Pot bellies, pigtails and flying garlic invade the family farm in new SLG graphic novel series

Press Release: Starting a new job is an adventure for anyone, but when you are a four-year old girl working in the barnyard offices of a pot-bellied pig adventure becomes more than a euphemism. So goes Amity Blamity, the new graphic novel series by cartoonist Mike White coming in April from SLG Publishing.

Amity Blamity is a man (girl) vs. environment story that embraces the philosophy that you don’t need to be “the chosen one” or have a grand destiny to change the world for the better. The story follows Gretchen (a shy 4year old with pigtails) Chester(a talking potbellied pig) and Downey (a pig of an uncle) as they get swept up on a journey incited by strange forest critters inundating the outskirts of the family farm.

Amity Blamity creator Mike White enjoyed trying to see the world through a child’s eyes for this family-friendly adventure series. “I used to look at the world through candy glasses and was always shocked by what the “real” world is like. ” said White I’ve always had the world in my brain -how things seem to me- that is completely different from the world that actually IS.”

White cites has diverse interests as influences in his development of Amity Blamity “Bloom County, Andy Capp, Cheers, South Park, Leave it to Beaver, A Family Affair are some of my most favorite shows and comics. If you jam all the characters and relationships from those shows into the empty tin can of my brain, shake it up, then dump it out, what you get is the cast of Amity Blamity.”

While Amity Blamity is White’s debut project he has been no stranger to comics and has attracted a fair amount of attention to himself. Amity Blamity itself comes from White’s online comic Pigtails and Potbellies. Mike has been featured in Boards magazine, hailed as one of ‘Top 10 Emerging Talents from Toronto’ 2007 and won the Canadian Film Centre New Media Award for the Resfest 2006 Cancon Selection for directing the MSTRKRFT “Work On You” Music Video.

Amity Blamity volume one is the first in a biannual series of books following the adventures of the innocent gretchen and her pig Chester. Set for an April 2011 release, Amity Blamity volume one will be 160 pages at 10.95 isbn number 978-1-59362-209-1 and will be available at finer bookstores, comics stores via Amazon.com and through the publishers own website at www.slgcomic.com. A preview of the book can be downloaded at the same website.

Established in 1986 and celebrating its 25th anniverary, SLG Publishing is a San Jose, California-based publisher of comic books, graphic novels and related merchandise. Some of SLG’s more notable comics and creators have included Johnny the Homicidal Maniacby Jhonen Vasquez, Milk and Cheese by Evan Dorkin and Zombies Calling by Faith Erin Hicks. www.slgcomic.com.