Chapter: 2020

Friiiiiends

Sometimes I forget that Hell, Inc. is basically a romcom and needs scenes where people talk about their feelings, because I can’t assume everyone is understanding everything that facial expressions are usually carrying. On the other hand, too many of those scenes just gets lazy and hacky, so maybe it’s for the best that I approach writing it the way I do?

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Robbie Dorman, host of The Simpsons Show podcast, is Employee of the Week. If you like Hell, Inc. you probably also like The Simpsons, because that’s pretty foundational to my sense of humour and how I write jokes, so you should listen to The Simpsons Show. If you like Hell, Inc. you probably also want to be Employee of the Week and help Hell, Inc. continue existing by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon. All new patrons are receiving a digital copy of Hell, Inc. Volume 3: Team-building Exercise, as well as access to a Dropbox folder with over 1000 pages of digital comics!

It’s a new month, which means votes on Top Webcomic are worth even more as the rankings reset! Top Webcomics is the largest source of new readers for Hell, Inc., so votes are super helpful. You can vote once every 24 hours, so click the banner below to vote!

Next Week: Learn about massages in Hell! Find out early by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon!

You WANTED to Melt Your Skin Off

Listen, if you didn’t want to melt your skin off, you shouldn’t have assumed a shower in Hell would be less hot than the water cooler in Hell. Also, the first panel took a lot of time, because I pulled up all of the previous appearances of Doug’s apartment and used them to kluge together what the layout of his apartment could be. I realized that it had a hallway, so I needed to be a bit careful with making sure it didn’t end up being to big. Nobody in Hell should have a spacious, Friends-style apartment. Really, even having a one bedroom-one bathroom like Doug is probably too much, but I didn’t think it all the way through when I only needed to draw parts of some rooms.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Sylvia Douglas is Employee of the Week, and is returning to her weirdest and most delicious project, the Waffle Log Blog. If you think what I do here with Hell, Inc. is worth a buck, head over to the Hell, Inc. Patreon. Until COVID-related lockdown ends, patrons will receive the third Hell, Inc. book, Team-building Exercise, which isn’t available anywhere else (and won’t be until whenever the next print book Kickstarter happens at some point in the future). There are also over a thousand pages of other comics available to patrons, so check those out. Patreon. Go there.

Hell, Inc. is also on Top Webcomics, and a lot of new readers are driven to the site through the visibility provided by climbing the rankings over there. You can vote for Hell, Inc. by clicking the banner below!

Next Week: We’re friiiiiiiiends. Read it early on Patreon!

Taking the Stairs

I wanted to come up with an M.C. Escher/emcee Escher rap joke, but I couldn’t come up with one I liked, so here we are. I like to think that I do more with the comic strip format than most, as far as the formal storytelling elements of panel layout and page design go, but this is one of those cases where I feel like that’s really the case. And yes, the first two panels are based on the M.C. Escher drawing “The Stairs.”

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Brien Aronov is Employee of the Week! Do YOU want to be an Employee of the Week, and help contribute to my only reliable source of pandemic income? Head on over to the Hell, Inc. Patreon, where you’ll also receive the digital version of Hell, Inc. Volume 3: Team-building Exercise as well as over 1000 pages of other digital comics! So you should do that.

You can also vote for Hell, Inc. on Top Webcomics, which is the number one source of new readers for the comic! In the last couple of months, Hell, Inc. has been in the company of some comics that I’ve read and consider to be heavy hitters in the webcomic sphere, which is really cool. And weird. Click the banner below to vote!

Next Week: What does Doug’s living room look like? You’ll find out! Patrons can find out right now on Patreon!

Untitled Hell Comic

So I totally thought Doug’s balloon in the last panel would be bigger and cover up most or all of the building’s placard. And that’s how, by overestimating the size of a balloon, I made the name of Doug’s apartment building an Untitled Goose Game reference. It’s canon now.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Joe Amon is Employee of the Week! For the first time in over a month I had to actually look at the rotation to see who was next, since it wasn’t just “who’s new?” Thanks to all of you who have signed up to support Hell, Inc. on Patreon and received Hell, Inc. Vol 3: Team-building Exercise as well as over 1000 pages of digital comics. It’s still my only predictable (and sometimes only, period!) source of income, so if you think the comic is worth a buck, head over to the Hell, Inc. Patreon.

Voting on Top Webcomics is also a great way to help bring new readers to Hell, Inc., and also a great way for me to get tripped out seeing where Hell, Inc. ranks in comparison to some comics that I consider real heavy hitters. Spoiler – Hell, Inc. ranks shockingly well in comparison.

Next Week: Seriously one of my favourite strips. Read it early by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon!

It Would Have Been Better to Eat a Person

No seriously though fuck executives. You know that adage that you get more conservative as you get older (presumably because you make money and want to protect it)? I have very much gone the opposite direction. At this rate, by the time I’m 70 I’ll be swinging battle axes at CEOs.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Returning staffer Ben Hamlin is Employee of the Week. Ben is also in the business of keeping us all entertained during quarantine as a podcaster with the Infinity Break Network! If you think the entertainment you’ve been getting from Hell, Inc. is worth a dollar, check out the Hell, Inc. Patreon page and contribute to my only reliable source of quarantine income! Patrons have access to the third Hell, Inc. print book, including an exclusive short story, and over 1000 pages of other digital comics!

It’s early in the month, which means votes over on Top Webcomics are worth even more as the playing field is reset! Click the banner below to help boost Hell, Inc. in the rankings and get it in front of more new readers.

Next Week: The only thing worse than riding the bus is getting off of the bus. Support Hell, Inc. on Patreon to read it early!

The Floor is Lava

“Pissing lava” has a whole different context in Hell, I guess, huh?

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Welcome new Employee, Azhar! He comes to us via the Lions Led By Donkeys podcast, who I designed several t-shirts for. I received my Napoleon shirt in the mail last week, check ’em out. And listen to the podcast, it’s great. Especially if you liked my War of 1812 books. If you want to join the growing staff supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon and keeping my bills paid, head over to the Hell, Inc. Patreon. As a thank you and to provide some much-needed levity during our current pandemic, all patrons will have access to a Dropbox folder with over 1000 pages of digital comics, including Hell, Inc. Volume 3: Team-Building Exercise.

You can also support Hell, Inc. by voting for it on Top Webcomics! It’s the primary source of new readers, and more votes = more visibility = more new people checking out the comic. Click the banner below to vote!

Next Week: The Beelzebus is an improvement over the pee sidewalk, I guess. Read it early on Patreon!

Drag Me to Hell (from Elsewhere in Hell)

Having just lettered a later page in the series (the as-yet-untitled strip #134) and completely botched the balloon spacing to the point that I had to change font sizes to make things fit, I have no idea how I managed to leave the exact right amount of space in the last panel of this strip. Spacing weird balloons like that is much harder than spacing the normal ones, and somehow I got that one right.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Welcome new Employee of the Week, Christine! Christine is the artist behind Purple Pony Art, and is among the folks to have access to Hell, Inc. Volume 3: Team-Building Excercise well before the general populace! As a special thanks to the Patrons who are supplying my only income during the COVID crisis, the third Hell, Inc. book will be available to all Patrons at every support level. It won’t be made available otherwise until the next Kickstarter (for books 3 and 4). If you want to help support Hell, Inc., head over to the Patreon. Every dollar helps (a lot), and during quarantine/social-distancing all patrons will receive a Dropbox link with over a thousand pages of comics to pass the quarantime.

You can also vote for Hell, Inc. on Top Webcomics, which is the largest source of new readers for the site. More votes = more readers, so please do that.

Next Week: The floor is lava! Kind of literally! Read it early on Patreon!

Princess of Hell

This was a “I think I wrote too much dialogue, but managed to fit it all in without ruining the art anyway” strip. They happen once in a while, and are usually the result of me not realizing while I’m writing that I should have broken a strip into two. A rule of thumb I tend to like for that is by counting the number of bubbles on the page – if I get past 7, I need to think about splitting the strip into two and punching up the mid-strip joke to carry a strip. Do people like it when I ramble about technical stuff like this? I don’t know, but you could tell me!

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Welcome new Employee of the Week Sebastian, who has joined up just in time for the new Patreon promotion – book 3! That’s right, as I announced late last week, Hell, Inc. Volume 3 – Team-Building Exercise, is finished, and is going to be available exclusively to patrons while we’re stuck at home due to COVID-19. I can’t do a lot to make your time in self-isolation better, but what I can do, I will! It includes a six page short story that will only be available in the book, so check that out. Patrons at any level will be able to download their own PDF copy at their leisure.

Patreon is the only source of income at the moment, so every dollar helps me AND gets you a copy of not only volume 3, but access to over 1000 pages of other comics I’ve worked on! If you dig Hell, Inc. and think it’s worth a dollar, I’d really appreciate it!

You can also help out by visiting Top Webcomics and voting for Hell, Inc., which exposes it to new readers and thus new potential patrons. You can vote once per day by clicking the banner below!

Next Week: Doug’s DIY Bouncer Service. Read it early by supporting Hell, Inc. on Patreon!

They’ll Find a Way to Kill Her Again

As patrons have already seen, a lot of the inspiration for the amount of physical mayhem that happens to Sara is a quote from Matt Groening on a Futurama DVD commentary. He was talking about how, on the Simpsons, all of the physical comedy happens to Bart and Homer, and with Futurama he wanted to see if it would still work if it happened to a female character, which led to Amy being very clumsy and accident-prone.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Cait is Employee of the Week, and we’re actually in adjacent offices now, sort of. My desk is in the living room, and we’ve set up a telework office for her in the spare bedroom (or Nerd Shit Room, as we call it, because it is where we keep a large amount of our nerd shit. It’s like 80% Warhammer books by volume). I’d also like to thank the folks who have signed up for the Patreon during the COVID crisis, because that and my webstore are the only way I’m making money right now, and YIKES that is a bad time. Seriously, if you like Hell, Inc., and have a dollar to donate to the Patreon, please do. Pandemics are a bad time to be an independent artist, WHO KNEW?

Vote. Top Webcomics. Do it. It’s how I get more readers and keep this thing chugging along. Click the banner.

NEXT WEEK: Oh, look who thinks they’re the princess of Hell! Read it early on Patreon!

First Responders

“I mean, we’ve put in a small amount of effort, what more can we do!?” – Bridget and Steve.

This update is later in the day than normal, because the COVID social distancing situation has led me to struggle even more with knowing what day it is, especially now that Caitlin works from home. Every day is just kinda the same.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Welcome another new employee, Laurel! If you think Hell, Inc. is worth a dollar, head over to the Patreon and help keep things going. COVID has pretty much destroyed my income for March and April, which were reliant on going out into the public and selling things. As an added incentive, all patrons are going to have access to the digital comics library for the duration of the COVID crisis, which includes well over a thousand pages of comics that I’ve drawn, and bonus appearances by one of my favourite cartoonists, Lukasz Kowalczuk! So check that out, you will not find a better deal.

You can also help Hell, Inc. by voting on Top Webcomics. The comic is pretty highly ranked this month, and that’s helping to bring in new readers and keep more folks self-isolated without losing their minds. Click on the banner below to vote.

NEXT WEEK: Maybe customers retching on the floor is not ideal for the restaurant staff? Read it a week early on Patreon.