Let the machine pick it up

Hello. We can't come to this blog right now because we've moved to our new Minions site at Minions at Work. A new Minions panel has just been posted there, and you're missing it because you have the oll address. Be sure to update your bookmarks, and if you wish, leave your name and a million dollars at the sound of the beep.

BEEP

Working hard, or hardly working?

Did you notice we moved yet? Find the Minions at our new site, Minions at Work. A new Minions panel has just been posted. Be sure to update your bookmarks!

Minions back at work

A new Minions panel has just been posted at the new site. Remember to update your links, and check there each Monday for a new Minions toon.

http://minionsatwork.blogspot.com/

Minions on the Move (be sure to move with them)

The new Minions toon site, Minions at Work is live and running at:
http://minionsatwork.blogspot.com/

Monday's new panel will be posted there, not here. You'll also find all the exisiting Minions material reposted there as well, so you don't even need to bookmark this as an archive (it will go away at some point anyhow). I will post a reminder of the new panel here, and every week for a while, until I'm sure all traffic has been directed to the new site.

Please bookmark the new link and delete this one. Once again, I ask your help in passing the link around.

I apologize again to the Dandelion Studios folks for accidently treading on the title of their comic. You'll find a link to their site on the new page as well. My way of saying, "sorry, dudes."

And sorry to my readers out there for this inconvenience so soon after we've started. Just to make it worth your while to visit the new page, I've added a little "DVD Extra" feature for Minions #6.

Minions #8

Minions at Work

After considerable thought, I'm planning on moving my Minions from their current "Minions for Hire" home. Gynn Stella at Dandelion Studios returned my email and was quite nice about it all, but my feeling was that they'd really rather not have somebody sharing such a considerable part of their long-established title, and I can't blame them.


It's a pain to move after all the trouble I've gone to of trying to spread this URL around, but better now than six months from now, and it's my own fault for not doing a Google search on "Minions for Hire" before announcing the blog (thanks, mom!). So no hard feelings. It's just better for all parties in the long run to avoid any possible confusion.

I'm considering several options (yes, I've Googled them all) and in fact, I've set up placeholder blogs for most of them. But at the moment, my leading contender is "Minions at Work." It's short, memorable, incorporates a minor pun, and suggests the workplace humor that I consider a vital part of my Minions concept. Comments and suggestions are welcome, but that's what I'm thinking at the moment.

While I have a blog set up for this, it's going to take some time to move over after I pull the trigger. New title graphics have to be created, the blog's template has to be edited, and all the "backlist" Minions toons have to be reposted. Watch this space for further developments.

Meanwhile, here's the promised Monday toon.

Hey, what a coincidence! We're evil-underlings too!

Well, I just learned, from my mother of all people (her secret Native American name: She-who-finds-things-for-you-on-search-engines), that there's already a comic out there with a similar title, and a slightly similar concept to my Minions. I refer you to the folks at Dandelion Studios, who have a comic series titled "Zephyr & Reginald: Minions for Hire."

The strong similarity (based on looking at some of their samples) is that Zephyr and Reginald work as minions for various evil overlords and deliver ironic humor. But the execution couldn't be more different. These are black-and-white (far as I can tell) multi-panel comics about a pair of engineers who, when the job market goes south, turn to mad science. These guys actually build evil devices for their masters. My guys would be lucky to operate a can-opener, much less build one. Their guys actually seem to aspire to evil. My guys probably got recruited as minions at a job fair somewhere, and took the job only because the main alternative (possibly the chicken processing industry) sounded even worse. My guys wear uniforms, while these guys don't look in the least interchangeable. Heck, they even have real names. My guys just have numbers (except for "Rookie").

So I don't see any foul here. I've never heard of these guys before, though they've been out there for a couple years at least. We're clearly riffing off the same source material, though in much different ways.

As for the title, well, the only reason this blog is called "Minions for Hire" is because just plain-old "Minions" was taken (and not by anything useful, but by a "test" blog made years ago and completely abandoned). I'm not terribly attached to "Minions for Hire" as a blog name, but I'm reluctant to just abandon it after I've put so much work into spreading it around. But I just checked, and "Are we not Minions?" is also available here, and in fact, I just created a placeholder to reserve it in case I decide to move.

I think I'll contact them, explain the situation, and see if we can reach a gentleman's agreement. If they feel like the blog title is stepping on their toes, I'll likely vacate it as a courtesy, even though I don't think there's any legal obligation to do so. If there are to be changes, I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, new Minions on Monday.

Minions #7