Doug is the most observant. He definitely knows that my new comic, Rent-A-Thug – La Cosa Nostra is on Kickstarter RIGHT NOW (unless you’re reading this in the future, in which case it WAS on Kickstarter and now is just a normal book you can buy). No other promo stuff this week, just go back the Kickstarter.
Next Week: Sara’s onboarding process continues! Read it early on Patreon!
This week’s Patreon post is mostly about the Colin Robinson (What We Do in the Shadows) cameo in the last panel.
Sebastian is Employee of the Week, and you can, too! It’s how I have predictable money, which is both Cool and Good because we live in capitalist hell-world. If everyone who read the comic in a month chipped in $1, I’d be able to turn down most freelance work and focus on doing Hell, Inc. stuff and my own graphic novels! That would be preeeeetty cool. Especially now, because I am brooooke.
You can help Hell, Inc. for free by voting for it on Top Webcomics, which has been a great way to draw in new readers. Click the banner below to vote daily!
Next Week: Where have you been!? Read it early on Patreon!
The Patreon preview for this strip involved veering off from process stuff to talking about the one film studies class I took in university, and why I hated it. It DID mean I could make Dr. Caligari references in my workplace comedy comic, so that’s… something.
Barrie Deatcher is Employee of the Week, which means they are one of the folks helping support Hell, Inc. and my other non-freelance art endeavours! For example, I just had an idea for Hell, Inc. video game, inspired by how every NES adaptation of a movie turned into a platformer, no matter how much sense that made. Patreon can make that possible! Even $1 goes a long way, and adds up pretty fast when enough readers show their support.
You can also support Hell, Inc. for free by telling your friends about it, because that is infinitely better than any promotion I can do. Also voting on Top Webcomics by clicking the banner below is very helpful!
Next Week: Hell is other paperwork. Read it early on Patreon!
Ah, yes, the chained pens. designed to keep all of us thieving loons from costing companies tens of dollars a year in replacement pens. I’m sure in Hell they will also measure the ink levels to make sure you didn’t use too much (I’m sure there are also real, insane managers who wish they could do that). This week’s Patreon preview is about writing visual jokes, and how that differs from my normal process.
Caitlin is Employee of the Week, and also author of our RPG BURGERPunk, which is now available digitally on DriveThru RPG.
Also available digitally are all of the Hell, Inc. volumes (1-6), on both Patreon and GlobalComix (the covers aren’t actually squashed and weird, it’s a display thing I don’t understand). Speaking of Patreon, you can subscribe to help me keep making art and also being alive, for as little as $1 a month!
You can help Hell, Inc. for free by telling people about it! Send links to your friends and co-workers, or vote on Top Webcomics! It’s the beginning of a new month, so the votes count for more as the rankings reset. Top Webcomics helps direct people looking for new webcomics to Hell, Inc. instead of whatever comic is using robots to have thousands of votes instantly!
Next Week: Arrivals gets weird. Read it early on Patreon!
The “I can do it” to “I’ve made a huge mistake” pipeline runs fast at Hell, Inc. And also in making Hell, Inc., where I insist on drawing a library stack of personnel documents that the reader will look at for somewhere between 3 and 10 seconds. This week’s Patreon preview involves thoughts about organizing my own reference material for Hell, Inc., which is not a library stack. It is a stack of folders, about six inches tall, and many many digital folders on a hard drive. This system does not make it nearly as easy to find reference material as I would like. But actually changing that is a lot of effort, so…
New hire Trash the Stampede brings a fantastic Patreon username to the company, and can be found on the internet at The Word Eater. Now all I can think about is that old computer game Number Munchers, but with words. Maybe I should make that? I have made a video game, Space Jerks, and Patreon patrons got to download it well before anyone else! Patreon is also a predictable source of income, which helps calm the increasingly rough waters of freelancing.
In other news, social media’s slow collapse strengthens the case for Top Webcomics. The Old Internet becomes the New Internet! Click the banner below to vote daily.
Next Week: Sara vs. The Paperwork. Read it early, and with author commentary, on Patreon!
It’s busy around the Comics Bunker (aka the corner of the living room where my art desk is) these days. I’m bouncing between a freelance illustration job with Scholastic Canada (exciting!), doing some work on the Rent-A-Thug graphic novel (which has been a very slow process), and working on the story mode for Space Jerks. I just picked up another freelance gig that will start at an undetermined time in the future, and will at some point start drawing Hell, Inc. strips again when the buffer gets thin. I’m very tired. All the time.
This comic’s Patreon preview is largely about my lack of organizational skills in terms of making myself reference materials that would save me a lot of time.
Leonardo is Employee of the Week! They supported the creation of Hockeypocalypse: Slashers, and helped make that book possible! Supporters at the $5/up tiers get to read my graphic novels as I create them, and get a copy at the end! More backers = faster progress, because I currently spend a lot of time freelancing to make money, which is important for being alive. You can also help me out for as little as $1 a month, because that really adds up when enough people get involved.
You can help out Hell, Inc. for free by clicking the banner below to vote on Top Webcomics, which you can do daily! It helps make the comic more visible to webcomic readers.
Next Week: Sara asks the hard-hitting questions that make everyone else uncomfortable. Read it early on Patreon!
The Workronomicon is a terrible tome bound in human ennui and with the power to inflict terrible “line go up” brain on mortals. This week’s Patreon preview wasn’t about the Workronomicon, but about how writing characters becomes easier if you put in the effort to figure them out.
And if you somehow haven’t heard yet, I made a video game, and you can play it for free! Check out Space Jerks on itch.io.
Shane Lees is Employee of the Week! He has a webcomic, Tales of Abuse, which you can check out at his website. You should also check out the Hell, Inc. Patreon, which is my predictable form of income. One of these days it will replace the need to freelance! Not a SOON day, but one day!
You can help out Hell, Inc. for free by clicking the banner below to vote on Top Webcomics, which you can do daily! It helps make the comic more visible to webcomic readers.
Next Week: Sara misreads B.L. Zebub as attempting to be motivational. Read it early on Patreon!
As we’ve established previously, Sara is clearly very good at sneaking around and doing things clandestinely. This week’s Patreon preview post was about the ideas that need to germinate in the back of your mind before they’re ready, and how sometimes that means a poop joke is the catalyst for that.
Caitlin is Employee of the Week, and also author of our RPG BURGERPunk, which is now available digitally on DriveThru RPG.
Also available digitally are all of the Hell, Inc. volumes (1-6), on both Patreon and GlobalComix (the covers aren’t actually squashed and weird, it’s a display thing I don’t understand). Speaking of Patreon, you can subscribe to help me keep making art and also being alive, for as little as $1 a month!
You can help Hell, Inc. for free by telling people about it! Send links to your friends and co-workers, or vote on Top Webcomics! It’s the beginning of a new month, so the votes count for more as the rankings reset. Top Webcomics helps direct people looking for new webcomics to Hell, Inc. instead of whatever comic is using robots to have thousands of votes instantly!
Next Week: There are important shame plans. Read it early on Patreon!
I’ve drawn weird monsters on bathroom signs in a couple of series now, and every time it’s because I’m imagining a fantasy map with “here there be dragons” written on it and applying that logic to toilet signs. I think I used it first in Hockeypocalypse, but regardless of which was first, it’s appeared in that and in Hell, Inc. In this week’s Patreon preview, I talked about how early the geography of the office was decided on, but how the reader gets that information much more slowly.
“Game Time” Art Middleton is Employee of the Week! Follow him on Twitter, if that’s still a thing you do, or check out his Twitch streams, OR… do both of those things. Also, head over to the Hell, Inc. Patreon, where you can support the continued existence of your favourite office demons and read new strips early (see above!). It turns out that humans, like demons, need money to live! Me, specifically.
In other news, social media’s slow collapse strengthens the case for Top Webcomics. The Old Internet becomes the New Internet! Click the banner below to vote daily.
Next Week: Hey, so if you didn’t know WHERE the bathroom was… Read it early, and with author commentary, on Patreon!
Sideswiping Doug’s self-esteem is time honoured mid-strip joke, if time honoured such things. This week’s Patreon preview doesn’t talk about that. It instead talks about how sometimes I put a ton of work into a thing that I know nobody will see, and then fall ass-backwards into that ending up being worthwhile.
In other news, I’ve been deep in the project mines while I await the finalized version of an upcoming contract. BURGERPunk stretch goals have been on the frontburner (oh god why are there so many of them). I’ve also gotten back on my Rent-A-Thug shit, and have upgraded and prepped La Cosa Glasnostra for eventual print (sometime in 2024). It turns out that I just needed to get to the right part of the Creativity Wave, which for me goes “I just finished this thing and it’s amazing -> I can only see the things I’d do differently now -> there are flaws, but this is pretty good!” I need to be in the first or third stage to be in the headspace to get something prepped for release, but because La Cosa Glasnostra was a Webtoon contest entry, I landed in the second stage before I got to getting the print release ready.
I’m also working on making a video game version of the Spreadsheet Tetris that gets mentioned in Hell, Inc., but programming is hard, so that’s probably going to take a while even though all the art is done.
Leonardo is Employee of the Week! They supported the creation of Hockeypocalypse: Slashers, and helped make that book possible! You can do that with my next graphic novel, which I will be serializing on Patreon as well. Backers at the $5/month and up tiers will get a copy mailed to them when it’s finished! You can also help me out for as little as $1 a month, because that really adds up when enough people get involved.
You can help out Hell, Inc. for free by clicking the banner below to vote on Top Webcomics, which you can do daily! It helps make the comic more visible to webcomic readers.
Next Week: Sara asks the hard-hitting questions that make everyone else uncomfortable. Read it early on Patreon!