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"The whole story is very provoking and is put together well as a straight thriller in addition to the broader morality play. If you have any interest in tech thrillers or thinking men’s stories, this is worth a read."I'm not sure if Sutton means "men's" as in "people's" or as in "men's." I'm not being a disingenuous feminist here; I really can't tell. Is he saying that Contraband will appeal largely to thinking people of the male persuasion or just thinking people? I suppose I could ask, but who has time for that in these fast-moving times? I'm already behind on posting reviews.
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"I had to look deeper into the world of cell phones, because I was a bit of a mobi-phobe when I started on the book. I was totally unaware of some of the issues surrounding them – cancer scares, surveillance and privacy issues – reading the script and speaking to Thomas opened my eyes and the upshot is that I’m probably more mobile-phobic now than I was when I first started drawing Contraband."
My cellphone doesn't even have a camera on it, and my mom's practically the only one I talk to on it. I'm such a loser. But at least I'm not on my way to complete social depravity.
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Thomas talks about the genesis of the idea for Contraband:
The idea came about while working on a user-generated project at a UK mobile operator. Some sneaky kid had up-skirting a woman on an underground train and posted the clip on our network. So while top management were blowing their nut and the tech team began implementing an age-verification layer, I was thinking how some nasty bloke could probably offer a good revenue share to motivate sh*t-disturbing kids to send in more. So my antagonist Tucker was born. I thought up this violent channel called Contraband that thrived in a sort of “urban theatre”, where youths prowl city streets secretly film strangers then post sensational, erotic and violent mobile videos.
I have to admit, with horrible videos popping up on YouTube more and more in the news, the underground site wholly devoted to videos of violence and explotation that the graphic novel revolves around grows creepier and creepier, like it's only a matter of time, if not already a reality. God, what was that site that horrible pictures and videos on it? No, don't answer that. I saw it once, and then wiped my brain free of its specifics.
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The profile includes some page excerpts, too.
Contraband by T.J. Behe and Phil Elliott
Toby has filmed the wrong people on the phone! Caught recording an illegal video transaction, a self styled "citizen journalist" is forced to hunt down a female activists sabotaging the country's most controversial cellphone channel- Contraband. His search leads him into a voyeur underground where profit-hungry youths prowl city streets filming violent events to satisfy our society's accelerating demand for sensational content...
Ubu Bubu #1 by Jamie Smart
NEW COMIC BOOK SERIES FROM THE CREATOR OF BEAR!
UBU BUBU KILL KILL KILL!! When an innocent cat is possessed by a brutal
malevolent daemon, they become UBU BUBU, reaper of human souls and destroyer of innocents! Turning an ordinary home into hell H.Q. and imprisoning the terrified kids who lived there, UBU BUBU begins his horrific rampage of slaughter and destruction under
the command of mysterious ringmaster Stig. For this is only the beginning, humanity, the apocalypse itself is edging closer and much evil will slap you about before it gets here. Most of it from UBU BUBU’s mouth.
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"Like the best works in the genre of speculative fiction, Contraband is less interested in the “What If” that frames its narrative, than in approaching the present at an acute angle. And whichever side of the new culture wars shaping up in this 21st century you might find yourself, Behe will provide you little comfort.
"But Contraband is a book you will keep thinking about, talking about. You will want to read it again when you have come to the surprises of its conclusion. And given how little we have found to think about or to read again in recent weeks, this is high praise indeed."
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You might know that Phil Elliott also drew Tupelo, but did you know he is a writer, too? His stories are drawn by Paul Grist in the collection of short stories Absent Friends--they're smart, poignant, well-observed, and they remind of Pulp songs.
The festival takes place in Angouleme, France from January 24 - January 27.
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The comics retailer organization ComicsPro just put out a position paper against publishers selling comics at conventions before they have arrived in stores, but I don't think that having 25 advance copies of Contraband for sale in France is going to hurt American comic book store owners' bottom line, do you?
Contraband should be in stores on February 6.
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You can download the first chapter at SLG's digital comics site www.eyemelt.com -- or read an excerpt here.
Contraband will debut at the Angouleme Festival in France (Jan 24-27) and be in stores the first week of February.
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All right, back on the case.
Contraband by Thomas Behe and Phil Elliott tops the picks for this month's Previews at Read Yourself Raw. It is available for pre-order now, with the Diamond code DEC073339
The graphic novel, involving the proliferation of violence on video taken with mobile phones, will be in stores in February. Attendees of the Angoulême Festival in France will get a chance to get it early, however, as we we are planning to send advance copies for Thomas and Phil, who are attending, to sell there.
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Contraband takes place in a near-future where people record acts of violence on their cellphones and post them to a cell phone site called "Contraband." Unfortunately, this kind of activity is already taking place. Phil Elliott, the comic's artist, had an unnerving encounter with some pan-handling kids who screamed obscenities at him and recorded him on their cell phone after he declined to give them money.
But there are things that are truly appalling being filmed on cell phones -- assaults, torture, beating, murders. It's sick and disturbing and makes me despair for the human race. I feel it would be in ill-taste to mention them here, since I don't want to use other people's tragedies to sell a graphic novel. However, I think Phil and Thomas have created a book that explores a societal sickness and gives us an all-too plausible vision of society in which voyeurism, violence and sociopathy -- real, not fictionalized -- are entertainment.
Contraband #1 is available now at www.eyemelt.com and the graphic novel will be published in February.
Contraband, SLG's Newest Digital Comic, Debuts
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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. A preview is available at SLG's website, www.slgcomic.com.
Behe was inspired to write the story after he noticed people worrying about cell phones. "The new concerns were more social-related," he said. "Kids receiving intimidating texts from class bullies. A mate of mine was even propositioned to subscribe to some sort of spy-cam exhibitionist mobi-blog. I had no idea why these folks were secretly filming everyone, but there was tons of stuff on there."
In the near-future society of Contraband, bands of content-hungry amateurs armed with camera phones record violent scenes, some of which they instigate, to satisfy society's demand for ever more shocking on-the-go entertainment. Toby, a self-styled "citizen journalist," is documenting this underground when he is discovered by agents for a cell-phone channel called Contraband. Forced to work for them, Toby is assigned the task of finding a female activist set on sabotaging Contraband and must navigate a difficult path where he must choose between his own safety and the greater good.
Woven throughout Contraband are key elements of modern wireless communication, including text messaging, online blogging, avatars and alerts, gaming and live video broadcast, reflecting Behe's vision of a future society in which people can view customized video content on their mobile phones.This vision was part of what drew Elliott, a respected cartoonist known for his work on Illegal Alien and the SLG graphic novel Tupelo. "Contraband interweaves the controversial aspects of the mobile phone industry with a storyline involving a disparate bunch of characters who find themselves drawn together by the device in their pocket," said Elliott. "Each character has a story to tell and each one of them needs to find a way to come to terms with their predicament."
Contraband is available now at www.eyemelt.com, downloadable in PDF format for only $0.89. New issues will be added monthly. The SLG Publishing print graphic novel will be available for pre-order at comic book stores in December 2007. For more information about comic book publisher SLG Publishing, visit their website at www.slgcomic.com.
