I thought that if I waited to send this out this week instead of last, it might not be eclipsed by the "Disney Buys Marvel" and "DC Restructures" news. Alas, I was wrong. But here it is, and you'll read it, won't you?

Hey, do you want yet another way to ignore the people around you as you're absorbed into the world that exists on the screen of your iPhone? We're happy to help out! Now you can read SLG comics on your iPhone with two new apps, comiXology and Panelfly. We'll be sending them more titles to add to their libraries in the coming weeks, so you'll have plenty to read.

When publicity for Warlord of Io was pointing people toward our website and, specifically, to our digital comics section, I was a little chagrined that our offerings there were a bit slim. I've been trying to remedy that by adding more items. I'll be working more on it over the next few weeks, but I'm happy to tell you that the first five issues of Rex Libris, which make up the first volume of the series, are available for download now. Check them out at the James Turner Digital Comics page.

We've also started a new chapter of Die, Byron, Die by Karl Christian Krumpholz in our web comics section. The first four chapters are available to download as well.

There are two more pages to read of Die, Byron, Die! up for your reading pleasure. Don't forget that the first three chapters are available to download as PDFs in our digital comics section.

We're in the process of moving our digital comics to our main site, but that's going to take a while, and in the meantime, you can still download digital comics at Eyemelt.com. The third installment of Die, Byron, Die! by Karl Christian Krumpholz, is now available for download:

"I Walked With the Zombie... I Drank With the Zombie..."

"Tiki Zombies!!! Attack!!!"

Byron and his MySpace date fend off hordes of zombies and take refuge in a dingy back room of a long forgotten tiki bar. With a mad bartender and rum-fuled zombies at the door, how long will they last? Does Byron have a cunning plan to make their escape? Not really, but things are never quite as they seem.

Byron: Die, Byron, Die! at Eyemelt

Ben Towle advises that John Morris's review of Midnight Sun is not exactly objective, since he and Morris have known each other for some time now, having gone to college together and once been in the same band. But I find the review, at Morris's site Creative Kung Fu to be quite interesting. He addresses one of those craft issues that I mentioned a few posts back -- the structure of story in a graphic novel as opposed to in a serialized story.

Morris wasn't quite taken with Midnight Sun when it was a series, feeling that the pacing was a bit slow and the characters a bit flat. However, having read the graphic novel he sees how the pacing and depiction of character work in their proper context:  "in its collected, compact digest form, Midnight Sun is brillant.  The pace of the story, which might have felt slightly deliberate in the periodic version, now takes on a poignancy as a collected whole."

He also mentions some of the lighter moments in Midnight Sun. As Ben writes in his blog, "Midnight Sun is for the most part a straight drama, but like any genuine representation of human goings-on, there’s intended to be some humor there as well."

For those who have already read the first three issues, which were published as individual issues, the final two chapters are now available at SLG's digital comics site Eyemelt.com.

The University of Alberta's newspaper The Gateway has an article by Tyson Durst about the SLG digital comic Contraband, which will be published as a graphic novel in February 2008.

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.

Chumble Spuzz #3 by Ethan Nicolle is now up on SLG's digital comics site Eyemelt.com! It's the final installment, but don't fret -- it's extra-long at 40 pages, and the whole series will be collected with an extra story in January 2008! If you haven't read Chumble Spuzz yet, you should know it's about a dimwit named Klem who adopts a pig who happens to be possessed by Satan. Click on the "chumble spuzz" tag on this entry to learn more, or, ever better, watch this trailer that creator Ethan Nicolle made.

We've gotten up four more issues of Pirate Club by Derek Hunter at Eyemelt.com, so now you can download issues one through six for only $0.69 each! Pirate Club tells the tale of mayhem and mischief that a group of kids convinced that they're pirates get into as they face off against rival kids' clubs.

I'll tell you a story about Derek, too. He called the other day and didn't recognize my voice when I answered the phone.

"It's because I was using my receptionist voice," I told him.

He replied that I should answer the phone in my regular sassy girl-editor voice.

"Yeah, I should just pick up the phone and say, 'What the fuck do you want?'" I said.

Except Derek only heard the last part of what I said and thought I was just saying it to him. "I just thought I would make some chit-chat," he said, sounding really small.

Abashed, I had to explain that I wasn't asking Derek what the fuck he wanted. I was just acting in a hypothetical situation. I felt like a jerk for some reason, as if I really had asked him what the fuck he wanted. I'm a terrible person.

Didn't I tell you I'd be updating Eyemelt.com? I am nothing if not a woman of my word.  Chumble Spuzz #2 by Ethan Nicolle is now up at Eyemelt.com.

There's something... odd about the pig that Gunther and Clem won at the fair. Something... evil. Fortunately, Reverend Mofo's Livestock Revival's in town. Will the foul-mouthed reverend be able to drive the demon out of Clem's beloved Jackson 5 (as he has named the pig) or will Gunther need to bring in a Higher Power? This can only end badly. Read the second installment of Chumble Spuzz to find out just how badly. Plus, clueless death metal fans and a demonic duck!

If you were at Comic-Con you might have been lucky enough to get one of the Chumble Spuzz #1 ashcans? If so, thanks for stopping by and we hope you enjoyed it! We'll be collecting all four installments in January!

More Eyemelt.com updates to come soon. For those not in the know, Eyemelt.com is SLG's digital comics site, where you can buy comics in PDF format (some in CBZ) for low-low prices, starting at just $0.69!

Comics Radar interviewed SLG Prez Dan Vado about our digital comics site, Eyemelt.com. (I have many new issues will be up on the site soon! Stay tuned.) You can listen here.

For immediate release - 6/25/07

Chumble Spuzz, SLG's newest debut digital comic, tells an age-old story of two friends, one naïve and a bit dim, the other smart and practical, and their Satan-possessed pig. Klem's innocent hope of having a porcine pal to love and cherish are dashed, leaving him and Gunther no choice: They must travel to Hell to kill the devil. Maybe then their mouth-foaming, bile-spewing, fire-breathing pig will finally be a proper pet.

The three-issue series will be published monthly at SLG's digital comics site Eyemelt.com, available for purchase in PDF or CBZ format for only $0.89. A print collection will follow in January 2008. Chumble Spuzz is written and drawn by Ethan Nicolle, whose previous work includes the graphic novel The Weevil, published by Bad Karma Productions.

In the introduction to the first issue of Chumble Spuzz, Nicolle recalls his first attempts to have a comic book published. At the age of 15, he received a rejection letter from SLG Publishing's Dan Vado, advising him to work on his drawing skills. "I read SLG comics all through high school," Nicolle writes. "I always wanted to do an SLG book." Eleven years after that first rejection, he got his chance when he scraped together the last of his money to make a copy of his latest work and drop it off at the SLG book at this year's Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle. This time his artwork and storytelling impressed Vado, and as Nicolle notes, the man who had sent him his first rejection letter now sent him his first contract.

Digital comics and a graphic aren't all that are in store for Chumble Spuzz. Nicolle's depiction of Jackson, the Satanic pig, leaves out no detail, from the tufts of hair growing from his torn ears and curly tail to his expression of pure, insane evil, and this is what SLG will attempt to capture in a Satanic Pig plush toy, to be released at the end of 2007. No guarantee that it will actually be possessed by Satan. But no guarantee that it won't be, either.

Nicolle will make his debut at a publisher's booth at Comic-Con International in San Diego this July 26 - 29, where he will be signing free aschans of Chumble Spuzz #1 at the SLG booth. Nicolle is also the bassist of the punk metal band Lunaractive, and the convention coincides with the San Diego show of the band's tour. They'll be playing on July 26 The Second Wind Bar, located at 8515 Navajo Rd. in San Diego. The show is at 9 p.m. and is 21 and over. Nicolle is currently working about a mini-comic called Code of the Juggernaut about life in the band. The first installment will appear at SLG's website, www.slgcomic.com, the last week of July.

Chumble Spuzz is available for download at www.eyemelt.com. For more more information about comic book publisher SLG Publishing, visit their website at www.slgcomic.com.

Comics Crew writes about the role independent comic publishers are taking in pioneering the digital form. It features some comments from SLG prez Dan Vado on our digital comics site, Eyemelt.com.

Addressed are the standard response from comics industry people as to why they don't release digital comics: "People don't want to read digital comics." I've always interpreted it as actually meaning, "I don't want to read digital comics," which is like, to use an analogy Dan uses for a different situation, owning a grocery store and not stocking ice cream because you're lactose intolerant. But Dan speculates that what is driving people to read comics digitally is not a preference or even a neutrality for reading comics on the computer screen but people who want to read more comics than they can afford to buy.

Full article here.

Whistles, SLG's first digitally serialized series, has been collected into a graphic novel and is available at SLGcomic.com for pre-order now, with a 10% discount. That's a breezy $9.86. Surely you have that much to spend on a story of clowns and cannibalism?

Whistles first appeared in installments at SLG's digital comic site Eyemelt.com.The graphic novel will be available in late July or early August.

We have two new downloads at Eyemelt.com -- Strange Eggs #1 and Strange Eggs #2: The Boxing Bucket. The anthologies feature work by many SLG creators including Crab Scrambly, Tommy Kovac, Jamie Smart, Ben Towle, Scott Saavedra, Black Olive and more! We'll be putting up a third issue of Strange Eggs soon, which has not been released in print form.

Emo Boy has effectively taken a bold step into the future, with its first digital-only issue, available now at Eyemelt.com! Poor Emo Boy, his woes continue:

When Emo Boy is hospitalized and unable to pay for his medical bills, Maxine and the rest of his English class take it upon themselves to stage a production of the play Emo Boy wrote for class. When the play manages to offend just about everyone in his life, Emo Boy finds himself on the other side of the judgment fence.

Through the wonders of technology, you can have this brand-new comic in mere minutes without having to leave your comfy chair that has become molded to the shape of your ass. Plus, it's only 89 cents! Good god, at that price you can buy a whole bunch of other comics at Eyemelt.com. We encourage that kind of thing, you know.

For those of you into the printed page, Emo Boy #1-11 are available at SLGcomic.com. Issues #1-6 are collected in Emo Boy Volume One: Nobody Cares About Anything Anyway, So Why Don't We All Just Die? It's sure to heighten your reputation as a misunderstood brooder. Don't let anyone tell you that kind of cred can't be bought.

You asked for it, so we got it to you! The first twelve issues of Nightmares and Fairy Tales by Serena Valentino and FSc are now available at Eyemelt.com!

Nightmares and Fairy Tales is one of our most popular comics, and if you haven't yet read it, this is the perfect opportunity to do so for a mere 69 cents an issue! If you decide you simply must have the series in print, they are collected in Nightmares and Fairy Tales Volume One: Once Upon a Time and Nightmares and Fairy Tales Volume Two: Beautiful Beasts.

Speaking of Eyemelt.com, there's a bit of a write-up about it and digital comics in general at Geekscape.net.

Byron #4 by Karl Christian Krumpholz is now available for sale at Eyemelt.com!

And --  once again, thanks to the work of SLG intern James -- we have several comics newly available at Eyemelt.com in snazzy digital form that all the folks in the comic blogs are writing about. The bloggers at Comics Crew are among these, asking plaintively, "So why isn’t the industry doing anything to meet this demand?" while ignoring or just blatantly ignorant of sites like Eyemelt.com and Pullboxonline.com. (Found via the Blog@Newsarama.) Take a look at what that site blogs about and you get one guess about why they don't care about the fact that independent comic companies are the ones ahead of the curve on this issue.

For those of you who do have their sights set on independent digital comics, Eyemelt.com now has Serenity Rose #1-5, Next Exit #1-10, and Rex Libris #1-6 available for download!

Comics bloggers all over are writing about digital comics, (perhaps inspired a bit by SLG Prez's interview at Newsarama in which he discusses SLG's digital comics site, Eyemelt.com?). I'm preparing for the writing workshop I'm hosting here tomorrow, so I haven't had time to give it all much thought, but here are the links if you want to delve into the buzz:

There's a bit of discussion over at The Beat. People get a bit testy about an imagined insinuation that digital comics will "kill" comics (which doesn't make sense, anyway---did digitally formatted music kill music?) and some comments by moi. Keep an eye on the guy who posts about his supposedly great digital comics site. That guy's going places!

Steven Grant weighs in on the phenomenon of bit-torrenting comics in his column at Comic Book Resources.

Tom Spurgeon has a few thoughts about digital comics at The Comics Reporter. "I can't for the life of me figure out why all the comics companies haven't pursued this more aggressively," writes Spurgeon. Oh, how I agree. We've been approaching some of our fellow indie publishers about perhaps getting their comics on Eyemelt, just at an exploratory level, and for something that would require very little effort on their part, some of them are surprisingly reluctant. One of my colleagues commented that he couldn't imagine that people would want to read [Insert title of large, popular graphic novel] digitally, which I mentioned to Landry Walker, since I, like all comics people, love to gossip. He laughed. He's been doing an experiment to see how many comics he can get from Bit Torrent sites, and the graphic novel in question is already circulating widely in pirated digital form. But like I said, anything we've talked to them about has been pretty short on specific details. Maybe once this digital comics thing is more firmly grounded, companies will be more willing to consider it. Of course, in order for it to be more firmly grounded, more companies are going to have to consider it. One of those situations, you know.

I linked to Augie De Blieck, Jr.'s column at Comic Book Resources earlier, in which De Blieck focuses his comments on DC and Marvel. Johanna at Comics Worth Reading brings up a good point about most of the people who are asking for digital comics: "They don’t really want to sample new titles, even though lesser-known and/or struggling publishers are the only ones with the incentive to push the boundaries into new formats and distribution methods… they want the same books they’re buying too many of for cheaper."

Do I detect a certain amount of disdain for a certain segment of the comics-buying public? Personally, I'm rooting for DC's Minx line (with mixed feelings). If it succeeds so might the notion that graphic novels are not just superheroes or manga. (Though from what I understand, there are those retailers out there who confuse Minx books with manga.) Still, people want their DC and Marvel superhero books. Always with the superhero books.  (Have I mentioned that I'm sick of them? Yes, I know many people like them, but I'm going to allow myself this curmudgeonly attitude for awhile.) Like I've said in my column, which is not about digital comics... sports fans. They're sports fans. But it looks like, as with the case with Minx, as far as digital comics go the Big Two might follow the example of us little guys. But they'll have half-million dollar marketing budgets and waaaaaaaay overthink the undertaking. (Or so I predict. Let us come back in a year or so and see if I'm right.)

Speaking of sports.... I'm off! A's game. Third base box seats. Yankees in town. Yes, indeed. Let's see if I can keep myself from singing the Belle and Sebastian song "Piazza, New York Catcher" when Mike Piazza's up to bat. (He's "Piazza, Oakland Designated Hitter" now, anyway, which doesn't quite fit into the melody, anyway.)

-JdG