Today’s Evil Inc is a true motivational speaker nightmare! Meanwhile, Dr. Muskiday discovers that his evolving emotion-cloud technology is spiraling out of control!
’Ringo Awards — Last Chance
The nomination round for the Ringo Awards closes on Thursday! If you’ve been enjoying Evil Inc, Evil Inc After Dark, or any of my recent work, I’d be honored if you considered tossing a nomination my way. https://go.evil-inc.net/ringo
One of the easiest things to overlook on Patreon is the archive of posts tagged Bonus Rewards — and there’s a lot of good stuff buried in there.
These posts include wallpapers, eComics, downloadable extras, and assorted goodies collected over the years. Better yet, they never expire, so you can dip into the archive anytime and discover a few hidden gems waiting for you.
If you haven’t explored those tags lately, it’s worth a deep dive — https://go.evil-inc.net/patreon
ICYMI
This week's bonus cartoon featured the Fantastic Four.
Well... most of 'em...
Transcript
Panel 1:
Dr. Muskiday, bursting into Cassie Cruz’s office:Cassie! You need to send everybody home — NOW!
Panel 2:
(Inset panel) Cassie Cruz: I can’t do that! The quarterly wellness surveys are due by five o’clock, and if we miss compliance, corporate will send that insufferable motivational speaker again.
Susan, a supervillain motivational speaker, speaks to the assembled villains of Evil Inc: People said I’d never weaponize my childhood trauma. Look at me now.
The whiteboard has a number of phrases written in it:
Failure isn’t falling into a volcano. Failure is falling into the same volcano twice.
A hero is just a villain with better P.R.
Susan Says… Your greatest weakness can become your greatest strength… unless your weakness is silver, garlic, or emotional intimacy.
Panel 3:
Dr. Muskiday: You don’t understand! The micronanos are evolving into MACRONANOES!
Panel 4:
Dr. Muskiday: They’ll control everybody in the office. We have to get everyone out of here before…
Panel 5:
Dr. Muskiday (continues): ...it’s too late.
There is an emoji cloud enveloping Cassie’s entire head.
Alt Text
Five-panel “Evil Inc” comic set inside the Evil Inc office.
Panel 1: Dr. Muskiday bursts into Cassie Cruz’s office in a panic. His insect-like eyes are wide, his arms thrown dramatically into the air as he shouts, “Cassie! You need to send everybody home — NOW!” Cassie sits calmly behind her desk, turned toward him in surprise. Her office contains a laptop, paperwork, and pink file boxes.
Panel 2: An inset panel shows Cassie responding nervously from her office chair: “I can’t do that! The quarterly wellness surveys are due by five o’clock, and if we miss compliance, corporate will send that insufferable motivational speaker again…” The rest of the panel cuts to a seminar room where a stylish supervillain motivational speaker named Susan addresses a bored-looking audience of villains seated in folding chairs. Susan is an older woman with swept-back silver hair, glasses, and a dramatic purple outfit with a high collar. She gestures confidently while declaring, “People said I’d never weaponize my childhood trauma. Look at me now.” Behind her, a whiteboard displays ridiculous motivational slogans, including: “Failure isn’t falling into a volcano. Failure is falling into the same volcano twice,” “A hero is just a villain with better P.R.,” and “Susan Says… Your greatest weakness can become your greatest strength… unless your weakness is silver, garlic, or emotional intimacy.”
Panel 3: Back in Cassie’s office, Dr. Muskiday leans forward urgently, shouting, “You don’t understand! The micronanos are evolving into MACRONANOES!” The word “MACRONANOES!” appears in huge bold lettering dominating the panel. Cassie remains seated behind her desk, still not fully grasping the severity of the situation.
Panel 4: Dr. Muskiday runs frantically across the office floor with his arms spread wide. He warns, “They’ll take control of everybody in the office! We have to get everyone outta here before…” His lab coat and green tie trail behind him dramatically as he rushes toward the reader.
Panel 5: Dr. Muskiday stops in horror and quietly finishes, “…it’s too late.” Across the desk, Cassie’s entire head has been engulfed by a giant pink, fluffy-looking emoji cloud with angry eyes and a furious expression. The cloud hovers where her head should be, implying the evolving nanotech has already taken over her emotions.
Last week, the hosting for two of my other comics went toes-up, and I had to do a quick down-n-dirty WordPress site for both of them. (
Don’t judge the sites too harshly if you go… it’s a work in progress!) And, as I was doing so, it occurred to me that new readers of Evil Inc may be completely unaware of some of the other things that I do (or that I’ve done) in comics. So, here’s a quick overview for anybody who is interested:
My Patreon supporters get to see bonus cartoons and other behind-the-scenes content that no one else has access to. Please consider signing up — even if it’s the $1 level. All of those dollar-pledges help me keep working on comics!
Phables ran from 2006-2008 in the
Philadelphia Daily News. Each week, they’d give me a full tabloid-sized page in the paper to tell a story about everyday life in Philadelphia through a comic. Some of these were my stories, and some of them were stories that readers wrote in with.
I’m still tweaking the site, but go check out the comics. They’re bigger and crisper than I was ever able to display them back in 2006. It’s work that I’m tremendously proud of.
In 2006, it was named the best newspaper column in Philadelphia by the Society of Professional Journalists. That was kind of huge. It wasn’t awarded best cartoon or best infographic. It was acknowledged as a newspaper
column — one of the posts with the highest prestige in the newsroom. In 2007, it was nominated for the Eisner Award.
Here’s one of my favorites, introduced below…
All of the Phables cartoons are collected into a swell book that you can
buy from me (or
on Amazon.com).
Here’s another project I rarely talk about here.
Webcomics.com is a site that I run that features daily posts offering advice, information, tutorials and support for cartoonists working on the Web.
It’s a subscription site — $30 for 12 months of access or a special one-month Trial Membership for $5. I post four times a week with something new of relevance to cartoonists, and I do a dive into the archive on Fridays to bring up something valuable that members may have missed. This is an archive of information that I’ve been building day-by-day since 2009. It’s got answers to virtually any question you might have on topics that vary from the craft of cartooning to expanding your business.
Plus you get access to a private forum of serious professional cartoonists where you can talk frankly about issues — and get intelligent, valuable feedback.
The How To Make Webcomics book launched the site, and my writing there formed the basis of The Webcomics Handbook.
Courting Disaster was another
Daily News project that found its own life on the Web. When the paper started a sex-advice column, I offered to do a weekly cartoon to accompany it. They would respond to two letters from readers every week, and I’d do a cartoon based on one of them. My goal was to a smart, sexy
Playboy-style cartoon — while maintaining the content restrictions of a daily newspaper.
Courting Disaster was a blast! You can still find
the books for sale on Lulu.com. And the eBook can
be downloaded here, at
DriveThru and at
Amazon.
This one is badly in need of a new Web site. Those strips hold up remarkably well, and if they were displayed bigger on that old site, I think people would tear through that archive.
Greystone Inn was my first comic strip — running from Feb. 2000 – June 2005 (when I launched Evil Inc). It was a comic strip about the fictional cast and crew of… a comic strip. But, like
Roger Rabbit, the cartoons were living, breathing creatures. Many Evil Inc characters, like Lightning Lady, got their start in Greystone. Heck, that’s where the Evil Inc concept was born! (And if you want to read that storyline,
it’s a special bonus in this month’s Evil Inc eComic!
You can get the entire four-and-a-half-year run of Greystone Inn in a
beautiful hardcover book. And you can also get your copy as a
downloadable PDF for your digital device.
Podcasts
Had enough? I didn’t think so. You can also catch me on the several different podcasts I host! (
and a few I don’t!)
• Webcomics Weekly: We’re not doing this regularly anymore, but in its day, this was THE webcomics podcast. Featuring Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, Dave Kellett and me, this show was the best when we just fired up the microphones and started talking.
•
Surviving Creativity: Scott and I are joined by Scott’s business manager, Cory Casoni, as we talk about trying to make a living as a creative professional.
•
Hey Comics — Kids!: Perhaps the podcast that is closest to my heart, my sons and I started recording our drives to school. We talk video games, TV, movies, superheroes and more. If you follow the podcast, you get frequent updates — plus supplemental mini-casts from each individual kid. You can even
subscribe to the show on iTunes. And if you do, be sure to rate the show and leave a friendly comment!
