Titan has announced their full line-up of SDCC activities, and there’s lots to choose from with ten signing sessions and two panels, as well as a bunch of exclusive covers, merchandise and sneak-peaks of their upcoming titles.

Their Doctor Who line gets it’s own panel this year, where details of a brand new Doctor Who miniseries will be announced, including which of the Time Lord’s many regenerations will star in it. From Titan:

Titan Comics gives you a sneak peek at the next chapters for the Doctor in all his incarnations – including sneak peeks at the direction of Year Two featuring the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors! Writer Cavan Scott and artist Blair Shedd discuss the smash-hit Ninth Doctor mini series! Writer Paul Cornell gives you a sneak peek at August’s comics cross-over event! Writers George Mann and Cavan Scott and cover artist Alice X. Zhang take you behind-the-scenes of the Twelfth Doctor SDCC exclusive short story edition. Plus, we reveal the next brand-new mini series – which Doctor is it going to be? Come along to find out! All attendees receive a FREE Doctor Who comic + prizes to win!

The Titan Doctor Who Comic panel is on Saturday July 11th from 3:30PM-4:30PM in room 5AB.

Fans of Assassin’s Creed can look forward to Titan’s global premiere of  artwork from the upcoming comic series based on the hugely popular video game franchise at Titan’s other comics panel on Thursday July 9th from 2:30-3:30PM in Room 4. In addition, the panel features TV producers and writers from Heroes Reborn and The Blacklist who will discuss their work on series tie-in comics. Roman Dirge, creator/writer and artist of the cult-smash series Lenore will also be on hand to talk about his planned new work. From Titan:

Titan Comics takes you behind-the-scenes of major new projects including Assassin’s Creed, Heroes and The Blacklist! See the global premiere of artwork from the new Assassin’s Creed comics, plus be the first to find out about the launch storylines and the all-new Assassins! Heroes Reborn Supervising Producer Seamus Fahey gives you a sneak peek at the new Heroes comic and special SDCC ashcan. The Blacklist TV show writer Nicole Phillips talks about writing the new The Blacklist comic series, which debuts at SDCC! PLUS! The artists of the creator-owned hits of tomorrow will be in attendance! Cult writer Roman Dirge gives you a ghostly glimpse at Lenore and his upcoming new projects! Artist Des Taylor takes you undercover of hit series Scarlett Couture! Harvey award nominated writer Mark Wheatley discusses his new remastered edition of Breathtaker! Plus, more comics talent and prizes to win!

Want to grab an author-signed copy of that gorgeous, SDCC exclusive Heroes ashcan with art from Paul Pope? How about one of only 200 FREE Doctor Who: Four Doctors art cards signed by four Doctor crossover series writer Paul Cornell? Here’s the complete signing schedule, all signings taking place at the Titan booth #5537:

THURSDAY, JULY 9th

Writer/Artist DES TAYLOR signs copies of Scarlett Couture from 12:30PM – 1:30PM

Writer/Artist ROMAN DIRGE  will be signing copies of Something at the Window is Scratching, The Cat Really with a Really Big Head and Lenore Pink Bellies: 4:00PM — 5:00PM

FRIDAY, JULY 10th

Heroes Reborn Supervising Producer Seamus Kevin Fahey will be signing copies of the Heroes comic SDCC ashcan with exclusive art from Paul Pope from 12:00PM — 1:00PM

The Blacklist TV show writer Nicole Phillips and cover artist Alice X. Zhang will be signing copies of The Blacklist #1 from Time:  2:00PM – 3:00PM

Writers George Mann and Cavan Scott and cover artist Alice X. Zhang will be signing copies of Doctor Who: Twelfth Doctor SDCC exclusive short story edition from 4:00PM — 5:00PM

Did you miss Roman Dirge’s 7/9 signing? No problem. he’s back at the Titan booth on 7/10 signing copies of Something at the Window is Scratching, The Cat Really with a Really Big Head and Lenore Pink Bellies: 5:30PM – 6:30PM

SATURDAY, JULY 11th

Writer Cavan Scott and artist Blair Shedd will be signing copies of Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor series from 11:30AM – 12:30PM.

Writer Paul Cornell will be signing a FREE Doctor Who: Four Doctors art card. Only 200 available! From  1:30PM – 2:30PM.

Did you miss Writers George Mann, Cavan Scott and cover artist Alice X. Zhang on 7/10? Fear not, they’re back at the Titan booth signing more copies of Doctor Who: Twelfth Doctor SDCC exclusive short story edition from 5:00PM – 6:00PM.

SUNDAY, JULY 12th

Writer Max Davison, artist Matt Hebb, colourist Tracy Bailey and inker Jason Worthington will be signing copies of DreamWork’s Home #1 comic from 12:00PM – 1:00PM.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a sale at SLG Publishing and pointed out thatit had been a pioneering publsiher in reaching new market,s targetting female readers, digital and many other areas. Alas laurel resting is swiftly rewarded with living in a cardboard box in this business, and some hard times and setbacks have hit SLG. Publisher Dan Vado has just launched afunding campaign to help the company, in his words, “get back on its feet. You can read the letter below. The amount he’s looking for is steep, $85,000, but it’s an ongoing campaign.

As Vado would be the first to admit, he made a few bad decisions along the way, but SLG is one of only a handful of companies—Fantagraphics, NBM and Dark Horse are the others—to remain from the earliest days of “indie comics publishing.” It was also, like most of the companies of the period, FOR THE MOST PART committed to creator ownership, not participation—if you think that is a good thing, throw a few bucks SLG’s way.

SLG Publishing is a San Jose, CA based comic book publishing company. Established in 1986, SLG has helped many cartoonists and comics creators start their careers.

Having weathered through three recessions and market downturns too numerous to count, SLG has long maintained an even keel through turbulent times. However the past few years a perfect storm of bad luck, bad economy and, yes, bad decisions have left the company on a terrible financial footing.

For a small business with a small staff, SLG maintains a fairly large footprint in the physical sense. Warehousing and storage account for a pretty large portion of the company’s budget.

Recently we were forced to relocate because our old building was being torn down. At the time I had a couple of choices, close up altogether or try and make a go of it somewhere else.
Not wanting to turn my back on a 28 year old business (which was struggling to begin with) I decided to try and keep going, adding a retail component to our storefront that we did not have before and add some other revenue streams to our gallery store as well as our publishing company like doing contract t-shirt printing and hosting live music. Sure, the smart thing to do was to just quit, but then publishing comics was never a really smart thing either, so go figure.

We had a line of credit, a couple of them, which I used to relocate with (this after a couple of different crowd-funding initiatives did not fund).

After running up our credit line during the move our bank decided to review our account and decided that the balance on the credit line was too high and, in their infinite wisdom, demanded immediate repayment in the form of a high-interest loan. This created a domino effect where, when reporting the change in my credit status to the various credit bureaus caused them all to cut my credit and in a couple of cases close my accounts.

Because of the nature of my businesses all of our debt was secured through personal guarantees and now I am in a spot where not only am I unable to get my business righted, but I have blown through all of my personal assets other than the home I live in to keep things going.

A simple bankruptcy for me is not an option as everything comes back to me anyway, so as much as this pains me to go this route I am asking for people’s assistance in helping me and my company get back on our feet. We are still in business right now, still trying to put out comics and are still running our gallery store and I am trying to keep both of these things running. However the revenue from comics publishing is not enough to keep us open AND pay down our debt.

We have exhausted all of the typical means of raising money, crowd-funding and sales eith pretty decent discounts being a couple of them. I am taking the GoFundMe approach because this is going to be an ongoing thing for the next couple of years. This isn’t something Kickstarter would touch anyway.

So, thanks for reading this and thanks for donating if you donate.

SLG Publishing, also known as Slave Labor, is having a 35% off sale at their website. The site is a bit hard to navigate but you can find comics listed by creator hereincluding books by Jhonen Vasquez, Serna Valentina, Ted Naifeh, Andy Ristaino, Ben Towle, Gene Yang,Aaron Alexovitch, Andi Watson, James Turner and lots of other fine cartoonists.

SLG is one of the last still extant publishers from the first flush of indies in the 80s, and their publishing line—usually black and white comics in the goth, punk, retro, kids and humorous vein—was FAR ahead of its time. SLG was among the first publishers to adapt such now standard practices as digital publishing and a retail outlet, the Art Boutiki in San Jose.

They were also WAY WAY WAY ahead of the curve in publishing comics by and FOR women. In fact for many years, SLG was the only publisher that seemed to know ow to publish comics that girls liked. In fact, when DC started up the Minx line, they literally raided SLG for half their creative line-up.

As their slogan has it, “Too stupid to quit, too mean to die.” Publisher Dan Vado helped discover a lot of great cartoonists, like Evan Dorkin and Yang and Vasquez and Hicks, and he is truly one of the sage philosophers of comics. There isn’t a single San Diego con where I don’t stop by the SLG booth, at its still impressive location next to DC, to catch up.

It is no secret, however, that SLG has kind of shut down publishing in recent months. When I noticed the sale I dropped a line to Vado to see what was up. He told me that proceeds of the sale will hopefully be used to fund some new activities, and he hopes to be at San Diego once again.

SLG has had its ups and downs, but it is truly a pioneering publisher, so check out the back issues and see if there’s anything that tickles your fancy. They also have some cute t-shirts and other tchotches for sale, mostly in the tiki genre.

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Although we’ve never been there, the Boutiki run by San Jose-based comics publisher SLG has always sounded like a cool place: a storefront and performance space that sold comics and has a tiki theme in keeping with publisher Dan Vado’s sensibilities. But now, in a dime-a-dozen story of real estate improvement, the space must close by next summer as the building is being razed to make way for an apartment building.

Vado hopes to find a new space to house the venue, however, even if finding the right one won’t be easy. The Boutiki was part of the neighborhood:

The Art Boutiki has hosted regular all-ages concerts for the last three years. A fundraiser was held less than a month ago to replace a violin stolen from Curious Quail’s violinist Alan Chen. Bands brought in their families and friends, and spread the word about the cause which, in turn, brought in other supporters who helped raise funds for a new instrument.

“It’s rare to see such strong community come together to help a fellow musician and it just gave me warm fuzzies,” says Zen Zenith, co-founder of the bimonthly concert series the Rock Hop. “I can’t imagine that it would happen anywhere other than Art Boutiki.”

The quirky décor of the performance space—tikis, comic books and t-shirts displayed for sale, a vinyl record stage backdrop and the infamous penguin always on stage—is also a favorite among many local bands.

Update: As seen by the post below, ALL of SLG’s offices and publishing operations must move, making this a pretty grave threat to the long running indie.

SLG Publishing is teaming with Horrible Comics and underground comedy-rock outfit Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits for a new comics/record combo pack entitled Meal Deal with the Devil. It includes both comics and a five-song CD (including two story-songs) from Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits with an accompanying read-along storybook, illustrated by Jason Chandler of Horrible Comics.

We’re old enough to be nostalgic for this format and perhaps you and your kids will also enjoy learning about the origins of pink slime with song and panel:

Just like all those childrens books with records that let you know when to turn the page, Meal Deal with the Devil is the real deal, featuring three brand new & exclusive Bobby Joe Ebola tracks for bratty little monsters of all ages, as well as a two story songs tracks that you can read-along with! Chandlers detailed full-color art brings the MacNuggits wry, twisted humor to the page, an epic matchup that creates a hilarious carnival ride for the eyes and ears. This mutant offspring of comics and rock from the heroes of the underground is destined to be the kind of collectors item that wont stay on the shelf! The band is planning a summer tour to support the CD/Comic release and is planning on doing an acoustic set in some comic shops. 
 
First formed in 1995, Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits have become legend in the musical underground of the Bay Area and beyond, with their infamously unpredictable mix of searing social satire, soaring harmonies, outlandish and shocking truths, and poop jokes. With a nod to social satirists like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, and musical influences ranging from They Might Be Giants to DeBarge, Bobby Joe Ebola is the vaudeville routine for your personal apocalypse. The band is planning a summer tour to support the new book and record release.
 
Artist Jason Chandler is the mastermind behind Horrible Comics.  He also moonlights as lead singer for The Frustrators, a bi-coastal punk band featuring Green Days Mike Dirnt on bass.
 
Meal Deal with the Devil will be available July 2012 and will be sold in select comic book stores, record stores and on Amazon.com as well as through the bands website and the publishers website atwww.slgcomic.com. Copies will also be available during the bands US tour at all of their tour stops.  

At his blog, famous realist/curmudgeon SLG publisher Dan Vado explains why he wasn’t at ECCC and won’t be at C2E2 and “recreates” the experience of the SLG booth:

Here are a few things you would have heard at our booth.   1) Yes, that book came out last year…   2) Glad you like Courtney Crumrin, that book is published by Oni though.   3) Happy you are an Evan Dorkin fan, check the Dark Horse booth, I doubt he is there either.   4) We have no idea what Jhonen Vasquez is doing these days.   5) Roman who?   6) I thought you wanted an honest opinion of your work?   7) Generally speaking, I do not publish poetry.   8) I am not certain that (insert obscure tablet or phone platform here) is really going to be all that big for comics.   9) No, I don’t know where (insert large publisher booth, bathroom location or concession stand name here) is.   10) What time does this open tomorrow (always asked by me as I am never certain).

PS: The above photo is from this seven-years-old-but-still-pertinent piece. Wonder where Larry Zamel is now…

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Slave Labor Graphics continues to publish the unusual, the fun, the quirky!

Take a look below, visit the website, and let us know what caught your fancy!  Was it the cheap, DRM-free digital comics?  The Disney titles?  The Drunken Monkeys sports apparel?  The mondo Tiki titles?

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Everything can be Beaten

Follow the adventure of IT as he discovers a door out of his monotonous life beating kittens and into an exciting new world where all sorts of new things can be (and generally are) beaten. This FULL-COLOR 6 x 5″ storybook tale of discovery is written and with layouts by Jhonen Vasquez (under the name Mr. Chancre Scolex) and vividly painted by his friend, Mr. Crab Scrambly

Originall printed as a small, CD sized booklet, this edition will be printed larger, in hardcover edition and feature a new cover. Cover pictures is NOT ACTUAL COVER!

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Malleus Maleficarum: The Original Medieval Guide to the Catching and Burning of Witches

In 1487 Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, the premiere manual for exposing, capturing, prosecuting and burning witches used by every right-thinking European magistrate of the late middle ages. Cartoonist Mike Rosen has adapted this warm and uplifting tome which fueled a wave of witch-hunting that lasted for nearly two centuries and cost nearly 60,000 people (mostly women) their lives.

The adaptation’s tongue-in-cheek tone exposes a kind of paranoid thinking which exists to this day in some circles and answeres all of those nagging eternal questions; Do witches kill newborn babies for use in their rituals? Can they turn men into beasts? Can they steal mens’ penises, collecting them in great numbers, to hide in, say, a bird’s nest up in a tree, where they then move around like squiggly phall

2 Comments on Coming Attractions: Fall 2011: Slave Labor Graphics, last added: 12/12/2011

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craig yoe said, on 12/11/2011 6:41:00 PM

does look fun–especially the oz book!

Peter Krause said, on 12/12/2011 7:38:00 AM

Anything new from Scott Saavedra is more than welcome. The man is a treasure!

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Download the first issue of Knights of the Living Dead by Ron Wolfe and Dustin Higgins (Pinnochio Vampire Slayer) FREE from SLG. King Arthur vs the Zombies? Why not!

The dead have risen and they are walking in the time of King Arthur’s Round Table,  and one knight cursed with the “Walking Starvation” is one very close to Arthur and his court. So goes the premise of the new comic book series Knights of the Living Dead by Ron Wolfe and Dustin Higgins.

Knights of the Living Dead goes beyond its zombie comic mash-up exterior to present a a Young Adult adventure tale that goes deep into the essence of what it means to be human.  “When Ron Wolfe first showed me his short story, Knights of the Living Dead I immediately loved it.” said Dustin Higgins, who is no stranger to stories featuring the undead as the co-creator and illustrator of SLG’s Pinocchio Vampire Slayer “Ron continues to surprise me with his stories that seem to pull at you like quicksand.”

Wolfe crafted his monsters to beyond the surface frights and steeped them in a central message.  In Knights of the Living Dead the message might be that, if you’re waiting for someone else to come along and save the day – don’t. Zombies aren’t after us: Zombies are in charge of us.”

Knights of the Living Dead is being serialized digitally as part of SLG Publishing’s digital first initiative and Wolfe, a newspaper writer by trade, supports the idea of making initial inroads through digital distribution “SLG’s digital-release plan makes sense. It extends the market with the latest technology to reach the newest generation of readers.”

As the artist of the series Higgins sees other advantages to digital “Knights of the Living Dead is my first attempt at drawing an entire book digitally. So when people purchase the book to read on their computer, or iPad or other device of choice they are, in a sense, looking at the originals… as much as they exist.” he also went on to point out the potential benefit to consumers “You get the story at a much cheaper price than you would the print version and if you decide the story is awesome enough you’d like to have a physical copy, you can still get that at some point”.

Knights of the Living Dead is currently available at the SLG Publishing digital store in three formats ePub, .cbz and .pdf (www.slgcomic.com/eyemelt) as well as at the iTunes store and will be coming soon to Comixology, iVerse and Graphicly for sale through those readers as well as to BN.com for Nook and Nook Color. Issue #1 is a free download, each subsequent issue will be 99¢.

Earlier today Dan Vado, publisher of Slave Labor/SLG/Eyemelt/Amaze Ink announced that SLG would be the first publisher to go all-digital with their periodical comics. While he was careful to note that the digital channel is a new business priority for them, he also noted that SLG’s digital sales have been “minuscule” so far.

With all the talk about what is a sales record, we thought we’d ask the always candid Vado if he would be a pioneer in another regard and actually talk numbers. Which he did — with the caveat that, as noted above, their digital efforts have up until now been aimed at selling existing comics. “Selling downloads to people who probably already have the print versions is not really a road to success or a fair test of the platform,” he said. New comics going on the platform are what will really tell the tale.

So yeah. Things will only go up from here. Especially when a digital version of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Jhonen Vasquez’s incredibly popular black comedy goes digital.

I will attempt to be refreshing and give you some actual numbers, but they seriously do not mean much as this is all too new and it doesn’t mean much when you consider that most of the titles we have been offering to this point has been older stuff and most of our marketing has been to people who already own that older stuff.

The best selling downloadable comic we have had is The Griffin #2 at around 200. This is like a 20 year old comic I did for DC Comics.

Most of the other books have struggled to get to triple digits.

What I have seen though is that where our print sales, and most specifically our direct market sales have declined to the point of not even being measurable, our digital sales have gone up every month, so this has the virtue of being something where there is nothing but upside to this and that what really needs to happen is that the marketing of new properties needs to go digital first in order to even remotely make print versions viable.

And [though] it kind of goes against what I said above, next year we will be offering digital versions of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac through all of our channels. Whatever the number it sells, THOSE comics will become the top digital comics.

Reflecting the realities of the comics market, Slave Labor, the veteran publisher of such classic comics series of Milk and Cheese and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, has decided to go digital only with their periodicals. Slave Labor has been moving towards graphic novels for some time, but they still need a way to serialize books to pave the way for books — hence a move to completely digital serialization.

SLG’s books will be available on their website, and thrugh such popular digital services as iVerse and ComiXology. nitial releases include Sanctuary by Stephan Coughlin — “The Jungle Book crossed with Lost,” and Chris Wisnia’s Monstrosis a follow-up to last years quirky humor/adventure comic Doris Danger: Giant Monster Adventures. Both are available as a free download from the SLG website and iTunes. Upcoming series to see digital first releases include Snow White:Through A Glass,  Darkly by Van Jensen and Robin Holestein: Knights of the Living Dead (a zombie story set in the time of King Arthurs Round Table) By Dustin Higgins and Ron Wolfe and Peabody & D’Gorath by M.D Penman.

Two years ago, SLG’s Warlords of Io comic, by cult favorite creator James Turner, became a poster child for the dangers of Diamond’s new and more stringent listings policies when it was denied distribution due to not making a sales threshhold. Publishing and profiting from periodical format comics has become increasingly irrelevant for most indie comics publishers — that SLG even publishes them any more makes them a throwback.

However by making the movie, SLG is yet another early adapter — they were also one of the first comics publishers to make their comics digitally at all, via their Eyemelt service.

San Jose based comic book publisher SLG Publishing is embracing digital distribution of its titles and switching the company’s model for comic book series to a digital first distribution policy. “The market has been pushing us away from serialized comics and more towards books and graphic novels for some time” said SLG president and publisher Dan Vado “However it is difficult to publish a 200 page graphic novel from an unknown artist without having some sort of lower-cost entry point like a comic book series to help build an audience, so going digital first seems like a good way to introduce readers to new creators and build an audience which we can build on for potential book releases.”

SLG digital releases will

5 Comments on Slave Labor is the first to go digital only with periodicals, last added: 9/19/2011

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Torsten Adair said, on 9/19/2011 12:34:00 PM

Heh…. Searching the nook store via “slave labor” doesn’t find the books. Instead, they are under “SLG Publishing”.

$0.99 at B&N!
Eyemelt has them DRM-free! PDF, ePub, even CBZ!

Okay… all you digital decriers… SLG has given you what you want… It’s time to buy!

Bruce said, on 9/19/2011 2:10:00 PM

This is pretty exciting, especially with the format flexibility and the goal of building an audience for later print versions. I hope this experiment is successful and other creators/publishers try it as well.

Avery said, on 9/19/2011 2:31:00 PM

I like that the books are priced at a dollar, but there are no previews (can’t look at the first four pages?) and not all issues of every series is available.

For example, Loserville looks like it might be interesting, but Issue One download was free, but is “sold out”, and I can’t preview to see if it’s something I would want to read.

For The Historian of OZ, only the last issue is available.

joey said, on 9/19/2011 4:00:00 PM

I love this move. Trying to get an indie book at a comic shop is getting harder and harder. After print runs and shipping costs, there can’t be much left over for a creator or publisher. I think this will be the wave of the future, and i hope comics fans will embrace this.

Adam said, on 9/19/2011 6:47:00 PM

Fantastic!

Now this, this is what we need. Someone gets it.

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