Eric Burns, aka The Websnark, is (in my opinion, at any rate) the foremost critical voice in webcomics. And I say this not only because he has nice things to say about Schlock Mercenary, but because his criticism is so consistently SOLID, regardless of what he's reading. Oh, and he respects the fact that his readers will disagree with him. Even when he says "I've given up on [webcomic 'x']," he does NOT berate the people who still read it and love it. So yeah, I got 'snarked, and came out of it with a tasty, tasty biscuit. The low-carb diet precludes me EATING said biscuit, so I'm having it bronzed. I could use a trophy or two. There's a comment from me under that particular Websnark installment in which I carefully do NOT spoil the coming weeks and months of Schlock Mercenary. Since posting it I've thought a bit more about what I can and can't say about Our Story Thus Far... Remember a week or so ago when I mentioned C.S. Lewis and Christian Allegories? Lewis said that Narnia was a "supposal" rather than an allegory. Well, there are already a few of you who are looking at Petey, the Qlaviqlese, and Schlockiverse politics in general and wondering whether I'm creating some complex allegory for the current political scene. I'm starting to wonder if I know how C.S. Lewis felt. I don't follow politics closely enough to create a decent allegory for the complex mess we have worldwide in the 21st century, and I'm not sure I'd want to in any event. And I doubt Schlock Mercenary qualifies as a "supposal" under Lewis' definition, though it's possible that ALL science fiction is "supposal" in nature. I THINK what I'm creating can be regarded as "satire," at least in some circles, but mostly I'm not thinking about that. I'm not a deliberate satirist. I'm just having fun, poking fun, and writing the story that The Voices In My Head narrate. One of them happens to be a nigh-omnipotent aggregated super-intelligence (nothing artificial about it, folks) who, in Ennesby's words, is "meddling." *Sigh*. You know the Voices have the upper hand when I have to start quoting them in order to explain myself.
