The shoulder shell is back! Truth is, I missed drawing it and even though I designed them, I ended up REALLY not liking the new spaulders. This entire strip seems like it’s tailor-made to have Yakkity Sax played in the background. Now all we need is Benny Hill coming over the next sand dune… Also, […]
A brief announcement, folks: MeatShield will be going on a temporary hiatus as of June 18th until roughly the 30th, as my family and I begin the arduous process of packing up all our junk and moving – again. Fortunately, the situation we’re going into will enable us to save up enough for a down […]
Warning: the following contains a teensy bit of soul-baring. If that’s not your cup of tea, no problem and I’ll see you next week. For the rest of you, here we go… 1… 2… 3… Okay, full-on honesty time here, folks. As I’m sure some of you have noticed, I have been fighting creative burn-out […]
Normally, I’d write here about the 5th Edition of D&D and how it looks promising (it does – the long national 4th edition nightmare is over) along with the trailer for Tyranny of Dragons, which is amazing. I might also write about how the new expansion for World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor, also looks […]
Yes, my go-to sound effect for trans-dimensional travel is VORP. ____ My copy of the new Player’s Handbook arrived the other day and I have to say, overall, it looks SOOOOOOO much easier to play than 4th Edition. The system itself seems solid and easy to play out of the box, which could not be […]
Not much going now folks… but next week? Hoo Boy! Strip #500 and the 5th Anniversary of MeatShield! See you then! ~Rob
And now, a special guest blog post from Kathy, Rob’s wife. As you may have noticed, this is Rob’s 500th strip. As it happens, it’s also the 5-year anniversary of Meatshield. Both are pretty significant accomplishments! Rob has worked hard to make Meatshield what it is today. He has developed likeable characters, engaging storylines, and […]
Wow! I need to have my wife write my blog posts for me more often! Thank you all very very much for all the kind words, they mean more to me than you could possibly know. 🙂 Speaking of someone writing for me, I hereby cede the floor to the kind scholars at Kilanio University… […]
I think we should cut Jaine a break – she’s a little rattled and out of her comfort zone. I am on the horns of a mild dilemma: My gaming group has finished their first adventure on the high seas in the Lhazaar Principalities and have managed to wrangle themselves a ship and a bare […]
Some folks see prune juice as a “warrior’s drink,” but I put it to you that coffee beats some dried-up plum juice any day hands down. And yes, that’s how I occasionally take my coffee. So now the secret has been revealed! 🙂 I tried an experiment last week. DMs that I’ve gamed with in […]
It’s a funny thing: when I have family from out of town visiting, I somehow become more productive, not less. My in-laws recently visited us from Texas and while they were here, I managed to finish 98% of the second MeatShield book, Against the Gravel Giants. The only thing left to do – the only […]
Earlier in the week, I posted a geek rant on Facebook, where a few things that had been bouncing around in my head for a while finally broke loose. I shall now reprint and expound on that post thusly: DOCTOR WHO: Peter Capaldi seems like a great actor, but I just can’t cotton to him […]
For that last panel, I had this scene from an otherwise forgettable Disney movie bouncing in my head. In The Emperor’s New Groove, a bunch of the villain’s thugs get alchemically transformed into animals. One turns into a cow and says, “Umm, excuse me, I’m a cow, can I go home?” Don’t know why that […]
Today’s punchline is brought to you today courtesy of my wife. It’s one of the many reasons I married her: she is good at helping me get out of my own way and bring the funny. No new strip on Friday, on account of a) I’ll be recovering from a turkey coma and b) I […]
For those of you in the U.S. who aren’t familiar with it, the cyclops prosecutor is wearing a barrister’s wig, common in the UK. Why did I put him in a barrister’s wig? I felt like it. 🙂 Anyway, a brief little bit about true names: in many cultures, there is the name that your […]
UPDATE – 12/22/14: I’m sorry I didn’t post this earlier, but MeatShield will be on hiatus until 01/12/15, which is when my kids go back to school. I need to time to mentally regroup and do the traditional holiday stuff with my family. Happy Holidays to you and yours! One of these days, that DA’s […]
Happy MLK Day to everybody! Thanks go out to frequent commenter Andor, who pointed out last time that I forgot to explain why they were bailing Philo out when he was going to be sentenced the next day. I sometimes forget that you guys only know what I put up on the site and that […]
I am almost done with my current 3.5 D&D campaign and I’m chomping at the bit to try D&D 5th Edition. One of my regular players will be taking on the task of DM, so I will get to play after a long dry spell. During the long national trial that was 4th Edition, there […]
Just in case you don’t remember, Gerta lives in a halfdome kind of yurt… thing. So, the Great MeatShield Planehopping contest…. *sigh* I think I made it too hard to participate. I probably should have just asked folks to retweet with the hashtag #planehopping. Too late for that now, though. Since no one has yet […]
I have finally recovered from the Cold from Baator. Now I have this annoying non-productive cough that just won’t die. Ugh. Anyhows, back to comic-making! Take care, ~Rob
This week’s blog post is a bit rambling; you have been warned. • I was re-reading “Of Dice and Men” by David Ewalt, which, if you haven’t read it, go and do so – it is a very accessible & enjoyable history of D&D. In the first chapter, he refers to the fact that D&D, […]
One quick bit of business: I recently decided that I need to alter one of the reward tiers for my Patreon campaign. Previously, if you contributed at the $5 level, you would gain access to the latest strip one day early. I decided that that is not sufficient. From now on, if you are contributing […]
Where’s Vorpal, you ask? She’s where any dog worth her salt would be: asleep in the kitchen. 🙂 It had to happen: someone’s character in my gaming group got killed. Let me be clear, though: I didn’t kill him – I wasn’t the DM this time around. The character of my brother-in-law’s brother Vern (not […]
In other news… Philo has a vodka cellar? For the curious and/or nitpicky, Philo made more room by expanding into the mountain in front of which his fortress is set. Well, it’s that time again: I’m going to be jumping back into the DM chair. This time around it’s going to be a homebrew world, […]
You know how they say that a writer’s (or cartoonist’s) characters are all just aspects of his or her personality? I figure that Dhur is the part of my brain that comes up with gems like the one in this strip. I then go and do the exact opposite. 🙂 Take care, ~Rob
For Dhur, being drunk while fighting might actually be an asset? I’ve been trying to veer away from really revealing blog posts lately, as I think they might put some people off, especially newer readers. However, something happened recently that I feel the need to talk about. This isn’t a set-up for a joke. You […]
Why didn’t Philo think of this before? Because of reasons and things. *shrug* I’ve wanted to be a cartoonist since I was 5 years old – somewhere I have proof of that, buried in moving boxes. Like a lot of cartoonists of my generation, I usually cite the “Holy Trinity” of cartoonists as influences: Berke […]
Man, I hope her contract is up or her service provider is gonna be pissed. Wow! I wasn’t expecting the number of commission requests I got, but thank you! This will make this Christmas very nice indeed. 🙂 If you haven’t gotten your commission request in yet, drop me an email at rob(at)meatshield(dot)net and get […]
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! As most longtime readers know, this has been a very rough year for me. The good news is that I am coming out the other end of it and that is due in no small part to the love and support of all of you, especially in the wake of my father’s […]
UPDATE: I spoke too soon. I sat down at my trusty, barely 3 years old iMac to do some standard social media stuff and after being on for about an hour, it decided to shut itself off. Then it refused to start back up again, even after (alert: Mac computer geek speak ahead) resetting the […]
As I said in the last blog post, my trusty iMac (which turned out to be seven years old, not three – how time flies!) died on me. The logic board was the culprit. It would have cost nearly the same amount to fix it than to buy a new computer. Ergo… If I can […]
And now, in a continuing service, an entry from the Encyclopedia Ardrisia. WYRMS Long ago, the gods gathered together to create the world. Each god or goddess created one sentient race that embodied their hopes, dreams, and in some case, hobbies. Terron created the Giants, Grundhar Ghall created the Orcs, and Vasra, god of serpents […]
By the time you all read this, I will have just wrapped up a grueling 1400 mille-long drive from California to my in-law’s place in north Texas for Christmas. By the way, just in case anyone has too much money and wants to spoil their favorite cartoonist (me), I’d really like to get a Cintiq […]
Howdy from North Texas! Hope you all had a great Christmas, if that’s your thing. I had a great holiday and received, among other things, a World of Warcraft DING button (which sounds like a toilet flushing, to be honest), a collection of the art of Tony diTerlizzi called Realms, and (wait for it)… Heward’s […]
The holidays have come and gone and life is getting back to normal, or as normal as my life ever gets, at any rate. We’re in the grips of 2016 now and as longtime readers know, 2015 really put me through the wringer. I’m glad to see its backside. Like everyone else I know, I’ve […]
You know how sometimes you might make a character in a RPG with a few skill points in an obscure skill, like Craft (Weaving) or Conversational Russian, just to see if the GM will incorporate that into the game somehow? You’re about to see that play out in the next strip. 😊 Something I’m trying […]
Halflings – they just don’t get no respect! Recently, Geek & Sundry posted a article about how the characters in Harry Potter would break down into D&D statistics. Trying to figure out what class and, in some cases, races our favorite characters from other media would be in Dungeons & Dragons is a long time […]
Can you ID all the items Dhur looted? All $5 and up Patreon patrons already know the answer (so please don’t spoil it :)! So, it looks like Warner Bros. wants to make the next D&D movie more light-hearted and closer in feel to Guardians of the Galaxy. When I first read that headline, my […]
UPDATE – 3/2/16 – Apologies, folks: the new MeatShield strip will be delayed due to this cold/flu thing that has smacked me and my family upside the head. Welcome to all our new readers from Facebook! Hope you like what you see! Our heroes are currently finding their way back to the extraplanar city of […]
I guess this is what happens when you make an ice sculpture of someone (and then confess a longstanding crush). Believe it or not, it’s rather hard to draw people kissing, especially since it’s something I’d never drawn before. Y’see, it’s like there are two Robs in my head: Past Rob and Future Rob. Past […]
I thought about having Ch’p say “Word” to Dhur in that last panel, but I decided that a) I didn’t need it and b) It would show my age. Like I did just now, home skillet. 🙂 I ran a bit behind this week, so this week will be a one-strip week. Next week, we’ll […]
I’ve been wanting to bring Philo back for a while now. That look on Jaine’s face makes it all worthwhile. 🙂 No deep insights or pithy comments this week, folks! See you next week! Take care, ~Rob
Not too sure what’s going on here? Take a look at this and then this. That ought to bring you back up to speed. 🙂 Tonight, my friends, I get to play D&D. Not run D&D as a DM, but play as a player. Ever since Xanathar’s Guide to Everything came out, I have been […]
Apparently Philo lost his 3-D goggles at some point. I don’t think he cares. 🙂 Take care, ~Rob
A couple of random thoughts: If there were ever to be a MeatShield convention, I would be disappointed if it weren’t named Vorp-Con. Volothamp Geddarm, or “Volo” for short, is essentially the Rick Steves of the Forgotten Realms, only Rick Steves has common sense.I could see Volo endorsing a chain of cross-planar fast food joints. […]
Update from the Land of Packing Boxes Our move to the Lone Star State next month soldiers on, step by step. My house is slowly filling with cardboard boxes bought from a place called (imaginatively enough) Box City. Funny story: when my girls were little and they would ask me where we going, if I […]
Ahh, yes, the Great Onomatopoeia Battle of 2018, I remember it well… I love sound effects. 🙂 And now, in a continuing service, an entry from the Encyclopedia Ardrisia… ARTIFICERS Magic exists in many forms on Ardris. There is divine magic wielded by devout clerics or self-righteous druids; arcane magic controlled by studious wizards, unpredictable […]
Good girl, Vorpal, good girl!! We are now moved into our new place in the Lone Star State, just in time for record heat waves approaching 109 degrees. I would write more, but it’s too freaking hot, folks. I’m going to Costco now so I can hang out in the walk-in produce freezer until they […]
Well, then. I guess the bad guy wins – oh, look, there’s Philo! Problem solved. Maybe. Quick Note: Some time has opened up in my schedule recently so now’s the time to order your commissioned art! Go take a look at the Commissions Page and think about what you’d like! Cut-off time will be September […]
Yes, for those of you new to the strip, that purple guy is indeed Philo. Philo’s a changeling, which we found out about wayyy back here. Take care, ~Rob
Before any D&D diehards start talking about the rules being broken here, know a couple of things: Yes, I do know that Brother Leon is too low in level to be casting Resurrect. He’s about 3rd level, whereas casting the Resurrect spell requires the cleric to be 13th level or higher. This is a D&D-inspired […]
Poor Leon. Maybe he can join AARP now? That discount isn’t anything to sneeze at. Foradain, one of MeatShield’s longtime readers, asked last week what I had planned for “the devil’s comic”, i.e. strip #666 (this one). To tell the truth, it kind of snuck up on me. Instead of making some sort of in-strip […]
Imagine how Philo is going to feel when he sits down to plan out his next gadget knowing that a being of immense cosmic power is WATCHING HIS EVERY MOVE WITH GREAT INTEREST. I don’t know about you, but that much pressure would stick me with the world’s biggest case of writer’s block. Or artificer’s […]
I should put out a MeatShield book titled Tales from the Moaning Lungfish, which would be a play off of the title Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn. Don’t know if I will or not, but that would be a cool title, IMHO. Hasta, ~Rob
I took a page out of Dave Kellet’s book and drew a slight departure from the main strip. I’ve always wanted to do a short strip featuring Vorpal and what she gets up to when she slips away from Becky. Yes, slips away – Vorpal purposefully finds a way out from under Becky’s gaze. She’s […]
Know someone who might like the strip but is intimidated by having to wade through 660+ strips just to get caught up? The MeatShield Primer is the perfect jumping-on point! Tell your family and friends! Post it on the social media outlet of your choice! Print it out and slap it up on game store […]
Gastropubs is defined by the Chambers Book O’ Info as “an excuse to charge customers $17 for an artisan grilled cheese sandwich.” Dhur’s in for a big surprise… Take care, ~Rob
For all the D&D grognards out there: yes, I know that the rules state that Speak with Dead can be cast again in 10 days time after being cast by someone else, but according to the house rules for MeatShield, it’s a one-time only deal. In my strip, as in my games, story trumps rules […]
The game is afoot! The game is also a-hand, a-neck, and a-spleen! ~Rob
Umm, how is that you know how much blood is in a humanoid body, Philo?? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Now we need to put all the pieces together, call Angela Lansbury, and get all the suspects into one room for the big reveal. Nah, that would be too easy. 🙂 Take care, […]
(apologies to Elvis Costello) Hmmm… curiouser and curiouser. *insert Evil DM Laugh here* ~Rob
Yes, the prop guy is missing fingers on his left hand. Name me a shop teacher who didn’t at least have part of a finger missing. Also, cedar may not be rare here, in the Real World, but in Ardris? Like Smitty said, that stuff ain’t cheap. In other news, I have just decided that […]
I’m sorry for the extended silence, folks. I wish I had a better story, but the truth is, I fell victim to procrastination on an epic scale and mismanaging my time after working all day. Anyhoos, the farther along it went, the harder it was to break out of it. I’m back now. Thanks for […]