Contraband will eventually be a graphic novel, published next year. Before that, it will be serialized on Slave Labor’s digital comic shop, Eyemelt. Until then, you can download the first issue.

This strategy illustrates one of the problems with digital promotion… there are so many different sites and promotional areas that the person seeking information can be overwhelmed. Which nicely mimics the way I felt about the comic. The premise is intriguing:

Caught recording an illegal violent content transaction, a young is blackmailed by an entrepreneur into finding a female activist sabotaging his controversial mobile video channel. In his search, he uncovers a voyeur underground, an urban theatre where profit-hungry youths prowl city streets filming erotic and violent events to satisfy society’s accelerating demand for sensational on-the-go content. Mesmerized by the woman, sympathetic to her agenda, his objectives blur. But as graphic footage exposing his darkest secret queues for broadcast, he knows he’ll be running from more than his past if the video hits everyone’s handset.

Where the fun adventures of Tintin meet the anarchic subculture of Fight Club, this fresh under-18 thriller is the world’s first illustrated book to reveal how privacy-invading camera phones is fuelling today’s multi-billion dollar spy-cam industry. And CONTRABAND’S non-adult rating, accessible dialogue, and characters’ non-technical interaction with wireless services and video communities makes it ideal for the global graphic novel market, particularly the mobile-savvy 15-35 male segment.

… Author TJ Behe has spent the last few years developing compelling mobile content for global entertainment companies including BBC, SkySports, Playboy, MTV, and O2. Artist Phil Elliott’s graphic novels include Illegal Alien (Dark Horse) and Tupelo (Slave Labor) and he has over 20 years experience providing illustrations for international publishers including Marvel, DC, Image, and Fantagraphics.

However, without the text description, I wouldn’t have figured out most of this. Part of that may be attributed to the format used for this particular comic. It’s text-heavy and word-driven. The art is professional, and I like Elliott’s simplified style, but one could almost get the entire story just from the text. Which makes it a hard choice to read online on a laptop screen. I found myself skimming to avoid eyestrain.

Plus, as this Broken Frontier review points out,

the narrative moves out of linear sequence from two different environments at three different points of time. It also tends to be a little heavy on exposition. For a 33-page story, I found it a little disorienting every time the focus shifted.

I agree — I didn’t realize until afterwards that that was what was happening, and it was why I felt lost. Also, the author loves his buzzwords, and much of my time was spent feeling old. He seemed to me to take a certain amount of interest in and familiarity with cellphones for granted. The end result is something I can’t recommend, much as I liked the author’s statement of his intended themes.