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April was an incredible month! The latest Evil Inc chapter ended with our Favorite Couple back in each other’s arms, the Commander joining Thea on a mission to save her homeworld, and Dr. Muskiday smack dab in the middle of it all…

To alleviate potential conflicts of interest, Miss Match has taken a new role at Evil Inc, teaching seminars for supervillains…

…and Captain Heroic has been allowed to rejoin Justice Ltd. — with only a few people holding a grudge.

I’m going to take a little while to write the next chapter. In the meantime, I’ll be posting some of my favorite Bonus Cartoons on the Evil Inc website, like this one…

I’ll also be posting special “Meanwhile…” comic strips that check in on different corners of the Evil Inc universe…

Kickstarter

The Kickstarter for the new Evil Inc books was a fantastic success, and I’ve been busily prepping the files for the printer. As of today, the files have been transferred and the contracts are being signed. I’ll begin delivering digital rewards very soon!

Evil Inc After Dark

There were some jaw-dropping commissions posted in April. I can’t even find a way to crop most of them so I can share them here, but some of the standouts were:

• Phenomenal Lass posing for a centerfold photographer

• Miss Match and H-Bomber canoodling on the job

• A group scene featuring Miss Match and most of the Justice Ltd heroes.

• Miss Starr and a holstaur

• Tauros and Quaker and Phenomenal Lass taking a well-deserved break

Special Offer

Everyone who was an NSFW-level backer as of April 30th received a free download code for the 57-page, full-color Tales from the EiAD Archive #16: Monster Romance. If you missed it, you can pick up your copy here.

And I’m planning a gangbusters Special Offer for May!

All that, and I was honored by the National Cartoonists Society members with a nomination for Best Online Longform Comic. It was a tremendous month, and I’m thrilled to have you as part of the community that makes it possible!

As I take a little time to finish the prep for the new Evil Inc books and write the plot for the next chapter, I’ll post some comics in a series I call “Meanwhile…”

“Meanwhile…” will present short story snippets from the main Evil Inc comic that will check in on characters from previous plotlines. This is also a fun way to return to one of my first loves — comic strips! We’ve already checked in on Desi’s throuple, and today, we’re turning our attention to Cassie Cruz. She’s still at the helm of the Silver Agency — although it is now a subsidiary of Evil Inc. I’m hoping to circle around to Lightning Lady and Angus very soon.

Here are the previous “Meanwhile…” strips:

Special Offer

As of midnight tonight, all of my NSFW-level backers will get a free eComic in the first part of May! Here are some more details!

I was floored that the National Cartoonists Society members nominated me for Best Online Longform Comic. This is my second nomination in two years, and I’m overwhelmed by the honor!

Two powerhouse cartoonists were also nominated this year. Jason Chatfield is a New Yorker cartoonist whose longform comic “You’re Not A Real Parent Until…” started as a special feature on The New Yorker’s website. It reassures all parents that everything’s going to be totally fine — whether it’s accepting dried vomit as a constant presence or learning to fear silence!

Evan Dahm’s Third Voice is a tour de force of visual storytelling. The story is an ambitious fantasy graphic novel following wandering scavengers in an ending world. Spondule and Navichet are set in “an invented world in a state of apocalyptic crisis, and the precarious lives of many people therein.” 

The complete list of nominees can be found here. They include:

• Variety Entertainment: Kieran Castano; Chuck Dillon; Bob Weber, Jr.

• Advertising/Product Illustration: Chuck Dillon; Sam Grinberg; Pashur House

• Book Illustration: Landis Blair; Danesh Mohiuddin; Tom Richmond

• Online Comics / Short Form: Sarah Anderson; Jim Benton; Dee Fish

• Comic Book: Jesus Hervas; Kelly Phillips; Jay Stephens

• Gag Cartoons: Tyson Cole; Dan Misdea; Benjamin Schwartz

• Graphic Novel: Darrin Bell; Sarah Bollinger; Daniel Clowes

• Magazine/Newspaper Illustration: Jason Chatfield; Nick Galifianakis; Johnny Sampson

• Newspaper Comic Strips: Tauhid Bondia; Hector Cantu; Liniers

• Online Comics / Long Form: Jason Chatfield; Evan Dahm; Brad Guigar

• Editorial Cartoons: Michael de Adder; Ruben Bolling; Michael Ramirez

• Newspaper Panels: Dave Blazek; Nick Galifianakis; Wayno

Winners will be announced at the 78th Annual Reuben Awards Dinner in San Diego on August 23rd, 2024

Watch me draw a cartoon about how bees dance to communicate the location of flowers while I play a clip from my podcast, ComicLab, that discusses the importance of making your monthly Profit & Loss statements!

I teach a couple of classes at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. One is a general Storytelling class, and the other uses TV shows to analyze story structure. The classes meet on Mondays, and they’re routinely a highlight of my week. They challenge me to think on my toes, and that’s an exciting, rewarding experience. On some days, a student will ask a question that forces me to rethink everything I thought I knew.

Last Monday was one of those days.

Earlier in the semester, I lectured my Storytelling students on the importance of conflict. Conflict is integral, I told them. Without conflict, a story becomes a grocery list. This led to an examination of how conflict is used to build narrative tension. One student raised his hand.

“But… does a story HAVE to have conflict?”

My gut reaction was to say that, indeed, it did. The student responded that sometimes he felt manipulated by stories that simply dumped conflict into a reader’s lap, expecting a Pavlovian response.

My response was that the student should follow his instinct and challenge himself to write a compelling story without using conflict. I suggested that a great deal could be learned about his concerns by doing precisely that.

As I moved back into my prepared remarks for the day, I felt like I had… failed a little bit. You can usually tell when you’ve connected with a young writer. It’s as if a light turns on behind their eyes. That didn’t happen.

Later, as luck would have it, one of the listeners to my weekly podcast, ComicLab, asked my co-host and me to discuss kishōtenketsu. A writing structure that originated in China — and was embraced enthusiastically by Japanese and Korean writers — kishōtenketsu is a four-act writing archetype that doesn’t place the focus on conflict.

Invigorated, I did a deep dive into kishōtenketsu, learning of its dominance in manga and anime. I saw how Studio Ghibli used it in many of its wonderful feature films. I even learned about Yonkama, a special type of four-panel comic strip built using kishōtenketsu principles. Before long, I had assembled the materials for an hour-long presentation on the subject, complete with video clips, examples, analysis, and suggestions for exploration.

On Monday, I presented that lecture. I opened by recalling that student’s question and admitting that I felt my initial answer wasn’t satisfactory — not to the student and not to me. The young writer expressed amazement that I had even remembered! Giddily, I launched into my lecture. I did a general introduction to the concept, explaining how each syllable of kishōtenketsu represented one of the four acts — ki, shō, ten, and ketsu.

• Introduction (ki) establishes the main characters and their setting.

• Development (shō) deepens the reader’s understanding / emotional attachment to characters.

• Twist (ten) introduces an unexpected and significant change to the setting and to the characters’ lives.

• Conclusion (ketsu) brings together and reconciles the first two acts with the changes of the third.

I showed video clips of manga artists explaining the concept and using visual examples of how it was implemented in their work. I introduced Yonkama and pulled some charming examples. I did a breakdown of “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and discussed how each plot point fit wonderfully into a kishōtenketsu story structure. Forty minutes, twenty-four slides, a half-dozen comics, and two videos later, I turned breathlessly to this young writer to ask if this time — at long last — this time, I had done a better job of slaking his thirst for knowledge.

He was fast asleep.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed learning about this writing structure. It became a very useful post in The Webcomics Handbook, and we’ll definitely discuss it on ComicLab. I have a lecture I can call upon whenever the subject comes up again. Heck, I might even make it part of the official syllabus next semester. Besides, I’ve fallen asleep in my fair share of classrooms (as a student, of course). And I know from personal experience that I was absorbing a lot more information than it might have seemed at the time — if only by osmosis. There’s still a small chance that some of that information found its way into my student’s psyche. Or maybe another student in the class found it to be a breath-through moment.

That’s the thing about teaching: You can rarely call your shots, you can’t force a student to pay attention, and you feel like some days, everybody would be much happier if you just let them go home. But no classroom experience is ever wasted. Somewhere in that room, a light turned on. Or will be.

And that’s my kishōtenketsu story. Literally and figuratively.

—–

Special Offer

When these things go ‘bump’ in the night, they mean business!

I combined the last round of Monster Romance bonus cartoons with some of the best monster mashes from EiAD and the commissions — culminating in a fantastic NSFW eComic for my Patreon backers!

• Existing patrons? If you’re at an NSFW tier, do nothing. You’ll get your download the first week of May.

• Free members? Upgrade to an NSFW level today! You’ll get instant access to over 1,400 NSFW comics and illustrations. Then, at the beginning of May, you’ll get the special eComic AND LEWDcrate, a 4½-gigabyte digital reward!

Smartphone edition!

This digital reward will be delivered in a special vertical-scroll format optimized for smartphones! This works best when you import it into an eBook app like Apple’s iBooks.

Inside

• Three EiAD storylines

• Ten Commissions

• 28 Bonus cartoons

This page brings the current chapter of Evil Inc to a close — very similar to the way it started…

We finally find out whether Wingman got over his nasty fangover.

Callback

Longtime readers will know this is a callback to an earlier scene.

“Where’s Wingman’s wings?”

Wingman has the ability to compress his wings very tightly and fold them against his back. (Long-longtime readers will remember that, pre-reboot, his wings were energy constructs that could be deactivated.)