The Mystery of Mr. Minestrone | Behind the King St. Capers

Here's a different example of how things work sometimes:

Epic Fail, To Do List, Hat Vendor and Abbey Road

Recently I've changed my pattern a little bit.Before, I'd dedicate a week to writing only Capers, or only comics or only Tomb of the Undead, but instead, now I'm drawing up a mixture of strips at a time, including Business Man @ Home, too. It brings more variety to my week.

But this example came before that switch, and after building a deep catalog of King St. Caper strips, I realized a change was a good idea. So a Caper, a regular webcomic, plus a Business Man @ Home, and whatever else is floating my boat at the time is generally what I"m working on at any given time.

This page, however, is probably the last time I wrote four Capers in one week, and likely will be the last. 

I've produced a "schedule" which shows which strips I'm well prepared for, and which I'm lagging behind in, indicating where I should focus attention the next week.

In any case, the first comic here is "Epic Fail," which had a big response on Twitter when it was published.

I suppose the "Epic Fail" meme is still flooding the Internet, which is good to see. It's not what I had in mind when I wrote it, but I'm happy to take the extra pageviews (however modest the increase was). The pure truth is - - Mr. Minestrone wrote this comic. He actually gave me a pair of godawful haircuts where I felt exactly like this. Now it's a stupid comic. Thanks Mr. Minestrone!

"To Do List" was next. While not hilarious (to me anyhow), the joke does get into Mr. Minestrone's professional philosophy. I mean, who's THAT terrible at haircuts? What could be his motive? WHY is he still doing this as a career?

Perhaps it's an opportunity to pursue his vices? I mean, if a meth-head had a job where he could be as high as shit and work at the same time, you think he'd be looking for a new job?

I also think this teases the idea that Mr. Minestrone knows full-well what he's doing: giving awful haircuts. There's something mischievous about him - - like he's MEANING to do it.

Truth be told, he's still a mystery, even to me. I'll bet he has some more surprises up his sleeve for me and everyone else in the future. Especially with the Salty Advice he's been giving lately.

"Abbey Road" was a highly, highly requested comic. I'm happy to take fan input when writing a joke, and this was no exception.

Again, it was inspired by the strip "Buncha Stooges."  Matching the colours and everything was a lot of fun. While the imagery might be a little crass, or thematically fitting in line with the King St. Capers, the colour-matching was a big success.

As well, the man in the background in the original cover art, who is represented by Mr. Minestrone, was named Paul Cole, who died in 2008, who said some surprising things that fall in line with the artwork, to my astonishment.

He says about the Abbey Road cover:
"I just happened to look up, and I saw those guys walking across the street like a line of ducks," Cole remembered. "A bunch of kooks, I called them, because they were rather radical-looking at that time. You didn't walk around in London barefoot."

It's all a coincidence that the ducks and "Buncha Stooges" resembles Cole's thoughts so precisely.

Of all of these strips, my personal favourite was "You Could Use a Hat," which I saved for last. I would usually put my favourite joke at the front of the schedule, but ... this ties into a series of other jokes, whereas the others in this slate of jokes were more "stand alone."

This specially means, you'll be seeing more of the Surveyor and his hat enterprise in the near future, and how Beardo and Mr. Minestrone may react to his hat enterprise.

This was obviously inspired from personal experience: I left his barbershop and immediately wished I had a hat. I'd bet I would have paid a pretty penny for a hat right then and there.

Thanks for reading, and if you're so inclined, follow along on Twitter of Facebook.