Blógünder Schlock

First a quick note: We have 40 more Schlock Mercenary ACEO cards from Series One in the store. These are the last of them. There will be a series two, but we’re not launching it until these are gone.

Some of you may have met or heard of John Brown before. He is a local friend and debut novelist who Howard helped interview in two recent episodes of the Writing Excuses podcast: How Not to Repeat Yourself, and Emotion in Fiction with John Brown. If you click the links you can listen to the podcasts right on your computer. They’re worth the time because John knows what he is talking about when it comes to writing.

John is celebrating the release of his first novel by giving away copies of his book Servant of a Dark God. He has kindly offered two copies for us to give away here at Blogunder Schlock. The winner must be willing to provide a mailing address via email. The simplest method for determining who wins these books is for us to draw names out of a hat. There are two ways for you to get your name into the hat.

1. Leave a comment here on this post between now and midnight on Sunday November 8. You will get one entry just for commenting. Only one entry per name even if you make multiple comments. NOTE: The first time you comment after registering, your comment goes into a moderation queue and has to be approved before it will be visible. This dramatically reduces the amount of spam in our blog comments. There is no need to comment again, we’ll see it and put your name in the hat.

2. We are curious to know how many copies of XDM and Schlock books are making it into friendly local gaming stores. If you visit your local gaming store and see our books there, snap a picture. Mail that picture to schlockmercenary@gmail.com and we’ll throw your name into that hat two times. (Yes that is in addition to adding your name for a comment.) If we get some good pics, we’ll be sure to share them.

So that’s the contest. Ready, set, go!

First: The Star Pirates folks have been welcoming Schlockers with open arms. The Tagon’s Toughs fleet is up to 66 members. If you head on over there you’ll be in good hands.

Second: The automated update system for Schlock Mercenary is broken, and has to be manually dialed in each evening. This has confused the poor RSS scraper, which expects the comic to be up at a given time. Thus for you, the reader, the comic is showing up a few minutes late and the feed has nothing in it but a link.

That’s the current state.

The plan, at least as I’ve plannified it (yes, I have a copy of Barnum’s Thesaurus) is to migrate the whole mess, current layout and all, over to a WordPress/ComicPress architecture sometime this month. The source for the RSS feed will change, but the current feedburner address will still be valid. This will certainly bring its own set of hiccups, hiccoughs, hernias, and hex-nuts, but I believe it’s time to put that old system to rest and step into the 21st century.

The folks at Star Pirates have been itching to get me to design ads for them for over a year now. Unfortunately for them I’ve been too busy to pay much attention to advertising — which is kind of strange, because you’d expect a good mercenary like me to be taking to that particular revenue stream like a fish takes to water, but I digress — so they had to go stand in line for slots via Project Wonderful.

By way of thanks to them for their persistence (and apology to them for not being able to follow through) here is linkage: Go play Star Pirates! There’s a “Tagon Toughs” fleet out there for you to join, even. Their imagined future is a bit darker than mine, but the game is still a thematic fit with Schlock Mercenary. That’s why I’m letting them use some of my stuff in their ads.

While we’re on the subject of me not being able to follow through… Sandra’s sister Nancy has invented the salvation of short speculative fiction. I promised her some artwork, but have yet to deliver.

So what is this miracle project? It is Anthology Builder, and it lets you assemble a print collection of short fiction, selecting stories from among hundreds of reprints from popular magazines. Then you pick cover art, drop coin, and your customized anthology is printed on-demand and sent to you in the mail.

How will this save short fiction? Let’s describe the problem, first: Most short fiction is published in magazines with a very limited circulation and shelf-life. Once published, those stories rarely see reprints in anthologies because the market is a too small to support more than a few runs of mass-market paperbacks. The result is that authors have little incentive to write short stories, so they don’t. The art form stagnates.

Enter Anthology Builder: Print-on-demand (POD) technology makes it possible for extremely small print runs to turn a profit, in turn making it possible for these short stories to be marketed to the niche that loves them. This means that authors get residual royalties for work that is technically out-of-print, and that incents them to create similar work. The art form again blooms.

(On an only-slightly nepotistic note: Anthology Builder now has three Sandra Tayler stories in it.)

Anyway, Nancy asked me if I’d like to contribute cover art for Anthology Builder, and even though this is something I’d get paid for I still haven’t managed to submit something. Too busy making comics, I guess.

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.

Here are two web-comicky things that I’m sure you want to pick up eventually, but which you can’t acquire in that manner.

The first is the extremely limited edition Monica Macquette from Paul Taylor and Patch Together. Here’s the final version of the sculpt, pre-painted:

They’ve hit the minimum in order to start the run, but they’re not going to be carrying inventory. If you want one of these, you need to open your wallet now. Do you need to see the full set of rotation pix for the sculpt? Done.

The second is the first-ever sketched bookplate from Phil Foglio, which is what you get if you order the Girl Genius Book 8 Sketched Edition , also available in gorgeous hardback.

If this looks just a little bit like what you’ve seen me do it’s no coincidence. I talked Phil into it, gave him piles of sage advice, then stood back and shook my head as he handled sketch editions completely differently than I do. I mean, he’s using PENCIL, and he’s letting you pick almost ANYTHING YOU WANT. Phil, if you’re reading this I just want you to know that I see you over there raising the bar and ruining things for all of us. You’ll be getting a call from the Webcartoonists 601st, sir.

So. Monica Macquette, and Girl Genius Sketch Editions. There will be enough for everybody who buys now, but after that they’re all gone.

Three things:

FIRST: I’m a big fan of Wapsi Square. I like the story, and I love Paul Taylor’s artwork.

Paul has recently partnered with a firm called “Patch Together” to create figurines, and they’ve agreed to do a macquette of Monica Villarreal, the short-yet-heroically-proportioned protagonista from Wapsi Square. They just need 50 pre-orders to kick off the run.

If this is something you’d like, too, here’s where you drop coin.

SECOND: Schlocker and jig-cutter extraordinaire Mark Smiley has created an authorized, one-of-a-kind 8″x10″ jigsaw puzzle based on “Petey’s Galactic Bath.” This is hand-cut from 1/2″ multi-ply hardwood, sanded oh-so-smooth on the back, with a laminate image on the front. If you want it signed, we can oblige. It’s up on eBay right now. Mark and I are going sixty-forty on this — he’s the craftsman, I’m the hack with the big audience.

THIRD: As part of the LTUE fundraising auction, Mark Smiley and I are offering a second one-of-a-kind jigsaw puzzle, this time featuring the “Amorph Family Photo.” The auction is Saturday night, and yes, you must be present to participate.

I expect that by the simple expedient of a smaller bidding crowd this one will go for maybe a quarter of the price of the one on eBay, but that’s just me pulling numbers out of my [ahem] thin air. If you’re local, looking for a bargain, and interested in supporting LTUE, we’ll see you Saturday night.

You kids and your internets. Why, any one of you with a blog can just up and pretend to be a real journalist.

And you know what? You might turn out to be good at it.

Nathan Gibson, a Freshman at some University somewhere, asked if he could interview me via something called “Instant Messaging” on “The Google,” and then post the results on his blog. I agreed. He is soliciting questions, which you may ask below. If Nathan poses them during our interview, I may deign to answer.  Or perhaps I will fake static by leaning on the keyboard (that still fools people, right?)

My friend Bob Defendi is a game designer, and has a small problem. Diamond Distribution is upping the requirements for minimum sales for everything they distribute, and this is affecting his new game supplement Combat Essentials 1: Critical Matters. They might just be pulling the plug on it in the next couple of months.

Let’s talk about the book for a moment. You just scored a critical hit (a natural 20 in D&D 4.0, or a natural 20 followed by a successful to-hit roll in 3.5) and you want it to be special. Enter Critical Matters. Roll percentile dice, check the table for your weapon type, and let the fun begin.

The higher your die roll, the more severe the crit. Sure, maxing out your damage is one thing, but you don’t want numbers. You want cinema. And special effects. And maybe some macabre humor throughout. Some samples:

“Blow between foe’s eyes cracks skull and ruptures a vessel. Foe attacks random targets for 5 Rounds, and is then Dead.”

“Blow shatters skull and kills foe instantly. A good mortician, and he’ll look ‘just like himself.’ Dead.”

“How many bones are there in the body again? Multiply by 20. Oh, and Dead.”

If you’ve been following Bob’s Death by Cliché podcast, you know how funny he can be. Critical Matters is like a book of his best punchlines. Sprinkle some of these into your game session and you’ll be everybody’s favorite GM. You don’t even need to roll dice — just cherry-pick your favorites, and apply them whenever you find them appropriate.

So… now that you know you want it, how do you get it? Head on down to your Friendly Local Game Store and ask for it by name. Here are the details:

Product: Combat Essentials 1: Critical Matters
Publisher: Final Redoubt Press
ISBN: 978-0-9818802-0-4
Stock #4001

You can also buy Critical Matters directly from Final Redoubt Press, but Bob would much rather you acquire your copies from inventory that the distributor is threatening (contractually, I’m sure) to destroy and report as unsold. On that happy note, more samples…

“Blow to collarbone leaves foe with a bruise, a –2 penalty, and the need for strong drink.”

“Point slides into upper abdomen, nicking several important organs and arteries. That’s the whole shooting match. Foe has 8 rounds to wonder how bad it is before he dies. Stunned for 7 rounds. Use the last one wisely.”

“Neatly remove foe’s head. You have just enough time left in the attack to strike a pose.”

“Thunk. Wait for the pain. Wait for it… There it is.”

“Hack cuts foe’s neck. Doesn’t hit anything too major, but there’s a lot of blood. Foe is dazed for 1 round as he works out that he’s only bleeding every hour.”

“Point slices foe’s spine. He collapses, paralyzed from the waist down. He nudges his legs, as if to restart them. Stunned for 1 round, dazed for 3 more. Bleed every round.”

“Blow chips off a piece of the foe’s xiphoid process. The foe feels a slight discomfort under his sternum. Foe has 10 rounds of movement until death. Any round when he doesn’t move his chest doesn’t count. Every round where he moves causes increasing discomfort. –1 per round of movement.”

“Pound foe in the stomach. Foe seems uninjured but foe receives a –1 penalty next round from the pain. The penalty increases one every round until it hits –10, then it drops one a round every round after that.”

“Blow to foe’s spine causes a –2 penalty from the searing pain. If not magically healed, the foe will be able to predict rain.”

Oh, and I have it on good authority* that if enough copies of this book sell in the next two months, Bob will give my barbarian an extra level.

*Note: By “On Good Authority” I mean “I announced it on my blog, Bob. Don’t make a liar out of me, or I’ll have you predicting rain for years.”

I’m enjoying my vacation.

(non-sequitur: As I typed that last sentence my beanie-monkey fell off of my auxiliary monitor, bounced off the Wacom tablet, and hit the floor. Just so you know.)

My good friend Richard Bliss (marketing guru extraordinaire and unwitting mentor) sent me a gift, courtesy of the geniuses at JibJab. It’s an extremely accelerated version of “It’s A Wonderful Life” with new faces. Enjoy!

My buddy Bob “Mountain of Lovin’” Defendi (game designer and Writer of the Future) has now posted five episodes of Death by Cliché. For your convenience, links! One, Two, Three, Four, and Five. I am listening to four and five while painting some Warmachine figures. The laughter interferes with the detail work, but containing myself is good practice for preventing those pesky beverage-out-the-nose events.

Finally, in the last two days I’ve knocked down an entire week of comics and finished the scripting and penciling for the Schlock Mercenary: Out From Under bonus story. It comes out to fifty-one rows’ worth of work. Err… play.

Ahhhh, vacation. Merry Christmas, everyone!

(Update: After posting this I picked the monkey up off the floor and carefully repositioned him. The photo is proof.)

Just over eleven months ago I blogged about Ken Burnside’s Minimus, the one-page RPG.

Ken has since made it four times longer, and he’s submitted it for consideration for an Origins Award, where it will be up against the eight-hundred-pound gorilla of the industry, D&D 4.0.

I play D&D 4.0, but I love rooting for the underdog. Besides, Minimus is such a brilliant distillation of role-playing that it should be required reading for people who play other table-top RPGs — especially game-masters.

From page three:

Minimus is a storytelling game … The focus of a storytelling game is descriptions of character actions and interpersonal relationships. The cardinal rule for running a storytelling game is this: Story logic trumps realism. If it sounds cool, say “yes”.

I remember playing “How to Host a Murder” years ago, and thinking “this is just a ‘Miss Marple’ D&D game.” Role-playing games are a form of group storytelling, and once you peel away the game mechanics you usually find yourself with a simple set of rules for storytellers.

Those rules are so simple it’s hard to charge money for them. Besides, the physics simulations inherent in the game mechanics are fun, so game designers and players alike bury themselves there.

But some of the very best moments in any role-playing session arise out of the story logic you’ll find explained in the four short pages of Minimus.

Go have a look.