Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected biography/55

Howard V. Tayler (born February 29, 1968 in Florida) is the award-winning creator of the webcomic Schlock Mercenary. He worked as a volunteer missionary for the LDS Church, then graduated from Brigham Young University. Using his degree in music composition, he started an independent record label.

While working at Novell, Tayler began online publication of Schlock Mercenary. He quit his job at Novell several years later in order to work on the webcomic full time. Schlock Mercenary has been nominated multiple times and won the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in two different categories. The webcomic has also been nominated twice for a Hugo Award. Since February 2008, Tayler has produced a weekly writing tips podcast with best-selling fantasy author Brandon Sanderson and horror author Dan Wells.

Tayler's most well-known work is his webcomic, Schlock Mercenary, a comedic webcomic which follows the tribulations of a star-travelling mercenary company in a satiric, mildly dystopian 31st-century space opera setting. The story primarily centers on Captain Kaff Tagon and his mercenary crew, Tagon's Toughs. Members of the crew include resident mad scientist and munitions commander Kevyn Andreyasn, the titular carbosillicate amorph Sergeant Schlock, former artificial intelligence Petey, and the wry AI and former boyband, Ennesby.