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  1. - Top - End - #181
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Realize that the comic is not over. Howard's taking a short break for a few months, then there will be new strips about schlock and other things happening. Just won't be so overarching anymore.
    The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.

  2. - Top - End - #182
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by JavaScribe View Post
    I'm not just referring to the lack of closure, it feels like the narration itself is hinting at it.
    Fair enough.

  3. - Top - End - #183
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2020-07-23 at 06:16 AM.
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  4. - Top - End - #184
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    I mean, the actual end-screen will probably be very similar to that. You don't set up the whole 'telling, not showing' metaphor with very specific examples like that without actually subverting it a little bit in the end.
    Jasnah avatar by Zea Mays

  5. - Top - End - #185
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    Not only are 'small-scale' (group-based, primarily character driven) and 'large-scale' (society-based, primarily story driven) very different approaches to storytelling it is particularly hard to transition from one mode to another within the context of the same story. Essentially, in order to do so, you need to have planned it out from the very beginning, so that you can pre-position your characters such that they transition seamlessly from one scale to another. A very good example would be Aragorn, who shows up as a 'ranger' but turns out to be the destined king who ends up leading the forces of good in the big climax, and Tolkien had all the relationships planned out before he even started writing LotR.

    Howard clearly didn't plan everything out in advance, and it's also clear that of the characters he developed who managed to transition to the upper-managerial level necessary for framing epic-scale discussion like Breya and Petey, he just doesn't like telling stories with them nearly as much as with Schlock and Tagon. The very fact that the highest-ranked person sent on the mission to contact Boloceade was Sorlie - when Breya or Petey could have easily sent a version of themselves along instead - is indicative of this.



    Definitely agree with this. Classically, an epic involves a lot of scenes of high-ranking people (who may or may not be interesting characters in their own right) standing around and pontificating on the circumstances in order to provide context and story framing. This tradition goes back all the way to the Iliad, at least. It is, however, tricky to do is visual media because you can't just throw a few thousand words out. The more complicated the story becomes, the harder it is to compress this necessary contextual exposition. OT Star Wars, for instance, actually has quite a few expository scenes (ROTJ, most notably, flat out opens with one on the second Death Star) despite having one of the most deliberately generic epic storylines it is possible to have based on the whole 'monomyth' concept.

    Schlock Mercenary, by this point is exceedingly complex, and contains multiple issues - superhuman AI intelligences, transhumanist mind state mobility, and lifeforms formed of a completely different material physics, among others - that have absolute no analogue in human lived experience, so explaining what is going on would require a metric ton of exposition that the comic doesn't have any easy ability to handle without getting extremely bogged down. Book 20 opened with a week-long prologue and that was barely enough to minimally set the stage. There's no way to take the month or more necessary to properly frame the 'Baryon Wars' as a conflict.
    Today's strip makes it appear that Howard is aware of the corner he painted himself into.

    But if it's the last strip, I think it's also a sign that he's just plain exhausted.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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  6. - Top - End - #186
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    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    One final strip tomorrow, according to his Twitter. Some kind of splash panel, I'm sure, as Lvl 2 Expert and De Tess are suggesting.
    -Christian
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  7. - Top - End - #187
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    He's been doing this strip daily for twenty years. It's amazing he's not exhausted himself earlier.

    He can take as long as he wishes after creating a masterwork like that.
    Last edited by Silent Hunter; 2020-07-23 at 04:47 PM.
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  8. - Top - End - #188
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    From the new blog post:

    Then there was this thing, this sort of a watershed moment, just fifteen months after I started making comics, in September of 2001…

    Lots of us in the webcartooning space sought to express our feelings—of grief, anger, patriotism, fear, it’s a long list— and I realized that my story-based comic strip just wouldn’t work well for that.

    So I decided to keep telling the story I was telling.

    The only change I made was to amp up the triumph and the funny a bit
    Weird, I always felt like the really early strips are still some of the funniest, much more a gag (or sometimes 20 puns) a day than anything after that.

    Probably a bit of a "death of the author" moment, my standards for funny humor may be a tad low and punny.
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  9. - Top - End - #189
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Oh man i was not expecting how much daddy Karl would hit me. Go Karl. You deserve this for all the stuff you been through.
    The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.

  10. - Top - End - #190
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Disclaimer: I’m not a particular big fan of this comic, I read most of it in a week and then have stayed daily for the past few month, but I don’t really like it, I like a decent amount of bits of it, especially the first couple books and that circus arc, but it’s far from my favorite thing, any criticism of this ending I’m going to give should not really be understood as coming from a fan.

    Okay, with that long disclaimer over with, that was one of the most unsatisfying endings for a story I’ve ever seen. It skips over quite a few comics worth of material in a rush towards the end, and so the plot feels incredibly incomplete. In addition to this, the final book does not care about characters, they exist, but only to make the rush towards the end work. In the time I’ve been reading (since the creation of dark matter Schlock) Schlock is the only treated as mattering, the rest (especially poor Elf, downgraded to barely an extra) are barely more than reused drawings, and because of this none of them have any real completion to their story, they just stop appearing at whatever point they stop appearing, and that’s the end, making this incredible empty.

    And for the record, none of those problems are things I’ve ever really found in the comic before, in the first 19 books characters were treated as characters, with stories usually being told about them, not using them, and plot wasn’t generally just jumped over at a madcap pace.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Schroeswald View Post
    I recognize that Conservation of Detail is Overrated, but I find the event that I am using as evidence for my theory above important enough/given enough focus to qualify for what I call Elan’s Exception, “Who wastes perfectly good foreshadowing like that?”. Also I have never correctly predicted any event in any piece of media so take this theory with a grain of salt (I call this Peelee’s Ye Old Reminder).

  11. - Top - End - #191
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by tonberrian View Post
    Oh man i was not expecting how much daddy Karl would hit me. Go Karl. You deserve this for all the stuff you been through.
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    Rockphed said it well.
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  12. - Top - End - #192
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    I've been reading Schlock Mercenary about half of my life (more than half of my life as an adult). It ending feels like a big landmark.

    Congratulations to Howard (and Travis, and Sandra, and anyone and everyone else who helped him get here). He did a rare and special and wonderful thing, and I don't think anyone has really done anything exactly like it. I'm glad to have read the comics, glad to have been a Schlock Mercenary fan, glad to have a copy of Planet Mercenary, and glad to see Howard end the mega-arc/strip on his own terms. I look forward to checking out whatever work he chooses to do next, if and when he chooses to do it. I hope he enjoys his break. He certainly deserves it!

  13. - Top - End - #193
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Well, that's it then.

    I think I picked up Schlock a decade or so ago, and it's been a regular part of my evening routine since then. I will miss it, but hopefully Howard circles back after a VERY well deserved vacation and writes shorter stories in the same universe. I'd like to see the Terraforming Wars, the rise of the UNS and its gradual climb to galactic powerhouse, the fall of several civilizations (i.e. the cataclysmic war that caused the All Star population to isolate itself), etc.

    Until then, I'll leave the site bookmarked, and perhaps start a full archive binge.

  14. - Top - End - #194
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    That is extragalactic kaff and murtagh with their offspring.
    Oops, I got the wrong tagon. That's what I meant.
    The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.

  15. - Top - End - #195
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Well, that's that then. I'm glad I read it, there were some good times, and the work ethic is beyond reproach. But I agree, this went out with a whimper rather than a bang.
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  16. - Top - End - #196
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    I am glad I reached the end, and while I think the quality suffered in later parts I will check out his next work since I think with a fresh start (and a vacation) it will likely improve again.

  17. - Top - End - #197
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    I am mostly glad my comic sans-job has become an unnecessary addition.
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  18. - Top - End - #198
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    That was quite the prediction.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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  19. - Top - End - #199
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    I find it remarkable just how fast Petey went from respected guardian of the Milky Way to "some famous loser we know".

  20. - Top - End - #200
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by JavaScribe View Post
    I find it remarkable just how fast Petey went from respected guardian of the Milky Way to "some famous loser we know".
    After losing all of his capital ships and the core generator, what does he have left? I count the various cities of the Plenipotent Dominion and whatever small craft survived the battle for the core.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wardog View Post
    Rockphed said it well.
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  21. - Top - End - #201
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by JavaScribe View Post
    I find it remarkable just how fast Petey went from respected guardian of the Milky Way to "some famous loser we know".
    The sad thing is, you could put more or less anything in for X in the statement "I find it remarkable how fast X happened" in this strip recently. It's only just over a month ago that Ennesby rerouted the Pa'anuri long gun to fire at itself--everything has been wrapped up in that period of time. It's like the old pulp SF novels of the 50s, where the people writing them churned them out so fast that sometimes they'd realise they didn't have any way to end the plot with a page and a half to go, so would introduce the Ultimate Weapon of Evil-Slaying to wrap things up as quickly as possible.

  22. - Top - End - #202
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Schlock Mercenary is over, you can all go home now


    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    After losing all of his capital ships and the core generator, what does he have left? I count the various cities of the Plenipotent Dominion and whatever small craft survived the battle for the core.
    He probably is rerouting what little power he has left over to keep his cities going - but then, the worldships mean there's now nothing he can really offer but more of the same (if he's even as good as their AI and tech in the first place). He's a king who led the war effort, but then found himself irrelevant in the aftermath.
    An explanation of why MitD being any larger than Huge is implausible.

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  23. - Top - End - #203
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by Squire Doodad View Post
    He probably is rerouting what little power he has left over to keep his cities going - but then, the worldships mean there's now nothing he can really offer but more of the same (if he's even as good as their AI and tech in the first place). He's a king who led the war effort, but then found himself irrelevant in the aftermath.
    Arguably everyone from the current iteration of galactic civilization is irrelevant at this point. The Oafans outgun everyone else (doubly so with Petey's forces drastically depleted), and the returned worldship residents outnumber everyone else (possibly by several orders of magnitude). The worldship residents are also sufficiently technologically advanced that probably everyone in the galaxy from the current civ is broke, not just Petey.
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  24. - Top - End - #204
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    I was going to make a joke here about how I kept refreshing the site and nothing happened, but then something did happen.


    As Petey's ending goes, I suspect that there are a few layers to it that I simply don't see yet. And unfortunately this board may not be the place to discuss them, as Petey was always a way to explore themes such as agency/free will in relation to a god. (Where Howard categorizes himself as a religious person, so it has never been as simple as "where we're going we don't need gods".) Add to that the general forced rushedness of the ending, because there were simply too many things that could be addressed in detail, and I get the feeling there are a few more things about Petey that Howard came up with and might have wanted to spell out but decided to leave implied instead, and not knowing his characters as well as he does I"m not seeing those things yet. But who knows, there might be a blog post or something about it months or years down the line, and I'll be able to make up my mind as to whether this was deep or not then.
    Last edited by Lvl 2 Expert; 2020-07-25 at 01:37 AM.

  25. - Top - End - #205
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    If that's actually the end, then oh yeah.

    ...

    Bottom line: this doesn't feel like any sort of ending, it feels like the story just stopped.
    "When this ends? There is no end. There's just when the story tellers stop."

    Ok, that might not be an exact quote, but I suspect someone can dig up the exact strip and link it from that.
    Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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  26. - Top - End - #206
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    So looking over the last book and a half, to try to recap what's been going on at high speed ...

    https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2019-06-29

    Start of this book, and Schlock basically spells out what's going to happen over the book. Like perfect foreshadowing

    I'm here to shoot someone. Or eat someone. Or both if I'm lucky.
    You're here to arm me, aim me, and maybe tell me what not to shoot.

    Shooting and/or eating dark matter beings.
    What was he told not to shoot?
    Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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  27. - Top - End - #207
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Quote Originally Posted by keybounce View Post
    "When this ends? There is no end. There's just when the story tellers stop."

    Ok, that might not be an exact quote, but I suspect someone can dig up the exact strip and link it from that.
    That's a Tarquin quote from OotS # 763.
    Last edited by Windscion; 2020-07-25 at 02:19 PM.

  28. - Top - End - #208
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Link http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html

    This one comic explains why I like Tarquin so much as a villain. Or the whole way Rich turns the storytelling tropes on their head.
    Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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  29. - Top - End - #209
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2019-09-20

    Schlock shows how much he's grown in the tactical awareness and planning.

    "I don't want you deploying with us. If we can't get TAD up, THEN we'll have you port over. Keep you out of the way until you're useful."

    Not necessarily in diplomatic speech, but certainly in tactical planning.
    Not "fire at". I never used the word "at"
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  30. - Top - End - #210
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    Default Re: Schlock Mercenary X: The Mundivore, or, "Eat it"

    Except stories actually do end. That's a thing that happens, even in ordinary history there are points in time when one conflict concludes and largely leaves the stage and then another conflict, probably with some different players, takes center stage. People really do retire and go home and not do anything nearly as interesting as what they did for the past 3-5 years for the rest of their lives.

    The 'story' of Schlock Mercenary books 1-20 is the story of the end of the long period of peace introduced by the Ganni Project, and the subsequent build-up and outbreak of an incredibly ferocious war that resulted in the most significant realignment of demographics, economics, politics, and probably religions in-universe in literally billions of years.

    It is extremely unlikely, on a statistical level, that any member of the core cast (which doesn't include ascended deities DM Schlock and Cephalopoid Ennesby) will ever do anything anywhere near as important as what they did during this conflict even with the prolonged longevity treatments they now have access to. The latter actually makes is less likely in many ways, since extreme longevity combined with dominance by millions of years old elder beings is likely to make society incredibly static. This point in the story, the defeat of the Pa'anuri, the return of the worldships, the adoption of immortality, and the emergence of the new gods, all represent a massive change in era. Sure, the graph doesn't actually stop but you'd be hard pressed to find a bigger discontinuity anywhere.

    The universe of Schlock Mercenary, going forward, will not resemble the universe as it was (yes it may take some time to sort out, that's called the denouement) and in a very real sense that kind of stories that used to be possible to tell in that universe no longer will be.
    Last edited by Mechalich; 2020-07-25 at 10:13 PM.
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