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) "
