| SLG Publishing Starts Legal Defense Fund
SLG Publishing has been embroiled in a trademark issue revolving around our comic book about a certain gun heiress. The normal  Indy Comics publisher response to this kind of thing (that being ignore the problem and hope it goes away) doesn't seem to be a sound strategy. Neither does simply throwing in the towel because the juice isn't worth the squeeze a viable strategy because even just saying uncle on a trademark issue doesn't work. Truly this is one of those situations where the only people making any money are the lawyers. Just having someone respond to a letter costs a weeks salary for a normal person.
So far just responding to the letters we have gotten has cost us well into five figures, more than we could possibly ever hope to recover publishing comics for the next two years. We have tried raising money by having sales, doing clearances and the like but given the times we live in and perhaps the lack of urgency about them, those things have not really done much to help us out.
So, as much as it kills me to resort to this, I am asking all of our loyal fans to help us out by donating whatever they feel comfortable sending. Just so we are being clear, SLG is not raising money to fight some long, drawn-out court case, there isn't enough money in all of comics for that kind of fight, we are asking for money to pay for the costs of responding to the letters and harassment from the baseless claims thrown at us. This is money we have already spent, a lot of it borrowed, for which there will be no return and is now affecting our ability to operate.
We have exhausted every avenue searching for free legal help but as our situation is not a clear First Amendment one and because we somehow manage to stay in business year after year, we are being told we do not qualify for free legal help by everyone we have asked.
So, what do you get for donating, beyond a warm fuzzy feeling that you helped out some genuinely good people? Well, nothing really beyond that warm fuzzy. Yeah, I know, not much. If you feel like you need to get more for your money, then go to our store and buy something and use the coupon code legald at checkout and get 10% off.
Otherwise you can use the donation button below to put a buck or two in our tin cup. Sadly, your donation is NOT tax-deductible.
Now, I know that a lot of you are thinking that this kind of plea is perhaps inappropriate. To be honest, I don't like having to do it and wouldn't if I had any choice. Times have been unkind to us in the last two years with a lot of stuff just flat out going wrong and not working out. This kind of things has become, while not common, at least an option for people who try to make their living in the arts. Not too long ago Giant Robot Magazine was soliciting donations just to keep them running and publishing a print edition.
But, still, I get it. Some of you will want to tar and feather me for asking for donations for what is, essentially, a private issue. So be it I guess and it goes with the territory. So, by this admission I am hoping that the one or two of you who will want to email me and tell me how distasteful this is will save the energy and bandwidth.
For the rest of you, thanks very much for your time.
Dan Vado
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