Schlock Mercenary
To review a webcomic I re-read the entire archive before I start the review. This means I get to see how the art has progressed, whether or not there is any problems with the story being consistant, and of course I get to re-read a webcomic. Schlock had me stumped for this reason. The story is consistant, the art let be honest isn’t the best out there but I enjoy it. No the problem with Schlock Mercenary is a good thing for new readers, the amount of comics. The comic is almost 8 years old, and its a daily. Thats around 2850 comics by my rough calculations. It took some time.
However now I’ve finished this task I can write this review. Schlock is about the 31st century and the problems that one group of people cause on the entire century. Oh its also about a mercenary group looking for cash, an amorph looking for money, lots of stories, but the main one in my opinion is about a small group of people/aliens/elephants/etc affecting the entire galaxy, and also the next one over for good measure. This small group is Tagon’s toughs, who happen to be the mercenary squad that Schlock is part of. Schlock was the first non-human to join but now the group has multiple species in it. The story itself follows the command teams of the group with the occassional grunts involved for the tough killing things part of the job. It also, by accident, started the biggest intergalactic war…using inventing a new hyperspace travelling system…well ok the Science Officer Kevyn Andreyasn did. The average grunt have less brains that a cup of soup.
There are more stories in the archive but I dont want to spoil them all, and the storytelling is one of the best I’ve seen. Howard Taylor makes each story make sense and relate to previous ones so there is no major errors, and minor ones are generally talked about why they arent an error in the below comic extra details.
The art isnt amazing especially when you think the main character is a piles of…Schlock, but even with that its above average easily and important large scale events look suitably large scale. The art has improved since the year 2000 and by book 3 (March 2003) it had got to a stage that can cope with anything…excluding the fact that Schlock is green and looks like he does. However Howard uses this fact and makes jokes about the amorphs normal shape every so often.
In my opinion Schlock is not only worth bookmarking to read from your computer, but worth showing to your friends and family (it is kid safe and the violence is never too gory). Howard Tayler makes a space story that has a good mix of comedy, drama and bad puns. Its daily and in colour with longer Sunday strips. In other words, Schlock is great value for money….(yes I know its free but hush)
) Your Reply...