Evil Inc Shareholder Report — Closing One Chapter, Opening New Portals

October means one thing around here: Evil Inc goes full monster mash. While I plot the next chapter, I’m treating you to “Meanwhile…” strips, a few wickedly funny bonuses, and a cozy send-off for our favorite Lethal Librarian.

On Patreon, the spooky season is already in full swing — with new NSFW comics, a few risqué commissions, and a Real Housewives of Transylvania story that’ll raise more than spirits. Oh, and Lightning Lady? She’s finally closing those portals… the hard way.

Evil Inc

In this "Meanwhile..." comic I couldn’t resist giving the Lethal Librarian's character arc a little closure by showing her relaxing in a good book. As I wrote the strip, I realized I had a perfect book for her to get some R&R in.

If you're a newer reader, you may need this explainer!

Coming Soon on Patreon

Longtime Patreon backers know that I usually go a little crazy during Halloween. There are a few extra bonus cartoons, a couple spooky-themed commissions, and at least one Real Housewives of Transylvania comic. This year is no different.

Here's a tantalizing taste...

I've also got a cool idea for a couple of bonus comics for the season...

It's loosely based on a Courting Disaster cartoon from a few years back. If you're unfamiliar with "Mad Monster Party," it was a wonderful Halloween-themed TV special from Rankin-Bass (the folks who made all of those stop-motion Christmas specials).

On the other hand, if you don't know what a Key Party is, I'm sure one of our seasoned pervs will explain it to you in the comments…

Earlier today, I posted a new Evil Inc After Dark page that answers a question that has been lingering for years! Lightning Lady’s super-charged fling with Marquis tore open a series of portals — each one leading to an alternate-universe version of herself.

You can read it in Evil Inc After Dark #16 — Patreon | EiAD website.

Now, in EiAD #78, she reveals to Miss Match how they sent them all back home. Spoiler: It took more than a little spark to close those portals…

Patreon Collections

Now you can access all the exclusives I posted for my backers in September — without a recurring membership! If you like what you see, you can always upgrade to unlock more of my work.

This package includes...  the conclusion of the Evil Inc storyline "Double Crossed," three spicy commissions, two naughty cartoons, a 2600-word micro-fic titled "Idle Conversations,"  and TWO NSFW Comics Swaps — a sampler from John Wigger's "Club Pink Taco," and three "Growth Lab" eComics from Ready Art totaling 120 pages 

Frequently Asked Questions

When you were starting out at The Repository in Canton, Ohio, did you have a "big city" newspaper you dreamed of one day working at?

Not really. Getting a job in newspapers was a way to earn a living and submit comics on the side. It was advice I got from editorial cartoonist Bill Day upon graduating from Alma College in 1991. Bill was the editorial cartoonist at the Detroit Free Press. He advised I get a job in the newsroom as a graphic artist and submit editorial cartoons as an employee.

There was a brief period when I became well-known for informational graphics (like the one above), and I started submitting fewer and fewer political cartoons to The Repository's editorial staff. And when I went to the Akron Beacon Journal, they made it very clear they didn’t use any illustration that resembled what I was good at drawing. Plus, they had a very well-regarded political cartoonist, Chip Bok, so my professional cartooning took a back seat.

However, a change in management in Akron prompted me to start looking for a new job before I had been there for a year and a half. And I interviewed at a slew of newspapers, including the Virginia Pilot, The Raleigh News & Observer, the Seattle Times, USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and a few others.

I completely blew some of the interviews. The News & Observer was looking for someone to run their graphics department, and sent me a copy of one of their editions and asked me what I’d change.

The newspaper I sent back looked as if I had opened a vein over it. I changed headlines, story ledes, story placement, Page One strategy, the fonts used by infographics… I think I even had opinions on the tidal charts.

They were looking for someone a little less ambitious.

One paper — a nationally known publication — paid insanely low wages.

I said as much.

I was told, “Yes, but when you tell people you work for us, you can demand much higher freelance rates.” Taking a low-paying job so I could work a forty-hour week and then take freelance work on top of that at (hopefully) higher rates seemed dumb to me.

I said as much.

The interview was over.

A couple of the newspapers made offers. The Baltimore Sun was ready to bring me in as the assistant graphics editor. We were so serious about it that my wife (then my fiancée) and I put a deposit down on an apartment. When they sent over the contract, it stipulated that the company owned the copyright to everything I did — inside the newsroom and out. We had discussed this during the interview. I couldn’t sign that contract, I said, because I had this comic strip I was working on. They assured me it was no problem. I called to have the clause removed. They refused.

“You’re not going to turn down a job with us over one, little clause, are you?”

We never did get our deposit back.

I feel like I told you about this next part before, but I can’t find it in my archives, and it’s too good to pass up telling.

All of this happened in the summer of 1998. I had proposed on Valentine’s Day earlier that year. Our wedding day was set for October. (We celebrated 27 years Friday.) We were cutting it close even considering the Sun, but I was miserable in Akron.

Around the same time, the editor at the Seattle Times, who decided I wasn’t a good fit for their newspaper, dropped my name to the graphics editor at the Philadelphia Daily News: “He’d be perfect for your newspaper.”

So I got a request to come out for an interview in Philadelphia.

I turned it down immediately. I couldn’t do that to Caroline again. And besides, there’d be no time.

Then the graphics editor, John Sherlock, mailed me a package explaining what kind of newspaper the Daily News was. It was a big-city tabloid that spoke Truth to Power in everyday language.

An unnamed columnist, writing under the pen name "The Phantom Rider," covered the public transportation system. His column sig was a photo of the back of his head — so he could report anonymously on behalf of the city's straphangers.

Another reporter had been punished with a reassignment to the obits. He got the ultimate revenge. He started writing obituaries so beautiful that he became untouchable by management. His obits celebrated everyday Philadelphians, and his column became one of the most well-read features in the newspaper.

A woman standing a little over five-feet tall covered the Philadelphia mafia, and she was feared and respected by made men, bosses, and capos. And even a few editors.

Sherlock included a copy of Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine that covered the newspaper industry. It featured the editor-in-chief, Zack Stalberg, dressed in a gorilla costume, hanging from the top of the Philadelphia Inquirer clock tower. (The Daily News was owned by the same company and the two papers shared the building... but competed fiercely.)

Oh, and the folks at the Daily News not only loved my cartoons, they wanted to incorporate them into the news coverage!

Paging through all of these in bed (we were living in sin), my wife turned to me and told me if I didn't take the interview, the wedding was off. That editor in Seattle was right. This was the perfect place for me.

The newspaper flew me out for the official interview. I was offered the job, but I had to start before our wedding date. We had one week to find an apartment and prepare. The week before my wedding, the paper put me up in a hotel. Meanwhile my finacée packed all of our belongings for the movers that the newspaper hired to load, drive to Philly, and store.

I flew back to Canton, Ohio, for our wedding — after which, we boarded a plane to Orlando for a week in Disney World. Most of this was paid for by a freelance newspaper job I had worked earlier in the year. (Like I said, the newspaper industry was very healthy back then.)

While we were honeymooning with the Mouse, my new boss was supervising the movers as they loaded our boxes into our new apartment. He FedExed the keys to Orlando, and at the end of the week, we flew to Philadelphia and walked into an apartment full of boxes… and a bottle of wine and a card officially welcoming us to our new life in Philadelphia.

The Reuben Awards

I mentioned last week that I made some remarks at the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Awards ceremony while I was presenting the awards for Best Newspaper Panel and Best Online Comic / Shortform. Here’s the video from that night.