Minions #176 - Seventy-Five Percent Off

Stand by, following the usual double-dealing for a bitter betrayal 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 crab parasites 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!

---

Greetings, Overstocks and Factory Seconds!

Running on the raw edge of being late again this week (Pacific time zone, sticklers!). Blame it on the holiday. I've got to get some more cartoons in the can in preparation for our trip to California and San Diego Comicon in a few weeks.

The joke in the title is pretty obscure, so I'll explain it to you. The Saturn V model used in this shoot is big, but it's only 1/48th scale. The Minions action-figures are 1/6th scale. So to actually be in scale with them, the rocket should be four times larger. The Saturn V was pretty big.

Yes, that's an 8-foot-tall model of the Saturn V moon rocket that I built recently to display at a 40th anniversary party for my wife's place of work. Since the anniversary of the resort coincided closely with the anniversary of the first moon landing, it became a major theme of the party.

Didn't know about the anniversary (of the moon landing, not the resort!)? Yup, July 20th. The moon landing is a pretty important milestone in my life, and I'm hoping I live long enough to see us get back there. We've diddled around and gotten side-tracked long enough. It's time to get back out there and spread our evil to the universe! Because, where evil goes, Minions must follow, that that means the rest of us will still have jobs.

Hey, remember to support our "Buy the Minions a Camera" campaign by buying through our Amazon store, by buying our tee-shirts and cool stuff, and by buying our books, starting with my story in the new DAW anthology "Swordplay," and in these other fine anthologies, still available...





And if you order them through Amazon, we get a cut AND potential royalties down the road.

As I said, it's like stealing, only legal, and how can you not like that?

- Your Pledge Drive Master, Steve

(Speaking of stealing, if you are or know an writer or aspiring writer, may we direct you to our "Bad Agent Sydney" Cafe Press store full of shirts and other items that are great for your next writer's workshop or conference. They also make great writer gifts. To understand the backstory of how my pet cat became a Really Bad Literary Agent, read the posts here and here.)

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

Minions #98 - Don't Asgard, Don't Tell

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

Your eyes are important to us, please read an important message from your Minion Master, following the usual commercial music on hold...

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.)


Kneel before yet another message from your Minion God

Greetings, Anubis Noobs!



Okay, I couldn't resist having one more go with Stargate before we move on.

Also, I didn't want to put together another set while I'm working on something special for Minons at Work #100. In truth, I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew, with only two weeks left, and it isn't like I don't have other things to be doing here (like, oh, I don't know, WRITING BOOKS!).

But I'm going to do my best to deliver. In fact, I will deliver. The big question, will we have to skip straight from Minions at Work #99 to Minions at Work #101 while I get #100 finished?

See you guys next week.

- Stevenubis.

Minions #97 - Staff Weapon

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION

Your eyes are important to us, please read an important message from your Minion Master, following the usual commercial music on hold...

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.)

A message from your Minion God

Greetings, Anubis Noobs!

A little tip of the hat this week to the Stargate universe. I don't know if you knew, but while Stargate SG-1, the series is gone, a direct-to-DVD Stargate SG-1 movie The Ark of Truth, is scheduled for release in March, with a second movie, Stargate Continuum, to follow. (Continuum features the return of one of our favorite evil-doers, the Goa'uld Bal. Frankly, we think the Goa'uld have way more style than the Ori, and Bal the best bad the Goa'uld have to offer. Looking forward to it.

Okay, we're geeks here at Minion central. We admit it.

- See you next week
Lord 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 #44 - Off the Beam

Visit:
THE MINION'S LAIR OF MERCHANDISE
Looking is free - at least until we can find a way to charge for it. We're evil, darn it!

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!)

Our New Look (and a call for links)

As you can see, we're making lots of cosmetic changes here. We've added direct links to buy my books, we have links for the Minions store, and there's a new "Thanks for the Link" feature that we'd like to point out. We need to get out word about "Minions at Work" to the world a large. If you have a blog or web page, we'd really appreciate a link, either in a post, or on your permanent favorite links list. Tell us about it, and we'll link your blog or page back to our "Thanks for the Link" section. We'll keep the latest ten or twenty on the list, depending on how much response we get.

About Those Shirts

We ordered some samples from our new Cafe Press shop and they came in this week. I got an "Exploding Silo" tee for myself, a "Evil Nature" ringer tee for Chris, and a toddler "Evil Nature" tee that is a hit with everybody we've showed it to. Chris and I will be modeling our tees at Radcon, and the toddler tee will be mailed off to a very special young model. Hopefully I'll have pictures to share here pretty soon.

So far, I've very pleased with the quality of the merchandise and the level of service. Things were sent promptly, communication was excellent, and we got a UPS tracking number to follow our package across country. Plus, the shirts look great. I really should include the URL here in the design though, so I'll be making changes down the road. Hey, these early-design shirts could turn out to be valuable collectors items (yeah, right), so get them while they last.

Personal appearance update:

Chris and I are (weather permitting) scheduled to appear at the Radcon Gaming and Science Fiction convention, Feb. 16-18 in Pasco, Washington. Many other cool people there, including science fiction legend Larry Niven, authors (and definitely cool people) John Dalmas and Jay Lake, and science fiction artist Bill Warren (I've got several of his pieces in my personal collection).

It should be great fun based on our experience last year. If you're in the northwest, I encourage you to drop by and say hi.

Minions #42 - Out There

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!

Notes from the Minion Master:

Remember, if your shirt is not red, you will live forever. Okay, maybe not forever, but at least you won't get all the salt sucked out of your body by a rubber monster before the first commercial.

By now, you must be asking yourself, "oh, wise Minion Master, where can I possibly find a shirt that is not red?" Funny you should ask...


Introducing (in case you didn't already read our mid-week post announcing it) the brand new, long-in-the-works-but-not-released-until-now Minions at Work Lair of Merchandise! Because nobody demanded it, we've set up a Cafe Press shop with a whole range of Minions goodies, from hats and tee-shirts, to office accessories, to a Minions teddy-bear. Pretty much nothing is beneath us if it will make us a buck or two. (And that's about all it will make us, but every little bit help offset the ongoing expense of bringing you Minions at Work every week. Of course, you could also just buy a pile of our books. I wouldn't complain.) Maybe my favorite item: A "Walking the dinosaur" dog tee-shirt, based on Minions #17.

The designs are still in flux, so we appreciate your ideas and comments.

To start shopping, just click on the logo below...

All our shirts are guaranteed not to be red. We make no promises though, if you wear one of our Minions shirts and start calling yourself "Number 13." That's your call.

And what if you're the kind of lazy, cheap, no-good mooch who just reads Minions at Work every week and does nothing at all to support it, not even inflicting it upon their friends? Well, actually we're kinda good with that. It is, after all, evil, and that's where we're coming from...

- Steve, Minion Master