December 03, 2005
Saturday December 3, 2005 • Howard Tayler

Schlock 2001
Saturday, December 3rd, 2005

Today there are 2001 strips in the Schlock Mercenary archives. Yesterday I celebrated 2000 strips by hanging out at Dragon's Keep and pencilling eight days of comics. That's right, I may have some laurels, but there's no point in resting on 'em. You folks don't care how many strips I have in the archives if tomorrow's strip doesn't air. I've created an addictive substance, and you Schlock-heads need your daily fix.

Today I'm back at Dragon's Keep helping out with their Toys for Tots from 1pm until at least 4pm... maybe clear until closing time. If you're in the area, you're welcome to stop by. I'll be doing inked (not just pencils, not at Christmas time!) Schlock Mercenary character sketches in exchange for any toy donation on Saturday... Don't miss out.

On the subject of laurels, I promised I'd link you folks to any reviews, blogs, or news posts mentioning my run of 2000 unbroken days of daily comics. Here you go!

  • Jen Contino of The Pulse interviewed me via email. You can post comments below the interview.
  • Eric Burns of Websnark fame had a few things to say on the subject.You can make comments below the snarking. (The "Daily Grind" he mentions is a competition for updating five days a week, which I'm not competing in. This particular event was originally billed as a way for web cartoonists to experience the "grind" of cranking out strips for a deadline, like the syndicate pros have to. I don't need the tantalizing promise of a single elimination jackpot to give me that experience. I've been doing it for five years, five months, and 21 days now. I'm rooting for a couple of fellow professionals who got suckered into it, though -- Brad Guigar and Steve Troop.)
  • Speaking of Brad (even though only parenthetically), he mentioned my milestone in the "Inc Stain" over at Evil Inc.
  • Xaviar Xerexes (nom de plume, anyone?) mentions the milestone in this news brief over at Comixpedia.
  • I blew my own horn over on the Blank Label Blog. You can make comments there, and you don't need to register to do it.
  • Jay Maynard of Tron Guy fame mentioned the milestone in his Live Journal. From there he cross-posted it to the Schlocktroops Live Journal. Live Journal members can comment in both places.
  • The milestone was mentioned in the Pneumonochrome blog, which has a very cool name I wish I'd thought of. You need not register to comment.
  • Andy LoPresto mentions it in this blog entry. He's been linking to Schlock for a long time now. Thanks, Andy!
  • The Nightstar denizens kicked off this thread on the subject. I'm not sure why it didn't get more posts. Maybe it's because it derailed into a discussion of candy very early on.
  • Scott McCloud mentioned me in his morning improv blog. One of these years I'll have to do a 24-hour comic and make Scott happy.
  • And I think I owe an honorable mention to author Laurell K. Hamilton, who wore (or so I'm told) a Schlock Mercenary t-shirt during a television interview. She didn't say anything about 2000 strips, but she did mention my "Thankful" blog entry in this post in her own blog. My "Thankful" blog entry is currently in the offline entry Archives... It'll surface again someday, I promise. But now's as good a time as any to say how thankful I am that I've been able to keep at this for as long as I have. Here's to another five years, five months, and 21 days. And then some.
That's all for now. There may be others, but Technorati hasn't apprised me of them. Now... I need to post this, and make with the coloring. I've got to get some work done before I'm due at Dragon's Keep for Toys for Tots.