We worked on this new book for the entire Winter and it’s finally HERE! Kevin the Zombie has finally made his book debut! Ashlie and I are so excited that Kevin is making his way out into the world and the world seems to be liking him! If you want to get in on the excitement you can order your copy RIGHT HERE!

Every morning, Kevin wakes up hungry and hurries to the kitchen for a big breakfast. But this morning is different. Join Kevin as he discovers the people and things that make up his community while on a search for the most important meal of the day. Written by Ashlie Hammond and Drawn by Dane Ault

So, when I last left you, it was still X-mas time. Snow on the ground, presents around the tree, the sounds of family yelling at each other over the top of extravagantly prepared meals filling the air – brings a tear to the eye, doesn’t it?

Well, it is no longer Xmas. But that means we’re staring down the barrel of that most insidious of holdays: Valentine’s Day. Back when MMP first started, we sold Zombie greeting cards and after the first 3 Xmas designs, I did up some Valentine’s cards. So, I’m going to talk about one of those today.

This was one of the first “Geeky Greetings” I’d ever done and the first Zombie Valentine. We were thinking up ideas for our Zombie cards and I sketched up this hand coming out of the ground with a heart in it. I don’t know where it came from, but it came out pretty much fully-formed. Ashlie thought up the text and here we have it: Our very first VD card.

And I think that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading the newest installment of “Geeky Greeting Card Spotlight.” Is there any card in particular you’d like to see me talk about? Let me know in the comments or email me at the contact button above.

I, however, am NOT so much a writer. My skills (or talents, if you must) tend more toward the visual than the written. But, Ashlie’s writing a NaNo story, and I didn’t want to be left out this year. So, I did what I do so often, and went my own way with someone else’ concept.

My goal is to draw a picture book and have it at least partially colored by the end of the month of November. To that end, (and to keep some sort of pressure on myself) I’m posting each page as it’s drawn on my Tumblr every day. And then on Friday, I’ll post all 5 for that week up here for you to look at. How’s that for service? Let’s get this party started, shall we?

In these pages, you can see Kevin sets off with determination to get to the school (where the big brains are grown) but has come across yet another obstacle: A cauliflower field! What are these things, Kevin wonders. Are they edible?

NO. At least not as far as Kevin is concerned.

Unfortunately, Kevin’s discovery of this highly educated cabbage (per Mark Twain) is not well-received by the farmer that owns the field. Kevin is chased off and beats feet toward the school, post-haste.

So, that’s week three! Check me out on Tumblr to catch these as they’re updated and swing back by here next week. Also, I’ve started a weekly feature here on MMP about our Geeky Greeting Cards where I feature a card a week. I’ll be writing about new designs I come up with and old designs that I like. If you have a card design you’d like to read me yak about, let me know in the comments. As always, if you have a Geeky Greeting Card idea you’d like to see made, let me know at Dane [at] monkeyminionpress.com. If I like your idea enough to make it into a card, I’ll send you a set of free cards and do a post about it right here on the blog.

See you next week, minions!

Dane

So, keeping with the holiday theme from last week, I wanted to show you guys and gals another of our NEW card designs. This one arose from the same conversation as the Santa Who card I talked about last time (it’s a long drive from Seattle to the old homestead in Portland and I have trouble sleeping in the car). We got to thinking about our Western holiday traditions and how someone from another culture, or PLANET might look at some of them. Thinking about “traditional” holiday practices made me think of the practice of stringing mistletoe up around your house to lure unsuspecting passersby into awkward and largely unwanted kisses. This is a practice that even I, being from Earth and of a Western perspective, have troubles justifying. Just imagine if say the ever-logical Mr. Spock found out about it! Can you imagine his confusion and consternation? The very idea made me LOL, so I knew I had to share with you via the artform of “Card”. Whatcha think?

And I think that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading the newest installment of “Geeky Greeting Card Spotlight.” Is there any card in particular you’d like to see me talk about? Let me know in the comments or email me at the contact button above. Check back on Friday to look in on my progress with my NaNoPicBookWriMo project!

I, however, am NOT so much a writer. My skills (or talents, if you must) tend more toward the visual than the written. But, Ashlie’s writing a NaNo story, and I didn’t want to be left out this year. So, I did what I do so often, and went my own way with someone else’ concept.

INTRODUCING NANOPICBOOKWRIMO!

My goal is to draw a picture book and have it at least partially colored by the end of the month of November. To that end, (and to keep some sort of pressure on myself) I’m posting each page as it’s drawn on my Tumblr every day. And then on Friday, I’ll post all 5 for that week up here for you to look at. How’s that for service? Let’s get this party started, shall we?

In these pages, Kevin catches up to the man with the packages. Sadly, the Package Man tells Kevin that he has no brains to spare, and wishes him luck. While the man is wandering off on his route, Kevin sees a little girl across the street jumping rope and goes to ask her if she’s seen any brains. Unfortunately, she also has bad news for Kevin, but tells him about a magical place where her mom told her that they grow brains: the local school.

So, that’s week two. Check me out on Tumblr to catch these as they’re updated and swing back by here next week. Also, I’ve started a weekly feature here on MMP about our Geeky Greeting Cards where I feature a card a week. I’ll be writing about new designs I come up with and old designs that I like. If you have a card design you’d like to read me yak about, let me know in the comments. As always, if you have a Geeky Greeting Card idea you’d like to see made, let me know at Dane [at] monkeyminionpress.com. If I like your idea enough to make it into a card, I’ll send you a set of free cards and do a post about it right here on the blog.

See you next week, minions!

Dane

Sorry I didn’t get this up yesterday. I had a MASSIVE headache that kept me from moving off the couch, so I was stuck watching “Good Eats” all day. But here we are today! W00T!

So, for today’s feature I wanted to talk to you about a new card I just finished recently. It’s coming up on the holiday season (I know, I know), and with that in mind, what do you think of first? Yes! A fat man in a red suit with a compulsive trespassing addiction! So, Ashlie and I were talking about this one day in the car, trying to figure out how this man, even with the help of 8 tiny quadrupedal arctic ruminants, could get all around the world in less than 24 hours. Even taking into account time zone shifts, and the international date line, it just seemed an impossible task to justify scientifically. So, we started thinking outside the realm of science and more into science fiction. Assuming Santa doesn’t have access to a warp drive we thought about everyone’s favorite Gallifreyan. What if The Doctor wasn’t the last Time Lord? What if we’ve had a secret Time Lord on Earth this whole time who spends his spare time keeping tabs on the misbehavior of children and rewarding those he found “good?” What if Santa’s sleigh was actually a TARDIS!? Thus this card was created.

And I think that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading the first installment of “Geeky Greeting Card Spotlight.” Is there any card in particular you’d like to see me talk about? Let me know in the comments or email me at the contact button above.

I, however, am NOT so much a writer. My skills (or talents, if you must) tend more toward the visual than the written. But, Ashlie’s writing a NaNo story, and I didn’t want to be left out this year. So, I did what I do so often, and went my own way with someone else’ concept.

INTRODUCING NANOPICBOOKWRIMO!

My goal is to draw a picture book and have it at least partially colored by the end of the month of November. To that end, (and to keep some sort of pressure on myself) I’m posting each page as it’s drawn on my Tumblr every day. And then on Friday, I’ll post all 5 for that week up here for you to look at. How’s that for service? Let’s get this party started, shall we?

So, in these pages, we see Kevin waking up hungry (as you do), going downstairs to find food and finding himself alone in the house. What’s a hungry Zombie Boy to do, I ask. Well, first you search around the house looking for food. Finding none, he wanders outside into the blinding sunlight for the first time, only to find a man delivering packages and envelopes to other houses. Would HE know where to find brains for breakfast?

So, that’s week one. Check me out on Tumblr to catch these as they’re updated and swing back by here next week. Also, I’m going to start a weekly feature here on MMP about our Geeky Greeting Cards where I feature a card a week. I’ll be writing about new designs I come up with and old designs that I like. If you have a card design you’d like to read me yak about, let me know in the comments. As always, if you have a Geeky Greeting Card idea you’d like to see made, let me know at Dane [at] monkeyminionpress.com. If I like your idea enough to make it into a card, I’ll send you a set of free cards and do a post about it right here.

See you next week, minions!

Dane

Here at MMP, our Minions are busy creating loads of Geeky Goodness for your holiday celebrations and enjoyment. We’ve got 3 NEW holiday card designs AND we’re offering a great SALE!

Holiday Sale on ALL cards!

This year, we’re putting ALL of our cards on sale on Etsy and our own site (StoreEnvy) for the entire holiday season. Our cards usually retail for 3.00 each. Until January 1, 2013, you can also buy 4 cards for only $10.00.

To make use of this sale, just purchase the Four Card Deal on Etsy or our site and list the four cards you’d like in the comments section of the purchase.

All the minions of MMP wish all of you Happy Holidays!

Selling online? Impossible.

In the beginning, we planned on selling these cards at shows or in comic book stores. Online sales were mostly unplanned. We were grateful, but surprised, when people related to our particular sense of humor enough to purchase our cards online with the added shipping. As always, we were worried about getting the product safely to the purchaser. Very little time was spent thinking about our shipping process specifically in regards to cards; we just used the same bubble mailer we used for prints and other more easily damaged items.

I’m embarrassed to admit that it took a couple of years for it to sink in that the bubble mailer wasn’t necessarily the best option. While it worked in terms of getting the purchased items to you, the buyer, in good shape most of the time, there were two major drawbacks that should have been obvious:

1) We were charging too much for shipping a single card.
We had to. Bubble mailers, even bought in multiples, aren’t cheap. Also, due to the thickness of anything     shipped in such a mailer, we were paying for shipping a parcel rather than a letter. As high as our shipping may have seemed, most of the time it didn’t actually cover all our shipping costs.

2) We were not behaving in an eco-friendly manner.
We aren’t hippies, but we do choose to live and work in Portland, OR. We recycle. We use the “good” light bulbs and turn the heat down as much as possible. We’ve had to come to terms with the idea that it is totally impossible for all of our business practices to be green. However, the anti-green way we shipped our cards was getting really hard to ignore.

The bubble mailers aren’t easily recyclable. The padding added bulk which meant that the greeting card we shipped was using more resources to get to its next destination and would ultimately take up more room in someone’s local landfill.

Enter our newer, leaner, better shipping method.

We now ship all of our card-only orders in a sturdy, easily-recyclable craft envelope. Testing found that this method has almost no increase in the chance for damaged goods over the use of the old bubble mailers. That isn’t to say the Post Office won’t ever damage the items we ship to you, only that the existing chance hasn’t grown much.

Inside the sturdy envelope, we’re still placing the cards in a plastic bag to ensure the best chance of your items getting to you in good condition. (We’ve received enough wet packages over the years to be worried about this.) However, if you are willing to take the risk in the name of saving the planet (my post person swears that millions of cards are delivered every year without a problem), let us know in the comments and we’ll leave off the plastic.

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

No really. While we like to make money and pay the mortgage, MMP never planned on making money through our shipping charges. The changes to our shipping procedures will save us money – so we’re passing those savings on to you, our loyal customers. We’ve cut our shipping for cards in half. Yes, half. Right now, we’re working on making those changes to all of our listings on Etsy and Storenvy.

If you’ve bought a card in the past, you have our thanks. We appreciate your willingness to support what we do, despite our (former) strange need to send it to you in an over-sized bubble mailer. You are the reason that we can continue do what we love, and we hope that this change makes it easier for you to support us in the future.