Schlock Mercenary

Wonder Woman was pretty much a perfect movie. I loved it, Sandra loved it, and we’re both extremely happy that it is a thing that exists in this timeline. Does it redeem the clumsy, colorless DC movie franchise? Well, if my ticket purchases for those other movies (the ones with with the altruistic alien, the disturbed rich guy, and the clown-guy’s psychiatrist) helped fund Wonder Woman I have exactly zero regrets, and would spend that time and money again. Twice more, even. But I’m glad I don’t have too, because now I still have that time and money, and can go see Wonder Woman again. Wonder Woman clears my Threshold of Awesome, and while it doesn’t quite edge GoTG2 out of the top slot, it comes really close. It’s not as if these things matter. I get to live on the timeline where I can enjoy both of them.

In this post I’ll explain in detail how you too can turn your fancy Deluxe Game Chief’s “Handbrain” Screen from slick, dry-erase-compatible ABS plastic to a battered, rusty piece of equipment that has seen better centuries. A Disclaimer Meant to Give You Hope Sandra did all the modding work shown here, and she is a beginner. I explained the processes and provided tools, but she is the one who applied all the paint. This was her second experience with spray paint, and her first experience with glazing and dry-brushing, so while the results are perhaps a bit less polished than if I’d done the work, they’re easily within the reach of somebody who is new to hobby painting. This tutorial is long, but the actual process goes very quickly, and most of the time you spend on the project will be spent waiting for things to dry between steps. Let’s go! Modding Your Handbrain Supplies & Tools Supplies for the “Rusty Iron” modYou will need the following:

In a completely unsurprising turn of events, Alien: Covenant is not the feel-good hit movie of the summer. It’s powerful, and beautiful, and horrifying, and bleak, and thoughtful, and none of those things guarantee that it will be fun. There was some fun, of course. I liked (in a sinking feeling sort of way) how they tied 2012’s Prometheus and 1979’s Alien together, explaining a few things that have always been puzzlers for me. Prometheus left me with more questions than answers. This movie left me wondering why Prometheus wasn’t just two movies in a row… until I remembered that in 2012 the Marvel Cinematic Universe was still a gamble. I really enjoyed Fassbender and Waterston’s performances. Waterston seemed especially perfect, since she can shine with stoic confidence AND exude primal terror¹, and sometimes switch between the two while the camera dares us to try an not believe it’s real. Fassbender was no slouch, of course. I’d say more, but describing how perfectly an actor does a particular thing is not always appropriate when the reader might not yet know that said thing is even a thing². I loved the scope and scale of things in the film. This shot worked really well for me: human people for scale, really big things next to them, and something even bigger in the distance. And my eyes can’t find the seams between reality and rendering. We’ve come a long way in 38 years. Publicity still from ALIEN: COVENANT, ©2017 Twentieth Century Fox probablyAlien: Covenant doesn’t cross my Threshold of Awesome, because my rankings are based on “fun.” It wasn’t disappointing, either. If you like the Alien franchise, this is a movie that is probably also something you’ll enjoy. ¹ I first saw Waterston in Fantastic Beasts, where even at her most heroic she seemed trodden upon. In Alien: Covenant, however, we see a dynamic range that makes her a worthy heir to Sigourney Weaver. ² If you watch the trailers closely you’ll pretty quickly figure out what’s coming next during the film, and which character(s) will be standing too close to whatever is coming once it arrives. And that’s still no excuse for me to post spoilers.

Ten days ago I finished my last big piece of writing for Planet Mercenary. Yesterday Sandra and I finished the last small piece. Today we reviewed the cover layout, and realized it’s ready to be sent to the printer. This has taken much longer than I wanted it to, but the project looks much, much better than I believed it could. Part of the delay is due to repeated discoveries that we could be doing something better, and then deciding to do it better. And of course another part of the delay is us not knowing how to work as quickly as we originally thought we could. If you backed the project, your book (and anything else that ships with it) will be shipped July. If you didn’t back the project you can still use Backerkit to place a pre-order, but that link will go away in a few weeks. Eventually we’ll have Planet Mercenary in the Schlock Mercenary Store, but that’s not going to happen before July. I need to write a whole different post talking about how awesome Sandra and Alan are, and how grateful I am that they figured out how to work with, and around me. For now I’ll just say that in terms of actual work done, Sandra’s name is listed at least one position too far to the right. Note: The cover art above is by Jeff Zugale, and was laid out (along with the rest of the pages in the book) by Mike Brodu under Sandra Tayler‘s direction. The fact that the logo I designed two years ago is still a part of all this is evidence more of the force of my personality than my skill at logo design.

Here are the things you need to know, as a Schlock Mercenary reader whose tastes are statistically likely to align with my own on matters of humorous space opera:

The first six Schlock Mercenary books are available in PDF format. That’s right, if you want to read Schlock Mercenary electronically, offline, without taking up the space associated with physical books, we have a solution for you. For your convenience, here are abbreviated listings and specs for the PDFs. THE TITLES THE TUB OF HAPPINESS, Schlock Mercenary Volume 1 $12.00

We have some new posters and prints available, and they’re gorgeous. Before I start in with the images, let me start the clock running. The Eina-Afa and Ships-to-Scale posters are going to be limited runs, so if you want them, you need to pre-order them this week.