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A small change in evening routine
Jul. 27th, 2020 12:34 amOne of my evening computer routines is checking the next day's webcomics, since most of them post before I go to bed. The various comics in the routine change by day since most aren't daily, and by year as comics come and go and creators go on hiatus or come back from it. However, there has been one constant that anchors the routine: Schlock Mercenary, a science-fiction webcomic about a company of mercenaries, somewhat centered around an odd creature named Schlock.
Howard Tayler started writing, drawing, and posting Schlock Mercenary some time in 2000. I don't remember when I discovered it and started reading, but I know it was well before 2004, when he was able to turn it into a full-time business with his wife as business manager. Since then, he (and Travis Walton, whom he brought on to do the coloring in 2010, and Gary Henson, who runs the server) have posted a comic every day of every week of every year, without a single missed day -- and without even resorting to a "fan art" day or a "filler comic" day. The closest they came was one day quite a few years ago when the server was misbehaving, and the comic went up an hour late.
Until this past Friday. Schlock Mercenary has reached its end, all the story arcs have come to a close, and Howard is taking a well-deserved break.
It's a bit weird, not having this to start out the webcomic routine, and not having the certainty that there will be at least one new one to read. (None of the other ones I'm currently following are daily, and none of them post on Thursdays.) Someone was commenting on Twitter about "ruts worn in their brain" with the strength of habit of checking the site at the time when the comic went up, and Howard replied with a comment that he was doing the same thing because he always habitually checked to make sure it had gone up correctly.
Howard Tayler started writing, drawing, and posting Schlock Mercenary some time in 2000. I don't remember when I discovered it and started reading, but I know it was well before 2004, when he was able to turn it into a full-time business with his wife as business manager. Since then, he (and Travis Walton, whom he brought on to do the coloring in 2010, and Gary Henson, who runs the server) have posted a comic every day of every week of every year, without a single missed day -- and without even resorting to a "fan art" day or a "filler comic" day. The closest they came was one day quite a few years ago when the server was misbehaving, and the comic went up an hour late.
Until this past Friday. Schlock Mercenary has reached its end, all the story arcs have come to a close, and Howard is taking a well-deserved break.
It's a bit weird, not having this to start out the webcomic routine, and not having the certainty that there will be at least one new one to read. (None of the other ones I'm currently following are daily, and none of them post on Thursdays.) Someone was commenting on Twitter about "ruts worn in their brain" with the strength of habit of checking the site at the time when the comic went up, and Howard replied with a comment that he was doing the same thing because he always habitually checked to make sure it had gone up correctly.