Commentary: Today's strip is the 5,845th daily installment of Schlock Mercenary. The strip has been running for 835 weeks, Monday through Sunday, which means that today it has been online for sixteen years and one day.
When Schlock Mercenary first aired on June 12th of 2000 the #1 song on the Pop charts was Santana's "Maria, Maria" and the #10 song was Britney Spears' "Oops!.. I Did It Again." Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Bill Clinton was the President of the United States, and Americans had yet to be introduced to the term "dimpled chad."
There was no Facebook, no Twitter, and LiveJournal was just 14 months old. MySpace hadn't been born yet, nor had two of the kids living at Chez Tayler with Sandra and Howard. Beginning with today's Schlock Mercenary strip, Americans born after Schlock Mercenary launched will start being able to drive...
NARRATOR: Sanctum Adroit Precinctory Detention, Jumpstar Prime...
PETEY: Hello, Sergeant.
SCHLOCK: Are you here to take another sample?
PETEY: Why would I do that?
SCHLOCK: Because this me is stuck forever in jail, and you might need to make another me to do something outside of jail.
PETEY: I'm not actually here, Sergeant. I'm a hologram.
SCHLOCK: Your little projector thingy is actually here. I bet it can get samples.
SCHLOCK: You probably already got a sample, because you knew I'd touch your thingy.
PETEY: You're smarter than I remember. I'm glad I got another sample.