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[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Schlock Mercenary is a webcomic that's been around for some sixteen years. It's quite good, IMO. It's a sort of gritty-ish futuristic mercenary space webcomic. Also Schlock. Schlock is a voracious amorph that looks like a pile of poop. He's known as the "world-devourer," and for good reason.

So TALK, PEOPLE!

The latest strip should always be available here. Unlike OotS, SM updates every day, so I won't be announcing them unless they catch my eye. By which I mean when they look fricking awesome like they normally do.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Here's the latest strip.

[TheBiggerFish]

Ooh, this is a thing!
THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

[Rolan7]

*Necromancy* Uh I'd really like for this to be a thing!  I love this comic a LOT, it could maybe be my favorite...  Hard to say, comics are so different.
I'm pleasantly and barely surprised that you two are fans!  Let's hope there are more, here on bay12!

I suppose we don't need to link the latest strip, since Mr Howard is *legendarily* reliable...  16 years without being late, I think!?  And the calendar archive is well-made so it's easy to look up what people are discussing.

Though I'm not sure how much longer this will run...  It's been building up, slowly and steadily, for 16 years.  It's literally tackling post-immortality and "THOOOM any location through all defense" issues, not to mention the Pretentious Deity's (<3<3<3) war with Andromeda.

Anyway, current update...
I love that they call it Zeus Alpha.

[PanH]

Schlock is quite good, though I have a backlog of it to go through
THOOOM

[TheBiggerFish]

I have a lot of backlogs to go through.  This will be a fun one.

[Rolan7]

So, this strip might actually be a subtle landmark.  There has been considerable discussion in the past over the somewhat notable lack of homosexual characters - though romance isn't a huge part of Schlock Mercenary, people have noticed that it has been all hetero up to this point.

...Or xenosexual, heh.  Maybe that's one reason it was never an *issue*, for me, he does handle non-binary species in the xenobiology sense.

I really like how it's being introduced.  A VERY long-time minor character, pretty cool guy, along with a new character.  Along with, and this is worth noting, Schlock himself- serving as a seal of authenticity and approval.
I may be reading too much into it   But...  AFAIK this is the first in 16 years, so I think it's worth reading into at least a bit.

Though... uh... Uh oh.  I just realized that both of them are nonhuman, probably the same 4-armed species.  So this might just be another species trait, they might not have overt sexual identifiers or multiple genders.

Well... that's fine too.  Statistically it's not that weird that the first gay couple would be alien, and at least they're very humanoid.
But it specifically doesn't counter that long-running theory I saw that humans have excised homosexuality.

*hasn't read the official forum in years, and certainly isn't going to start now*

[Strife26]

There's been what, four couples total in the comic? And that's counting Monk-Garcia, which I'm not sure if it should.

[Aklyon]

Ooh, we actually have a thread for this? Huzzah!

[smjjames]

Their both the same species. While the author does draw the Mercenary character in a masculine way and has been referred to as male, the newer character is drawn in a feminine way and has been referred to as female (as here: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-04-02 ), they could still be biologically something else.

The author does use romance as part of character development, especially since it's a long running comic.

Possibly the only implied non-heterosexual potential relationship would be Schlocks species method of reproduction since it wasn't mentioned whether opposite amorph genders (if they even have genders, in the conventional sense) can, well, do it.

[Rolan7]

First off, thanks a lot for finding that reference!  Wow!

Having a superficially masculine female like that is almost even better to me, honestly.  Which I guess leaves the odd lack of homosexuality as a question...  One which I definitely give Howard the benefit of the doubt on.  I'm thinking "unfortunate past atrocity" rather than the author suspending realism out of discomfort.  Particularly given the non-standard pairings he's actively showing.

[Egan_BW]

Thread? Thread.
This comic is good.

I do find it kinda funny that this joke strip has... Pretty much come true. "These Nano-Meme-Bots I invented should make us all effectively immortal!" indeed.

[hops]

I've finally gotten around to reading this.

[underkill]

i think the last time i tried to power through schlock mercenary i ended up somewhere around 2009-10 before i got distracted by other things.

regardless, i think it may be up there in terms of "favorite webcomics" so far.

[Shadowlord]

I love it.