Talking Cabs & Contraband with Dave Sim

A few months back while visiting the folks in my hometown of North Bay, I blasted 350kms down the 400 to check out the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. It was well worth the trip - along with meeting some cool SLG and other comic artists, after (more than) a few pints I managed to get babbling about my old uni town, my part time cabbie job and this funny/cheesy/giant bar called Lulu's with Dave Sim. It was very cool to meet Dave but the truth is I vaguely remember our chat. Thankfully, Dave's decided to recap this rather blurry conversation on his blog (www.davesim.blogspot.com.). Kinda' happy I wasn't that much of a mess!...T


"T.J. Behe who had had a few by that point came up and struck up a conversation and gave me his business card. He's doing a title with Phil Elliott (there's a blast from the U.K. past) called Contraband which will be coming out from Slave Labor "in early `08".

Turned out he used to drive a cab here in town and we started reminiscing about Lulu's. Used to be a K Mart and they gutted the place and turned it into a bar. That's right, a K Mart-sized bar so you know it was the 80s. It was in the Guiness Book of World Records for The World's Longest Bar. I saw Jerry Lee Lewis there, James Brown…a very unhappy Bay City Rollers revival (missed that one did you?), Elvis, Elvis, Elvis (three impersonators). It was absolute heaven for cab drivers since it was way out on the highway so, as he said, wherever the customer was going it was going to cost at least $20 to get there. It wasn't unusual to have 50 cabs lined up at closing time.

The thing that really bothered me was that the place was so huge (how huge was it, Dave?) it was SO huge that if you downed a drink and just walked from one side to the other, you had sobered up by the time you got there. The thing I liked about it was it was mostly civilians who didn't get out much so you could usually get pretty close to the stage without having to step on anyone. I was about ten feet away for Jerry Lee Lewis and James Brown.

Anyway, T.J. is probably hoping that I've completely forgotten him (as you always do when you meet someone when you've had a few) and lost his business card, but no such luck, mate. Check out the work in progress at www.contrabandcomic.com."

Contraband Cell Phone Gun

We've had a few mails come in regarding the phone gun design on our front cover (the artwork highlights some key features and functionality of a mobile device owned by the story's antagonist Tucker Scott.) Here's the background:

About 8 months, I had a chat with my collegue Marcus Hohl, O2 UK's Device Specification guru about some cops who caught a few drug dealers with a .22 calibre mobile hand gun. I knew he could do better so I asked Marcus to cook up ideas for your worst nightmare mobile weapon.

A week later, he came back with a layout so clever, we kept his orginal design for the cover and even scripted a few extra panels into the story describing how the weapon's functionality.

Here's how the page came out (#29 of Contraband Issue I which you can now download over on Slave Labor's digital comic site http://www.eyemelt.com/.)

Kicking off Contraband Issue # 3

Some manic page-development action happening over the past few weeks means we've tied-off the second issue and have started developing Issue # III (you can grab Issue # I at http://www.eyemelt.com/ now) It also means we'll have the graphic novel ready for comic retailers to order from their Diamond December Preview magazine (very cool indeed!)

Here's a neat little action sequence Phil drafted up a few days back from the upcoming final Issue...

Review of Contraband Issue #1 from AICN Comics

A few months back, Ambush Bug from AICN Comics offered up his insights an early draft of Contraband Issue #1...

"Sometimes a book comes along and just knocks you in the gut. IN a good way, mind you. CONTRABAND is a story set in the very near future. Reality TV has grown to massive proportions and technology has advanced to match it. Everything can be recorded with camera phones and immediately uploaded to websites for all to access. Privacy is an obsolete concept and the public has grown hungry for the next shocking thing and their fifteen minutes of fame. This story is a smart and scary vision of where we all may be headed.

At times, the story can get a bit techy, but it only disrupts the momentum of the story slightly. I found the tech-speak to be extremely interesting because it is such a major part of the story. This Orwellian tale is not to be taken lightly. You can tell the writer has done his research. According to writer TJ Behe’s bio, he’s a digital creator who has worked for the BBC, Playboy, and MTV, so it looks like he knows what he is talking about.

The art is equally powerful in its simplicity. Artist Phil Elliot does a great job of evoking powerful imagery with very few lines. Despite the attention to technology, this story has a lot of heart. There is a passion for the material and a moral lesson beneath it all. This is the type of story that will make you think about yourself and the direction humanity is going with its addiction to technology, voyeurism, and fame. - Ambush Bug"
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/32680

You can download Issue #1 now at http://www.eyemelt.com/ or pre-order the 144-page graphic novel at Amazon (ISBN number 978-1593621018).

Heading to the Birmingham Comics Show

On Saturday, we're trekking up from London to Birmingham to attend the International Comics Show. The line-up look super with some massive heavy-hitting global and UK pros/artists (ie...Mike Mignola, Adi Granov and Dave Gibbons) hosting seminars and signing their stuff.


We'll be giving a few previews of Contraband away to folks keen to hear more about our Feb '08 graphic novel release from SLG (you can currently find Issue #1 at http://www.eyemelt.com/). Ian Sharman, the artist completing the inking work for our book is going too and will be showcasing a few of his new titles from his very indie Orangutan Comic label. Hope to see you there!

Slave Labor Press Release for Contraband

...includes a somewhat twisted but true recap of Phil & I discussing the project for the 1st time...

The Underworld on Your Cell Phone ScreenContraband, SLG's Newest Digital Comic, Debuts

"Some months ago, cartoonist Phil Elliott was approached on the street by a teenage girl asking for money. It's a sad but common enough occurrence in cities, but when Elliott refused, the situation became something much different from anything he'd experienced. "A younger kid -- he must have only been about ten -- started swearing at me, 'Give us some ******* money!'" he recalled. "I was then aware that there was another girl filming all this on her mobile phone. What was going on here? Were they trying to provoke me? What happened to the video?"

The incident took on a greater significance for Elliott when writer Thomas Behe contacted him to see if he were interested in drawing a comic he'd written, which explores a voyeuristic underground where profit-hungry youths prowl the streets secretly filming violence and catastrophes with mobile devices. That comic became Contraband, the new digital comic from SLG Publishing, distributed on their online comics site Eyemelt.com. The four-issue series will begin its serialization in October 2007, and a print collection of Contraband will be published in February 2008. (http://www.slavelabor.com/pages/slgblog.php) "

Contraband Issue #1 now available

Starting today, you can get the first Issue of Contraband at Slave Labor Graphic's digital comic store called Eyemelt (http://www.eyemelt.com/). The 42-page issue can be downloaded for $0.89 using all the standard payment methods. Click on the banner below to go straight to Contraband issue 1...

Actually, you'll find all sorts of cool comics from Christopher (Ghouly Boys), Evan Dorkin (Dork), James Turner (Rex Libris) and heaps of other Slave Labor folks (I was fortunate to meet a few of these fantastic artists last summer during Toronto's Comic Arts Festival).

If you'd like to check out a few sample pages first, go to www.comicspace.com/tjbehe. Best, T