Schlock Mercenary

Space-going mercenaries tough it out with teraporting, aliens, guns and lots of humour

by Howard Tayler

Schlock Mercenary (6):
Resident Mad Scientist 

Rating: Young adult-adult

Genre / themes: Science fiction, mercenaries, spaceships, traveling the galazy, crdue and advanced humour, AIs, robots, aliens, BIG guns

Art level: Terrible, but functional. The drawing style does actually suit the story and the characters - one of the only webcomics where the art doesn't impede the enjoyment of the strips. All in colour.

Star Rating: 4.5/5

Number of Books: Six so far (ongoing).
  Books are not numbered in the title, the order is :
* The Tub of Happiness
* Teraport Wars
* Under New Management
* The Blackness Between
* The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance
* Resident Mad Scientist


Other notes: Also a webcomic that updates daily, self-published.

Schlock Mercenary: The Tub of Happiness: Amazon Blurb
Welcome to Tagon's Toughs, a mercenary company whose newest recruit is almost as much trouble as the new owners. They want to revolutionize space travel. Schlock just wants to hurt people and break things. This 240-page volume takes the reader back to the very start of Schlock Mercenary, and then some. It opens with nine pages of all-new strips telling the story of how Schlock came to enlist, and then forges onward chronologically from the very first strip. It also includes concept sketches, commentary, excellent guest art, deck plans for the Kitesfear. If you've been waiting to devour this Schlock Mercenary from the very beginning, the wait is over: grab your big spoon and dig into the Tub of Happiness.


My Review

Schlock Mercenary has terrible art, but it gets the job done - this is one of the best webcomics around. You should buy this for anyone who likes scifi, mercenaries, humour, big guns, stealing, time travel, and aliens who not only look like a pile of poop, but would eat it too. Full color illustrations that grow strangely in your affections as you read and very ...unique characters.

Schlock , the title character of Schlock Mercenary, is a rather unique alien - a carbosilicate amorph - that looks... well, like a toilet joke, and is basically indestructible. He has an almost religious love for plasma cannons. He signs up to a crew of tough space-going mercenaries and havok and politics ensues as they fly around the galaxy embroiled in politics, one step behind their last paycheck and always looking for bigger guns to play with. It is satirical, sarcastic and punny.

The stories range from little sideplots (often amusing) involving the jobs the crew takes on, and galaxy-spanning politics and machinations that they step into, break and run away from (such as the gatekeepers and their sinister behind the scenes cloning and control over galactic travel). Some of the science fiction gets a little wordy but Howard Tayler manages to explain what a teraport is (for example), while lightly glossing over the more boring details, so this shouldn't impede enjoyment.

All the books published so far, in order

A Distant Soil

A very pretty black and white series of telepathy and aliens
by Colleen Doran

A Distant Soil: Coda (Book 4)

Rating: Young adult.

Genre / themes: Fantasy, science fiction, some yaoi, rebellion

Art level: Good. Detailed inking - all black and white, Western comics style.

Star Rating: 4/5
Best Other Work in the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards 2001


Number of Books: Four, completed.

Other notes: Being released as a webcomic by the author.


Distant Soil Vol. 1: Amazon Blurb
The story of a young girl who is born the heir to an alien religious dynasty, is one of comics most lavish and romantic sagas, listed as one of the five best books for teenage girls by Sassy Magazine. A never-before-published A Distant Soil short story and the first 11 chapters of the science/fantasy series are collected in this 240 page trade.


My Review
A Distant Soil is the story of two children with telepathic powers who are rescued/recruited by aliens, in a complicated and desperate game of politics. It will probably appeal more to girls initially, unless you are buying it for the art - and the art is very pretty, so if you're artistically inclined I do recommend it. It's a little old-fashioned in style, particularly the way Liana is drawn (and by old-fashioned, I mean '80-90's comics). You can actually check it out here on Colleen Doran's site, as she's uploading it slowly as a webcomic. Of course, like almost all such stories, it's much easier to read in print. Colleen Doran has also illustrated for Marvel and DC.

It starts with two children - Liana and Jason - running away from an institute, who are mysteriously rescued by a pair of aliens (who basically look like humans... ). turns out their father wasn't human, Liana is an Avatar, and the current Avatar is trying desperately to both protect her, and use her to help break the hold of the current selfish, cruel and hedonistic Hiercracy, who intend to kill her - because she's preventing their Avatar using his power by existing. The children (well, young adults) get separated and Jason is enlisted into a rebellion, while Liana and and some hand-picked humans are taken back and snuck into the top level of government. among these humans is a random knight - the Arthurian Sir Galahad, plucked by chance and magic into the modern world.

The people and the backgrounds are beautifully drawn, and the book feels like a real work of love (I say 'book', rather than 'books' because only the first one ever made it into a library in New Zealand near me - there are four volumes. But I think they would all be similar). Recommended for readers of Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The complete series of A Distant Soil

Serenity (Firefly): Those Left Behind

The graphic novels that tell the story between Firefly and Serenity

Serenity, Vol. 1:
Those Left Behind

Rating: Young adult-adult

Genre / themes: Sci-fi, theft and petty crime, spin-off of Firefly.

Art level: Good. Colour.

Star Rating: 3.5/5 Stars. (plus a bonus 0.5 for being Firefly related)

Number of Books: Three so far, but I'm counting The Shepherd's Tale (a prequel) separately for the purposes of this review. So, two in the 'sequel' series.

Other notes: Picks up right after the last episode of the Firefly television series. Written by Joss Whedon and one of the writers of Firefly. Not mindblowingly awesome, but pretty darned good. With the exception of The Shepherd's Tale

See this series on Amazon
See this series at The Book Depository

My Review of Books 1 and 2

Serenity, Vol. 1: Those Left Behind 

Serenity, Vol. 2: Better Days

Unlike the Buffy books, the two Firefly spin-offs - actually designed to fill in the gaps from the cancelled episodes - are worth reading for their own sake. The art is pretty good, the wit is witty, the criminals are criminal and our heroes are... well, the criminals.

It's the same familiar cast of Captain Mal Reynolds, his crazy crew, and the two stowaways, Simon and River. They pick up odd jobs, get in trouble with the law, and try and keep River away from the government.

The series is oddly constrained by the fact that it has to keep everyone alive and in the state they were at the beginning of Serenity, but does well enough within those boundaries. The first book is a good bridge/introduction between the Firefly television show and the film Serenity, with Agent Dobson (the Alliance spy from the very first episode) reappearing, and Inara leaving at the end of the book - although the second book is better.

Book Three Review


Art level: Bad, monotonous colour.

Star Rating: 2.5/5

I recently had the chance to read Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale (in the library, of course). It was very disappointing, and I'd give it 2.5 stars. While the cover is nice enough, and it was a hardback, I got through the whole story in less than ten minutes. I'm a fast reader, but I expect my graphic novels to last me at least twenty!

While it does give you Shepherd Book's backstory (which did affect how you see him, next time you watch him onscreen), it does it in a way that leaves you feeling cheated. Basically, it is in the format of flashback, after flashback, each only a couple of pages long, jumping further back into his life. And each flashback is just too short. The narrative would have worked better in the correct order, as you could have watched Book grow and change, but the authors clearly wanted the cheap tensions of the 'sudden reveals'. Also, the art  felt very dirty, which was probably intentional, to give it a 'gritty' feel. But the result, to me, was a book that looked ugly and slapdash.

And it could have been awesome. Despite the fact that they packed in more than they needed, it could have been an epic story. Only buy it if it's cheap, and you need to complete the set.

The Serenity Graphic Novels So Far