Minions #325 - Troublesome Clogs

Yes, we totally missed last week, without even a note of explanation.  As I've said before, we've been dealing with an ongoing family health emergency that has just has us overloaded, and in addition, I had a story due on deadline for a real, live, paying anthology, and that took priority for the little time I did have.  The good news, health emergency getting less "emerg" as time goes on, the story is turned in on time (another in my "Clockwork Cowboy" steampunk western series, if you were curious), and we have a new cartoon for you this week, right on time!  Hey, you were probably on vacation and didn't even notice we were missing?  Did you?  DID YOU?  Didn't think so!

Click Cartoon for Bigger Plunger!

See you guys back here next week!

                             - Minion Master Steve

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Minions #324 - Lesser of Two Evils

Click Cartoon for a Bigger Mess!

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Greetings, Plungers and Low-flows!


Today's cartoon is brought to you by "Westward Weird," a great collection stories that put science-fiction and fantasy spins on tales of the old-west, including my steampunk western story, The Clockwork Cowboy!

Though I wrote "Clockwork Cowboy" as a stand-alone story, Liberty Brass, the damaged Confederate clockwork artilleryman hero of my story was too good to just let be.  While "The Clockwork Cowboy" takes place later in his adventures, it raised so many questions about his past that I decided to skip back to his origins and start writing forward from there.  

The first follow-on story, "The Unwinding of Liberty Brass," is a prequel, flashing back to just after Liberty Brass parted ways with the Army of the Confederacy after the battle at Gettysburg.  He's a broken man, literally, and figuratively, but a chance encounter will change his life, force him to choose between death, and the path that will lead him to become the Clockwork Cowboy of legend.

Click to order from Amazon

And I'm happy to report that in just a few weeks, the next installment in the adventures of the Clockwork Cowboy will start appearing in ebook stores, and it's his biggest and wildest yet!

As Liberty Brass and his amazing clockwork horse, Piston, make their way west, they are first attacked by a clockwork highwayman.  They have no sooner subdued their attacker when they are all taken prisoner by a mysterious pair of clockwork men named Copperpot and Kettle, and taken to a forgotten plantation house deep in the Kentucky hills, ruled by the wondrous Steam Man.  At first it seems a utopia, where mechanical men live in peace, free from the wars of men, and work for their common good.

 But there are secrets here, deep as a mine shaft, and dark as Kentucky coal, and Liberty learns that the price of truth just might be the loss of his freedom -- or his mechanical life!

A Preview of the Cover for "The Steam Man's Plantation/"

Watch this space for further announcements!

See you folks back here next week!

            - Clockwork Minion Master Steve

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Minions #323 - Carry on!

Click cartoon for Extra Baggage!

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Greetings, Shoulder-bags and roll-arounds!

Is your shirt this cool?  I think not!

Today's cartoon is brought to you by the awesome new dinosaur-skeleton shirt that my wife just gave me as a birthday present!

Now, I loves me some Hawaiian shirts, and I've got a bunch of them that I wear pretty much all summer, and any time I travel from Oregon to warmer locations in the winter.  I especially love nerdy Hawaiian shirts, and I have a few that I treasure, with things like spiders, cartoon space shuttles, and giant Japanese robots.

But shirts like that are hard to find off-the-shelf, and if you're an odd size like me (six-foot-six and none-too-slim, Steve smash!) it's just impossible.  So the ones I've got have all been custom made, mostly hand-made gifts from my wonderful daughter.

But she's got like, a life and stuff, and does not spend all her spare time making me shirts, and I know there are some of you out there who might lust after such a shirt, and have nobody at all who could make it for them.  I've got a solution for you, but on to that in a minute...

Anyway, you might think that the hard part about this shirt is the fabric, but turns out there are TONS of nerd-cool fabrics out there that would make a cool Hawaiian shirt.  My wife found this one at a regular-old craft store, and there are plenty of on-line sources, and even on-line places that print custom fabrics.  You can even buy stuff (including old and out-of-print designs) on eBay!  So, once you have fabric, all you need is to find somebody to turn it into a shirt for you!

So, how about the person who made mine (who just happens to be my sister-in-law) who is starting her own custom shirt business?  Drop on over to Sew Campy Shirts and see how it's done.  The site is still under construction, but you'll find tips on picking and buying fabric, prices, and instructions on placing an order.

And it doesn't have to take forever.  Your ship could ship in as little as ten days.  Yeah, it's going to cost you a little more than a store-bought shirt, but trust me, these things get attention, and there's nothing more satisfying when people ask about it (and they will ask) than to say, "why thanks, it's custom made!"  And walk away knowing you've got the only one on the planet like it!  Winning!


Tell her I sent you, and she'll try extra hard to take all the pins out!

I'll just be chilling out here in my awesome shirt, and see you folks back here next week!

                                   - Minion Master, Steve

     

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Minions #322 - Boarding Instructions

Click Cartoon for More Legroom

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Greetings, No-class Fliers!


Sorry we totally flaked out on last week's cartoon.  Pressures of family health emergencies have played havoc with our schedules and comedic energy levels.I had the concept for this week's cartoon worked out and had started building the set, but realized I wasn't going to get it done even by late Monday without pulling an all-nighter, and just decided to waste.  The end-result is probably better than it would have been anyway, as it allowed me to dig out some mission props and to take my time setting things up a little more carefully.  It took time and experimentation to get all the elements I wanted into the shot.

It has been pointed out to me by Mrs. Minion Master that the background wall is suspiciously close to the plane, making you wonder what happened to the far wing.  On considering this, I offer the following possible  explanations:

A: The "wall" in in fact the corner of something, or perhaps a much smaller structure.  It ends just at the left of the cartoon and the plane's wing projects around the corner.

B: The plane is a crazy cartoon plane like those commonly seen on the old "Bullwinkle and Rocky" commercials, with absurdly long landing gear, and even more absurdly short wings.  Imagine a couple of cartoon clouds zooming past in the background on an endless loop, while the announcer intones: "Meanwhile our heroes could imagine that in the skies far above Frostbite Falls..." and you'll get the general idea.

C: The wing broke off when the plane crashed into the building.  This is not surprising when you realize the plane is clearly piloted by Charles Lindbergh, and he's dead.  In this case, you have only to imagine that what Minion No. 1, standing in the background, is saying into his walkie-talkie is, "...oh, yeah, don't cancel the flight.  That will totally buff out!"

D: Why are you even wondering where the wing is when you first need to ask yourself, how did those enormous nose-wheels get through that little, tiny, landing gear door?

See you folks back here next week -- if we don't get detained at security...

                - Your Pal in Gitmo, Minion Master Steve

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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

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Minions #318 - Sales Forced

Click Cartoon for Bigger Upsell!

Greetings, Cold Calls and Dubious Leads!

 This week I'm presenting a bonus bit of pop-culture business.  It's amazing just how many cartoon trivia references and pop-culture call-outs this "DC Nation" short, which first aired this week, squeezes into just over a minute.  I was especially delighted to see the call-out to my beloved, 1970s, GI Joe Adventure Team (complete with life-like hair and beard), the 12" GI Joe connection being my excuse for posting it here...

 


See you guys back here next week!

           - Minion Master Steve

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Minions #314 - Survey Says!

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Greetings, Standard Deviants and Sampling Errors!


A special challenge of doing a photo comic like "Minions at Work" is that I can't just think of a gag and draw a picture.  I have to find a way to visualize it with objects that I have on hand (or make, or can buy).  This creates special problems in a ways you wouldn't expect.

For instance, we have a large "cast" of standard characters in action-figure form.  Some of these have only been used once or twice, but some of them get used very often.  Some characters like Minion No. 1, Number 2, and Number 9 appear in a hung percentage of my comics, and so get used a lot.  And of course, I've been doing this for years now, so those action figures are subject to wear, tear, and the ravages of time. There also the danger that if any of my "actors" were lost or damaged, I'd have no way to replace them.  No. 1 and Number 2 both have "doubles" in case of damage or loss, and some of the others I might be able to replace or repair through some diligent Ebay shopping.  But most of the base action figures I use here are obscure, and in some cases, very rare.  The Penguin is a special problem.  I'd dearly love to have duplicates so I could safely modify him for greater articulation, but even though he's probably a generic dollar store toy under his costume, he originally came from a thrift store, and I've NEVER found another like him, despite years of searching.

So I'm careful with unique items, and I sometimes find myself needing to do repairs.  This week, for example, I fixed a long-standing problem with Minion Number 2.  The elastic that holds his gas mask on has been slowly stretching out of shape till it could no longer hold his mask on.  An earlier repair attempt to one strap had used the wrong size and shape of elastic and tended to roll off the back of his head, causing the mask to re-position itself.  But I finally found the right kind of elastic and took the time to replace the tiny straps.  He's all better for this week's panel!

And there are other problems as well.  I've got lots of generic "civilian" figures for street, office and bar scenes, but most of them are male.  It's surprisingly hard to find realistic female action figures in 1/6th scale.  Barbie's lack of realistic proportions are well reported in the press, and most versions of Barbie are so stiff and lacking in articulation that they look more like victims of some kind of poison-dart attack than real women.  And while there are true "action figure" women that are supposedly 1/6th scale, most are built like male-fantasy centerfolds, and are half a head taller than the average 1/6th male figure.  My Minions are a bit taller than the average GI Joe, but not tall enough for many of them.  Maybe okay for super-heroines, amazons or super-villainesses, but not for your average woman on the street.

Well, I've finally found a recipe to easily and (for the moment, anyway) cheaply create realistic, articulated, and proportional female figures to use in my cartoons.  I use Liv dolls for bodies.  These are big-headed mutant dolls in the style of the better-known Bratz dolls, but the bodies are well articulated and come in a variety of skin tones.  It's also easy to swap the big-mutant head for any of a zillion types of traditional fashion-doll heads.  The combination results in fairly realistic female figure that scales out well under six feet tall, and doesn't look like she has beach-balls for breast implants.  I've now got a half-dozen or so of these (you see one in today's panel).  So next time I do a bar scene, it won't have to be such a sausage-fest.

Donate using the button below, and you can help me to buy even more women to use here at the lair!  Wait.  That came out ALL wrong!

                  - Minion Master Steve

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Minions #308 - Map Snacks (and some free fiction)

Click Cartoon for Extra Cheez!

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Greetings, Garmins and Tomtoms!


We're late a day this week, and it's by design.  Guess I should have announced it ahead of time, but we had a good reason.  Nobody notices if we post an announcement of a new cartoon if we do it on a weekend or a major holiday, and Monday was a U.S. holiday, so we held back till Tuesday.  In fact, you can pretty much assume we will do that for EVERY major U.S. holiday that falls over a Monday.  I know the little fine print at the bottom of each cartoon says, "New Minions Every Monday!", but that's a lie.  We're EVIL, dammit!  So deal.

Monday was also the 50th anniversary of the first flight of John Glenn, the first American astronaut into orbit, and in honor of that, my wife, Mrs. Minion Master, AKA multi-published author Christina F. York (AKA mystery writers Christy Evans and Christy Fifield.  Yes, she has aliases.  We're EVIL dammit!) has decided to make one of her favorite science-fantasy stories available for free over on her blog.  It's an alternate-history story about John Glenn, and it's called Godspeed.  Check it out here.

See you guys back here next week.  Maybe even on Monday.

                       - Master Monday Mover Steve

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Minions #307 - Sweet Deception

Click for Double Scoops!

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Greetings, Sweet Tooths!


I think this week's cartoon has something metaphorically do do with Valentine's Day traditions.  Or maybe homoerotically.  Not really sure on that.  Probably don't want to go there anyway.

Oh, well, a shortage of female Minions has minimized the number of traditional dating and relationship cartoons we've done over the years, but stay tuned.  Later in the post, I'll re-run a couple of my favorites from the past!  But first, a word from our sponsor!

In honor of Valentine's Day, today's cartoon is brought to you by the romance novels of Mrs. Minion Master, Christina F. York!  Maybe not your cup of tea (and if they are, I sure won't tell!) but I'm sure you know some lady who would enjoy them as a gift!  Check them out!
All are also available on Barnes & Noble Nook, iBooks, Kobo, Sony, and other major ebook outlets.

 Okay, now time for those bonus cartoons I promised!
See you folks back here at the Lair next week!

- Minion Master Steve

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Minions #306 - Let Sleeping Mu Shu Lie

Click Cartoon for larger portions and side of egg roll!

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Greetings Chop Sticks and Soy Saucers!


Today's Minions at Work cartoon is brought to you by my ebook, Dead Ringers.  In a near future where computer-driven holographic headstones reanimate the dead, the living are left with phantoms made of memories, real and imagined.  Two stories of electronic ghosts that continue to haunt the living.  First, a woman confronts the hologram an abusive spouse only to learn that some things are best left forgotten.  Next, a young girl "kidnaps" the headstone of her dead boyfriend to save him from his parents, who threaten to erase everything the she loved about him.  On the run from the law, the present, and the past, she and her fantastic holographic lover race his car towards a rocky cliff where death may just become a little more final the second time around!

Also available on Nook, Smashwords, and other major ebook dealers.

See you folks back here next week!

- Minion Master Steve

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Minions #305 - Don't Diss the Messenger

Click Cartoon for Bigger Civility

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Greetings, Lunch breaks and Unpaid Holidays!

Yeah, I'm a little late this week.  I was busy finishing up "A Breath Away from Dying," my second "Panorama Beach" mystery.  It's off being copy edited, and hopefully will be available in ebook in a few weeks, depending on how the production pipeline goes.  So forgive the heck out of me for doing something that will actually make me some money!

Anyway, I'm enjoying the heck out of doing this series.  Sheriff "Big" Bass is the best evil overlord I've come up with yet, and his reluctant minion, Deputy Tommy "Mustang" Sawtell, is even more fun.  These books are set in 1967 in Panorama Beach, a fictional Florida panhandle resort packed with sugar-white beaches, amusement parks, outrageous miniature golf courses, reptile shows, aquatic parks, and of course, corruption of all kinds, not to mention a murder here or there.  Come on down to beautiful Panorama Beach, where vacation is murder!

See you guys back here next week!

               - Mystery Master Steve

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Minions #302 - Hydro-phony

Click to Blow Bigness Tanks!

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Greetings, Sinkers and Dive Bombers!


Yes, we're finally back to shooting full-up, all-new material here this week.  Hopefully I can come up with a couple more gags to shoot on the Submarine Naughtyless set this week, then tear it down and make room for something else.  I love this set, but IT'S IN MY FRICKING WAY!


This is one of those weeks when I come up with a gag that takes advantage of cool props that I don't ordinarily get much use out of.  I was inspired by my latest acquisition, the miniature (and fully-functional!) Fender Guitar amp in the foreground.  Of course, it says something about me that I had a 1/6th scale Fender guitar (not to mention a drum set) waiting around to go with it.  That's just how we roll here at Minions Studios, boys and girls!


This week's cartoon brought to me by my cat, Sydney, who has written a book for every writer and aspiring writer out there!


Think you have to have a literary agent before you can sell a book to New York?  Think anyone who calls themselves an agent is worth trusting your work to?  Think an agent will always act in your best interest?  Think there aren't a thousand different ways that an agent can't skim your money, steal your work, ruin your career, rob you blind, and you'll never know?  

Get a hilarious and relatively-cheap education by bad example, as "world's worst" literary agent, Sydney T. Cat, explains her evil plans and schemes (all tested and approved by real-life, human agents!) to rip her clients to shreds and play with them for her cruel amusement.

Remember, anybody can print up business cards and call themselves a literary agent, even a cat!  And if it isn't prohibited, it is mandatory!


(Also available on Nook, Smashwords.com, Kobo, iBookstore, and other major ebook outlets!)
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See you kids back here next week!


                             - Minion Master Steve

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Minions #298 - Head Case (and a mystery FREE ebook!)

Click Cartoon for Bigger Delusions!

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Greetings, Reruns!

No, you haven't seen this cartoon before.  Okay, you have seen this pictures before, just two weeks ago.  Actually, I did this version first, but then I came up with a second punch-line, asked Mrs. Minion Master which one she liked best, and she picked the other one.  So what you've got here is your basic sloppy seconds.  Or, maybe YOU would have picked THIS as the funnier one, I don't know.  All I really know is, traffic really drops off here around the holidays, so like the TV networks, I don't feel bad about a LITTLE recycling.  However, to make it up to you, I've got an early Christmas present for you.  Keep reading!

Get My New "Panorama Beach" Mystery Ebook, "The Best Devil Money Can Buy" for (play irony music!) FREE from Smashwords.com!

What's "Panorama Beach?"  The fictional Florida Panhandle tourist town that's the setting of my new mystery series, of which "The Best Devil Money Can Buy" is the first installment.  Here's the blurb:

In 1967 Panorama Beach, is awash with dirty money: Developer money, drug money, vice money, and green-deputy Tommy “Mustang” Sawtell might just be the last untouched lawman in north Florida. But Mustang is about to be tested as he investigates his first suspicious death, a “floater” found in a pond under the Sky Bucket ride, from which the deputy believes he fell, jumped – or was thrown. But the deputy doesn’t know why Sheriff “Big” Bass has personally assigned him to the case, there are signs of a cover-up, and Mustang is about to get a good look at his department’s dark underbelly. Before it’s over, he’s going to learn that justice, the law, and doing what’s right are all different things, and he may not like – or survive -- the dangerous little place where they overlap.

Now, if you'd like to do me a large and just buy a copy on your ebook reader, it's now available directly for purchase for $2.99 at Smashwords.com, Amazon's Kindle Store, and B&N's Nook Store, and coming soon to other major ebook sellers.  But if you act fast, you can also get your copy for free.  Just use the Smashwords link above, order the book, and at checkout enter this coupon code: KL27M  That's it!  Your book download (in formats to read on Nook, Kindle, Kobo, and pretty much all ereaders, computers, and portable app-devices) is free!  The catch?  This coupon expires December 13th, 2011, so go download yours TODAY!

My one request in exchange for the freebie, however: If you read it, and enjoy it, your reviews, star-ratings, "likes," etc. on Smashwords for sure, and on B&N.com and Amazon if you get the chance, are much appreciated!

See you guys back here next week, and watch this space for future ebook special offers.

            - Minion Master Steve

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Minions #297 - Big Deal

Click for Bigger Bargain!

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Greetings, Limited Offers!


Yeah, it's that time of year again.  No, we're not ready either.

Stuff to do.  See you next week!

        - Minion Master Steve

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Minion #296 - Face the Facts

Click cartoon for clearer head!

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Greetings, Face Suckers!


Just wanted to let you know about my holiday fantasy story, "A Holiday Explained" that just became free on Amazon's Kindle, and has since hit as high as #7 on their fantasy best-seller list!  Yes, this is the same darned fantasy story that's been freely available on the web and on other ebook stores for free all year, but this is the first time we've been able to offer it for free on Kindle, so there!  I just means that EVERYONE can get it free now!  Anyway, with the holidays coming, this is a good time for you to read it if you haven't yet.

Haven't got a Kindle yet?  Hey, you know you want one, maybe the new Kindle fire color tablet!  Do us a favor and click through one of our Amazon links here when you do.  We get a little cut on the transaction, and it will help to support your weekly "Minions at Work" fix.  Or just click that donate button down there and send us cash.  We LIKE cash!

- Steve

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Minions #288 - Present, But Not Back

Click cartoon for bigger 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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