Minions #318 - Office Light Weight

Read today's Post And Read a Free Mystery!

Click Cartoon for More of Less!

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Greetings, Shin-Splints and Rib-cages!

Read "The Best Devil Money Can Buy " FREE

If you missed out on our coupon offer a while back or just don't have an ereader device yet, you've got yet another chance to read the first in my "Panorama Beach" mystery series for free, this time directly on the web!

Find it HERE!

See you guys back here next week with more "Minions at Work!"

                   -Minion Master Steve

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

Minion #278 - By Your Leave

Click, then leave before seeing if cartoon gets any bigger...

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Greetings, Booby Traps!


Hey, check out my latest ebook release, an all-new short story, first in a new Steampunk Cowboy series called "Tales of the Clockwork Cowboy."  This first one is called "The Unwinding of Liberty Brass," and concerns the origins of our wandering metal hero.  The second story in the series will be in an upcoming DAW Books
anthology called "Western Weird," and there are more to come.

You can buy (or sample) the Amazon Kindle edition using the link at left.  It's also available on Nook and in other ebook formats through Smashwords.  Coming soon to Apple, Sony, Kobo and other major ebook outlets!

Here's the blurb:

J. Steven York's Clockwork Cowboy stories aren't just 'weird Westerns.' They're quite touching, too. Yes, Liberty Brass is a metal man with a busted 'governor.' But he's got as much heart as any other hero you'll find riding the range." 
-- Steve Hockensmith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and the Holmes on the Range mystery series

Throughout the west tales are told of a legendary Clockwork Cowboy, a restless mechanical wanderer who rode a clockwork horse, and whose bullets never missed. Some called him traitor, or monster, or murderer, but some called him hero. Some said he never stood by idle when the strong preyed upon the weak, and no bad men, mechanical or flesh, were safe while he wandered the plains.

But every story has a beginning...

Some say the Clockwork Cowboy was actually a Confederate Artilleryman called Liberty Brass. But for Liberty Brass, the trail seems ready to end almost before it begins. In a half-destroyed barn near the Gettysburg battlefield, on a dark, rainy night, two clockwork men, both damaged in war, meet. In the hours that follow, a terrible secret is revealed, a fateful judgment is made, and only one can survive to see the morning sun...  

Be sure to check it out!

- Your Steampunk Minion Master, Steve

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

Minions #212 - Bone Tired

Click on image to activate ENLARGE-O-BEAM!

Stand by, following the usual T-Boning for a chew toy from 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 albino dance-monkeys just before they can answer your call. It's just one more way of saying, "we care, just not about you."

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!

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.)

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.

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 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, Numb-skulls!

It's not yet spring here at the old Lair, but it's close enough that I'm thinking about it.  One job that's on my list is cleaning up the chaos that is Minions Studios, and that's really difficult to do while keeping it accessible for shooting.  I really need some down-time to sort and repack the zillions of figures, props, costumes, set pieces, backdrops, vehicles I need to shoot my photo-cartoons.

I made some progress in dealing with that yesterday by spending several hours digging through file photos (the archives are now up to 6.53Gig of pictures!) and brainstorming new cartoons using old photos.  I was able to come up with 8 new cartoons for the inventory, thus giving me some slack to work here without being concerned that I'll get in the way of the next shooting.

What does it mean when I use old shots?  Is it just an old cartoon with a new caption?  Not exactly.  Whenever I do a shoot, I usually take six to a dozen shots, often changing framing, camera angle, and other details.  Sometimes I even do intentional "outtake" shots sticking in different combinations of characters and poses in hopes I'll come up with a use for them later.

When I go on one of these "inventory hunts" I'll go back to the raw, unedited images and brainstorm.  If I grab the exact same picture I've used before (it does happen) it's simply that it was the best shot for the punchline I've come up with.  Even then, I may crop or edit the photo so that it looks much different than the original use.

Okay, it may be recycling, but some of these were shot so long ago that even I've forgotten about them!  Hopefully they'll be fresh to many of you as well!

Rob Vagle, wife Ximena Clearley,
and Assorted Minions

Hey, speaking of days-gone-by, our old pal and long-time Minion-supporter, writer Rob Vagle was in town today for lunch, and what should be we wearing but his "Evil is Just My Day Job" tee shirt.  I've known Rob since my days living in Eugene, Oregon.  He's since moved to Arizona, so it's a treat to see him, even for a little while  (Actually, it was a big lunch with a lot of people, so Mrs. Minion Master got a lot more time to talk with him than I did.  Still waiting for the gossip.)

Here's a picture of he and his wife (also a big supporter over the years) taken a few years back before they moved to Arizona.  Hey, we miss you guys!

Well, that's about it for this week.  Off to do my spring-cleaning.  But we'll be right back here next week with a new (to you) cartoon!  Thanks to everybody for your support and comments!

                                                            - Minion Master, Steve

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

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 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 99.7 - Long Lunch

(Click on Cartoons for full-sized versions)

Greetings, Suspended Animations!

Okay, this still isn't #100. I blame it on the writer's strike. Wait? What's this you tell me? The writer's strike is over? Uh, okay... Look! Over there! A WOMBAT!

Okay, not buying that either. Well, though this has been a bad week, I did get another big chunk of the audio recorded. I Have one more segment to do, then I can edit the final audio track and start the final video edit.

Uh. Have I said too much already? Never was that good with secrets. Like all evil overlords, your Minion Master is prone to blurt out his plans well before they're completed. Just living down the the stereotype.

As I mentioned earlier, we spent the word in Pasco, Washington at the Radcon science fiction and gaming convention. This is, I think, our third year attending, and I had a lot of fun. As usual, we got to hang out with lots of friends and to meet cool new folks, and our "Evil is Just my Day Job" buttons proved quite popular. I was on an "Evil Overlord" panel that was lots of fun.

Anyway, I was inspired, after we returned, to throw together this little tribute bonus cartoon in honor of the occasion (and in case you have trouble getting it, just know that the Pasco tri-cities area are right next to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, of Manhattan Project and cold-war fame).


Anyway, see you next week.


-Steve

Minions #74 - Darwin Fishsticks

(No, you aren't imagining things. You're looking at the Minions cartoon for next week. In preloading the minions posts for July before leaving for Comicon, I somehow neglected to upload the cartoon into this week's post. So if you look at the post before this, you'll find more annoying details (but no toon). I'll post the regularly scheduled toon when I get back. Dang I knew I should never have given the Minions the week off...)



Click on cartoon for full-sized version.

Stay tuned for an important (okay, not so much) message from your Minion Master, following the usual crass commercialism.

Check the sidebar to your right for our video trailer! A cool way to introduce your friends to the Minions! Send them here, or link directly to it on YouTube at the following URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDpDiP_LB20&eurl=&v3

Visit:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"Where 'service' is our middle name according to our false-ID."

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 the Penguin in a red-white-and-blue tie. We don't have the heart to tell him, that as a citizen of Antarctica, he isn't eligible to run. (Do you? Man, you ARE evil!)

A ship-wide announcement from your Minion Cruise Director:

Greetings, Relaxibots!


"Minions Under the Sea" month continues. We're off to California and the San Diego Comicon, and running our evil schemes by remote-control, so forgive any irregularities. However, all of July's Minion entertainment is lined up and ready to go, so there should be no interruption of service, just possible irregularities in scheduling.

If we get time, we'll post some pictures and reports from the field. You might also want to keep an eye on my writing blog or Chris's blog for stuff of that sort.

By the way, before leaving town, I finally finished adding tags to all the old posts. That means that if you take a fancy to a character or are looking for cartoons on a particular theme, just click on the appropriate tag after a post and see, for instance, all the cartoons with the Penguin in them, or all cartoons in the bar, or all concerning lunch. Just another way for you and your friends to browse and enjoy our ever-growing back-stock of cartoons...

Back at headquarters next week.

- Steve

Minions #69/70 - 4th of July Double Feature

Click on cartoons for full-sized versions.

Stay tuned for an important (okay, not so much) message from your Minion Master, following the usual crass commercialism.

Check the sidebar to your right for our video trailer! A cool way to introduce your friends to the Minions! Send them here, or link directly to it on YouTube at the following URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDpDiP_LB20&eurl=&v3



Visit:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
"Where 'service' is our middle name according to our false-ID."

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 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 big blow of the ballast tanks from the Minion Master:

Greetings, Scurvy Crew. Welcome to Under the Sea Month, Maties!


Yes, it's the 4th of July week (Independence Day, for our non-U.S. friends), traditional time for all-manner of evil plots to be launched, and for the likes of Michael Bay and John McClane to kick evil's butt. In other words, it's a great month for a Minion to lay low. So we bring you, Minions Under the Sea Month!

Okay, I really hadn't intended to do a double-feature this week. Actually, I'm trying to build up inventory so I can coast through July, which is vacation and San Diego Comicon month. But the first in this series was "how to be a Minion #3," and I hadn't yet run "how to be a Minion #2," so I had to clear the tubes, so-to-speak. (By the way, the first in the "How to Be a Minion" series appeared way back in Minions #11, if you need a refresher.)


So stay tuned in the coming weeks, as we introduce new sets, a new Evil Overlord, and maybe one of the funniest panels ever. (Be warned, however, that we'll be traveling and busy through the end of the month, so things may occasionally post late or early, depending.)

-Steve

Minions #63/#64 - Memorial Day Double!

Be sure to continue down for this week's BONUS Minions at Work cartoon!

Click image for full-sized version.
Check the sidebar to your right for our new video trailer! A new way to introduce your friends to the Minions! Send them here, or link directly to it on YouTube at the following URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDpDiP_LB20

Visit:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
Service with a smile! (Hey! He's wearing a gas-mask. Can you prove he isn't smiling?)

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 big second-helping from the Lair's barbecue:

"Greetings, Minions off work..."


I hope you're having a good holiday weekend safe with friends and family, a last moment of domestic bliss before our plan of world domination is set in motion. Okay, not so much. Even the Overlords are taking the day off today.

But lets not forget the thousands of U.S. servicemen and women who don't know what a day off is lately, and a "day-on" means a full schedule of danger and adversity. I don't know if you guys are out there (what with the Pentagon pulling the plugs on so many sites on the questionable name of "bandwidth"), we love you guys, and want you all home safe ASAP. Keep your heads down, and we'll keep a steak in the freezer for when you get stateside.

Now, on the the usual Minions madness. Actually, it's unusual Minion madness, in that we're offering a double-dose of toons this week. Why? Well, it's the tradition of business to have special sales and clear out some overstock merchandise over the long weekend, and we're no different. Yup, I've found a Minions panel that's been hanging around the warehouse too long, and so I'm going to bend over backwards to make you a deal! Yes, two, TWO Minions cartoons for the price of one, and the price of one is FREE! Yes, friends, it doesn't get any better than that!

Oh, sure, you could reward out generosity by sharing "Minions at Work" with a friend, or by buying something from one of our Cafe Press shops, or buying one of our many books in print. But we wouldn't want to make you feel guilty or anything.

Not us.

Guilty.

Guilty, guilty, guilty!

No.

Hey, anyway, hope I didn't get anybody down with last week's "layoff" theme. Being a Minion is about laughing in the face of adversity, and from what I hear, the workplace can sometimes be pretty adverse.

On another matter, if you aren't currently a member of our Minions at Work weekly reminder mailing list, then you can't vote in our "Favorite Minions Character" poll (of which I'm going to announce the results next week). Yep, the list has its own web page with polls, exclusive photo albums, behind-the-scenes goodies, and other exclusive content. Plus, you'll get a weekly notice in your mailbox to remind you about the latest Minions at Work cartoon posting. Never miss a cartoon. Don't miss the fun. Sign up today.


Well, we've strung you along quite enough. Enjoy our warehouse blowout, overstock, showroom sample, factory-second, mismatched-set, holiday bonus cartoon:

Minions #15 - Lunchtime

New here? You can view any toon full-sized by clicking on the image. Additional panels can be found in previous monthly archives. Locate them in the sidebar to your right.

Minions #3 - Fast Food is Bad for You