April 02, 2005
Saturday April 2, 2005 • Howard Tayler

No Fooling! Schlock Mercenary REALLY Leaves Keenspot
entry, April 2nd, 2005

Many of you read my announcement yesterday, and thought I was April Fooling. Well, I wasn't. Sure, I had some fun with the explanation of my move (Illuminati? World domination? I hope you had your tin-foil hats on...) but I wasn't KIDDING. When have you folks ever known me to joke around?

(Don't answer that.)

There are numerous business reasons -- solid ones, dealing with revenue, time-to-market, customer satisfaction, and outbound marketing -- for the move. I won't bore you with the details or lessen any of us with gossip about my friends at Keenspot. It's irrelevant, really. What matters to you, my readers, is what YOU get out of this move. So... what DO you get out of this move?

  1. No more tantalizing banner ads featuring scantily-clad models pretending to be single women who want to date you. If you want to look at those pictures, I'm sure you can find them someplace else.
  2. No more un-vetted links to other comic strips. If I link to a comic strip, it's because I've read it, I like it, and I think you'll like it. I'm not knocking Keenspot here -- their cross-promotional tools are hands-down the most effective in the industry... but they come at a price. I'm no longer willing to ask my readers to pay that price just so I can woo readers of other comics.
  3. Faster load times, and an earlier update. Schlock Mercenary WILL update at midnight Eastern Time. If it doesn't, then something is wrong and we're debugging it.
  4. Debugging... yes, there is a down-side to all this. This site is far from complete, both in terms of infrastructure and cosmetics. There are broken widgets. There is dust everywhere. There are many megabytes of content still missing (note to self: label all boxes carefully when moving). As a reward to you for putting up with this, Schlock Mercenary will update an hour ahead of schedule for the duration of the "pardon our dust."
Now, with that out of the way, I'd like to call your attention to Penguicon. That's my next convention, and if you live within 50 miles of Detroit, you don't want to miss it. Not only will *I* be there, but I'll be there with Steve Jackson's Convention Chaos Machine. Trust me, you do NOT want to miss this.
2005 Convention and Appearance Schedule

April 22-24: Penguicon 3.0, Novi Michigan
May 27-29: CONduit XV, Salt Lake City, UT
July 13-17: Comic-Con 2005, San Diego, CA. (tentative... this one's pricey)
August: Fandemonium 2005, Boise, ID. (tentative)
October 8-9: Revoluticon, Asheville, NC
October 14-16: Linucon 2.0, Austin, TX. (tentative)

Are you interested in having me come to your city? Your convention? Your HOUSE? Pay my way and pay my stay, and we can make it happen. The BEST way is to convince the convention organizers that I'm worthy of "GoH" status, but there are alternatives. Email me if you've got an event in mind.