Okay, so this past week was bad, but not as dreadful as I thought it might be. I won’t dwell on such unpleasant things, however. I shall instead post another page!
And then I shall rest.
Extra-special thanks are due to you guys for posting such words of encouragement for me last week. I don’t really believe my job is in any immediate danger. But the economy (“The Economy!”) is in dire straits at the moment and, Architecture tends to be very sensitive to those kinds of shifts and changes, so of course it makes me, and all of us, a little nervous when this kind of thing goes down.
Anyhow, you may have noticed that I’ve begun offering advertising space over to the right here. I had held off doing that for a very long time, but I’ve finally succumbed to Adam Smithian market forces, and am collecting a few meager pennies a day from a selection of advertisers through Mr. Wonderful, which is what I call my Project Wonderful advertising window there. I am retaining right of refusal over my advertisers, and so that has allowed me to keep it to reputable and comics-related adverts. Should any of you detect something amiss there (a redirect, some kind of pop-up site or whatever), email me at once and I shall summarily ban the offending party from my advertisers list. Otherwise, please do check out the other comics that may be coming up here – it encourages cartoonists, and builds my profitability (however slowly). The income that I get from this advertising space goes into my own Project Wonderful account, and that allows me, in turn, to advertise 6-Commando on other people’s sites – this has been very good for publicity in the past, but I am trying to make it sustain itself this time. And as we’re about eight or nine months out from the first printed trade of 6-Commando (God willing), I want readership to increase as much as possible. So this is the first of several such publicity stunts I’m pulling, and there are more to come. One of them is this: another special full-spread version of this and the previous page, together, as nature (and I) intended. You can see it now, by voting over at TWC. Just click the handy banner below and it’s all there.
And in case you’re getting sick of these spread of pages you’ve already seen, fear not, because soon I’ll be giving you some sneak previews of the digitally remastered version of Chapter 1 which I’m working on right now, in parallel with the regular updates. Things to look for will be improved colors and text, corrected and more legible lettering, including the Russian dialogue (provided, let me once again say, through the good offices and kind support of our fellow reader Hilvon, who will be receiving full credit in the print edition for his work in interpreting the Russian!), and as many as twelve pages of never-before-seen artwork. And, as an incentive to “tell your friends” and all that, I’m offering this: if it should become feasible to produce a Deluxe Edition, I’ll also include extras like a full sketchbook, glossary, footnote section and gazetteer of the 6-Commando universe, complete with maps, the UNA’s Charter of Nations, the FSR’s Declaration of the Rights of the Worker, and lots of other good stuff! So spread the word, and keep checking back, as this baby is in full swing now!
Anyway, I’m going to sleep now. Keep on truckin’, everyone, and I’ll see you next week, same bat time, same bat channel!
Ah the invisible hand of the free market economy.
Anyways, you might want to turn Mike off before you dive into his circuits. Can’t he like… feel that? Clearly he would have to know that someone was messing around in his… umm… guts. Right?
First post! Your cookie will be a… I dunno, a Pecan Sandie? Pretty sure I have a Pecan Sandie.
I’m glad you picked up on this, though – I found grim humor in the suggestion that Mike has an on/off switch! I was wondering if anyone else would notice.
–M
on/off switch or more like a dead man’s switch or maybe even a remote triggered auto-destruct? Mike >is< a machine afterall and a very dangerous on. It would make sense to have a option to stop him or shut him down.
It's a recurring theme in many scifi-stories (just to name a few: The Doctor in ST: Voyager, R. Daneel Olivaw, the Cylons, the Posbis in the Perry-Rhodan-universe, SkyNet, etc.): Where does a personality begin, where did we create [mechanical?] life and not just a useful, intelligent machine which can emulate a personality based on 1s and 0s and a learning-code in his mainframe giving him the skills to expand his "humanity" through observing and imitating…? How can we define life – or intelligent life in the sense of the human species?
The way 6-Commando soldiers interact with Mike makes me believe he is treated as a person and not just as a machine – on the other hand the model was supposed to be phased out of duty like a tool which has passed his usefullness. This will be interesting.
I admit, it’s such an oft-repeated theme as to verge on the cliche at this point, but still it continues to fascinate me. I won’t spoil it for you but I do hope I have managed to come across with a new take on the setup.
Mike’s kill switch is an open question at the moment, so I don’t want to go too far, though.
–M
It continues to fascinate me as well, that’s why I’m thrilled for your interpretation.