutes until 9:00am, and I still have over five hours to wait until my pallets of joy arrive. I promise to take pictures when they do…

We have two auctions running this week. The first is simple: Schlock Mercenary: The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance, sketch edition #001 of 1000. The winner not only gets the book, but gets to pick what goes on the sketch page.

Yes, that’s a one-of-a-kind offering, but this next one beats it. We have found three sketch editions, one each for The Teraport Wars (219/1000), Under New Management (294/300), and The Blackness Between (101/888). We’re adding a non-numbered sketch (winner chooses the art) for The Tub of Happiness and sketch edition #002 (winner chooses the art) for Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance. These will be shipped as part of the first boxed-with-five-sketches Munitions Canister I boxed set.

And now I need to get back to work. Books are supposedly arriving this week, and I need to rebuild the buffer before I start drawing in them.