Tag Archives: slave labor graphics

Graphic Policy’s Top Comic Picks this Week!

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Duke #3

Wednesdays (and Tuesdays) are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in

Each week our contributors choose what they can’t wait to read this week or just sounds interesting. In other words, this is what we’re looking forward to and think you should be taking a look at!

Find out what folks think below, and what comics you should be looking out for this week.

A Simple Truth (Amaze Ink/Slave Labor Graphics) – Based on Kevin Sacco’s own experience with international adoption.

Charred Remains #3 (Mad Cave) – We want to know what’s up with this one! The flaming man has been an interesting mystery so far. Think Backdraft mixed with horror.

Conan the Barbarian #8 (Titan Comics) – High quality Conan tales, the series has been excellent so far with solid storytelling and art.

Duke #3 (Skybound) – The Energon Universe has been great and this new take on Duke has been fantastic. Full of paranoia and action, it’s a great introduction to the world before G.I. Joe exists!

I May Be a Guild Receptionist, But I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time Vol. 2 (Yen Press) – This series has been great so far with a fun concept and great art. The volume twists things up in interesting ways we didn’t expect until much later.

Jill and the Killers #2 (Oni Press) – We got sucked into the first issue in this (possible murder) mystery series.

The Penguin #7 (DC Comics) – The series has been amazing so far as the Penguin attempts to rebuild his empire.

Punisher #4 (Marvel) – We want to know what/who Jigsaw is! Is it the classic villain back? Something/someone else? We’re loving the new Punisher.

Savage Sword of Conan #1 (Titan Comics) – The main Conan series has been excellent so far, so we’re intrigued to see if this series can equal that quality.

Alex Shumacher’s Mr. Butterchips Returns with Political Statements and Social Satire from the Perspective of an ill-tempered Monkey

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Mr. Butterchips

Get set. One seriously maniacal monkey is about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting public! Weekly installments of Mr. Butterchips by Alex Schumacher have launched on SLG Publishing, accompanied by new apparel to help fans show their love for the celebrated curmudgeonly capuchin.

Mr. Butterchips illustrates the day-to-day antics of a prickly organ grinder’s monkey set in a surreal fictional West Coast town, which is populated by an array of quirky characters. It’s through this satirical hallucinogenic lens that the pitfalls of a “gig economy” are examined while touching on such timely issues as class disparity and intolerance; amplifying the absurdity of what it means to be alive in a world which seemingly becomes more insane by the second.

The comic first appeared in the online literary magazine Drunk Monkeys beginning in April of 2016. SLG Publishing released Mr. Butterchips: A Collection of Cantankerous Commentary in 2020, assembling the initial run of the webcomic along with a 22-page standalone acid trip of a story entitled “Psychotropic San Francisco Sojourn.”

Chip in and Help Save Slave Labor Graphics

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slave-labor-graphics-300Established in 1986, Slave Labor Graphics (SLG Publishing) has put out some of the most iconic comics of the past 30 years like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee, Milk & Cheese and more. Much of my reading list in high school was filled with their comics.

Times have changed and owner Dan Vado has turned to GoFundMe in hopes of raising $85,000 to help get the company back on it’s feet. He writes honestly as to where it’s at, and what lead to the situation:

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.

You can chip in now to help out, even $5 gets them to their goal.

Preview: Nova Phase #1 and #2

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PromocoverOut today is Nova Phase #1 and #2, the beginning of a six issue series coming out through Slave Labor Graphics.  It’s full of pixel art, adventure, and crushed dreams! Like all good things. The first issue is available today FREE on comiXology, and issue #2 is just 99 cents.

Nova Phase: A treasure hunt in space with old school video game graphics!

We have all had dreams. Dreams that we would have given anything to achieve and yet have eluded our grasp. It is about reaching for the stars and missing, it is about what one does with the failures that seem to make up most of life.

Veronica Darkwater is a down on her luck bounty hunter who finds herself plunged into an intergalactic treasure hunt for a legendary world of untold wealth. But she must compete with a crazy military commander who will stop at nothing to cement his name in history. Will she stay alive long enough to see if the legends of the mythical world of Una Tesara are true? A riveting adventure with retro 80’s/90’s arcade style art.

Nova Phase is a creator owned six issue series by writer Matthew Ritter and artist Adam Elbatimy.

A print version of the first two issues will be collected and for sale in February through the SLG website and Amazon. Issue #3 and #4 will be out in March and April respectively, with another two issue collection out in June, and issue #5 and #6 shall be out in July and August, with the final two issue collection coming out for print in September.

Cover#1 cover#2

Review: Rebel Angels #1

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turner-rebel-angels-1Did you ever wonder what Milton’s Paradise Lost, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Children, and Monsters, Inc. would be like if it were set during a revolutionary war in Hell? No, you probably haven’t, because why on earth would you?! If, however, that mash-up sounds appealing, then you might think about checking out James Turner‘s Rebel Angels #1 from Slave Labor Graphics.

Rebel Angels #1 is a 70-page comic that is, as best I can put it, quite singular. Although it’s advertised as a Paradise Lost and Monsters, Inc. mash-up, it’s more of a vulgar and absurd story about hellions and their personal lives than it is anything inspired by Paradise Lost. The only Milton inspiration in the comic is the rare quotes, and the fact that it’s set in Hell…as far as I can tell, it could just as easily (and wrongly) be called an Inferno adaptation.

I didn’t particularly enjoy Rebel Angels, except for the art. Turner’s script is charmingly fun to read, but not really captivating; I wasn’t incredibly engaged in the story. As such, it would work well as a comic for youngins, if not for references to anilingus and violent beheading and the like, so it occupies an awkward position between readerships. At least in my opinion, though I know plenty of adults who appreciate TV shows like Adventure Time, and I do like DC’s animated shows, but I couldn’t really jive to the script.

Turner’s art, however, is fantastic, a beautiful and strange blend of cartoonish animation a la Craig McCracken (Foster’s Home, Powerpuff Girls) and an intense focus on architecture and background detail. Though I was not a huge fan of the story (in fact, I had a hard time being interested enough to follow the story), I would easily plaster a wall with the art from Rebel Angels #1.

James Turner’s Rebel Angels #1 is certainly a comic worth reading, if not to oogle at the art, and who knows, maybe you’ll be a fan of the story as well. It can’t hurt to pick up 70 pages of great, fun art for a solid price. It should be available soon on the SLG website, so check things out there if you’re interested.

Story and Art: James Turner
Story: 4 Art: 8 Overall: 6 Recommendation: Read

Slave Labor Graphics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review