Character: Ray

Failure to Toady

Don’t you just hate it when you’re trying to get some quality brown-nosing in and the boss slams the door right in your face? Just the worst.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Laurel is Employee of the Week, and one of the many new patrons to take advantage of the COVID-related benefits now being offered – new patrons will not only gain access to the digital edition of the third Hell, Inc. book, “Team-building Exercise,” months before it’s released to the general public, they will also have access to over a thousand pages of other digital comics! At the $5 and up tier, you’ll also get new digital comics as they’re released! If you want to get in on that, or just think that Hell, Inc. is worth a buck, head over to the Patreon page and help keep the lights on.

You can also help out Hell, Inc. by voting for it on Top Webcomics, which is the largest source of new readers. More votes = more visibility = more new readers. You can vote by clicking the banner below!

Next Week: The least alarming face, definitely. Read it early on Patreon!

Too Much? Too Much

“We need a six out of ten, and you’re giving us a fifteen, so maybe let’s dial it back a little?” Also I am not at all going to miss drawing the practice calendar in the background, because it always ends up making things take longer.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Jillian Dolan is Employee of the Week! You should check out the comics she’s drawn, Kyle the Nihilist Dinosaur and Misha. We also just took the same digital colouring class last weekend, although you won’t see any of the things I learned from it in Hell, Inc. in the near future, because I’m like 30 strips ahead right now. If you want to help out your favourite independent artist/fake megacorporation, be like Jillian and support Hell, Inc. on Patreon. New patrons will be receiving a digital copy of Hell, Inc. book 3, “Team-building Exercise,” as well as over a thousand pages of other comics.

You can also support Hell, Inc. by voting for it on Top Webcomics, because that’s the largest source of new readers for the comic. You can vote daily by clicking on the banner below!

Next Week: Sara’s enthusiasm continues to be mismatched to the situation. Read it early on Patreon!

Arms Like Noodles

I rewatched some Invader Zim a while ago, and was surprised at how much of it held up. I was afraid that it would be too LOLrandom upon revisiting it, but it turns out that’s just what gets quoted most of the time. I’m sure that show definitely had an influence on my joke writing style, which involves a lot of weird phrases designed to make what would otherwise be a normal scene funnier. So of course that’s what I’m writing about in the newspost for a strip that doesn’t utilize that technique at all.

If you’re in Edmonton, I’m going to be at Dead By Con this weekend. It’s a locally run horror convention. I attended it last year for fun, and it was great, so now I’m returning with a vengeance. And also to sell GWAR books. I’ve never tabled at a horror convention before, so it’ll be a fun, new experience.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Robbie Dorman, host of The Simpsons Show podcast, is this week’s Employee of the Week. I love the Simpsons (I would hope that’s clear from the comics I’ve made), and I love The Simpsons Show. It’s very good.

If you think Hell, Inc. is worth a dollar, you should give said dollar(s) to the Hell, Inc. Patreon, because that helps keep things running over here. Money: I need it to live.

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: SHOTS, SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS. Patreon. Go there. Money. Me. Comics. Read early.

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!

All Practice All The Time

ALL PRACTICE ALL THE TIME MAKES BEELZY A PRACTICED BOY. ALL PRACTICE ALL THE TIME MAKES BEELZY A PRACTICED BOY.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Long-term employee Damion is Employee of the Week! Make sure you don’t park in his space. If you want to be Employee of the Week, support Hell, Inc. on Patreon!

As always, if you want to support Hell, Inc. but can’t afford the Patreon, vote for the comic on Top Webcomics! It’s a great source of new readers, and more votes gives it more visibility. Click on the banner below to vote!

Next Week: Team spirit! Join the team of Hell, Inc. Patreon supporters to read it early!

Mandatory Intramural Overtime

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving/regular Monday as applicable!

B.L. Zebub continues to be my favourite character to write, because I can do almost anything with him. All I have to do is have him be a dickhead boss and BAM whatever indignities he’s suffered are in the background again and he’s back to being a tyrannical villain. It helps that he has direct power over all of the other characters, so even if he looks like a buffoon, he doesn’t lose any power. He’s just mad about looking like a buffoon and has the power to make your life difficult because he feels bad about himself. I just accidentally explained all of managerial relations in one paragraph, you’re welcome.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

We’re back at the top of the rotation with Cait of the North, who really earns Employee of the Week status by running a lot of my social media at this point. It turns out that I like Twitter and stuff a lot better when I don’t actually have to spend time writing promotional posts instead of drawing. If you want to help me spend more time drawing, you too can support Hell, Inc. on Patreon! For as little as $1 you can contribute to the comic’s financial viability!

As always, you can support Hell, Inc. for free by voting for it on Top Webcomics! Click the banner below to vote and help drive new readers to the comic.

Next Week: The practice schedule is revealed, because that’s a normal thing for intramural company softball leagues to have, right? Read it early on Patreon!

Summoned

There tend to be gaps in drawing Hell, Inc. strips. Typically I’ll draw 3-5 strips in a week or 10 days, then have to take a break to work on something else – commissions, other comics, boring business stuff, etc. Sometimes those breaks are short. If I’m doing a commission, for example, it might only take a day or two. Other times, those breaks are pretty long, like the two months I spent drawing pages for the new GWAR: The Enormogantic Fail graphic novel. The first strip I draw when I come back from a break is always an interesting experience. Aside from reacquainting myself with storytelling in the horizontal format, how I draw the characters and how I approach the compositions is always a little different. That’s mostly due to art being a skill that evolves over time – when I do a different project, I learn new things and hone skills I already have, so when I come back to something that I’ve worked on over a long period of time, my technique is a bit different. This is all a more-detailed-than-necessary lead-up to saying that starting with a bird’s eye view of the office, where there are many characters and a whole bunch of background objects, was perhaps a more challenging choice than it needed to be.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

The Employee of the Week section is back to normal, post-Kickstarter. BUT, we do have a nice segue between the two, as I welcome new patron Barrie Deatcher, who is also a Kickstarter backer. Welcome, Barrie, and also welcome to the new readers that have discovered the comic as a result of the Kickstarter. If you want to be Employee of the Week, support Hell, Inc. on Patreon – it’s how I keep money coming in so I can cut down on the amount of freelance work I need to take on. Given the amount of freelance work I’ve done this year, it is not working haha.

Another great way to support Hell, Inc. is by upvoting it on Top Webcomics. It’s been the largest source of new readers by a pretty substantial margin, and higher rankings = more new readers. Click on the banner to vote, and make a habit of it – you can vote once a day!

Next Week: Everything that is fun is also mandatory, right? That makes sense. Read it early on Patreon!