Blógünder Schlock

The difference between Blogunder Schlock and my Twitter feed is that on Blogunder I can luxuriate in the absence of a 140-character limit…

Note from Sandra:

The XDM pre-orders went out today.  Sketched Under New Management second printing will go out early next week after Howard has a chance to do the sketching.  Thank you to everyone who ordered.   Extra special thanks to the volunteers who cheerfully helped even when the plans had to be shifted around to meet events.

While I am thanking people, I also want to thank everyone who bid on the auctions or donated money.  Howard got his iphone yesterday and is now cheerfully contemplating what Schlockish apps can be devised for it.

Also thanks to all of you who read and laugh every day.  You make what we do possible.

XDM Pre-orders are closed. Tracy, Curtis, and I signed two pallets of books on Monday, and I think we’ve got a few left over.

I’m going to be taking some of them to Dragon’s Keep. That’s right, on Wednesday (the day comics arrive) by 2:00pm you can get a Pre-order edition of XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery at Dragon’s Keep in Provo. As an added bonus, I may be able to draw a picture in the back for you.

In other news, watch this space for:

* My WorldCon Schedule! See me in Montreal!

* My GenCon Indy Schedule! See me in Indianapolis!

* Some auctions, maybe! Including one of only three upside-down-bound copies of XDM! Tracy got one, Curtis got one, I’m going to draw in mine and then sell it because I want to have an iPhone.

As you may have noticed I’m not going to be at Comic-Con this week. Go see my friends in the Webcomics Pavilion, including the Blank Label Comics crew in booth 1330, sandwiched between Penny Arcade and Keenspot.

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.

For some reason that title reads like “acid reflux.” Regardless, it means that the Schlock server isn’t auto-updating. Troy and Dave are looking at it, and I’m going to let them. If the comic doesn’t update automagically in an hour or so I’ll  go ahead and Notepad it into place.

I think that “hiccough” is the original, non-intuitive spelling of the word we all pronounce as “hiccup.” And my server had one last night.

Maybe it’s wrong to call it a hiccough, or even a hiccup. After all, when humans have involuntary diaphragm spasms they usually don’t forget to do important things that are on their schedules, like post the next day’s comic. They just gripe about how this always happens when they eat too fast, then get on with whatever else they were supposed to be doing.

Anyway, the day’s comic is up, and people who know more about the server than I do are looking closely at the diaphragm, and checking to see if perhaps it has been eating too quickly. I suspect cyberalzheimer’s, or perhaps CRONic Fatigue Syndrome, but I’m no expert. I’d just kick the darn thing in the hex-nuts and then tell it to turn its head and hiccough.

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.

I’ve been interviewed a few times in recent months and I have failed in my responsibility to you, fair reader. I never linked the interviews for you.

The first interview was back in February. Nathan Gibson interviewed me for his “Do A Barrel-Roll” blogspot site as part of a class project. He gathered a couple dozen questions that he didn’t end up using, but which I answered by way of preparation. I’ll post that Q&A below.

The second interview was for a special-interest periodical called “Mormon Artist.” Allison Aston dealt me some of the usual, “being a webcomic guy” questions, but there were also a few stumpers in there about home, family, and faith. My favorite part of the interview was the photo shoot — those shots in the sidebar are nifty.

And now, the Q&A (most of these came from you readers): (more…)

With the airing of the June 12th, 2009 installment of Schlock Mercenary I celebrate three things:

1) Nine full years of Schlock online.

2) The beginning of the tenth year of Schlock online.

3) The recycling of a nine-year-old punchline. Under the current conditions, that’s the very oldest of my punchlines I can re-use.

It’s been a great nine years. Here’s to nine more, only I want them to be even better.