FYI:

This column uses some direct quotes and expresses my views. Opinions and views here are solely that of the author, not necessarily the site, site owner, or forum members. This column has some adult language within, so if you are a younger sort, cover your ears.

The Haunted Mansion, Tron, Gargoyles, and, Wonderland will be bimonthly series from SLG that develop the Disney properties.

 A Disney spokesperson said: "Slave Labor Graphics has a reputation for publishing entertaining and cutting-edge comics. They have used these talents once again to bring an entirely new vantage point to our classic properties."

 Dan Vado, publisher of SLG said this about how the deal came about, (from a Newsarama Interview), ““A little over a year ago, I made an offhand remark to someone about how I would like to do a story about Wonderland after Alice left – to try and tread upon some new ground within Disney’s version of the world. They were intrigued by the idea, so I wrote up a proposal, not really knowing where it was going to go, for a line of comics that would be along those lines – using their brand, but doing things a little differently, and aiming for a slightly older audience than Disney is most associated with.”

If you are familiar at all with the product of SLG you would have to say that it is good, but not a company you’d associate with anything to have ever come out from Disney. That is not altogether a bad thing or good thing, simply saying, that strange bedfellows can produce great, quirky work, or true crap. An example of this can be found with Joel Schumaker’s BATMAN AND ROBIN, or, the movie version of Alan Moore’s FROM HELL by Albert and Allen Hughes. In both cases the director’s vision of the property might have, in itself, been good, but it was singularly NOT the quality of product that anyone familiar with the source material would want, or even, think possible to do with the property. FROM HELL as an original graphic novel is considered by some writers and comic commentators to be one of the best examples of comics ever. FROM HELL the movie is a bit of slasher flick with an impossible story that is fine for what it is. BATMAN AND ROBIN the movie has been called a flamboyantly gay male’s imaginings of what Batman SHOULD be like. As such, while the names and characters are all correct, there is absolutely nothing correct about the film. In both cases, the property was interpreted by the directors from a perspective that was not true to the source material. You might argue that you enjoyed the work in question and you are free to do that. Just do not tell me it was at all true to the property interpreted.

If SLG does that with DISNEY properties that will be shot and pissed upon so fast that it will feel as though the relationship never happened. Here is the most important aspects to consider when viewing this arrangement. While SLG has quirky, dark, and intellectual works, and people who work there tend to be bright, left of center talents, they are professionals. And as such, you can expect interesting, different and new views of the properties from DISNEY, but not anything that violates the precepts of the characters in question. Expect interesting interpretations and pick up the books, I suspect that they will be the first take upon DISNEY to be interesting.

While at SDCCI I was interested in the opinions of writers and artists of comics regarding slabbing of comics. All of the people I asked had an opinion and none wanted me to quote them in print. So here are some unattributed quotes, from people at the Big Two down to many smaller publishers.

• “I’d like to ask the booth chick over there to pee upon my comic and have that comic then slabbed.”
• “Sure I love slabbed comics. It is like getting a DVD and locking it in a box so that it never gets old.”
• “If the person slabbing the comic has bought two of everything, one to read and one to slab, then hell yeah. Slab it baby. SLAB - IT - ALL!”
• “Slabbing anything after 1980 is fucking stupid, and is fucking sick.”
• “What is slabbing?”

Of course, for some perspective, slabbing does not enrich anyone on the creative or publishing end of comics, so they do have a bias.

BLUE DEVIL

Writer Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn
Artist Paris Cullins
Published by DC

An inventor, special effects talent, stuntman becomes fused with a technologically advanced suit. Dan Cassiday learns to his dismay that the suit he created for the film BLUE DEVIL won’t come off. He becomes an unwilling, and unwitting, super hero. He is powered, surrounded by super villains, and a supporting cast that is as well developed and fun as possible. This title is a rollicking fun book written in the style of the 1980’s books, no subtext, no ironic commentary upon super heroes, no decompressed story telling. It is certainly not typical of the current product available new upon the stands, and while some might argue that this book is, somewhat, juvenile, perhaps, I’d like to point out that I would love for more books to appeal to and be able to be read to my six year old boy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with comics being enjoyed by kids, is there?

“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main ... and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.”

-- Walt Disney