Slave Labor Graphics

Slave Labor Graphics is an independent comic book publisher which publishes Gargoyles and Gargoyles: Bad Guys.

History

Slave Labor Graphics was founded by Dan Vado in 1986. Vado remains the president of SLG to this day. The first comic published by SLG was Shadow Star #3, a comic previously published by some of Vado's friends. Most of the early Slave Labor titles were created by friends of Vado. Some of the publisher's best known titles are Even Dorkin's Milk and Cheese and Dork!, Jhonen Vasquez's Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and its spin-offs, and Roman Dirge's Lenore. Through these and other titles, SLG gained a reputation for producing quirky, underground comics for the adolescent and adult audience. SLG later broadened their library with all-ages titles like Little Gloomy.

In 2005, SLG entered into a deal with The Walt Disney Company. Slave Labor acquired the rights to produce comics based on four Disney properties: Haunted Mansion - an anthology of short stories about the 999 happy haunts who inhabit the popular theme park rides, Wonderland - which took elements from Disney's Alice in Wonderland and the original Lewis Carroll stories and told an entirely new tale, TRON - The Ghost in the Machine - a follow-up to both the cult classic film and the video game sequel, and Gargoyles - which continued the story of the 1990s TV series.[1] In addition, kid friendly SLG titles began appearing in Disney Adventures.

In 2007, with the success of the flagship comic Gargoyles, Slave Labor Graphics released the first spin-off mini-series, Gargoyles: Bad Guys.

SLG's license, however, to produce single issues for both Gargoyles series quickly expired in August 2008. Originally SLG planned to renew their licenses for both Gargoyles and Haunted Mansion, but according to Dan Vado, Disney executives had expressed that the money taken in did not justify their administrative costs, which ultimately resulted in raising the license renewal fee to a rate that was beyond SLG's reach.[2]

Stories that would have made up the remaining six unreleased issues for both Gargoyles and Gargoyles: Bad Guys were ultimately included as "Bonus Material" and released in the trade paperback collections Gargoyles: Clan-Building, Volume Two and Gargoyles: Bad Guys - Redemption. [3]

Even after Disney bought Marvel Comics outright in 2009, as late as January 2010, Greg Weisman noted that Dan Vado was in the process of making another attempt "to secure the license again from Disney."[4]

See Also

• Slave Labor Graphics at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia