"Schlock Mercenary"
Mar. 8th, 2006 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowIt's probably no surprise that Howard Tayler's "Schlock Mercenary" is one of the five webcomics on my short list.
Setting. "Schlock Mercenary" is classic space opera, with a healthy dose of humor. There are plenty of inhabited planets, many aliens of assorted shapes, quirky AIs, and Uplifted elephants. It's featured interplanetary and even intergalactic war, wide-ranging nefarious plots, evil cloned lawyers, and mad scientists. There've also been occasional beachfront vacations (although the giant prehistoric shark and the not-really-a-giant-squid kind of got in the way of relaxation), and plenty of Ovalkwik.
Cast. The cast is enormous. Some of them are more-or-less stock figures: the Mad Scientist (Kevyn Andreyasn), the Tiny Tough Tomgirl (Elf), the Palooka (Nick), the Jut-Jawed Hero (Tagon), and the Sarcastic AI (Ennesby). Others are more original: Schlock himself, the nearly indestructible Amorph with an inordinate fondness for guns that make an ominous hum; John Der Trihs, who as his name suggests is frequently on the wrong end of somebody's grenade (but, thanks to the miraculous medicine of the Schlockverse, has survived down to the present, although a good chunk of that time was spent as a head in a jar); Rev. Fobius, the chivalrous and eccentric chaplain; and Massey Reinstein, the troop's lawyer (who was reluctant to join the team until he realized that a mercenary troop was a good place to take refuge from the evil lawyers who were pursuing him).
Then there's Petey, the most powerful AI in the galaxy. His passage from psychosis through enforced sanity, suicide, and self-replication to virtual apotheosis has been one of the more disturbing (although frequently funny) storylines in the series. He has now taken to meddling in the affairs of entire species - banishing a warfleet to another galaxy, massacring the political leadership of one species and appointing their replacement, and in general being a major (if well-meaning) pest.
Art. The artwork is of intermediate density - much more detailed than "Freefall", rather less than "Girl Genius". Tayler doesn't strive for great realism of depiction, but is fairly creative in ringing the changes on humanoid anatomy.
What I Like. Well, let's see. At the micro level, the series offers plenty of humorous scenes: Der Trihs's misadventures, Nick's mano-a-tusko1 battle with an intelligent elephant, the cathartic violence of Elf and Dr. Bunnigus in the face of male piggishness... At the medium level, the plot arcs range from the silly (the sequence that introduced the diplomat-turned-cook Ch'vorthq, or anything involving Ovalkwik) to the epic (the near-destruction of this galaxy, conveniently reset by means of time-travel). Despite medical miracles and time-travel, some characters do die irretrievably; others retire or otherwise leave the scene, as Der Trihs seems to have done.
There are serious issues as well. It is difficult not to cheer for Petey when he removes a government for failing to adequately defend its people (after he has blocked an attack by another race), but the - surgical, if you will - violence with which he did so and the arrogance with which he claims the right to do this must prick at the conscience. Overarching all is the fact that the period of interspecies violence currently underway was directly triggered by the mercenaries themselves - specifically, by Kevyn's invention of the teraport, a new method of interstellar transportation, and his subsequent broadcasting of its specs to the entire galaxy. Admittedly, the latter act was prompted by the need to end the sinister scheming of the Gatekeepers, but the bloodshed that has followed is on the heads of the Andreyasns, and more broadly on the mercenaries themselves.
But basically I enjoy the series because it's fun: hair's-breadth escapes, unexpected twists, silly romances, silly aliens, scary aliens, neurotic AIs, feisty little blondes, Loxies, the Collective, and - always - Schlock.
1 Don't blame me; that's Tayler's own phrase.
Setting. "Schlock Mercenary" is classic space opera, with a healthy dose of humor. There are plenty of inhabited planets, many aliens of assorted shapes, quirky AIs, and Uplifted elephants. It's featured interplanetary and even intergalactic war, wide-ranging nefarious plots, evil cloned lawyers, and mad scientists. There've also been occasional beachfront vacations (although the giant prehistoric shark and the not-really-a-giant-squid kind of got in the way of relaxation), and plenty of Ovalkwik.
Cast. The cast is enormous. Some of them are more-or-less stock figures: the Mad Scientist (Kevyn Andreyasn), the Tiny Tough Tomgirl (Elf), the Palooka (Nick), the Jut-Jawed Hero (Tagon), and the Sarcastic AI (Ennesby). Others are more original: Schlock himself, the nearly indestructible Amorph with an inordinate fondness for guns that make an ominous hum; John Der Trihs, who as his name suggests is frequently on the wrong end of somebody's grenade (but, thanks to the miraculous medicine of the Schlockverse, has survived down to the present, although a good chunk of that time was spent as a head in a jar); Rev. Fobius, the chivalrous and eccentric chaplain; and Massey Reinstein, the troop's lawyer (who was reluctant to join the team until he realized that a mercenary troop was a good place to take refuge from the evil lawyers who were pursuing him).
Then there's Petey, the most powerful AI in the galaxy. His passage from psychosis through enforced sanity, suicide, and self-replication to virtual apotheosis has been one of the more disturbing (although frequently funny) storylines in the series. He has now taken to meddling in the affairs of entire species - banishing a warfleet to another galaxy, massacring the political leadership of one species and appointing their replacement, and in general being a major (if well-meaning) pest.
Art. The artwork is of intermediate density - much more detailed than "Freefall", rather less than "Girl Genius". Tayler doesn't strive for great realism of depiction, but is fairly creative in ringing the changes on humanoid anatomy.
What I Like. Well, let's see. At the micro level, the series offers plenty of humorous scenes: Der Trihs's misadventures, Nick's mano-a-tusko1 battle with an intelligent elephant, the cathartic violence of Elf and Dr. Bunnigus in the face of male piggishness... At the medium level, the plot arcs range from the silly (the sequence that introduced the diplomat-turned-cook Ch'vorthq, or anything involving Ovalkwik) to the epic (the near-destruction of this galaxy, conveniently reset by means of time-travel). Despite medical miracles and time-travel, some characters do die irretrievably; others retire or otherwise leave the scene, as Der Trihs seems to have done.
There are serious issues as well. It is difficult not to cheer for Petey when he removes a government for failing to adequately defend its people (after he has blocked an attack by another race), but the - surgical, if you will - violence with which he did so and the arrogance with which he claims the right to do this must prick at the conscience. Overarching all is the fact that the period of interspecies violence currently underway was directly triggered by the mercenaries themselves - specifically, by Kevyn's invention of the teraport, a new method of interstellar transportation, and his subsequent broadcasting of its specs to the entire galaxy. Admittedly, the latter act was prompted by the need to end the sinister scheming of the Gatekeepers, but the bloodshed that has followed is on the heads of the Andreyasns, and more broadly on the mercenaries themselves.
But basically I enjoy the series because it's fun: hair's-breadth escapes, unexpected twists, silly romances, silly aliens, scary aliens, neurotic AIs, feisty little blondes, Loxies, the Collective, and - always - Schlock.
1 Don't blame me; that's Tayler's own phrase.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-08 07:42 pm (UTC)