Schlock Mercenary
The Retrospective Sketchbook project has just three days to go on Kickstarter. Over the weekend we cleared the “number of books” threshold that enables us to do offset printing (instead of print-on-demand), and with offset we can get color pages without breaking our budget. The project closes on Thursday, June 4th, at 2pm Eastern. The book will be eighty pages long, and in color, which will make…
“I think I’ll take up doodling as a hobby.” I said that to Sandra twenty-six years ago, in March of 2000. Less than four months later I’d launched Schlock Mercenary online. My writing decent, if perhaps a bit dad-jokey. My art was really, really rough¹. We’re doing a book about this. You can back the project over on Kickstarter. If we hit our $30k stretch goal (not far off right now, it’s pretty…
I’m working on the bonus story, “Refulgence of Refuge,” and the final panel has to do quite a bit of heavy lifting. If you’re familiar with book 19 then you know (spoiler alert) that a civilization of feathered raptor-oids among Earth’s dinosaurs was rescued by an advanced civilization. “Refulgence of Refuge” gives us the details of this rescue, and because of the title, which literally means…
This took longer than I wanted it to. It’s for just one panel in the Book 19 bonus story, but it’s an important panel, and it needs to look good. In the amount of time I spent noodling on this? 2018’s version of me could have written and illustrated two weeks of comics. I do, however, take comfort knowing that 2018’s version of me, while quite good at his job, could not have done this panel…
I spent much of 2025 the way I spent 2023 and 2024: bulldozing speedbumps. It’s a metaphor I’ve deployed before. It means “identify things that create extra work, or stress, or pain, and remove them.” The full metaphor goes something like this: Before Long Covid¹, I was like a fast vehicle with a very robust suspension. Speedbumps, rough road, and even obstacles were things I hit at full speed,…
I’ll be at GenCon Indy from July 31st through August 3rd. You can find me with Jim Zub, Stacy King, and Sandra Tayler in Booth 1349.
Somebody (probably Howard) forgot to post this news. You should have seen it three weeks ago. Whoops! We’re crowdfunding A FUNCTION OF FIREPOWER , and the project closes in just ten days. The cover looks a lot like this: Cover design by Howard Tayler. Cover illustration by Garrett Berner. The bonus story in A FUNCTION OF FIREPOWER is called “Refulgence of Refuge,” and it will fill in some of the…
Book 18, Mandatory Failure, has arrived from the printer. I’ve signed about 2500 copies, and we’ve begun queueing those up for sketches. A few stacks of MANDATORY FAILURE awaiting sketches from Howard My stamina is not what it used to be. I’m as fast as ever, but I wear out pretty quickly. Slow and steady, then. If you’ve ordered a sketch edition, it’s in one of these boxes stacked against the…
How did 2024 go for me? Well, the beginning of the answer to that question can be found in the date of this post. We’re two-thirds of the way through January and I’m only now finding the time and energy to write a year-end thingy. The end of the answer is a bit bleak. In summary, I learned that I’m more disabled than I thought I was. I still make big plans with high hopes, but then I overdo it and…
Sandra and I will be at DragonSteel Nexus this week, signing, sketching, and saying hello from our booth in the Exhibitors Hall. For daily updates, you can follow us on BlueSky – howardtayler and sandratayler respectively. We’ll post pictures!