Minions #241 - Unwritten Fine Print

Click Cartoon to Escape Smallness

Stand by, following the usual middling-management for a bonus blab by your Minion Master!

Your interminable wait is important to us. To serve you better, a supervisor may feed the representative assigned to serve you to the carnivorous rafter-monkeys just before they can answer your call. It's just one more way of saying, "we care, just not about you."  (Management note: We were caring, just not about you, LONG before it became CBS policy.)

SUPPORT THE FORCES OF EVIL, WITHOUT WHOM YOU'D HAVE TO LIVE IN SOME BORING UTOPIA OR SOMETHING! HELP FINANCE "MINIONS AT WORK" BY BUYING STUFF YOU WERE GOING TO BUY ANYWAY! IT'S LIKE STEALING, ONLY LEGAL! We're now Amazon.com affiliates, which means that if you click on the Amazon link in our sidebar and make purchases from Amazon, a tiny little sliver of what you spend goes to support these fine (maybe even near-mint!) cartoons! Or visit our Amazon Lair Gift Shop for Minions-recommended merchandise featuring villainy from across pop-culture!

 Join the Minions Reminder Email List. It's free, it's easy, and you'll never miss a Minions at Work cartoon (or if you do, it won't be our fault!) Or become one of our followers. See the follower box in our Mighty Sidebar! Or join our "Minions at Work" group on Facebook. And yes, I'm on Twitter. Follow me. I'm JSteveYork there (clicking on the previous link will take you straight to my profile page.)

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Greetings, Nets over Gross!


Listen, I got nothing this week, so I'm just going to turn this over to Minion No. 1 while I go plan some world domination, or watch CSI on the DVR or something...

Minion No. 1: Um, wha--?  Okay.  Well.  Is this thing even on?


Hey, Minion No. 1 here.  I--  Listen, I got no script here or nothin'!  What the heck am I supposed to say?  Listen, I got nothin' either, so I'm just going to turn this over to Minion Number Two.


Minion Number Two: What?  Frickin' no, way!  I'm on my frickin' break!  Jeeze. Beauty of a buzz-kill.  Hey, Number 9.  Get the heck over here!


Minion Number 9: Hey, man.  What's happening?  Hey, you seen a giant robot around here?  We just had one run amok.  I hate it when they run amok.  It's a lot easier to catch them when they just mosey amok.  Stroll amok.  That's good too.  Hey, did you notice that somebody left the typograph running?  This is all going right out on the internet.  You knew that, right?  Hey, Penguin, get over here and keep an eye on this microphone while I go try and figure out how to turn it off.


Penguin: ---

Support starving Minions in Lair-land! Your donations support Minions at Work!

Minions #155 - Small Favors

Be sure to read this week's full post for a special Minion-related Evil Cat story!

To fully deploy humor, click on cartoons to enlarge

Stand by, following some typical jibber-jabber for a last-minute reprieve from your Minion Master!

Your execution is important to us. To serve you better, your execution may be observed by a supervisor, who will step in to kick you if the corpse is still twitching.

KEEP AMERICA STRONG! SUPPORT "MINIONS AT WORK" BY BUYING STUFF YOU WERE GOING TO BUY ANYWAY!
We're now Amazon.com affiliates, which means that if you click on the Amazon link in our sidebar and make purchases from Amazon, a tiny little sliver of what you spend goes to support these fine (maybe even near-mint!) cartoons!

Later, we'll be adding a selection of Minion-recommended merchandise, but until then, use your imagination. Books, videos, electronics, games, maybe even ACTION FIGURES!

Minions at work is inadequately supported during this financial crisis by your purchases from our web stores and our advertisers. Feed the economy and help us bleed green just a little more slowly by purchasing tee-shirts, buttons, calendars, hats, undies (we kid not!), and other fine Minions at Work items at one of the following stores.

While waiting for your impending doom, pick up a Minions at Work tee-shirt or other great souvenir of your visit to the Lair:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"Satisfaction guaranteed or we'll make make you buy something else!"

and

NUMBER TWO'S HOUSE OF NAUGHTY
(For very small values of naughty.)

Join the Minions Reminder Email List. It's free, it's easy, and you'll never miss a Minions at Work cartoon (or if you do, it won't be our fault!) Or become one of our followers. See the follower box in our Mighty Sidebar!

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Greetings, Under-employeds!

Yeah, we're a little late this week, in part because of some internet problems we had today. (Thank you Charter Communications, customer service motto: "may we have your ten-digit phone number before we transfer you to another continent where they'll also need your ten-digit phone number.") Maybe they're pissed off about last-week's jab at telephone support. Trust me, they've gotten their revenge.

But I also wanted to take the time to document and report today's...

EVIL CAT STORY

Our older cat, Oz, has developed a little ritual recently. Every night about midnight, if we're still sitting in the living room, there will be a clatter in the ceiling.

Back up. My office and studio is here in Hangar 18, converted from a semi-attached garage that overlaps slightly with the corner of our house. There's no direct connection (you walk out the back door of the house and through a sun-porch to the back door of Hanger 18).

There is one indirect connection though, if you're a cat. To the right of my desk, ten feet straight up a wall, there's a small triangular opening that leads into the attic of our house. Oz discovered this hole even before the office was finished, and after I got tired of claw marks on the wall, I built him a "cat ladder," a 2x4 covered with carpeting and studded with small platforms, to make it easier to get up and down.

So when we hear this overhead clatter in the living room, it's Oz climbing up the cat ladder and crossing through the attic over our heads. There's a rumble as he crosses the furnace ducts, then more noise as he runs through my wife's upstairs office, down the inside stairs, through the kitchen, around the corner, and into the living room. Part of the ritual is that, by the time Oz has hit the kitchen, he's yowling loudly, a special yowl that means to our other cat, Sydney, "it's time to come and play."

More recently, something new has been added to the ritual. Now when he comes to play, Oz usually brings a toy, some object that he's picked up in my office. Very often, this is action figure related, a loose item of clothing or a small accessory. The other night he dropped an old-WWI German helmet, the kind with a spike on top.

But last night was different. I heard him coming, and decided to go meet him and see what (if any) of my items he'd hijacked. Sure enough, he was carrying something in his mouth. He walked up to me, dropped it at my feet, and looked up expectantly, waiting for me to inspect his prize. Here's what I saw when I looked down:



To be fair, he didn't make the sign himself. It's a left-over prop from this 2007 Minions at Work cartoon.

That said, I have no doubt at all that it was intentional.

It was also a LIE! Of course Oz makes the evil plans! You don't believe me? Here's photographic evidence!


Even Minion Masters like me, we have our own evil-overlords! And you think you have it bad? The claws! The claws!



- Your Under-overlord, Steve

Minions #139 - Hunger Strike

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LARGER VERSIONS

Stand by, following the usually commercial jibber-jabber for a heart-shot from your Minion Master!

Man, am I getting morbid lately, or what? Actually, I was more going for silly. Laughing at the reaper, that's me.

Actually, this is one of those cases where I put the set together first, and came up with the joke later. Actually, it isn't much different that a lot of sets you've seen lately, except for one important thing: the door.

Oh, sure, you've seen this set before. But I've been on a binge of building some new modular set pieces, and I decided to make a wall module with a doorway cut into it.

See, you've seen the door lots of times, but you've never seen it open, and you've never seen anything behind it, for an important reason. In the past, it's always just been stuck up against a blank wall, with some black foam behind the window to make it look dark back there. Actually, once or twice, you've seen a hand reaching out from between the bars, but in those cases, that's all there was. A hand.

eeeeww!

So this time, there was actually a space behind the door to put an actual prisoner. I kind of like how you can just see his eyes lit behind the bars.

And, oh yeah, I just built that silver ventilator unit in the foreground. Stuck that in there too.

Like you care. I slave away, building new stuff for the Lair, and do I get a "thank-you," maybe some flowers, or a box of candy. No.

For that, I will destroy your puny world!

But not for a while. It's where I keep my stuff.

(Apologies to the Tick)

See you next time...if you're lucky!

- Your Minion Target-master, Steve

Minions #136 - Suspended Employment

Stand by, following the usually commercial jibber-jabber for a generous severance package from your Minion Master!

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LARGER VERSIONS

Your visit is important to us. Please give all your precious metals to the nearest Minion and stare mindlessly at the screen for a message of real change from your Maverick Minion Master, following the usual commercial interruptions.

Minions at work is inadequately supported during this financial crisis by your purchases from our web stores and our advertisers. Feed the economy and help us bleed green just a little more slowly by purchasing tee-shirts, buttons, calendars, hats, undies (we kid not!), and other fine Minions at Work items at one of the following stores.

While waiting for your impending doom, pick up a Minions at Work tee-shirt or other great gift:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"Where the beatings will continue until all customers are satisfied!"

and

NUMBER TWO'S HOUSE OF NAUGHTY
(Oh, come on. You know you want to be naughty!)

Join the Minions Reminder Email List. It's free, it's easy, and you'll never miss a Minions at Work cartoon (or if you do, it won't be our fault!)


Greetings, Surplus Manpower!

On time two weeks in a row! How soon can we get lazy and start coasting again?

Anyway, here we are with another one of those pesky "topical" cartoons. You know what that means. Just apply where it hurts until the pain goes away.

Or something.

Well, listen, we've got things to do and plots to hatch this week, so I'm going to cut it short. See you next time.

- your Terminator at work, Steve.


And don't forget to run out and spend your last few dollars on that
new anthology with a great new story by Mrs. Minion Master! It's called "Witch High," and features stories by 14 top authors about the students of Salem Township Public High-school #4." Sure, Halloween is over, but don't let the fun end there!

BUY "WITCH HIGH" ON AMAZON NOW!

Minions #126 - Easily Discouraged

Stand by, following the usually commercial jibber-jabber for a secret message from your Minion Master!

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LARGER VERSIONS

Your visit is important to us. Please give all your bank account and personal information to the nearest Minion and stare mindlessly at the screen for a end-of-summer message from your Minion Master, following the usual commercial interruptions.

Minions at work is inadequately supported by your purchases from our web stores and our advertisers. Help us bleed green just a little more slowly by purchasing tee-shirts, buttons, calendars, hats, undies (we kid not!), and other fine Minions at Work items at one of the following stores.

While waiting for your impending doom, pick up a Minions at Work tee-shirt or other great gift:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"Where the beatings will continue until all customers are satisfied!"

and

NUMBER TWO'S HOUSE OF NAUGHTY
(Oh, come on. You know you want to be naughty!)

Join the Minions reminder email list or we will send a presidential candidate to kiss all your babies!* It's free, it's easy, and you'll never miss a Minions at Work cartoon (or if you do, it won't be our fault!)

*Actually, we're just going to send Minion Number Two and he's just going to bruise the little tyke's face with his gas-mask. This, however, is still better than being kissed by the candidate.)


Greetings, Poor Fading Sunburns!

Yeah, it's the end of summer, a time which we greet with especially mixed feelings here at the lair. Yes, it means the good weather will go away soon, and we can look-forward to whatever surprises climate change has added to our already gray and wet winters.

But on the other hand...

THE TOURISTS ARE GONE! THE TOURISTS ARE GONE! WAHOO! WAHOO! THE TOURISTS ARE GONE!

Yeah, we live in a resort town, and man, am I glad to see them gone! Yes, we depend on them for the local economy, but unlike you guys, I can't just convince them to drop their wallet at the door and go home. No, they've got to hang around, clogging the roads, and the theaters, and the stores, and every place that serves any kind of food, and inconveniencing us by killing themselves on the beach in stupid ways.

(It's not like we want them to die. Really. With the outside voice anyway. Really, we do our very best to warn them about the rip-tides and the sneaker waves and the zillion ton beach logs that can roll over and crush you. But do they listen? Noooooooooooo! It's like in every horror movie when somebody says, "don't go in the basement!" So we're kind of fatalistic about it all. We figure, at least it's taking them out of the gene pool, which over thousands of years may either lead to smarter tourists, or more likely, stupid tourists with gills, blubber, and arm-muscles the size of the Hulk's.)

So anyway, I'm looking forward to the piece and quiet that will take over our little town starting tomorrow. Maybe I can enjoy the sun and blue skies we have left.

A Word -- actually, lots of them -- from Mrs. Minion Master:

New in stores, a great new fantasy anthology with a new story by Mrs. Minion Master, Christina F. York. It's called "Enchantment Place," edited by Denise Little. It's 17 original stories about a magical shopping destination in Chicago where the really unusual people shop for items you can scarcely imagine. And no, we don't mean Hot Topic!

Find it now at your local bookseller, or order from Amazon.

Minions #125 - Service with a Smile

Stand by, following the usually commercial jibber-jabber for a secret message from your Minion Master!

CLICK ON IMAGES FOR LARGER VERSIONS

Your visit is important to us. Please hand your wallet to the nearest Minion and stare mindlessly at the screen for a back-from-Vacation message from your Minon Master, following the usual commercial interruptions.

Minions at work is inadequately supported by your purchases from our web stores and our advertisers. Help us bleed green just a little more slowly by purchasing tee-shirts, buttons, calendars, hats, undies (we kid not!), and other fine Minions at Work items at one of the following stores.

While waiting for your impending doom, pick up a Minions at Work tee-shirt or other great gift:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"Where the beatings will continue until all customers are satisfied!"

and

NUMBER TWO'S HOUSE OF NAUGHTY
(Oh, come on. You know you want to be naughty!)

Join the Minions reminder email list or we will send a presidential candidate to kiss all your babies!* It's free, it's easy, and you'll never miss a Minions at Work cartoon (or if you do, it won't be our fault!)

*Actually, we're just going to send Minion Number Two and he's just going to bruise the little tyke's face with his gas-mask. This, however, is still better than being kissed by the candidate.)


Greetings, Poor Long Suffering Minions Fans!

This week, a special shout out to the crew at Hilltop, where the seating is always assigned. I know, that makes no sense to anybody, but they'll understand. Thanks for the lunches, guys!

Special congrats to Mrs. Minion Master, Chris, who just turned in the first of her upcoming (from Berkley Prime Crime) mystery novels to her editor. Yay, Chris! And speaking of Chris...

A Word -- actually, lots of them -- from Mrs. Minion Master:

New in stores, a great new fantasy anthology with a new story by Mrs. Minion Master, Christina F. York. It's called "Enchantment Place," edited by Denise Little. It's 17 original stories about a magical shopping destination in Chicago where the really unusual people shop for items you can scarcely imagine. And no, we don't mean Hot Topic!

Find it now at your local bookseller, or order from Amazon.


A reminder. We need input!

First of all, we need a number for our new Minion, seen manning the dart-board in this recent cartoon.

Also, No. 1 needs letters with your "questions for Minions" to be answered in a future video. Surely there's something you want to know about being a Minion, life in the Lair, the forces of evil, or No. 1's early Oscar picks.

Obey your Minion-master, fire up your email and get to it!

- See you next week, Steve

Minions 99.8 -Small Favors

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

Your visit is important to us. Please hand your wallet to the nearest Minion and stare mindlessly at the screen for a message from your Minon Master, following the usual commercial interruptions.

Minions at work is inadequately supported by your purchases from our web stores and our advertisers. Help us bleed green just a little more slowly by purchasing tee-shirts, buttons, calendars, hats, undies (we kid not!), and other fine Minions at Work items at one of the following stores.

While waiting for your impending doom, pick up a Minions at Work 2008 Calendar or other great gift:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"Where all our customers are satisfied, because those are the ones we allow to live!"

and

NUMBER TWO'S HOUSE OF NAUGHTY
(Oh, come on. You know you want to be naughty!)

Join the Minions reminder email list or we will send a presidential candidate to kiss all your babies!* It's free, it's easy, and you'll never miss a Minions at Work cartoon (or if you do, it won't be our fault!)

*Actually, we're just going to send Minion Number Two and he's just going to bruise the little tyke's face with his gas-mask. This, however, is still better than being kissed by the candidate.)

Greetings, Disappointed Ones!

No, it isn't Minons #100 yet. What I haven't told anyone is that Minions #100 has been done for weeks. Actually, I'm stalling to give myself more time to work on Minions #200. It's coming up fast!

No, not only is it not #100, I'm late. Lots of stuff going on here, and yet more visitors in town later in the week.

As for #100, what I'm being reminded of from my old college movie-making days is that pictures are easy. Sound is hard. My office/studio is a converted garage, and it's not well soundproofed. The weather has turned nice here on the Oregon coast, so all around me the kids have been running up and down the street screaming, people are fixing roofs and doing repairs (I'm waiting for someone to clean my chimney right now, in fact), and even the birds have contributed, gulls fighting noisily on my office roof. I'm down to the last scene, and if I can get that recorded, the editing should go fast (all the visual elements WERE done weeks ago).

Any bets on 99.9?

See ya next week.

-Big Evil Steve

Minions #83 - Guarding Martha

Don't miss the latest ravings of a lunatic madman, your Minion Master, following the usual annoying noise...

While waiting for your impending doom, shop:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"If you're not 100% satisfied, then the beatings will begin!"

and

NUMBER TWO'S HOUSE OF NAUGHTY
(Oh, come on. You know you want to be naughty!)

Join the Minions reminder email list or we will send a presidential candidate to kiss all your babies!* It's free, it's easy, and you'll never miss a Minions at Work cartoon (or if you do, it won't be our fault!)

*Actually, we're just going to send Minion Number Two and he's just going to bruise the little tyke's face with his gas-mask. This, however, is still better than being kissed by the candidate.)

An now a lovely idea for making a festive fall wreath out of human bones, courtesy of your Minion Master.

Greetings, Jail Birds,


I'm running late again this week. Life gets in the way sometimes. But at least I'm not sporting the latest "in" celebrity accessory that everyone is wearing, the ankle bracelet. (And I'm not talking about a lovely gold number with a penguin charm either!) Thank goodness that our law enforcement system is busy keeping us safe from a woman who can bake a Thanksgiving turkey covered in decorative puff-pastry! That's evil, man!


Actually, Martha would make a great Evil Overlord. She has an evil empire. She has a lair (with an evil herb garden out back, an evil craft lab, and an evil China-closet the size of a blimp-hangar), and she has a plan to rule the world. Also, if you pay close attention, I'll just bet that most of the heavy lifting around Casa-Martha is done by a legion of Minions.

And has jail ended her evil ways? No way! Before jail, you could find Martha Stewart products in K-Mart. Now, post-jail, you can find them in Macy's! You go girl! Just remember to look us up for all your Minion needs! (Quick, guys! Stock up on puff-pastry!)

Till next week...

-Steve.