Haven’t seen this mentioned, but the on-line daily comic (and they never missed a day in over 20 years) Schlock Mercenary came to an end tonight (well, technically tomorrow, but the comic was posted this evening).
I’m not going to try and describe it, but it combines Science Fiction, Action movies, and real stories of real people (even if the people are Aliens or Artificial Intelligences) that you come to CARE about.
And now I won’t have one of my go-to comics for the past decade (I found it late, in 2011) to look forward to. And that makes me sad.
Because we all could use a little Schlock these days…
Agreed. Been reading since early 2002, occasionally taking a few months off to have a new binge to return to; nevermind the occasional archive binge. End of an era.
If you’re not already following them you might also enjoy Freefall, Drive, Starslip, or Spacetrawler. Plenty of archive to enjoy on those!
Taylor had a new comic up, every single day, for over 20 years without fail. Every day for that span (or at least, since I discovered the strip), I was able to get another installment of the story. That, alone, is extraordinary among webcomics.
And all of that was in a really good webcomic. Combine the two, and I think it’s safe to say that it was my #1 favorite webcomic.
I’m guessing that it won’t be long before he’s back creating something else, and I look forward to seeing what it is.
Sad to hear. I actually started reading only a month or so into it back in 2000. I used to read a couple dozen strips every day, but mostly due to their inconsistent schedules and indefinite hiatuses, Schlock was my last hold out. I bought all his books, drawn and signed, the only online comic artist that I did so with.
It also had the first general purpose forum that I had ever participated in. Sad when that went away.
The timing was bad, as I shared my enjoyment of Schlock with a close friend of mine who died, and that happened around the same time that Taylor started the storylines exploring immortality, and that was just a bit too much for me.
I always meant to go back, but never brought myself around to do so. I may go ahead and start back from the beginning. May take a minute, being up to 20 years and change of strips now.
I knew he had said long ago that he already had it plotted out, that it had an end, and I remember him saying that we were much closer to the end than to the beginning. I’m pretty sure he mentioned even back then that the end of Schlock Mercenary would not be the end of his career, or the end of the SM universe, or even the end of the plot arcs of the characters, but it would be an ending point.
It will be interesting to see what he creates. Whether it be a whole new universe with new characters and places, or if it be prequels following characters before their introduction to the strip, I’m sure it will be well done and worth following.
Just finished. Cheated a bit, and went back only a couple years. Picked up a few months before I left off.
Excellent work, great ending, in the famous Taylor “Surprising but Inevitable” way.
Sometime, I’ll have to start back at the beginning.
Petey as a god always made me a bit uncomfortable. He was always a fan of “situational ethics.” He was always doing what he thought was best for the inhabitants of the galaxy, but only because that was what he chose to do at that time.
Odd that I find the idea of Schlock as a god to be more comforting.
Did it occur to anyone else that there might be a relationship developing between meatspace-Schlock and Cindy? And that, by amorph standards, it’s actually possible for them to mate? After all, Schlock himself is (by amorph standards) a quarter human.
I did think that the ending felt slightly rushed. Like, I just wrapped up DMing a D&D adventure, and towards the end, my players were all tired and sleepy, so I glossed over some parts and told them about a few other things happening in the background, rather than playing through all of it. That’s kind of how this felt. We didn’t see the end of Tagon the Elder and Elf’s assault on the Pa’anuri ship, we didn’t watch Ennesby taking over the Andromeda core generator, we don’t even know how Schlock took the remaining three nodes from Petey, etc.
He has always considered reproduction to be more of a meeting of minds than a meeting of "anatomical ahem"s.
With style!
There are many things that get glossed over or put into notes. One of the more recent (to me) ones was when Tagon talked Schlock through docking the ship he was in, using the point defense cannons as thrusters.
