Dead Tree Update
Wednesday March 8, 2006 • Howard Tayler
It's been a good few days. Steve Troop has been handling the layout for the first Schlock Mercenary book, and it is looking very, VERY sharp. All the footnotes are done, and in a final pass through the book yesterday I managed to squeeze in another 10 pieces of margin-art -- all brand-new, never before seen. A few of them even "point up" the punchlines in the strips they accompany. If y'all like that trick, you can bet I'll be doing it for future books. Just this morning I finished coloring a monster cast-shot. It features 25 of the Toughs -- 15 humans, and 10 non-humans (I'm counting Jevee as a human, and I'm only counting Tchukk once) -- all posing for the camera. I'll be making a digital version of this picture available for download with pre-orders. But you still can't pre-order yet. We're not opening that up until after I've seen the press-match copy, and I'm 100% confident in the product. I hope to open pre-orders in two weeks. From the previous thread, here are some details about the book: 80pp, full color, sunday-style coloring on all strips. It includes all strips from March 9, 2003 through August 23, 2003 (the "Under New Management" storyline), with footnotes. There are new footnotes, never-before-seen art bits in the margins and assorted white-spaces, and five pages of "origins" story where you find out where Schlock got his first BH-209. The book will be 8.5″ x 11″, perfect-bound, on 80lb gloss or semi-gloss paper (not sure which, haven't seen the test yet). The price is $15 plus shipping. N. American shipping will be $3.00 for the first book, and $1.00 for each additional book. Worldwide shipping details aren't available yet, but we WILL be shipping globally. All pre-orders placed before the cutoff date will be autographed. For an additional $10 I'll pencil and ink some Schlock on the last page, but I'll only make that available for a limited number. I'm not sure how limited yet. My drawing hand and my wallet are still arguing.
