Location: O'Hellihan's

A More Interesting Topic

This strip was the end of my buffer, which activated about two weeks of furious drawing to rebuild said buffer. That was in the midst of the BURGERPunk Kickstarter wrapping up, although by the end of that I wasn’t having to do all that much. For whatever reason, RPG Kickstarters go much smoother than comic ones for me – they start off hot, and then I just kinda ride it along until there’s a slow patch in the middle, then I do some stuff that doesn’t actually help, and then things pick up and get hot at the end. Compared to comic Kickstarters, where I feel like I need to grind my ass off for a month straight, it’s downright relaxing.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

“Game Time” Art Middleton is Employee of the Week! Follow him on Twitter 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: Sara learns that getting up is overrated. Read it early on Patreon!

What to Do With an Eternity?

Hell, Inc. was outlined, initially, for six “volumes” of roughly equivalent length, with various plot beats assigned to each one. Volume 6 has ballooned to be much longer than the previous ones, which coincided with deciding to do some more volumes after this one. Part of why volume 6 kept getting longer was because I was really lacking confidence in my ability to hit the right romcom beats to make Doug and Bridget satisfying. Whether or not I end up sticking the landing will be up to you, the reader, I suppose.

Also up to you, the reader, is the success of BURGERPunk the RPG on Kickstarter! It ends on Thursday morning (March 16), so there’s not much time left to back it and get a bunch of really cool extra materials from stretch goals. Become a citizen of New McDonaldland and embrace the Living Meat(TM)!

What’s Your Move?

I think my move to take out Sheila would be to run away as fast as possible. I’m not fast, though, so I would probably have to hope that I could pull off some sort of Dragon Punch to the udder or something. Do minotaurs have udders? Is minotaurs the plural of minotaur? Minostaur? These are the mental tangents I go on while writing these newsposts, because my brain is soup with Super Nintendo cartridges and VHS tapes floating in it.

BURGERPunk The RPG continues to serve up juicy stretch goals. The illustrated short story (written by Cait, drawings by me) has been unlocked, and are now working toward the additional stretch goals created because we blew through so many of the early ones so quickly. Next up is expanding the Weapons & Weirdos supplement to include full colour art and fiction in the style of a field guide (by Ashely Adams), followed by expanding the BURGER(reci)Punk ‘zine to include illustrations and rules to use the recipes as in-game items.

Embrace the Living Meat(TM). Become BURGERPunk.

The Old Femur Harmonica Song and Dance

At some point there will be an actual femur harmonica in the comic, maybe? That seems like the next level of this recurring joke.

BURGERPunk The RPG is on Kickstarter now! It’s already funded and we’ve served up 5 of 7 stretch goals, but there are still stretch goals and nearly four weeks left, so become one with the Living Meat(TM). BURGERPunk is absolutely the weirdest thing I’ve worked on, and if you want to hear more about it, you can hear Cait talking about our process of writing tabletop RPGs and the origins of BURGERPunk on the Rite Gud podcast. You can also hear us talking BURGERPunk and the movie Hell Comes to Frogtown on Podside Picnic.

You can also click on the image below to back BURGERPunk. The digital tier with the book and all the stretch goals is only $5 CAD, with the print version (and all the digital stuff!) is $15 + shipping. Here’s a look at one of the 7 Flavour Profiles (character classes), the Cola Commando.

Click on the Cola Commando and back BURGERPunk on Kickstarter!

Bridget, Bar Fight Champion of Hell

Bridget, Bar Fight Champion of Hell could also be the name of a Hell, Inc. video game where Bridget beats up demons. Maybe if Guinea Pig Press RPGs continue to do well, I’ll become wealthy enough to be the dictator of a small video game studio that adapts my comics into games. For some reason I recently started thinking about Hell, Inc. as an action platformer (like how everything got adapted as an action platformer in the NES/Super NES era). Doug bouncing around Hell popping people in the schnozz with his Popeye arms and collecting souls or something.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Leonardo is Employee of the Week! They supported the creation of Hockeypocalypse: Slashers, and helped make that book ! You can do that with my next graphic novel, Rent-A-Thug, 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!

In other news, BURGERPunk the RPG launches on TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14th! Click the image below to sign up to be notified when the campaign launches! The main event is the BURGERPunk The RPG ‘zine, which is 32 pages of fast food action movie post-apocalypse chaos including the complete gameplay rules (using Powered by the Apocalypse) and 7 Flavour Profiles (character classes), available in print and digital formats.

Spirit-ual Journey

Wordless strips are always a weird thing to make, because they force me to confront the fact that they require just as much work, but a lot of readers will look at them for about 2 seconds. It’s similar to knowing that a 22 page comic takes about 200 hours to draw, plus another 50 or 60 for colouring and lettering, but there are a ton of readers who will take 5-10 minutes to read it. That ratio feels pretty grim! I can’t even fathom what it’s like to make a movie, where it takes tens of thousands of hours to create a two hour-ish film. That said, would I be hyped to make a movie or a TV show out of one of my comics? Yes. Yes I would.

Also, exciting news, everyone! BURGERPunk The RPG hits Kickstarter on February 14th! Click on the image below to visit the pre-launch page and be notified when the campaign starts!

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

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!

Next Week: Do not steal Sheila’s drink, and absolutely do not interrupt Sheila’s move-busting. Read it early on Patreon!

Anti-Gravity Spiders

I’ve been playing a lot of Hollow Knight lately, and was somewhat delighted to realize that it was about bugs. They’re so stylized that I didn’t read the characters that way until I saw them in the game’s environment. As someone who really likes the idea of army ants being taken literally, Hollow Knight feels like if those old Army Ants toys were in the supernatural fantasy genre. Also, Hollow Knight is really fun.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Speaking of fun, it’s my birthday tomorrow (unless you read this on a day other than January 30th). If you feel the urge to celebrate with me, feel free to drop a buck or two on my Patreon, which supports projects like Hell, Inc. and the upcoming Rent-A-Thug graphic novel. I will likely be spending my birthday either drawing more pages for said Rent-A-Thug graphic novel, or working on BURGERPunk, the RPG that nobody knew they needed.

If you want to hear more about BURGERPunk, sign up for my newsletter, which will be debuting some never-before-seen BURGERPunk art prior to the February 14th Kickstarter.

Topics of Conversation

Conversations with my parents during the pandemic made me realize how much “things we have done recently” form the core of most casual conversation. When the answer to “what have you been up to” is “nothing, same as you,” it’s a lot harder to carry on a chat. That was indirectly how I arrived at writing this strip. I wasn’t consciously comparing the gang not having anything to talk about because they’ve all been together for a month straight to not having anything interesting to tell my parents because I’ve been at home for a month straight, but upon reflection it’s pretty clear how I ended up at this week’s joke.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Sebastian is Employee of the Week, and you can, too! It’s how I have predictable money, which is both Cool and Good. 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 pretty cool. Speaking of graphic novels, currently Rent-A-Thug: La Cosa Glasnostra is being reformatted as traditional comic pages and posted. Following that, the Rent-A-Thug graphic novel will be starting up (unless some publisher gives me a lot of money before that happens).

Also, the next RPG in my burgeoning empire is going to be launching in February, so sign up for my monthly-ish email newsletter to learn about BURGERPunk.

Diance Party

I don’t know what a table-dancing jam is in Hell, but Diane probably has some insight on that.

EMPLOYEE OF THE WEEK:

Barrie Deatcher is Employee of the Week, and will get to read my new Rent-A-Thug graphic novel as I draw it! Subscribers to my newsletter have already seen the first page, which I think is several orders of magnitude cooler than any previous Rent-A-Thug stuff. Patreon is my predictable source of income, and I would very much like it to grow to the point where I can get into a workflow of webcomic + graphic novel.

Remember Top Webcomics? That’s still a thing, so if you want to boost Hell, Inc. in the rankings and funnel some new readers in, click on the banner below. You can vote daily.

Next Week: Ever look at a group of people and wonder “what would they even talk about?” Sara does. Read it early on Patreon!