Minions #303 - Workforce Reduction

Click Cartoon for Bigger News!

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Greetings, Overstaffs and expendables!


Yes, we know the copyright on this still says 2011!  Can you say, "inventory?"  I knew that you could!

This week's cartoon is brought to you by a sneak-peek at a cover mock-up for my new Panorama Beach Mystery, "A Breath Away from Dying!"  This is the second in my series, featuring green deputy "Mustang" Sawtell and the corrupt Florida panhandle paradise of Panorama Beach.

Deputy "Mustang" Sawtell knows there's something wrong with the scene when he responds to a prowler call at the Aquarama aquarium and underwater-show, and finds a dead mermaid laying on the shore of the Mermaid Grotto. But he's dismissed from the case by a treacherous superior officer, who bungles the investigation and rules her death an accident. So when Sheriff "Big" Bass asks him to take a secretive, off-duty, second look at the case, he's eager to please despite the danger. But there are deep secrets, cut-throat business, old-flames, and hidden agendas waiting for him, and before Mustang knows which way the tide is running, he'll be in hot water -- face-to-face with a killer! 


Welcome to Panorama Beach, Florida, 1967, where the sand is white as sugar, the attractions are larger-than-life, and the money is all dirty and rolling in like a storm tide! Deputy "Mustang" Sawtell is the new badge in town, and he just wants to do the right thing. But he's fallen under the wing of his dangerous and morally compromised boss, Sherriff "Big" Bass, who calls himself "the best devil money can buy." Big Bass will tell you that he may be a little bad, but anybody who replaces him will be even worse. Mustang would really like to believe that -- because otherwise, this good-old-boy may have just booked himself on a rocket-ride to hell!

"A Breath Away from Dying" is in production, and should start appearing at your favorite ebook outlet very soon now.  Meanwhile, you can catch up on Mustang's first adventure in "The Best Devil Money Can Buy," available on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBookstore, Sony and all other major ebook sellers!

See you guys back here next week!

                                            - Mystery-master Steve

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

Minions #256 - Where there's Smoke...

Click for BIG Screen

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Greetings, Core News Demographic!


Well, Doctor Coldblood continues his drunken binge this week, even though it's a little early for spring break.

Just another quick book plug.  Mrs. Minion Master, in her secret alias of "Christy Evans," has a new mystery coming out February 1st, the third in her series of crime-solving-plumber mysteries.  It's called "Drip Dead."  Check it out where ever books are sold!  Or recommend it to the nearest mystery fan immediately!  We've got bills to pay here!

Point in fact, we're being served up with some irony this week.  The lair is being invaded by heating repair guys who are going to be grubbing around our crawl-space replacing all the duct work.

Why is this ironic?  Well, my story "Gordie Culligan vs. Doctor Long Beach and the HVAC of Doom," written for the anthology "If I Were an Evil Overlord," is about a heroic heating and air-conditioning guy working in the ducts of a volcanic lair (that just happens to be located in Long Beach, California).

Got to check my paperwork.  If the rights on that story have reverted, I much just post it here as a freebie for you guys to read soon.  I'll let you know...

- Irony Master, Steve

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

Minions #250 - Put a Lid on It

Click to Make Mountain out of Molehill

Greetings, Hazy Clouds!


Maybe you've noticed, or maybe you haven't, I've dropped the stock "support the site" boilerplate crap after each cartoon.  Let's face it, I'm not rich yet, so it's obviously not working.  I'm leaving our little "tip jar" donate button down there because, now and then it does work!

I know I keep saying we're going to get organized here at the lair, but this time we're really going to get organized here at the lair!  I've broken down and rented a storage unit so I can haul many of the props, vehicles, and figures I use to make my cartoons off and have space to sort them, eliminate duplicates, find stuff I lost about three years ago, and generally get a better handle on all the stuff I have.

In a perfect world, I'd have something like the "wall of labeled boxes" you see in the background on Mythbusters, but short of building myself a new building, I don't have anywhere with room of that kind of shelving.  But I do hope to approximate it as closely as I can; a box for everything, and everything in its box.

Yeah, like that's going to happen!

See you guys next week!

                                                                  - Minion Master Steve

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

Minions #149 - Belt Tightening Makes Me Hungry

In the event of a water landing, this cartoon can be used as a flotation device. Click on picture to inflate to full size.


Stand by, following some new commercial jibber-jabber for a time-out from your Minion Master!

Your visit is important to us. For your convenience, please put us in your will, then walk off the nearest cliff. Try to land on your head. Thank you.

NEW! 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
(Naughty is as naughty does!)

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, Stay-at-homes!

Well, we're back from Florida. Really enjoyed the writer's conference and our four days at the space center (still not enough time!).

The plane trip on United Airlines? Not so much. I tell you, that outfit has some SERIOUS Evil Overlords in charge. But we got home without them killing us (unless this post-travel crud Mrs. Minion Master and I have does us in) so that's something.

I had really planned to shoot a new Minions for this week, but I just wasn't feeling up to it. Fortunately, I laid in some inventory before I left. Actually, I like this one quite a bit, and it is timely.

See you next week. Meanwhile, support the site by clicking through our Amazon link above and buy yourself a book. Maybe something by Chris or I.

Or not.

Actually, it would be better if you clicked through and bought a gigantic plasma TV. Yeah. That would be much better.

What the heck. Go for it. Tell them I sent you.

- Your parasite on the side of a failing economy: Steve

Minions #143 - How do you spell Xmas?

Stand by, following some new commercial jibber-jabber for a body-shot from your Minion Master!

Your visit is important to us. Please give all your government bail-outs to the nearest Minion and we'll continue doing things as we always have because, hey, that's been working for us so far, right?


NEW! 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
(Naughty is as naughty does!)

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, New Years Deresolutions!

Yes, one more swipe at Christmas before we move on to the new year. I finally got a half-way decent Santa, sort-of-in-scale, so I had to make use of him while I could.

You know, sometimes when you're doing a strip like this, you just don't know if what you're doing is funny, or terrible, or in horrid taste, or what. This is one of those occasions. Well, what I've learned is, go with it. Usually somebody will really like it, and the rest will usually forget it soon enough.

Go ahead. Start forgetting!

Other Reports from the Lair

Over the holidays, Mrs. Minion Master and I have been on a James Bond marathon. We now own all the Bond movies on DVD, except for Quantum of Solace (which will be added soon enough), the comedy version of Casino Royale from the 60s (which hardly counts to my mind) and the "unauthorized" Never Say Never Again (the non-Eon remake of Thunderball starring Sean Connery, released about the same time as the Roger Moore "Octopussy.")

A liquidator-type store near us got on a bunch of what were apparently anniversary releases from 7-8 years back. While the current Bond DVD releases are stripped down, these have tons of excellent documentaries, supporting material, and other extras, and they were priced at a too-good-to-pass-up $4.99 each. I got a couple, and before long, a couple more, and before we knew what we were doing, we had the whole danged set.

From a Minions at Work standpoint, it's been great to see all the villains, gadgets, and lairs again. I'm thinking about reviewing some of the films from a lair/overlord/minion-centric perspective. The best lair to my mind is still the volcano from "You Only Live Twice," but there are plenty of other great ones.

It's also interesting to check out the minions and their uniforms. Best dressed have got to be the painted-on red jumpsuits with black belts (on all-female minions) in "Octopussy," but there are other good ones, like the color-coded minions from "You Only Live Twice." Then there are a few that are terrible to behold. Yeah, I've got to blog about that here at some point.

Anyway, we're off to Florida in a couple weeks, but while watching Bond films, I built some interesting new set pieces, and there should be plenty of new cartoons to see us through the traveling.

Keep sharing the link with your friends! We've got a world to take over here!

- Goldblogger Steve

- Your Mastersaurus Rex, Steve

Minions #127 - Talking Trailer Trash

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 your visits to 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. Or check our our fine sponsors.

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 vice-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 an actual candidate.)


Greetings, Modular Minions!

The General Zed/No. 1 rivalry continues. What's with these guys? History, I tell you. One of these days we'll have to go into that bit of backstory.

Meanwhile, it looks like there might be an unexpected trip later in the month, which means I'm going to be slamming hoping to stockpile enough cartoons so that there are no outages while I'm gone. Next week's toon is already well in process, and I'm hoping to build up a backlog. But be advised that I'll go into repeats or something for a week or two if I need to.

More news as it comes in.

- Minion-Lord Steve

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.

Minons #106 - Video Special "Letter Rip!"

CLICK ABOVE TO PLAY VIDEO!

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 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, Ill-letterates!

Well, I warned you there would be more video, and it's come sooner than I expected. But I've climbed a bunch of the learning curve, and while "Minions Tonight" literally took me weeks and weeks, I was pretty much able to this one (which was admittedly a lot simpler) in a single day, and any follow-on "letters" episodes should go even quicker, since I've done a lot of the ground-work.

So how's about helping by sending your questions, letters and requests to "Minions Mail" care of yours truly. We'll make fun of -- uh -- answer the best ones in future installments.

See you next time.

Your Minion-master,
Steve

Minions #103 - Listing to Starboard

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

Got a friend or relative who's in the real-estate business? They really need cheering up right now. Share the link for this Minions at Work cartoon with them right now!

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 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, Multiple Listings!

Our motto at Minions Studios is "keep it real." Okay, mostly what we keep is surreal, but I don't often resort to photo-editing on our cartoons. It isn't because I can't, but I try to keep things within the context of the world I can create for you on a bench-top most of the time.

But there are occasions, especially when it comes to presenting the massive Lairs of our evil overlords and their infernal devices, that nothing I can build here is going to do. This is one of those times.

Strangely, as much as I fight doing this, I'm usually pretty pleased with the results (like this one here) when I do. I'm pretty pleased with this week's too. I don't know how funny it is, but it's pretty!

By the way, did you look closely at the sign in the cartoon? If not, go check it out. I'll wait...

Okay, you're back. According to the description there, the volcano lair is one of the biggest buildings in the world, with about twice the square footage of that shrimpy-old-Pentagon. There is, however, a shopping mall in China with about the same square footage of retail space (most of it standing empty, according to sources on the net).

In any case, it's curious that somebody from the Guinness Book of World Records hasn't come to call. Hmmm, perhaps Coldblood Bilker is telling a little fib about the square footage? Could be. They're evil baby!

See you next week!

-Steve

Minions #88 - Relative Beauty

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

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

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.)

A rambling greeting from your rambling leader:

Greetings, fellow-travelers,




Do me a favor! Take a moment to click on the Web Comic List icon at the top of our sidebar, create a log-on, and choose "Minions at Work" as one of your favorite web comics! If you have a mind, you can also leave a comment while you're there. Doing so will push us up their popularity list, and hopefully bring more people to check out our site. It just takes a couple minutes, so give it a try (and maybe find some other cool web comics while you're at it).

It's another one of those weeks, where I wonder if y'all will be laughing or just scratching your heads. I thought it was funny, but I'm strange. Just in case, I've whipped up a little bonus content for you, another of our famous parody Minions magazine covers. Click on the small picture for a larger version, and enjoy. (I've got to print some of these out as mini-magazines and start using them as props for future cartoons.)

To give you some background on this week's cartoon, let me just say that I live at the beach. A really beautiful beach, in my opinion, on the Oregon coast, and having lived her for many years now I just can't imagine living anywhere else. Well, at least anywhere far from waves, sand, trees, and mountains.

Yet I do leave here sometimes. I like to travel, almost as much as I like coming home. And as I've driven across the country, I've seen many beautiful things. But I've also been many places so ugly, so unplesant, that, if they were a Wookie, you'd shave their butts and make them walk backwards.

These are the kinds of places that I can't drive through fast enough, that I can't imagine voluntarily stopping at, and God-help-me if there isn't usually somebody who apparently choses to live there!

Why?

I mean, it isn't as though there aren't plenty of better places to live, often within a few hours drive. It isn't as though there are great jobs in these places. Often I wonder what people there do at all, but when the economic base is apparent, it usually has to do with A: known carcinogens, B: horrible working conditions, C: high worker mortality, and D: low pay.

In other words, it's pretty much like being a Minion.

Is it just momentum? Are these people simply to ignorant that there's life beyond the radioactive fish-mine or the lead-paint tasting industry? No, they must see something wonderful about where they live and work. I can only figure that, as bad as their place is, they know somewhere even worse!

God help us all.

See you next week, where-ever you live,

-Steve

Minions #57 - Lost

Click image for full-sized version.

Visit:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
Shoplifters cheerfully disintegrated!

and

NUMBER TWO'S HOUSE OF NAUGHTY
(It's only as bad as you think it is!)

Join the Minions reminder email list or we will blot out the sun*. 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 the Penguin to stalk you with a big, black, umbrella. Budget-cuts and all...

A Looking for Evil in all the wrong places missive from Minion Central:

Greetings, Lost Sheep of Lawfulness,


This is our second-ever Minions cartoon with no caption, the previous one being #45, Uncivil Disobedience, in case you'd care to revisit it.

Hey, folks, I know you're out there. I can hear you breathing! Drop me a comment here, good bad or indifferent. I get quite a bit of email, which is fine if you have something you want to say privately, but having comments on the blog gives it a nice, lived-in look that keeps me happy and making new Minions cartoons! Doesn't have to be long or eloquent. A simple "Ha!" or "Huh?" is fine with me. Just post!


Minor public relations moment for those of you who may be in the UK. My wife Chris's second novel based on the cult-favorite ALIAS TV series, "A Touch of Death," is being released this month there by Simon and Schuster UK. In fact, Amazon UK lists it as being available now! And of course, those of you on this side of the pond can still buy the U.S. edition as well.

See you next week.

- Steve: Lonely as Hell at the Top of the Lair

Minions #39 - Dancing in the Dark

Click on image for full-sized version.

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!

A Status Report from the Lair:

This could have easily been the week without Minions. While things have been quiet with the Gulf-coast's hurricane season, the global-warming demons seem to have moved over to the Pacific, where we're seeing our worst storms in over a decade. Last week, Minions Studios was lashed by 90+ MPH winds, cut from civilization by closed roads, and plunged into darkness and cold for seemingly endless days.

Well, the lights are back on here at the Lair, but just barely, and I wouldn't call things "back to abnormal" by a long-shot. We've got power, but many of our friends and neighbors don't. (One friend still has four 40 foot trees down across his driveway, and all his utility lines, plus his vehicle is trapped behind those trees. Of course, the trees could have landed ON his truck, or his house, so it could be worse.)

Obviously, Minions hasn't been foremost on my mind, the technology on which the Lair depends has mostly been down, and the inventory was looking pretty thin. But sitting here, trapped in the cold and the dark, you learn things. You learn to hang in there. You learn to make do with whatever resources you have. And there, in the black, sometimes inspiration will strike.

So here you go. Back from the black, Minions-style.

Next week (major acts-of-God aside) come back for a special Holiday Minions.

See you then.

- Steve, Minion-Master and Under-the-Weather-Overlord.

Minions #29 - Misdirection

Click Image for full-sized version.

We should be able to manage a few more bonus Joelanta Minions panels this week, so keep checking back. Thanks again to Tom Brooks for coming up with this idea and executing the shots.

Remember (well, the whole point is, what if you don't remember) that you can sign up for our Minions reminder and newsletter email list. You'll get a reminder each week as we post new Minions, plus news and other bonus goodies. Visit here to join. It's free and easy.

#27 - Minion Lore

Click image for full-sized version

Share the Minions at Work link with a friend right now! Come on! You know it's the EVIL thing to do! Click the envelope icon below and just type in their email-address. Do it! Don't make us let loose the dinosaurs!

And Now, a Special Message from minion Number Two


(Note: The opinions expressed by Minion Number Two are his own, and do not reflect those of the staff, management, cast, crew, or anybody else remotely connected with Minions at Work.)



Hey! Can't you see I'm off the freakin' clock here!

But yeah, before you start your complainin', we freakin' know that the "All I need is a tall ship" line comes from the poem "Sea Fever" not "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner." Did you know it until you Googled it, you wussie? Probably not. I'll bet you thought it was from Star Trek! What a loser!

Anyway, this is "The Rhyme of the Ancient minion," not "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner." Can't you freakin' read?

I bet you've never even met the Ancient Minion, have you, freakin' moron? Now, get out of my face-mask. Geeze.

Minions #24 - Trickle Down

Special Labor Day, late-summer blockbuster!

Click image for larger version.