SLG Publishing
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer channels Shakespeare for new statue
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer writer Van Jensen sends word that Dusty Higgins’ cover to the second volume of their undead-slaying trilogy is being turned into a limited edition state, which is available for pre-order on the SLG Publishing website. Check out the swell animated gif, which gives you a 360-degree look at it in all its glory.
This just over six-inch figure will be cast in high density polystone and will be nearly made to order in terms of its production run. It was designed by Figurebang Toys. Available exclusively from SLG, they will stop taking orders for this piece on Oct. 31. The statue will cost $189 for pre-orders, and those who place orders won’t be charged until the statue ships.
- September 15, 2011 @ 10:16 AM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | A roundup of Thursday’s news
The serious business of Comic-Con got underway Thursday in San Diego with a wave of panels and announcements. Here are the highlights:
• Announcements at the Marvel panel included Jeff Parker and Patrick Zircher’s Hulk of Arabia arc, a new Deadpool arc, an Avengers Academy recruitment drive and Villains for Hire, a new spin on the Heroes for Hire concept. Also in the works: A series of Avengers Origins one-shots.
• T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is coming back in November; the new comics will be written by Nick Spencer and drawn by Wes Craig.
• At the Marvel Digital panel, Marvel senior vice president of publishing David Gabriel announced that Marvel will begin simultaneous print and digital release of its Spider-Man and X-Men comics, starting next week with Amazing Spider-Man #666 and Spider Island line.
• DC released art for several of their New 52 comics. They also revealed Lois Lane’s new boyfriend.
• At the Vertigo panel, Executive Editor Karen Berger announced a new graphic novel called Marzi that would ba marketed to both young and old readers. She also said that Vertigo will launch a new Halloween anthology in October and a totally new series later this year.
- July 22, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
SDCC ’11 | Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer: Of Wood and Blood coming summer 2012
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer: Of Wood and Blood
Van Jensen and Dusty Higgins will wrap up their epic Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer trilogy with the final volume next summer — Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer: Of Wood and Blood. Jensen debuted the cover and title in San Diego this week, and sent over a description of the book:
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer: Of Wood and Blood, the final graphic novel in the trilogy, will be released in summer 2012 from SLG Publishing. The book picks up after the cliffhanger ending to Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and the Great Puppet Theater as a human Pinocchio and his decimated band of slayers struggle onward in their fight against vampires. Weighing in at about 250 pages, Of Wood and Blood will mark an epic conclusion in the former puppet’s battles against the bloodsuckers.
You can find Van at the SLG Publishing booth this week.
- July 21, 2011 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Snow White: Through a Glass Darkly coming from SLG next year
Snow White: Through a Glass, Darkly
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer writer Van Jensen dropped us a note about his next project, which attendees at HeroesCon last weekend had the chance to check out in the form of a five-page preview. Jensen and Val the Red Beard creator Robin Holstein are working on Snow White: Through a Glass Darkly, a new six-issue series due from SLG Publishing next year.
According to Jensen, the tagline for the book is, “We all think we know the story of Snow White, the poor girl who suffered under her evil stepmother. But what if the stepmother wasn’t evil after all? What if the mirror was evil?”
Look for it next spring, and in the meantime, be sure to check out Holstein’s webcomic, Val the Red Beard, which is about pirates in flying ships fighting monsters that live inside village-destroying storms. He’s posted seven strips so far, it looks like, so you’ll be getting in on the fun early.
- June 10, 2011 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
SLG offers digital Sanctuary for free
SLG describes Stephen Coughlin’s series Sanctuary as part Lost, part Island of Dr. Moreau and part Jungle Book. The Jungle Book influence is easy to get from all the talking animals, but the other two aren’t as immediately apparent. At first Sanctuary reads more like Madagascar, a simple story about a bunch of funny animals hanging out at the zoo.
But things get strange quickly when Coughlin reveals that there are no visitors to this zoo and that the humans running the place may not be helping the animals. And then the first death occurs.
Sanctuary #1 can be downloaded for free from the SLG store.
- May 27, 2011 @ 01:00 PM by Michael May
Robot Review | Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake
Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake
Written and Illustrated by Steph Cherrywell
SLG; $14.95
I hope it came through in my review of The Incredible Change-Bots that what I liked most about it was its ability to lovingly kid the things that Transformers fans like most about that cartoon while at exactly the same time successfully reproduce those qualities. That’s so difficult to do, which is why most of the time we see skewering, Mad Magazine-style parodies of things instead. As rare as it is though, lightning struck my reading pile again when I got to Pepper Penwell.
I wasn’t much into the kid-sleuth genre as a youngster, other than Hanna-Barbera’s Legion of Meddling Kids. I had one Hardy Boys book and a Tom Swift, but my childhood heroes were mostly grown-ups: James Bond, Sherlock Holmes; Hercule Poirot. It hasn’t been until my adult years that I’ve experienced much interest in stories about child detectives. Maybe it’s an attempt to re-experience childhood; maybe it’s just a search for great literature for my son; maybe my wife – a big Nancy Drew fan – is starting to influence me. Whatever the reasons, I’m finding myself drawn to stories about tween or teenaged detectives and titles like The Clue in the Crumbling Wall or The Case of the Mysterious Handprints.
These stories are the inspiration for Steph Cherrywell’s Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake, a book about a genius girl detective who’s kicked out of her posh boarding school for uncovering so much crime at the institution that parents are beginning to pull their kids out. Having nowhere else to go, she visits her police inspector father in Monster Lake, a quiet village in the English countryside where he’s investigating the disappearance of a young girl. Pepper’s looking over the case files before she even arrives.
- April 13, 2011 @ 06:56 PM by Michael May
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Justice League of America #55
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Graeme McMillan
If I had $15 this week, I’d probably put it towards the latest issues of series I’ve been enjoying for awhile: Batman Inc. #4, New York Five #3, Justice League of America #55 – Yes, even with my nervousness over Brett Booth’s art – (All DC Comics, $2.99) as well as Jeff Parker and Gabe Hardman’s Hulk #31 (Marvel Comics, $3.99).
If I had $30, however, I’d probably put JLA back on the shelf and add The Arctic Marauder (Fantagraphics, $16.99), instead. I found myself enjoying Tardi’s Adventures of Adele Blanc Sec earlier this year, and
Splurgewise, it’s a tough one – I’d like to pick up the collection of Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan’s second Demo series (DC/Vertigo, $17.99), but I see that the hardcover collection of Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth’s spectacular Stumptown (Oni Press, $29.99) is out this week, and that really falls into the
category of having to have it. I’ll grab Demo next week.
- March 22, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Axe Cop
Welcome once again to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy based on certain spending limits — $15, $30 to spend and if we had extra money to spend on what we call the “Splurge” item. Check out Diamond’s release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Michael May
If I had $15:
I’d be all about the Axe Cop, Volume 1 ($14.99). Should be the best thing since Katie Mignola’s The Magician and the Snake.
If I had $30:
I’d add On the Case with Holmes and Watson, Volume 5: The Adventure of the Speckled Band ($6.95) and Robert E. Howard’s Savage Sword #1 ($7.99). Those On the Case books are cool and a Howard anthology of new and reprinted material sounds awesome. Especially when the creators involved include Paul Tobin, Marc Andreyko, Tim Bradstreet and Barry Windsor Smith.
- December 21, 2010 @ 03:37 PM by JK Parkin
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Action Comics Annual #13
Welcome to another installment of “Food or Comics?” Every week we set certain hypothetical spending limits on ourselves and go through the agony of trying to determine what comics come home and which ones stay on the shelves. So join us as we run down what comics we’d buy if they only had $15 and $30 to spend, as well as what we’d get if we had some “mad money” to splurge with.
Check out Diamond’s release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Graeme McMillan
If I had $15, I’d spend the first $2.99 on the last King City, which definitely appears on this week’s list. Yay! Then I’d split the remaining $13 between two DC Comics: Paul Cornell’s Action Comics Annual #13 ($4.99), in which a young Lex Luthor meets Darkseid (Editor Wil Moss promised me on Twitter the other week that this will fulfill my sick, sick desire for more comics like Jack Kirby’s Super Powers toy tie-ins from the 1980s, so I’m entirely sold) and Vertigo Resurrected: Winter’s Edge #1 ($7.99), a collection of long out-of-print seasonal tales starring Vertigo favorites and forgotten ghost characters from Christmas Past. Be warned: I’m a sucker for Holiday comics, so expect to see me picking those a lot in the next few weeks. It’s the Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, after all.
- November 30, 2010 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
SLG Publishing gets into the music biz
San Jose, Calif.-based SLG Publishing is getting into the music business with a side venture called Slab Yard Sound. Per a marketing email, they plan to release music created by their employees and relatives, as well as help local indie musicians in “developing, packaging and publishing their music all the while bringing the same energy, creativity and passion to the music scene that we have been putting into comics for the last 25 years.” Here’s the entire email:
Days of Bright Commotion
The comic book industry is melting down around us, so naturally SLG Publishing’s next step should be to get into the music business. Figuring we would help turn out the lights on TWO separate industries, SLG today rolled out Slab Yard Sound Company.
Many of you have wondered where the cool music on our trailers have come from, well most of them were done in-house by our own stable of talented musicians/relatives. Slab Yard Sound is a company dedicated to those talented individuals giving them a place to showcase their talents.
SLG is also hoping to bring it’s production expertise to the local Indy music scene by helping musicians/artists in developing, packaging and publishing their music all the while bringing the same energy, creativity and passion to the music scene that we have been putting into comics for the last 25 years.
Visit the Slab Yard Sound Company website and you will find a load of free music to download. Keep an eye on the site (as well as this one) as we roll out new tunes and projects.
If you want to own the very first CD produced by Slab Yard Sound Company, check out Days of Bright Commotion by Bacchus Joint. The entire disk was recorded in the SLG Warehouse/Studio!
- November 22, 2010 @ 02:58 PM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Thor: The Mighty Avenger #1
Hello and welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where the Robot 6 crew talk about the comics and graphic novels that they’ve been enjoying lately.
Today’s guest is Zom from the Mindless Ones blog. To see what Zom and the rest of the Robot 6 team have been reading, click below.
- November 7, 2010 @ 03:01 PM by JK Parkin
Robot 666 | Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and The Great Puppet Theater preview
Courtesy of creators Van Jensen and Dusty Higgins, here’s an exclusive sneak preview of their upcoming graphic novel Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and The Great Puppet Theater:
- October 31, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
Create your own vampire-killing puppet to win Pinocchio,Vampire Slayer prizes
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer poster
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer creators Dusty Higgins and Van Jensen are holding a contest to support and promote the upcoming sequel to the book, Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and the Great Puppet Theater. To enter, all you have to do is create your own vampire-killing puppet. Here are the complete details:
Pinocchio now has a few friends to help him in his ongoing battle with the vampire scourge. But the cast of the Great Puppet Theater won’t be enough to defeat the seemingly endless ranks of the undead.
Pinocchio needs an army of puppet warriors to fight the vampires, and that’s where you come in!
Design your own vampire-slaying puppet for the chance to win some serious swag from PINOCCHIO, VAMPIRE SLAYER AND THE GREAT PUPPET THEATER, the sequel to last fall’s breakout graphic novel by Dusty Higgins and Van Jensen.
Submissions can be sketches, costumes or actual puppets. Just make sure your creation is suited to battle the bloodsuckers!
The top entry will receive a signed copy of the new book and a piece of original art! Two runners up will receive signed copies of the book!
Images can be posted at the Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer Facebook page, tweeted to @p_vampireslayer or e-mailed to contest@pinocchiovampireslayer.com. All entries must be received by October 8.
Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and the Great Puppet Theater hits shelves later this fall from SLG Publishing.
- September 8, 2010 @ 09:00 AM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Scarlet #1
Hello and welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where the Robot 6 crew talk about the comics and graphic novels that they’ve been enjoying lately.
Today’s special guest is Ryan K Lindsay, a staff writer for comic news and reviews site The Weekly Crisis. He also runs a comic scripting challenge site called thoughtballoons where each week a character is picked, and every member of the site must write a one-page script about that character. He’s also been known to throw a think piece up at Gestalt Mash and is hoping one day to have his many comic pitches drawn by people with pencils.
To see what Ryan and the Robot 6 crew have been reading this week, click the link below …
- August 29, 2010 @ 01:23 PM by JK Parkin
Kickstart my art | Kenny Keil’s Tales to Suffice
Tales to Suffice
A couple of years ago SLG Publishing released the first issue of Tales to Suffice, a fun anthology featuring corporate zombies, lazy superheroes and fake ads by creator Kenny Keil. The book stalled after the first issue came out, but Keil kept creating material … and now he’s using Kickstarter to raise funds to print a collection that’ll include that first issue plus a couple issues worth of new stuff he’s created since then.
“What I’d like to do through Kickstarter is essentially use it as a pre-order system to help fund the publication of GIANT-SIZED TALES TO SUFFICE, a 120-page, full color collection of the entire 3-issue series (plus some extras),” he said on the fund-raising site. “The content itself is 99% finished (At the moment I’m still working on a cover design), but what I need help with is covering the printing costs. I figure what better way to raise those funds than to just go ahead and pre-sell the book?”
Keil is offering several different reward levels based on how much folks donate, from PDF copies of the book to signed editions of the eventual print edition. Go check it out.
- August 24, 2010 @ 12:30 PM by JK Parkin