Chapter 17 | Page 13b: Hard bargaining

Posted on April 2, 2026 by Brad Guigar

At Evil Inc, even labor negotiations can spiral out of control — especially when “hard bargaining” takes on a whole new meaning. Cassie Cruz just realized that the conference room she prepped for Dr. Muskiday’s… unconventional solution… is already booked for a high-stakes union negotiation. Unfortunately, it looks like Doctor Threat and the henchpersons may have already reached an agreement.

I’d love your help with something big: Nominations are now open for the 2026 ’Ringo Awards, and reader nominations make all the difference. If the comic has ever made you laugh, please consider nominating Evil Inc for Best Humor Webcomic — it only takes a minute, and your support truly means a lot. You can submit your nomination here: https://go.evil-inc.net/ringo

Transcript

Panel 1
Cassie Cruz (angry):
“We are NOT having an orgy at our desks!”

Dr. Muskiday (calmly defensive):
“Of course not! I stocked the conference room with mattresses and lube.”

Panel 2
Cassie Cruz (panicking):
“The conference room?! Doctor Threat is scheduled to negotiate a new contract with the henchpersons’ union in there!”

Panel 3
Cassie Cruz (looking toward a slightly open door):
“Where’s Doctor Threat?”

Dr. Muskiday (matter-of-fact):
“I believe that’s him in the middle of — erm — ‘collective bargaining.’”

(Sound effects from behind the closed conference room door:)
“Hhh hhh”
“Plap Ngh Plap Plap”
“Hngh hhh”
“mmf mmf mmf”

Detailed Alt Text

A three-panel comic set inside an office at Evil Inc.

Panel 1: Cassie Cruz, a professional woman with short brown hair, red glasses, a white blazer, and a low-cut yellow top, stands beside her desk looking furious. A small pink “emotion cloud” with a skull icon floats near her head, indicating anger. She shouts that they are not having an orgy at their desks. Standing nearby is Dr. Muskiday, a short humanoid with a fly’s head—large red compound eyes, small body, and lab coat—who calmly explains that he already prepared the conference room with mattresses and lube.

Panel 2: Close-up on Cassie clutching her head in alarm. Her expression is wide-eyed and panicked. She exclaims that the conference room is supposed to be used for an important union negotiation between Doctor Threat and the henchpersons’ union.

Panel 3: Cassie and Dr. Muskiday stand in a hallway facing a slightly open conference room door. Cassie asks where Doctor Threat is. Muskiday gestures toward the door and awkwardly suggests that Doctor Threat is inside, in the middle of “collective bargaining,” implying something sexual. From inside the room comes exaggerated, comic-style sound effects indicating vigorous activity: heavy breathing (“hhh hhh,” “hngh”), rhythmic “plap” noises, and muffled sounds (“mmf mmf”). The implication is that the union negotiation has devolved into an orgy inside the conference room.

A Case of Libel?

Posted on September 25, 2009 by Brad Guigar

Recently, a Web site saw fit to run a piece that incorrectly alleged that my site had lost over 50% of its visitors in the last two years.

Since part of my income comes from advertisers who base their buying decisions on my Web traffic, it is incumbent upon me to address this defamation.

I won’t link to the site for obvious reasons — the poster makes similar allegations against other webcartoonists that I can only assume are as inaccurate as the statement made about Evil Inc, and I would hate for their reputations to be besmirched any further on account of my giving this blogger the notoriety he seems to so badly desire.

So, as much as I find it unseemly to trot out my Web traffic statistics to a readership that would probably prefer I spend time with other subjects, here are two graphs that represent my unique visitors and my pageviews over a 24-month period.



I have stripped the numbers off the chart because that’s proprietary information that I don’t share publicly. However, it is plain to see that I have been steadily gaining visitors and pageviews over the past 24 months. As a matter of fact, my unique-visitors statistic is up over 50% from September 2007 — and pageviews are up close to 60%.

Obviously, that’s going to be an important metric for any advertiser, and I need to clarify this untruth immediately. But beyond that, this blogger’s post is an insult to you. He wants the world to think that you guys are supporting this site less.

If anything, you guys have been more active and supportive than ever before! You’ve been telling your friends, you’ve been participating in the forum, you’ve been reading the archives… you’ve been the best readership in webcomics, in my opinion. Not the worst.

So, where’s the misinformation coming from?

The blogger makes use of statistics from “Google Trends” — which uses an unknown algorithmic formula to arrive at its metric. A note at the bottom of the Google Trends site clearly states that the numbers are estimates.

Using these numbers to make assumptions about a Web site’s “health” is nothing short of malicious.

My statistics — the ones used to build the charts above — are gathered both from analytic code embedded in each page on my site and from the host of this site itself, which gathers traffic statistics on all of the files served through this domain.

In other words, it isn’t an estimate. It’s fact.

But that didn’t stop the blogger from using these estimates to make what a lawyer might call a “statement of fact” that my site had lost more than fifty percent of its readers!

To say that I am appalled by this defamation is putting it lightly.