Chapter: 2019

Pretend Rummaging

The last Hell, Inc. strip of 2019! I kind of want to make a “Property of Hell, Inc. Mandatory Athletics Department” t-shirt, which I now have the capability to do because I have a Teepublic store. Leave a comment or send me an email or whatever if that’s a thing you’d be interested in.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Brien Aronov is Employee of the Week, and so can you! If you think what I do here with Hell, Inc. is worth a buck, you can be shouted out as Employee of the Week upon joining the Hell, Inc. Patreon. At $2 or higher, you enter the regular rotation. Got a thing to promote? I’ll link to it in your shoutout.

If you’re broke, like your corporate overlords desire you to be, you can help Hell, Inc. by voting for it on Top Webcomics, which helps bring in new readers. Votes are even more valuable early in the month, so vote early and often in 2020!

Next Week: Back in the office, where things will assuredly be better. Read it early on Patreon!

Home Run

Merry Christmas, everyone! Slightly early, but a lot of you seem to like reading this on Wednesday, and it’s Monday, so close enough. I shall be spending my day finishing my Christmas shopping and wrapping presents because apparently making comics is the only thing I can stay ahead of schedule for.

Baseball: the only sport worthy of Hell, because it takes eons and nothing happens. But it IS funny when a pitcher gets hit with a ball they’ve just thrown.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Joe Amon is Employee of the Week, probably so Hell, Inc. can pretend that making him work this week isn’t hideously cruel. Does Joe actually work this week? I don’t know. You should support the Hell, Inc. Patreon so YOU can be Employee of the Week, and so I can pay for this whole “Christmas” thing.

If you can’t afford to support the Patreon, I get it. But you CAN help out for FREE by voting for Hell, Inc. on Top Webcomics and helping drive new readers to the site.

Next Week: It was hard to try to come up with something grosser than chewing tobacco, and I don’t know if I got there. Read it early on Patreon!

Skyrocketed

I have definitely had the thought “your value to me has suddenly skyrocketed” when having conversations with people within my industry/at functions. I think everyone has, at some point. That moment when talking to a new person when you realize they have some skill or interest or relationship that gets the gears in your brain turning, trying to figure out how to use that in some sort of collaboration. No? Just me?

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Damion is Employee of the Week, and hasn’t sent anything for me to shout out. But YOU can send me something to shout out, and I’ll do it on a regular basis if if you support the Hell, Inc. Patreon. Do you think what I do on this comic is worth a dollar? Then chip in on the Patreon! It helps me avoid doing things like I’ve been doing for the past few weeks, where I develop pitches for specific publishers to try to convince them that people want to buy it.

If you can’t afford to support the Patreon, I get it. But you CAN help out for FREE by voting for Hell, Inc. on Top Webcomics and helping drive new readers to the site.

Next Week: Next week’s comic is property of the Hell, Inc. Mandatory Athletics Department. Read it early on Patreon!

How We Do Things Here

AKA Hell, Inc. strip #100! It simultaneously feels like we should have hit number one hundred a while ago and like the comic just started. By strip 200, there will be material for FIVE Hell, Inc. print books if I keep the current length static. Madness.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Caitlin aka 95 Percent Coffee aka the only reason my Twitter gets updated with anything related to my art and isn’t exclusively used for talking about sports and movies I watched. If there were an actual Employee of the Week award, she would probably win it once all of the guinea pigs and chinchillas had gotten their turn. Also, she has a book coming out on Friday, so you should pre-order that. It’s a collection of 13 short horror stories, including some that were featured on the Drunk in a Graveyard podcast. Also, support Hell, Inc. on Patreon because it would be cool to have more money that isn’t reliant on stumping for freelance work.

It would also be cool if more people read Hell, Inc., and you can help with that by upvoting it on Top Webcomics. So please go do that.

Next Week: Lies beget career advancement and social capital. Read it early on Patreon!

Technical Terms

I should write an entire issue that’s just B.L. Zebub’s half of a phone conversation, because that is a lot of fun. I would imagine it would be a nightmare to keep it visually interesting without getting really weird, but the script would be bananas.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

As the rotation resets, I’d like to take this week to plug that you can get the brand new Hell, Inc. print books (also all my other books) for 25% off until next week’s update! You should do that, because I need some kind of income in December.

Hell, Inc. can also always use income of new readers, which isn’t a clunky-ass transition AT ALL. Anyway, Top Webcomics. Click the banner below to vote – votes early in the month count extra!

Next Week: B.L. Zebub is incredibly informative. Yup. Totally. Read it early on Patreon!

Promotions

Doug is very good at office politics. VERY GOOD.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Cindy Gauthier is the Employee of the Week. She also draws things, so you should check out her work, including her debut comic Posthumous. If you want to be Employee of the Week and get a shout-out in an upcoming comic post, Check out the Hell, Inc. Patreon. It helps keep me drawing Hell, Inc. strips instead of being buried in freelance work, which is a win-win for everybody. Specifically, people who like reading these comics and me.

As always, if you’d like to support Hell, Inc. but capitalism has squeezed all of your spare cash out of you, you can vote for Hell, Inc. on Top Webcomics! Top Webcomics has been the best resource for gaining new readers, and more votes = more new readers seeing the comic! Click the banner below to vote!

Next Week: Technical terms. Read it early on Patreon!

Inarticulate Rage

I don’t know how many times I’ve done it, but I’m sure I will go back to the well of “character wants a specific piece of information that nobody knows/cares to tell them” many times. It feels like the most “I hate my job ever so very much” thing to me.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Robbie Dorman, who is releasing his THIRD NOVEL SINCE THE EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK PROGRAM STARTED. Holy shit, look at him go! It’s called Underneath, and is available for pre-order now. It comes out on November 25th (so, next Monday). If you want to be Employee of the Week and have me plug your novel/comic/video game/twitter account/van by the river, support Hell, Inc. on Patreon. Also, it’s how I avoid taking freelance jobs, and if this year is any indication, I am taking more freelance jobs than ever soooooo whoops. I’d like to do more than one strip a week, and not have to do jobs where I’m not in charge, so Patreon. Money. Me. Draw more things. Caveman?

As always, not everyone can afford to give their favourite artists money. But everyone can afford to give them clicks! Click on the banner below to vote for Hell, Inc. on Top Webcomics, which is the number one source for driving new readers to the site.

Next Week: Promotions! Get promoted early by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon!

Mucilaginous

The word mucilaginous is brought to you by my girlfriend Caitlin, who busted that out when I asked for suggestions for a word that would be really gross to associate with soup. Yes, I do have to look up how to spell it each time.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Sylvia Douglas is Employee of the Week! Check out her short film Vanity, which screened in Edmonton and Calgary as part of the Got A Minute Film Festival. Can you say your film has been shown at every train station in Alberta’s two major cities? Sylvia can. She can also say she’s a multi-time Hell, Inc. Employee of the Week. You can say that, too, by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon.

Why should I support Hell, Inc. on Patreon, you ask, for the purposes of this paragraph? It’s pretty simple – you read Hell, Inc., and want me to work more on that putting my energy into freelance work. On that note, here’s a bit of an example of what that means, practically – as I write this, it is very early in the morning on November 11th. The last time I drew a Hell, Inc. strip? October 20th. What I have been doing in that time, you ask? Inking roughly 90 pages of a graphic novel that comes out next year from a major publisher. Which was cool, and paid pretty well, but it’s not MINE, y’know? The Patreon lets me work on stuff that’s mine –  and that you’re already reading –  for far more of my time. If you like Hell, Inc. enough to kick in even a dollar a month, that adds up pretty quick.

Want to help Hell, Inc., but can’t afford the Patreon? I get it. The best way to do that is to share the comic with new readers. The best way to do that is to recommend it directly to your friends, but the best results that can be achieved with a couple of clicks come from Top Webcomics. Hit the button below to upvote Hell, Inc. on Top Webcomics and increase its visibility to a community of tens of thousands of webcomic readers!

Next Week: Inarticulate rage! Read it early on Patreon!

Nuclear Fishin’

It took me a really long time to decide what Steve was going to be talking about when he said “I know that (blank) exists. I don’t know how it works.” That was supposed to be the punchline at the end of the strip, but nothing I was thinking of was funny enough to justify that. Eventually I realized that I needed to have Steve follow up that line with something else, and that let everything fall into place. Adding that extra panel made the dialogue feel more authentic to Steve’s character AND made it more interesting. This has been “Jeff waxes about his creative process and also about how great he is.”

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Brien Aronov is this week’s Employee of the Week! If you park in his space, he’s legally allowed to replace one of your bones with a swarm of bees. If you want to be Employee of the Week and threaten your co-workers with osseous violence, support Hell, Inc. on Patreon. It’s how I make money on this thing so I can do more of it instead of spending all my time on freelance work.

Votes on Top Webcomics are worth EVEN MORE early in the month! Click on the link below to help Hell, Inc. be seen by more webcomic readers!

Next Week: A journey of learning. Go on it with Sara, and do it a week early by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon!

Hats, Crushers of Emotions

I think the hardest thing for me, as far as storytelling in Hell, Inc., is the way I handle Doug and Bridget’s… whatever their chemistry is. Trying to find the correct amount of subtlety when I know a whole bunch of information that the audience doesn’t, and how to convey that information mostly non-verbally, is very challenging. In general, the most difficult thing that an author does is figuring out what, of the information they have about a story, is necessary for the audience, and then how clearly that’s being presented without feeling like an info-dump.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Shout out to Employee of the Week Joe Amon! Thanks for reading, and extra thanks for helping finance this rickety operation/Satanic megacorporation. Which I think is a regular megacorporation, unless you’re using Satanic as a proper noun for the religion. If you want to be Employee of the Week, you too can help finance your favourite megacorporation. That’s me, by the way, not Amazon or Google or whatever. Patreon. Money. Me. Fuck sentences.

As always, if you can’t help out monetarily because capitalism has squeezed too much out of you, you can support Hell, Inc. by upvoting it on Top Webcomics. A large number of the new readers I get come from there, and more votes mean that more potential new readers see it. Click the banner to vote.

Next Week: Sara goes on a journey of knowledge. Find out what she learns right now by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon!