Chapter: 2022

Happy?

Doug is extremely good at “having emotions” and “understanding those emotions.” That is not autobiographical at all, nope, that is a fully made up thing with no basis in experience at all.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Cindy Gauthier is Employee of the Week, and you can read her comic on Webtoon! It’s called Posthumous, and is a comic about two friends exploring space and how the things that are in space are often terrifying. Season 2 is underway!

Patreon! Go there. Do that. It is my most reliable source of income, and that is very helpful when living that freelance life.

Next Week: A strip based on a reference that I have no idea how many people will actually get, despite it seeming saturated within the culture to me, an old. Oh, also, it’s episode 250! That’s pretty cool, and originally would have been just two weeks shy of the end of volume 6. Then the pandemic changed how the books were going to come out, and keeping a uniform length didn’t matter anymore. Anyway patrons will be able to see it early.

The Only One Allowed to Puke

Aaaaaand that’s the end of the buffer (again), so I need to get back on that. I’m currently in the RPG mines doing editing, layout, and (inevitably) additional art for the book. I’m spending my spare time buried in packaging materials as I ship out Hockeypocalypse: Slashers and prepare to ship out Hell, Inc. The RPG. The post office is going to put up a poster with my face on it that says “do not serve this man.”

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Ben Hamlin, host of Syndicated with Lesley and Ben (among other casted pods), is Employee of the Week. I’ve been a guest on several episodes, most recently the strange and Hell, Inc.-esque animated comedy Ugly Americans – a short-lived series that never quite reached the potential of its premise. I’m also on the episodes about extremely well-crafted but under-remembered ’90s sitcom NewsRadio and 2010s stoner thing that loosely adheres to its premise, Workaholics.

Patreon! It’s a predictable source of income, so if you like things that I do, check it out.

Also check out the newsletter, which is how to hear about what I’m up to without needing to subject yourself to things like Twitter.

The Running of the Skeletons

It has been an extremely strange week over there at the ol’ corporate headquarters. Despite making it COVID-free through a wedding with numerous out-of-country guests and a convention attended by tens of thousands of people, Cait got the COVID. Being the medically knowledgeable and also insistent on doing things correctly person that she is, this has resulted in her living in her home office for the better part of a week. Is it weird to be communicating via text message with somebody who is literally in the next room? Yes. Yes it is. Her strategy to not get anyone else sick seems to have worked, though, as I continue to test negative. I also now frequently ponder how anyone who lives alone and has a job manages to have a place that isn’t a dumpster, because suddenly being in charge of all of the chores has been a real Too Many Things experience.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Robbie Dorman is Employee of the Week. He is co-host of The Simpsons Show, the only podcast about The Simpsons, and also the only podcast about The Simpsons that I have done a guest spot on. You should also follow him on Twitter to learn about his new novel releases. He writes that good good scary shit. And of course I like a scary hockey story, given that it was just a few months ago I wouldn’t shut up about my own scary hockey story. Speaking of which, I serialized that on Patreon, and will be doing that again with another book TBA. Patreon is my predictable form of income, so if you like Hell, Inc., every dollar helps!

I’ll be talking more about that in the relatively near future, and that will probably happen on my newsletter! But really, the main event is the pet photos. So go on, sign up for my monthly(ish) newsletter!

Next Week: Let’s make distract the intern from the skeleton trauma with different trauma. Read it early on Patreon!

Don’t Look at the Sun… er, Angels

The Kickstarter for Hell, Inc. The RPG is over, and it, quite frankly, staggeringly overperformed expectations. In an extremely funny turn of events, the Kickstarter for the RPG sold more copies of the Hell, Inc. Volume 1 and 2 comics than their own Kickstarter did. By A LOT.

The good news for you, the newspost reader, is that I don’t have any more campaigns to promote this year, so you’re back to the usual content of “stream-of-consciousness nonsense, Employee of the Week, Next Week on Hell, Inc.”

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Brien Aronov is Employee of the Week, and you can too! Get Employee of the Week shoutouts, read my next graphic novel as I draw it (more on that in the near future!) or commission digital art! All of those things also help provide a level of predictability to my income that basically doesn’t exist otherwise, because freelancing is chaos.

If you want to keep up with what I’m working on, what my friends are doing, and (most importantly) see cute photos of my pets, sign up for my monthly(ish) newsletter!

Next Week: What, you thought I’d talk about face melting and there would be no face melting? Read it early on Patreon!

The Angel of Face Melting

The Angel of Face Melting is like the Angel of Death, except you only die if face melting is fatal. So I guess what I’m saying is they’re basically the same thing? Who knows what I’m saying, I don’t. I just tabled at a convention for the first time in 3 years, and have spent 3 days straight talking to an almost unending tide of other humans. My brain is soup.

Hell, Inc. The RPG is only on Kickstarter until September 22nd, so get on board before the clock runs out! THREE stretch goals have been unlocked, and the fourth and final stretch goal is less than $700 away. The 200 backer mark is also within sight, and I would very much like to hit that. I won’t belabour all of the free additional content that every pledge is getting, but suffice to say it is an increasingly great deal with each stretch goal unlocked.

Click on the images, back the Kickstarter, play the RPG! Like the intramural slo-pitch tournament, it’s mandatory.

Not an Angel Drill

Angel drills must be like fire drills in Hell. They’re mostly nothing and everybody resents them, but occasionally they’re vitally important and nobody is ready in those circumstances. Actually that reminds me of a story from when I was a teacher – during my second round of student teaching, I’ve got a class in the computer lab and an alarm goes off. Okay, but I know what the fire alarm sounds like, and this is a different alarm. I have no idea what it’s for. I look over at my mentor teacher, and he just says “it means lockdown.” Oh, okay, that makes sense, those should be different alarms since they have opposite intentions. Here’s the thing, though – I have no idea what I’m supposed to do in a lockdown. Nobody has mentioned it prior to this alarm going off. He isn’t really saying anything, but then I look over at the kids and they’re all closing the windows and blinds, then they go under the computer desks. I look over at my mentor teacher and he points at the door, so I lock it. Then I’m just standing there with a dude in his mid-60s thinking about how if this was an actual danger situation and he had wandered out of the room (as he often did once he was comfortable with me being in charge), we would be fuuuuuucked.

Completely unrelated to me being a teacher with no training for emergency procedures, the Hell, Inc. The RPG Kickstarter continues to steamroll forward. The second stretch goal, The Soup Drawer, has been unlocked! This means that for a meager 5 Canadian dollars (or 12, for a print version of the Employee Handbook), backers will be receiving the 32 page (maybe more) Employee Handbook, which includes all the game rules, a PDF blank character sheet, 6 PDF pre-made characters for the pre-written adventure about paperwork errors warping reality (also a PDF), and a PDF Hell, Inc. themed soup recipe ‘zine. Substitutions will be provided for consumption by humans. Click on the images below to head to the Kickstarter page and back the project, because it’s rad and I want you to have that in your life.

Next Week: It turns out that angels don’t sound threatening unless you’re from Hell. Read it early on Patreon!

Wrong for the Job

Sara is far and away the most “silent film comedian” of the Hell, Inc. cast, as whenever somebody is doing broad, physical comedy it ends up being her. She is the Buster Keaton of having her face try to escape her body in a comic strip. I don’t think she’s competing with anybody for that title, mostly because I don’t know if people’s faces try to escape in other comic strips.

Speaking of faces trying to escape… nope, I don’t have a transition for this. Hell, Inc. The RPG is still going pretty strong on Kickstarter, and is nearing the second stretch goal, The Soup Drawer. What does that mean? It means Caitlin is writing a Hell, Inc.-themed soup recipe ‘zine, I will be illustrating it, and it will hopefully be pretty weird and funny. When that’s unlocked (at $2500), backers who pledge at the $5 CAD or higher tiers (ie. any tier other than the tip jar) will get The Soup Drawer PDF at no additional cost! Backers are already getting an additional adventure module about paperwork errors warping reality. I just ran that adventure at Rolling Tales in Edmonton as part of their 1 year anniversary celebration, and we had a blast! Click on the images below to check out the Kickstarter. It is mandatory.

Next Week: … angels!? Read it early on Patreon!

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a very fun word to say, even if Doug apparently doesn’t know what it means. This strip means I’ve caught up with the buffer again, so I’m going to have to get back to the comic mines.

I’ve lately been spending almost all of my creative/work time in the RPG mines, which I didn’t expect to have such veins. As I mentioned last week, Hell, Inc. The RPG has launched on Kickstarter. This was a project undertaken on a whim and which we didn’t have huge aspirations for – the costs involved were pretty low, so we figured we’d recoup those pretty easily and then maybe hit the first stretch goal. Instead, it’s absolutely blowing away every crowdfunding thing I’ve done to a pretty comical degree. Not in terms of dollars, because the rewards aren’t that expensive, but the backer numbers are already nearing the most I’ve had one one project and it’s not even been a week. Is this being successful? If you haven’t, yet, click the images below to head over to the Kickstarter and check it out – it’s a very fun rules-lite RPG with a unique mediocrity-based dice mechanic.

Next Week: Sara plays motor oil mixologist. It goes as well as you think it will. Read it early on Patreon!

Pretend Motivation

Pretend motivation is what I have right now writing this newspost, as I just finished writing the update and then WordPress ate it and the draft autosaving did nothing. Much like the goggles. Now join me on the exciting journey to rewriting cool news!

Hell, Inc. The Roleplaying Game launches on Kickstarter (as part of ZineQuest) TOMORROW (August 23rd, 2022, for those of you reading from the future). The Employee Handbook is a 32 page, full colour, saddle-stitched book with the complete Hell, Inc. game system, advice for running the game and creating bureaucracy-based bonkersness, random NPC generators, and a pre-written adventure! The game system was created by myself and Cait, and is designed to encourage the pursuit of mediocracy – both low and high rolls will cause you additional hassles as you earn the scorn or additional-task-based praise of your boss. Click on the cover image below to hit up the prelaunch page so that you’ll be notified as soon as the campaign goes live (which is currently scheduled to be 9 AM MT, 11 AM ET, 8 AM PT).

Your regularly scheduled Employee of the Week and Patreon plugs will return next week after the Kickstarter is (hopefully) funded. These features will return which next week’s episode, in which B.L. Zebub tries to become one with Stan’s butt. Read it early on Patreon!

Excellent Taste

I don’t know why I decided that Stan’s costume would be part-CEO part-Napoleonic general, but I’m very pleased I made that decision because it is a lot of fun to draw. I don’t know why, but I always forget to draw his tail at first, though. Maybe just because I didn’t give most of the regularly appearing characters tails, so I forget they’re an option? Who knows.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Cait is Employee of the Week, and is also the co-author of the upcoming Hell, Inc. The RPG, which is based on the system she created for Fail Marines, our surprisingly successful debut in indie TTRPGs! The Hell, Inc. RPG is a 32 page full colour ‘zine with the full game system, loads of art, GM and setting development advice, and whatever the office-equivalent of an adventure is! Incidentally, if anyone has ideas for what an adventure module should be called in a game where you’re office drones battling demonic photocopiers instead of swinging swords at goblins, I would love to hear them! You can go to the pre-launch page to sign up for a notification when the campaign launches.

Speaking of being notified for things, click on the banner below to sign up for my monthly(ish) newsletter, where I talk about the various things I am getting up to, such as developing RPGs on the spur of the moment.