Minions #288 - Present, But Not Back

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Greetings, Hangers On!

Okay, this may not be the greatest cartoon I've ever posted here, but it's NEW, baby!  New as in a new shoot, done Sunday night, just hours before I'm point this.  See, what between my main camera breaking (and not wanting to waste a lot of effort shooting inferior quality stuff with my old camera) and various family and personal emergencies, I've simply been mining my backlog of files to create new cartoons, and I've been doing it for several months now.

See, it works like this.  I save EVERYTHING I shoot for Minions, and for each photo setup, I do many shots, from various angles, and sometimes reposed and repositioned as well.  I pick the best shot for the intended gag, and that leaves me with lots of outtakes and alternate versions, which can in turn sometimes be re-cropped an reedited.  And currently, I have over TEN GIGABYTES of Minions-related material here to draw on.  So, when I'm behind or stuck for a new cartoon, I'll browse through all this stuff, looking for new punch-lines to go with old pictures.

I suspect, most of the time the repetition goes unnoticed by most of you (though sometimes it much be very obvious to regular readers, especially when I got for running gags, and I don't go out of my way to disguise it in that case).

But I prefer to deliver fresh material most of the time, and life has gotten in the way of that lately. But we are past the immediate emergencies, and my camera, long-delayed by back-ordered parts, is finally out of the shop, so I decided last week it was time to dust off the old Minion Studio here at the Lair and get back to (new) work.

But I've spent the last week simply cleaning out and rewiring the studio, and only today was I really in the position of shooting something.  Well, I'm SURE I had a bunch of cool ideas last week, but as I got ready to put a set together, I drew a blank.  Even though I hadn't really gone anywhere lately, and the studio had always been back there behind me in my office, I still felt jet-lagged and out of sorts.

Isn't that always the way?  And then I realized, this was the meta that would drive this week's strip.  I had to remind myself just how crazy the world of the Minions was, and work my way back into it just like anybody else coming back from the beach after Labor Day to face the old 9 to 5 grind.  So, Number Two becomes my stand-in in this week's cartoon, and just kind of threw everything and the kitchen sink at him.

It ain't great, but I hope it gives you a grin, and we'll be back next week with more new stuff.   We'll see you here then!

- Back to Mastering Minion Master Steve

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Minions #272 - Off Office Space

Click for Bigger Office

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Greetings, Cubical Chipmunks!


Yes, we're cutting it close this week, BUT IT'S STILL TECHNICALLY MONDAY!

And hey, speaking of offices, check out of a couple of my favorite office comedies at the links below.  "Office Space" is a live-action cult classic from those "South Park" guys that you've probably heard of (or seen), but I'll bet you've never heard of the obscure-but-similar Haiku Tunnel!  It's about a wanna-be writer working as a temp who goes slowly insane when offered a full-time position at the company where's he's working.  The build-up is a little slow, but the pay-off is a classic (and pretty good real-world advice for dealing with deadlines, too)!  They'd make a great double-feature!  Check them out!

See you next Technical Monday!

    - Master Minion Procrastinator, Steve

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Minions #192 - Kennel Ration

Stand by, following the usual dog run for a yank on the collar from 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 crab parasites just before they can answer your call. It's just one more way of saying, "we care, just not about you."

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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:
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"Satisfaction guaranteed or we'll make make you buy something else!"

and

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

Or just click on our "Donate" button and send us cash add to our "Buy the Minions a Camera Fund!" 100% of your contribution goes to allow starving orphans to buy blankets for kittens.

Nah, not really, it all goes to ME, in order to further the cause of EVIL, and the photography thereof.

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And yes, I'm finally on Twitter. Follow me. I'm JSteveYork there (clicking on the previous link will take you straight to my profile page.) Eventually I'm getting No. 1 his own account for Minions-related-business, but one thing at a time.

Still: We're everywhere! We're everywhere!

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Greetings, Mongrels and Litter Runts!

We're finally getting back on track around here after a month of schedule disruptions, distractions, and sickness.  I'm back to building some new sets and trying out some new props and characters, back down in the bowels of the lair where we belong!  (All that fresh air we've been getting lately has just given me a kennel cough!)  Hopefully we'll be back here, on time, and with fresh material for a while!

By the way, our Latino minion has shown up a number of times, but I'm now giving him an official designation.  Henceforth he shall be known as "Numero Cinco," (Number Five) in honor of the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo.  (Which in the U.S. is a celebration of Mexican pride, and in parts of Mexico, a celebration of the day the Mexicans kicked the French in the ass, which is pretty fun in itself.  And don't tell me they didn't have it coming!)

That's not to say that Cinco is necessarily Mexican.  It's typical gringo stupidity to assume that all Hispanics are Mexicans.  Cinco might be Cuban, or Columbian, or Salvadorian, or who-knows-what.  He might even be a red-white-and-blue Texas-born Tejano.  I'd like to keep that kind of vague, so he can stand in for all of them.

I know people have strong feelings about this, but most of the Latinos I know, citizens and visitors alike, are good, hard-working, family-folk.  Many of them take important-yet-dirty-jobs that the rest of us wouldn't touch, keep our nation running, and as thanks, often get nothing but grief and abuse.

In other words, they can proudly count themselves among the ranks of the Minions!  

Yeah, just like the rest of us.  Remember, we're all equals down here under the thumbs of our Overlord oppressors, so don't take it out on them.  Ain't no border wall high enough to keep The Man from shipping jobs out of the country.  Just saying.

See you guys next week

- Steve

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